[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by haguruma

The question is though wether it was actually Eva's hatred for Kyrie which turned the blame on Kyrie during that scene. My recent theory is that while EP1 and 2, authored by Yasu, were actually meant to incriminate herself, EP3 and 4 were actually an attempt to supress the truth that the actual culprit was Kyrie with potential help from Rudolph either incriminating Eva or Kinzô/Beatrice.

The two ideas are not incompatible. It may very well be that Kyrie is the R-Prime murderer and Eva/Ikuko/Touya write to hide that truth but that Eva couldn't resist finding a way to make Kyrie suspicious anyway.

Something like that. In any case, that Eva-Beatrice came from Eva I think is important.

Originally Posted by haguruma

There is also the mistake in Kyries description of her very own death, forgetting that none of the locks in the mansion were classic key locks, making it unlikely that she was in the situation which she provided.

A discrepancy is not necessarily a mistake.

[Kealym]

Regarding Erika witnessing Shkanon in EP5.
THIS HAS ALWAYS BOTHERED ME

And to say it as frankly as possible : I find "Kanon was standing behind Gohda" to be stupid. Incredibly stupid. I always resolved it as "This tale was written without love" = "On THIS gameboard, Kanon has his own physical body", because his personhood was never bound to him having a body, anyway. This makes alot more sense to me, and is consistent with all reds.

To elaborate, the impression I got was that "Kanon has his own body" was a move Beato could have used, but never did, because it

In EP6, an observational error on Erika's part is even suggested, because she gave up her Detective Authority. In End, this is not the case, and it would just seem so ... silly for her to overlook that an entire body was missing that wasn't Kinzo.

Why would an R-Prime writer give Kanon his own body? Experiment, or just entertaining a theory. The possibility wasn't explicitly denied until the logic error room in Dawn, anyway, and Lambda plays GM in a very different style from Beato, in tandem with a more or less full understanding of it's mechanics, from the witch-side.

I SERIOUSLY have trouble seeing it any other way.

[AuraTwilight]

A GM is capable of making characters out of wholecloth, so there's nothing wrong with altering characters. The comment about pieces being forced to act in character is, let's face it, absolute bullshit.

Kealym, what are your thoughts on the idea that Kanon has a body, but is placed behind Gohda in an edit to try and close up the "Has his own body" 'plothole' an editor like Toya might have with it?

*does not touch the fact that 'it's stupid' isn't a valid defense against ANYTHING Shkanon-related, unfortunately*

[J the Drafter]

Originally Posted by Kealym

Regarding Erika witnessing Shkanon in EP5.
THIS HAS ALWAYS BOTHERED ME

And to say it as frankly as possible : I find "Kanon was standing behind Gohda" to be stupid. Incredibly stupid. I always resolved it as "This tale was written without love" = "On THIS gameboard, Kanon has his own physical body", because his personhood was never bound to him having a body, anyway. This makes alot more sense to me, and is consistent with all reds.

To elaborate, the impression I got was that "Kanon has his own body" was a move Beato could have used, but never did, because it

In EP6, an observational error on Erika's part is even suggested, because she gave up her Detective Authority. In End, this is not the case, and it would just seem so ... silly for her to overlook that an entire body was missing that wasn't Kinzo.

Why would an R-Prime writer give Kanon his own body? Experiment, or just entertaining a theory. The possibility wasn't explicitly denied until the logic error room in Dawn, anyway, and Lambda plays GM in a very different style from Beato, in tandem with a more or less full understanding of it's mechanics, from the witch-side.

I SERIOUSLY have trouble seeing it any other way.

Keep in mind that we never get Erika's firsthand perspective during game 5. She could have been seeing very different things from what the narration was telling us.

[Kealym]

Yeah, I know 'it's stupid' isn't a very good argument at all - hell, up until I read the love duel in EP6, I was holding out that Shkanon was an aggressively hardcore red herring type deal. But while the idea of Kanon ducking and dodging behind the tall and fat people for two days is somewhat amusing, it falls into the same column as Battlers "Gansawajo simultaneously shot each other in the face" theories - physically possible, I guess, but damn stupid.

To answer your question on Kanon's body being an edit on Tohya's part, well - are you suggesting that in this edit, Kanon has a body, but is hidden behind Godha anyway? It still seems silly to obscure Kanon from view when Erika is in full "infallible perception / CSI scientist' mode. Anyways, it's possible that Kanon having a body was written by Tohya himself, as a thought experiment, in a similar (though more important) vein as the somewhat arbitrary difference between who gets First Twilight-ed, or "which adult lies to give Shannon an alibi". 'End' is presented as an anomaly of a game on several levels, and I think it'd be kind of fitting if that's because "Tohya was just dicking around with ideas", or something similar.

Originally Posted by J the Drafter

Keep in mind that we never get Erika's firsthand perspective during game 5. She could have been seeing very different things from what the narration was telling us.

I know, which is why the "Kanon is behind Godha" option is still an option. Part of why I can't believe that, though, is that even though Erika barely (never...?) narrates first person, based on the narrative we're given, it makes no sense to me that Erika's piece would NOT CALL ATTENTION to an entire body she was CLEARLY AWARE OF, but could not physically VERIFY. I hope I'm making sense?

[J the Drafter]

Yeah, I get you. It is pretty odd.

[AuraTwilight]

But while the idea of Kanon ducking and dodging behind the tall and fat people for two days is somewhat amusing, it falls into the same column as Battlers "Gansawajo simultaneously shot each other in the face" theories - physically possible, I guess, but damn stupid.

Let's admit it, all of Battler's off the wall nonsense theories being true would've been better than the solution we actually got.

To answer your question on Kanon's body being an edit on Tohya's part, well - are you suggesting that in this edit, Kanon has a body, but is hidden behind Godha anyway? It still seems silly to obscure Kanon from view when Erika is in full "infallible perception / CSI scientist' mode.

The idea is that someone gave Kanon a body, this creates a plothole of some sort (or Toya refuses to let someone change that detail because Love or something), so he does an editing on the tale so that Erika never sees Kanon, then publishes it.

I know, which is why the "Kanon is behind Godha" option is still an option. Part of why I can't believe that, though, is that even though Erika barely (never...?) narrates first person, based on the narrative we're given, it makes no sense to me that Erika's piece would NOT CALL ATTENTION to an entire body she was CLEARLY AWARE OF, but could not physically VERIFY. I hope I'm making sense?

I'm sorry, I don't really want to resort to this, but we can't neglect that Erika makes REALLY DAMN STUPID decisions and lack of observations when it serves the plot.

And given what else Ryukishi has done to preserve his Shkanon twist to the extreme detriment of the story and it's believability, Erika slipping the ball isn't really a big deal. It's not like she even picks up on Shkanon in EP6.

Basically Erika catches the Idiot Ball whenever Ryukishi writes himself into a corner.

[Kealym]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Let's admit it, all of Battler's off the wall nonsense theories being true would've been better than the solution we actually got.

Hilarious Accident™ ?

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

The idea is that someone gave Kanon a body, this creates a plothole of some sort (or Toya refuses to let someone change that detail because Love or something), so he does an editing on the tale so that Erika never sees Kanon, then publishes it.

Well, if he alters the text somewhat drastically so that Erika never collects the survivors into a single room for dramatic denouement / Natsuhi-trolling, I guess that could work. Are you opposed to the idea of Tohya giving Kanon a body of his own volition, though? Like I said, it was still possible, up to this point, to regard Kanon's disappearing corpse as just a red herring if you call him "Shannon's accomplice" - as the board seems to generally agree, Shkanon just sort of randomly complicated things that could have been fairly simple.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

I'm sorry, I don't really want to resort to this, but we can't neglect that Erika makes REALLY DAMN STUPID decisions and lack of observations when it serves the plot.

And given what else Ryukishi has done to preserve his Shkanon twist to the extreme detriment of the story and it's believability, Erika slipping the ball isn't really a big deal. It's not like she even picks up on Shkanon in EP6.

Basically Erika catches the Idiot Ball whenever Ryukishi writes himself into a corner.

Acknowledged. And similar to the status of Kanon's body in End, the highly fluctuating levels of Erika's competence frustrates me ... like, alot.

It just reads as so out of character, and against the purpose of her character, for a 'Kanon was hiding' solution to be applied there, whereas "Kanon has his own body this one timebecause lol why not" just sort of gels well, and very simply, Meta-wise and thematically, with all the other anomalies of End.

One of the other reasons I like Kanon having his own body in End is that it means Erika would've been given a false impression of the body situation, contributing to (and excusing, a little) her inability to solve the logic error room in Dawn. And I do like me some Genius Battler theory for Dawn. :-/

[Wanderer]

Erika is an evil liar, so even if she knows something she may not report it. This can apply to her observations regarding ShKanon.

[Cao Ni Ma]

Skimming trough the texts again, there is apparently no mention of Maria's Beatrice in EP5. She doesn't act her usual self whenever the topic of magic or Beatrice comes out and at most blurbs out something about the golden land. She doesn't appear to hand out a letter when she usually does, instead we get Erika pop in. So how can we interpret this? Does this Beatrice even exist in this game? Why wouldn't she exist and what effects would it have on the game?

[Kealym]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

Erika is an evil liar, so even if she knows something she may not report it. This can apply to her observations regarding ShKanon.

This has been part of my reasoning, too, because it does not work as an explanation. I concede the possibility that Erika noticed SHkanon, but didn't report it, however

• Erika is willing to change her theory, even if she doesn't like having to
• Erika has no reason to pursue Natsuhi over Shkanon
• She enjoyes ripping people's delusions apart, whether it's even relevant to the crime or not
• If anything, Shkanon is a JUICIER target for this than Natsuhi / Maria
• If this move was available to her, why didn't she USE IT?
• Not only does a lack of other theories make her lose 'End', which is bad
• She freakin' DIES ON THE CONCEPTUAL LEVEL in Dawn, because she can't guess it
• Erika didn't want to die. Even Bern doesn't like that she lost
• Again, it's not a matter of Erika not reporting it promptly, for some other goal - it's that she never reports, or even suggests it, EVER, even when the Guest Room error throws it at her, and she freaking dies over it.

^
Not intended to be an itemized list, just a zip-through of why 'Bitchy Erika didn't report Shkanon 'cause she didn't care at the moment' doesn't work. "Kanon has a body in End because lol why not" saves her a huge, suicidal idiot ball.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by haguruma

Yes, it's actually Kyrie who transmitted many false details to Battler. Like she also told him about their escape from the well behind the mansion, which he found sealed beyond opening.
It's not unlikely that Kyrie tried to construct a story that sounded believable enough, but didn't go out to research and check any details. Like she probably saw the well but didn't check wether it was actually sealed or she saw the doors in the mansion everyday and assumed they would have antique-style locks as well, because the whole mansion was designed that way.

What if she was deliberately lying specifically so that Battler would investigate and find that her story is impossible? Piece-Battler at the very least seemed quite surprised to discover that. As to why she would do so, I can think of a few reasons. One possibility is that she spun a story that wasn't possible but which sounded fantastic and might have flown under the radar of her killer, who probably wouldn't have immediately thought about all those details or who wouldn't have time to kill Kyrie before she'd stated at least one contradiction for Battler to later verify.

Originally Posted by J the Drafter

Keep in mind that we never get Erika's firsthand perspective during game 5. She could have been seeing very different things from what the narration was telling us.

Yeah but that's even more stupid, especially for someone as detail-oriented as Erika. Plus I think that scene was replayed for Battler, so presumably Erika saw it twice, and never once did anything come up for her.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

I'm sorry, I don't really want to resort to this, but we can't neglect that Erika makes REALLY DAMN STUPID decisions and lack of observations when it serves the plot.

And given what else Ryukishi has done to preserve his Shkanon twist to the extreme detriment of the story and it's believability, Erika slipping the ball isn't really a big deal. It's not like she even picks up on Shkanon in EP6.

Basically Erika catches the Idiot Ball whenever Ryukishi writes himself into a corner.

Yeah, but it's generally because Erika can't see the forest for the trees. She rarely misses the trees. Kanon in ep5 is a tree, not the forest (Shkanon is never really an issue of any significance in it; nearly anything Shkanon could do Kanon or Shannon could easily do separately).

Erika would not fail to account for the locations of every character, she just misses obvious manipulations. Ep5 has the best example, where she does indeed verify everyone's exact positions at midnight to show that only Natsuhi didn't have an alibi. Her details are correct, she's just mistaken in her belief that the crime occurred at the time Natsuhi had no alibi.

It's true she's stupid when Ryukishi needs her to be, but Kealym is right: Kanon hiding behind somebody and Erika never noticing this is unfathomably stupid, even for Erika in Idiot Mode.

Originally Posted by Wanderer

Erika is an evil liar, so even if she knows something she may not report it. This can apply to her observations regarding ShKanon.

It doesn't really benefit her not to, as Shkanon is never in a position to be used to her advantage. And the only explanation for ep6's ending is that she doesn't know it... or I guess that she does know it and doesn't care, which doesn't seem to make sense, as Kealym said.

If you assume she knows and chooses to say nothing, it suggests she found out at some point and never said anything because it wasn't of use to her. In End, it probably wasn't. In Dawn, however, she allows Battler to non-specifically put Kanon in a room (from whence he can escape, if Shkanon is true, and if she knows it's true she'd know that), puts Shannon in the other room, then acts completely flummoxed by a Shkanon Save(tm). Again, if we assume she somehow already knew, she's acting. Why would she act in a situation that explicitly moves her from winning outright to losing so badly she "dies?"

Being suicidal is the only understandable option, and wanting to die by someone other than Bern's hand. But it doesn't really seem like a reading of the text along those lines works except possibly at the very end. At that point, after she's basically lost, I could perhaps see her realizing her failure but choosing to allow herself to be denied rather than remain Bern's puppet... but any time before that and she's being heaped praise and given power and seems totally happy with that. There's no good reason why she'd want to lose that.

Originally Posted by Kealym

"Kanon has a body in End because lol why not" saves her a huge, suicidal idiot ball.

"Kanon has a body as soon as he's defined to have one" might also basically work. It always bothered me in Dawn that the narration says Battler could have said Kanon was in the other room. If Shkanon is true, the narration is lying (he can't put one person in two rooms). If, however, he can put Kanon in the room if he chooses to do so, but in so doing gives up Shkanon by giving Kanon his own body, at least the third-person omniscient narrator isn't blatantly lying about Battler's own thought process.

[AuraTwilight]

Well, if he alters the text somewhat drastically so that Erika never collects the survivors into a single room for dramatic denouement / Natsuhi-trolling, I guess that could work. Are you opposed to the idea of Tohya giving Kanon a body of his own volition, though? Like I said, it was still possible, up to this point, to regard Kanon's disappearing corpse as just a red herring if you call him "Shannon's accomplice" - as the board seems to generally agree, Shkanon just sort of randomly complicated things that could have been fairly simple.

A big deal is made of how people like Lambda and Bern do things that "Beatrice could do, but wouldn't do" and Battler/Toya respects Beatrice and her game even when they don't get along. I don't think it's reasonable to believe Toya would change a rule that is such a fundamental part of who Yasu is.

Also, why would he DO that?

Skimming trough the texts again, there is apparently no mention of Maria's Beatrice in EP5. She doesn't act her usual self whenever the topic of magic or Beatrice comes out and at most blurbs out something about the golden land. She doesn't appear to hand out a letter when she usually does, instead we get Erika pop in. So how can we interpret this? Does this Beatrice even exist in this game? Why wouldn't she exist and what effects would it have on the game?

Beatrice is replaced by the Man from 19 Years Ago, I took it to mean.

Yeah, but it's generally because Erika can't see the forest for the trees. She rarely misses the trees. Kanon in ep5 is a tree, not the forest (Shkanon is never really an issue of any significance in it; nearly anything Shkanon could do Kanon or Shannon could easily do separately).

Erika would not fail to account for the locations of every character, she just misses obvious manipulations. Ep5 has the best example, where she does indeed verify everyone's exact positions at midnight to show that only Natsuhi didn't have an alibi. Her details are correct, she's just mistaken in her belief that the crime occurred at the time Natsuhi had no alibi.

It's true she's stupid when Ryukishi needs her to be, but Kealym is right: Kanon hiding behind somebody and Erika never noticing this is unfathomably stupid, even for Erika in Idiot Mode.

Maybe Shannon had a Kanon costume BEHIND GOHDA, changed in like 30 seconds, then came out the other side of Gohda and was like "Yo."

WHY THE HELL NOT LOLOLOLOL SHKANON

Gohda of course doesn't realize he has a change of meido clothes strapped to his back at all times. No one comments on it because it's hilarious.

at least the third-person omniscient narrator isn't blatantly lying about Battler's own thought process.

Like it's done all those other times?

Because the omniscient narrator is kind of a lying bastard when it comes to POV characters' thought processes, even if we're supposed to trust them.

I'm not saying Battler couldn't give Kanon a body at any point, I just don't think he's willing to do so, except in LOLMAGIC EVERYWHERE SMILES TIME EP8.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Like it's done all those other times?

Usually not off the board. I'm not saying you can't, I'm saying it was unusual precisely because the narrator in meta-scenes usually doesn't.

I'm not saying Battler couldn't give Kanon a body at any point, I just don't think he's willing to do so, except in LOLMAGIC EVERYWHERE SMILES TIME EP8.

And the equivalent in ep6. It's apparently no big damn deal. Hell, Bern basically does it too (then doesn't).

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Renall

Usually not off the board. I'm not saying you can't, I'm saying it was unusual precisely because the narrator in meta-scenes usually doesn't.

I brought this up a while back, but since we have Ange as the Reader in that episode, and the story she was reading explicitly included the meta-world, we ought to consider that she might be responsible for some of the meta-world narration. She doesn't have any reason to intentionally distort the story, but that doesn't mean she couldn't unintentionally distort it by being wrong about something.

[AuraTwilight]

That's what I was thinking, actually. Ange certainly doesn't have awareness of Shkanon at that point in the story.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

A GM is capable of making characters out of wholecloth, so there's nothing wrong with altering characters. The comment about pieces being forced to act in character is, let's face it, absolute bullshit.

At least he changed that point in the last TIP (No.xxx). BATTLER says that pieces have to act in accordance to how they were written and how they were functioning in the greater frame of the game.
If we apply Ôtsuka's theory of Gamemasters to this, it's possible to make any character do anything as long as it is coherent with the groundrules of the original setting (e.g. everybody dies/vanishes unless reported otherwise past 1986), which is the real event of the Rokkenjima desaster within the Umineko universe. Every other not fixed aspect can be adjusted to the authors liking.
Like in a tabletop RPG the characters are nothing more than containers for a certain role and because the role of the culprit is not fixed it can be applied to anybody. Then the players decide how they let their pieces/characters move and wait for any results to come up.

So in the end the GM doesn't even create the character, he prepares a gameboard and any sort of development that happens beyond that is left to the players and to chance.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

That's what I was thinking, actually. Ange certainly doesn't have awareness of Shkanon at that point in the story.

That brings us back to the possibility of the stories being presented from Ange's reading perspective...which would change many things. But it would explain some stuff like definite depeictions of magical characters from Maria's diary appearing in the meta-world.

[battle22]

about the shkannon. (EP5) what about when the family conference is taking break and shkannon comes in ,serving the tea. Rosa said " you two - " ?
is this just a meta scene or another error which toya edited later?
also Battler meet's them the same time. again. something's wrong with EP5. what does it mean "it has no love" i wonder.
and what about that knock? who do you guy's think it was? natsuhis phone call's from man of the 19 year's ago? if shkannon is with the sibling's .who made that phone call?
. damn EP5...there's something we don't know.

sorry for being annoying . lol

[Renall]

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

I brought this up a while back, but since we have Ange as the Reader in that episode, and the story she was reading explicitly included the meta-world, we ought to consider that she might be responsible for some of the meta-world narration. She doesn't have any reason to intentionally distort the story, but that doesn't mean she couldn't unintentionally distort it by being wrong about something.

But why would she interject that amount of personal thought into her reading? She doesn't know what Battler could or could not have told Erika at the time, nor would she realize why Battler would prefer to say "everyone else" instead of listing out names. If it wasn't there in whatever she "read," she has made up a detail that ascribes to Battler a completely random thought that is contradictory to his actual motives. As you said, she has no reason to do this and I see no reason why she should make a mistake like that. She doesn't know what Battler would or would not be able to say, and has no reason to assume it even accidentally.

If it was there in her reading, or something like it, then either the narrative is lying both to Ange and to us by telling us Battler was willing to do something he wasn't actually willing to do, the narrative was somehow lying on purpose to conceal his motives (who was lying then, if not Ange?), or the narrative is right and Battler could have separately placed Shannon and Kanon, but chose not to do so to leave open the possibility that they were separate or identical people in Dawn until he needed one or the other. Were that the case, it would be entirely possible that in End they really were separate people, and Erika noticed nothing out of the ordinary because there was nothing to notice.

[Wanderer]

Here is the problem I see with Kanon and Shannon having separate bodies in End.

Furudo Erika had no influence on any of Beato's games before now.
She does not exist in the worlds before this one, nor does she influence them.
Furudo Erika only increases it by one person.
Besides her, the number of people on this island is exactly the same as it was in the previous games.
In other words, the number of people in this parlor now is equal to the total number of people on this island.

Originally Posted by battle22

and what about that knock? who do you guy's think it was? natsuhis phone call's from man of the 19 year's ago? if shkannon is with the sibling's .who made that phone call?

Episode 5 was a plot by nearly everyone on the island to fake a murder and frame Natsuhi for it. So...

• There was no knock; it was a lie, just like the chapel being locked in episode 2.
• Since everyone in the parlor at the time of the call was in on the plot, ShKanon could have made the call from the parlor even with everyone there.