[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Zekses]

Originally Posted by Rattan

Maria alone in the garden may be something planned.

To be honest I considered that too, but there's a problem - whoever planned this had to be able to predict Maria's reaction to rose's vanishing AND Rosa's negligence. Unless it was Rosa herself I don't think that is possible.

Also - I'm wondering ... Kanon - just who the hell is he? We do know that Yasu transformed into Beatrice leaving Shannon alone. But this implies that whenever we see Kanon this means that Beatrice's facade is moving about or... did he perhaps develop a THIRD personality ? Considering how Kanon seems to be younger and inexperienced it's somewhat a likely explanation but still..

[Rattan]

Originally Posted by Zekses

To be honest I considered that too, but there's a problem - whoever planned this had to be able to predict Maria's reaction to rose's vanishing AND Rosa's negligence. Unless it was Rosa herself I don't think that is possible.

yeah i guess. It's easy for the one who planned this to predict Maria's reaction if the culprit is Beatrice...but the main obstacle for this is Rosa.

Also - I'm wondering ... Kanon - just who the hell is he? We do know that Yasu transformed into Beatrice leaving Shannon alone. But this implies that whenever we see Kanon this means that Beatrice's facade is moving about or... did he perhaps develop a THIRD personality ? Considering how Kanon seems to be younger and inexperienced it's somewhat a likely explanation but still..

It's a shaky interpretation but for me, Kanon was created for the sake of Jessica, just how Chick Beato was created for the sake of Battler. I guess Yasu felt sorry for Jessica and decided to pretend to cheer her up, though I guess things "went" out of hand. That's why I think this is "Kanon"'s sin and why he tries to stray away from her in recent events.

[Zekses]

What I like the most about the first novel is that it is so heavily spiced with Battler's opinions on whatever happens(those seem to be wrong pretty much 100% of the time) that it is a really interesting job to weed the facts out of them and interpret what's really happening

[Cao Ni Ma]

Originally Posted by Rattan

yeah i guess. It's easy for the one who planned this to predict Maria's reaction if the culprit is Beatrice...but the main obstacle for this is Rosa.

Depends, if Maria spent a lot of time with this Beatrice it wouldn't be far fetch for her to know how Rosa treats Maria. She might have even read Maria's diary at one point seeing as to there are writings and magic circles in them. That is, if those are actually Beatrice's.

It's a shaky interpretation but for me, Kanon was created for the sake of Jessica, just how Chick Beato was created for the sake of Battler. I guess Yasu felt sorry for Jessica and decided to pretend to cheer her up, though I guess things "went" out of hand. That's why I think this is "Kanon"'s sin and why he tries to stray away from her in recent events.

I agree with this as well, in the way that Kanon and Jessica are "linked" together. Kanon can die at any point in the story without Jessica being dead , but if Jessica dies then Kanon must die as well. Same thing with Shannon and George.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Zekses

What I like the most about the first novel is that it is so heavily spiced with Battler's opinions on whatever happens(those seem to be wrong pretty much 100% of the time) that it is a really interesting job to weed the facts out of them and interpret what's really happening

Yes, that's always interesting, especially regarding Rosa. Boy, did he read her wrong.

But it makes you wonder just what else Battler has accidentally led us to believe that isn't actually supported by anything but Battler's own assumptions, eh?

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by Zekses

"Even I,..." should it be continued as : ( cannot save you / cannot stop it ) now? I think whatever plan was set in motion was meant to be done in Battler's absense.

I think that was actually meant to be a "even I want to fall in love". Since in EP6 Kanon starts a sentence in the very same way and then completes it.

Kanon: "If you really do know, then why did you ask?! Aren't you completely satisfied and overwhelmed with George-sama?!! And anyways, I love you for being such a sincere person!! That's why......I'm rooting for you in the only way I can!! Otherwise, ......even I...!!"

Shannon: "Even I?"

Kanon: "Even I, .........wanted to love Milady...!!!"

Originally Posted by Zekses

It could have been for no reason, yes, but the existence of underground whatever perfectly explains the rose's disappearance later.

Well I'm really not sure about that. In the first place does the tunnel actually goes all the way to the rose garden? The chapel is quite far from it.
And even in that case how can an underground tunnel affect a flower bed? I don't think there's any relation.

[Zekses]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

I think that was actually meant to be a "even I want to fall in love". Since in EP6 Kanon starts a sentence in the very same way and then completes it.

I don't think that makes much sense in the context when h muttered it in Ep 1.

Also an observation : by the time of the conference Shannon has pretty much decided to go all the way with George. This implies that Kanon had to die not simply vanish, but become totally inexistent in the eyes of everyone. This leads me to a theory that what really happened - there could be not just one big plot, but several, one of which being Kanon recovering Kinzo's body from wherever it was to burn it as his own. I know this theory has a lot of holes but one fact remains - Kanon had to die, no way around it.

[AuraTwilight]

Kanon being created for Jessica's sake makes zero sense; if such was the case, why did he resist and ignore her advances so much for nearly two years? That's sort of spiteful trollin'.

[Cao Ni Ma]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Kanon being created for Jessica's sake makes zero sense; if such was the case, why did he resist and ignore her advances so much for nearly two years? That's sort of spiteful trollin'.

Not created just for Jessica, but being propped up by her. That is, if shkanon is real then Shannon side would have discarded the Kanon side already but since Jessica fell in love with him she can't do it without hurting her. Thats why Kanon or Shannon just stop existing if any of the love interests dies.

[Rattan]

Originally Posted by Cao Ni Ma

Not created just for Jessica, but being propped up by her. That is, if shkanon is real then Shannon side would have discarded the Kanon side already but since Jessica fell in love with him she can't do it without hurting her. Thats why Kanon or Shannon just stop existing if any of the love interests dies.

And that's why Shannon more than ever needs to be with George. So that Kanon will have an excuse to leave the island. Then Battler decided to come back complicating things further

[witchfan]

As we're talking about rereading the earlier episodes: I haven't done so for Umineko yet, but Higurashi was much the same in that pretty much everything was foreshadowed from the earliest moments. It's very interesting to reread Onikakushi-hen after you've finished the work.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Kanon being created for Jessica's sake makes zero sense; if such was the case, why did he resist and ignore her advances so much for nearly two years? That's sort of spiteful trollin'.

Important to note that, perhaps to the contrary, we know the current personification of Yasu's Beatrice was created for Battler's sake. In EP6's love duel, Beatrice asks her 'mother' why she was created. Her (mother's) response is that she was created to love Battler as she no longer could.

Originally Posted by Renall

...there is a certain aspect of Beatrice's behavior which seems out of place, namely her ability to affect cruelty and perform cruel acts...

While we're on that subject, it's quite apparent a key moment in understanding Yasu's personality change to the "Beatrice we know" is (implied to be) in the transformation of EP6's Beatrice. It's possible we could find valuable insight in the metascenes there... but these tend to drag on forever and I'm not entirely willing to dig into them right now...

Originally Posted by Renall

What I think happens is that Meta-Erika distorts the interpretation phase of the reading of Dawn to the point that it can no longer track the actual text that was written, dismantling the "manuscript" story and trying to twist facts and speculation. The actual justification for doing so is trickier. When we're operating at this level of meta-fiction, it's impossible to tell whether derailing the story is a metaphor or just the story itself taking advantage of its own meta-fictionality to add meta-world drama.

I'm sure there's somewhere else I could go with this, but the effort to even think about it is considerable. So I don't wanna.

My problem here is that I don't understand why the justification is implied to be a justification of Erika's being. The gameboard becoming a mess could well be a result of Battler screwing up his manuscript, or it might be, as you said, a literary technique. Yes, most of the screw-ups are written like they were caused by Erika's deliberate actions, but that does not mean they need to be justified through what Erika is (especially given her role as meta-furniture).

[Renall]

Originally Posted by witchfan

My problem here is that I don't understand why the justification is implied to be a justification of Erika's being. The gameboard becoming a mess could well be a result of Battler screwing up his manuscript, or it might be, as you said, a literary technique. Yes, most of the screw-ups are written like they were caused by Erika's deliberate actions, but that does not mean they need to be justified through what Erika is (especially given her role as meta-furniture).

Meta-fictionally, all we have to go on is that Battler disappears when Beatrice no longer thinks she has any use for him, and when Battler doubts his own existence. This seems to mirror Erika's situation.

I think rationally, Meta-Erika could have reached the understanding that Erika is a fictional character. That's kind of self-evident, but it's easy to overlook in her position. She could then perhaps come to the "realization" that as a fictional character she doesn't really exist, and combined with her... disposable nature to Bern and her request which Beatrice agreed to grant could explain her conceptual denial.

That isn't to say that, as a fictional character, she cannot exist. She simply reached the level of self-doubt and temporary vulnerability that allowed her to disappear (similar to Battler and ep5 Beatrice, perhaps?). It's at least insinuated that she wanted to be erased.

[Will Wright]

You know, when I see all the debates about metaphysical existences and whatnot here...Sometimes I wonder if this isn't one of those "a cigar is just a cigar" cases.

I somehow have trouble believing that Ryuukishi really thought that far.

[Kealym]

Originally Posted by Cao Ni Ma

Not created just for Jessica, but being propped up by her. That is, if shkanon is real then Shannon side would have discarded the Kanon side already but since Jessica fell in love with him she can't do it without hurting her. Thats why Kanon or Shannon just stop existing if any of the love interests dies.

...
**proceeds to watch Shannon / Kanon from Dawn continue living without batting an eyelash**

And from EP3 red text, both Shannon and Kanon were dead at the First Twilight.
And while I dont see many reasons to doubt it, I forget if Jessica was ever confirmed as dead in EP2.

Originally Posted by Will Wright

You know, when I see all the debates about metaphysical existences and whatnot here...Sometimes I wonder if this isn't one of those "a cigar is just a cigar" cases.

I somehow have trouble believing that Ryuukishi really thought that far.

A valid opinion, especially since alot of R07's troll-work seems to involve getting people to focus on the wrong details, or interpret them incorrectly.

It gets into the thing, though, where an author can make something that happens to extend farther than even they had intended. That is, they had produced themes and room for speculation that they didn't actively have in mind as a result. I mean, was reading Cracked today, and apparently Ray Bradbury wrote Farenheit 451 decrying television, and the whole "censorship" theme was, at most, on the sidelines of his intentions. Apparently this does nothing to stop people from outright telling him he's wrong about his own book in lectures.

[Cao Ni Ma]

Originally Posted by Kealym

...
**proceeds to watch Shannon / Kanon from Dawn continue living without batting an eyelash**

And from EP3 red text, both Shannon and Kanon were dead at the First Twilight.
And while I dont see many reasons to doubt it, I forget if Jessica was ever confirmed as dead in EP2.

Did you read the context of my other post? As I said, the characters can die without them, but they WILL die if the love interest is dead as well. At least this is based on what we've seen on the previous episodes.

Also, at the sweet love fantasy ending in ep6. A farce a comedy!

e- Preemptively guarding my flank: In EP5 they characters weren't dead till midnight and if they where dead in Virgilia's words "The game has no love" in regard to LD game.

[Will Wright]

Originally Posted by Kealym

A valid opinion, especially since alot of R07's troll-work seems to involve getting people to focus on the wrong details, or interpret them incorrectly.

It gets into the thing, though, where an author can make something that happens to extend farther than even they had intended. That is, they had produced themes and room for speculation that they didn't actively have in mind as a result. I mean, was reading Cracked today, and apparently Ray Bradbury wrote Farenheit 451 decrying television, and the whole "censorship" theme was, at most, on the sidelines of his intentions. Apparently this does nothing to stop people from outright telling him he's wrong about his own book in lectures.

Talking about Cracked, this is how I feel about Ryuukishi's work sometimes:

http://www.cracked.com/blog/what-if-...t-is-retarded/

Sometimes I just ask myself, what if Ryuukishi is retarded?

[Kealym]

Originally Posted by Cao Ni Ma

Did you read the context of my other post? As I said, the characters can die without them, but they WILL die if the love interest is dead as well. At least this is based on what we've seen on the previous episodes.

Also, at the sweet love fantasy ending in ep6. A farce a comedy!

e- Preemptively guarding my flank: In EP5 they characters weren't dead till midnight and if they where dead in Virgilia's words "The game has no love" in regard to LD game.

Okay, wow, yeah, that post of mine was terribly composed. Yeah, sorry about that. I meant to point out that Shannon/Kanon lives, as far as we saw, in End, not Dawn. And in response, I was always wondering what Virgilia and Ronove meant when they said Lambda's game "lacked love". It was certainly very ... weird, but off the top of my head all I could think was that Lambda just wasn't taking her role very seriously, since she was almost refusing to defend the witch side of her mystery.

I'd bring up that they were presented as dying after George/Jessica, except the time of death on EVERYONE in that game is a huge mind-screw anyways.

...and EP 2 Jessica never was confirmed as dead, right? I can't remember.

[Marion]

I don't think he's retarded, but Umineko as a whole can be a very confusing convoluted mess. Just look at Yasu as an example.

Yasu is not solvable by EP 4. I'm sorry, but that is bull. We didn't even learn of a child that Natsuhi received through Kinzo until EP 5 and without that part there's no way you can even think about a Yasu existing. Will said so himself: By EP 3 you knew there was a Kuwadorian Beatrice, but how could you possibly interpret there being a child. Just because Kinzo loved her doesn't mean we knew for sure that he got her pregnant. With the innocent way she was acting it also couldn't be interpreted that she was a mother and Rosa never mentioned anything about Kuwadorian Beatrice talking about a child. Only by EP 5 do we even know that it happened.

...and EP 2 Jessica never was confirmed as dead, right? I can't remember.

"No one exists in this room except all of you. 'All of you' refers to Battler, George, Maria, Rosa, Genji, Gohda, and Shannon."
"When Jessica's corpse was discovered, only Battler, George, Maria, Rosa, Genji, Gohda, Shannon, Kumasawa, and Nanjo were in Jessica's room. Whoops, the corpse of Jessica is also included. Therefore, both in the case of Jessica's room and the case in this servants' room, no humans exist that you were not aware of. No one is hiding."

Can we not bring this discussion back again? Yes she doesn't red text 'corpse of' but she already mentioned Jessica's corpse before that. Even if Jessica isn't actually dead and just pretending, she has a staked wedged in her back. No way someone can survive that, so it's likely she was just unconscious. Some people brought up an insulin possibility from Erika, but really that's just ridiculous.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by Kealym

...and EP 2 Jessica never was confirmed as dead, right? I can't remember.

Not in red.

However we do get some dialogue from Battler. Saying "he's never performed an autopsy before", but "he's sure she's definitely dead!"

[Cao Ni Ma]

They mention her corpse in red while simultaneously saying that persons where witnesses in that room. I don't know if Ronove's blue truth is effective under these conditions as they seem different (although very similar) from the one in EP5.

It goes like this, anyone who sees a corpse in rokkenjima will instantly know they are dead and not playing. But there isn't a rule for calling something other than a corpse a corpse. But in EP2s case with Jessica it confirms its a corpse by saying that other people where there with it. I mean its ambiguous, you could create a situation where she would still be alive but its very obtuse.

e- By this very logic we could understand Erika's ability to determine with red that the victims of the first twilight in EP6 where actually alive. Her very act of doubt determined their status as alive.