[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by Inbuiltx9

Dont say its pointless. After all, who is the Ange we meet in episode 3? She is nobody, not even the Ange from 1998. And she certainly isnt Ange from 1986. She is just a game-piece, but she still sufferend very much. Every story written for someone has meaning in itself, I think thats one of the most important messages of Umineko - the stories are worlds (ikuko), magic means creating worlds (ep 7 - beatos thoughts), and the piece-ange in the meta wants to be freed just the same as the real-life Ange thats about to jump from the building. You would also say the story in the meta is pointless, cause that is all "just" part of a book. Its has meaning.

PrimeBattler/Tohya didn’t want to save any fantasy Ange. He wanted to save PrimeAnge. If he saved a delusion, a fantasy character, well, it takes away the meaning of the story.
At this point we wouldn’t have needed Battler to create chick Beato in Ep 6, he could be content with fantasy Beato with whom he talks after chick Beato brough him the cookies.

Originally Posted by Inbuiltx9

Hehe, no, actually that is not the case. the deaths are declared in red - and they really ARE dead at that point in time. cause sayo killed the cousins immediately after they left the room and hid in the "Golden Land". there is even a WHOLE argument about how you have to look at the time the red truth "x is dead" is given - because it can ONLY be given, when someone really is dead. It CANT anticipate a death of a person. (Im citing by memory, but I sure think you remember that scene too) Erika in episode 5: You mean to say by that point in time they were still alive? That cant be. Lambda declared their death in red. You cant say exactly when the red about their death was uttered". Ronove: "No, we know exactly when the red about their death was stated - when the trial in the court started". They make the point!!! that the moment the red about a death is stated is important. And that only ONLY makes sense, if it actually DOES MATTER, meaning you CANT declare someone dead BEFORE he died. Virgilila declared them dead because they HAD died by that point in time - they were killed by Sayo shortly after they left the room, because Sayo didnt want them running around.

(Please dont think of the capitals as me screaming, I always use them for emphasizing and immitate the intonation)

I think you hadn’t understood what I said. I was referring to the fact that Erika was lead to believe the deaths took place when Battler screamed when instead it happened later on.

(Please, since you know that they can be misleading do not use capitals unless you’re screaming. You really don’t need to emphasize so many stuffs in this way unless you feel like screaming them.)

Originally Posted by Inbuiltx9

Well somewhat yes, somewhat no. I agree with magic not referring only to the ability to decorate the truth. Like I said, I really think "real magic" refers to creating worlds, cause that is what the witch on the highest plane , the creator witch, is able to do.

Creating words is decorating the truth. Those words do not exist. Beato didn’t plan to have Battler becoming a writer and create words. She wanted him to understand her and to accept her.

Originally Posted by Inbuiltx9

Lol, why? Why would Bern refer to fantasy-Battler, when she never gave a d*** about him in the first place? her little feud is with meta-battler. and she says "all of you" no "futari" or anything if I remember correctly? but it could also be she just said "omaetachi" or something. Id have to take a look at the scene again. well, doesnt really matter anyways. actually, I didnt want to mention it, because that would further complicate things, but the beginning of ep 6 is kind of like a "preview" of what happens in ep 6, because the way things happen there are not occuring the same way they happen later on in episode 6. and I really just read "all of you" as Bern referring to us! the viewers, what she has done various times. It would be soooooo weird for now to refer to the pieces as well when talking to the meta-person, and how is she even supposed to reach them - pieces-battler (no matter if you say fantasy or mystery) would not be directly connected to the meta in the first place, according to your clear-cut-seperate-layers-theory. Im sorry, please dont take this the wrong way, I like your arguments and I think if I go on discussing stuff with you, Im able to learn much more about the story, but this argument about "fantasy-battler-piece" seems completely stupid and dragged in by the head and shoulders.
Even if you somehow create an explanation for some things, there is still a TON of other hints that say otherwise, no not even hints, they are clear statements- the ones I mentioned in my previous post, that you cant explain at all. Some of them you also didnt address. Like fantasy-piece-battler suddenly losing his memories, or the fact that in the fantasy layer, kanon doesnt have a real body anymore - nothing should hinder him from leaving the room...and all the statements about battlers soul being in the closed room and everything lambda says - you just completely ignore that and instead say something like "in a way he is completely focused on whats happening in the closed room". Why not just accept it the way it is stated OFTEN and CLEARLY and in the manga/VN: its his soul that is trapped in there? I dont understand why you'd want to interpret it against everything that is said (imagine a desperate intonation here please XD)

This is the quote as reported in the VN:

"Hey, ......are you listening…? All of you?"
She spoke to the groom in the plural.
......Of course, there was only one groom.

Bern in the past was also a piece who was left alone solving a logic error. I can see her having a lot of fun knowing she has trapped not only the gamemaster but also the Piece that represents the gamemaster and that the both of them will have to deal with the logic error.

Showing us a Battler that’s not PieceBattler in the closed room is just a fantasy scene like showing us Jessica killing Kyrie with her fists or Kanon pulling out a blade or Kinzo wandering around. There are tons of instances were the original pieces are ‘embellished’ if you prefer. For me it’s more simple to call that Jessica a FantasyJessica because she’s clearly not the real Jessica but just a character in a fantasy scene.
Fantasy scenes or magic scenes, whatever term you prefer, are depicted so they seem to smoothly work with the Meta but actually are all an embellishment and this happens way more often than it’s said that his soul is trapped there.

Originally Posted by Inbuiltx9

Yes yes yes! They are referring to their pieces and the game-master as being one and the same. they are doing this not just in ep 6, but all the time they are referring to the piece-body and the meta-body as connected. But YOU are in fact suddenly saying they dont, they refer to "fantasy-piece", mystery-piece and meta as sepate identies and bern saying something like "all of you". Do you have the japanese raw btw? if you cite the passage we can look together if the "you" was there or not, if you're interested. For my point it doesnt really matter though.
So Im forced to touch the topic of relation between game-master and pieces after all

I think you totally missed my point.
Umineko works this way:
A story is written. Then it’s embellished. Then Meta characters discuss over it and they the player is unaware of what had happened beyond what the gamemaster will tell him even if the story involved him as well. That is unless he was raised to the level of Meta after taking part to the story as a piece (Battler switches to being Meta in Ep 1 Teaparty therefore he has experienced Ep 1 directly without Beatrice’s narration and Erika switched it during Ep 5 and though we’re not make certain about at which point this happened exactly it’s post when she was introduced to the characters).

We know that MetaBattler when was a player was totally unaware of what the piece representing him on the gameboard was doing beyond what Beato was telling/showing him. He even thought PieceBattler could be the culprit for all the gameboards!
This tells us that meta characters and pieces aren’t one and the same even when PieceBattler was supposedly MetaBattler’s piece.
Now let’s move to EP 5. In Ep 5 MetaBattler isn’t involved in the game and yet we’re presented a scene in which he fight with Dlanor.
Can that be PieceBattler? PieceBattler is never depicted as Meta aware and Beato herself said that the Piece version of Battler shouldn’t be able to see her but this Battler does.
That one who fight with Dlanor is FantasyBattler (or MagicBattler). In short the whole scene is all an embellishment. No fight ever took place and Lambda wrote that nice fantasy scene so as to cover up the real way in which Battler jumped outside. She embellished Battler’s escape from Kinzo’s closed room.
And now you’ve FantasyBattler who’s not PieceBattler nor MetaBattler. He’s just an embellishment.
And so, for more dramatic value, in Ep 6 Kanon, after going through walls, is shown as rescuing the trapped FantasyBattler who looks like MetaBattler.
It’s a beautiful embellishment but it’s just that.

Umineko has fun referring to pieces, fantasies and meta characters as one and the same and it thematically work as they’re, in a way, 3 versions of the same person.
MetaBattler didn’t personally made the phonecall yet as he and PieceBattler share the same soul Erika accounts him as responsible for it. But if Battler was really the same person as PieceBattler he would know PieceBattler had killed no one.

Beatrice also had fun confusing Battler, moving his piece in such a way it seemed an extension of him, acting as if she could interact with the gameboard when it actually were all fantasy scenes.
MetaBattler was never killed by Beatrice in Ep 4 after she says “I’m going to kill you now”. It’s never said he died.

If you don’t see Metabeato body around in some episodes and she looks as if she’s on the gameboard it’s because she’s clearly building up the illusion she’s a witch who can really interact with the gameboard and do magic and all. We know the scenes with Beato on the gameboard are fantasy. When this intention is dropped you can see in Ep 5 that MetaBeato is in the Meta while FantasyBeato is showing up in all the fantasy scenes. She’s clearly not PieceSayo but just Natsuhi’s fantasy.

The court is definitely not held on Rokkenjima. It’s either fantasy or meta, more likely meta than fantasy but it can be a mix of both as fantasy works just fine in the meta and it’s presented as real (though Dlanor implied that also is just an embellishment and Virgilia never made her tea with magic).
FantasyMaria isn’t invited in the court because she had no relevance whatsoever with Ep 5. You might have noticed they didn’t invite Sakutarou either.

Really, even if I cut your reply so as to keep the message not overly long, I get your point. I simply do not agree with it. It’s pretty logic you don’t have a problem with your theory as… well, it’s your theory.

Originally Posted by Inbuiltx9

No, she is told Kanon saved Battler with magic, when in fact, he simply set the chain from the inside. Oh what fantastic magic XD (Sorry, Im just being sarcastic). You just gotta accept that theres no clear-cut fantasy-, mystery- and meta-layer here, because the room meta-battler is in is the hell of a logic error. the boundaries dont hold for that room- on the game-board itself there can be no logic-error (time flows different) but kanon still has access to the logic-error-hell coming from the game-board. and later on in the duel the boundaries are practically shown as non-existant anyways, as Ive already pointed out. And every fantasy-piece of battler on the game-board that he controls with his mind would be no different from the soul of meta-battler being right there anyways. so he IS trying to get out of the room, no matter how you look at it.

Through all Umineko characters we’re made aware of the embellishments in details. We get a really long, detailed scene of Kanon’s beautiful rescue of Battler. That fantasy scene is the embellishment that’s a fundamental part of the story and that covers up how Shannon left the room she was in, dressed up as Kanon, took his identity, switched place with Battler and then dropped said identity.
Often in Umineko Beato has then summarized the magic scene so that the discussion could keep short.
I see no reason to make a long scene disappear from the story.

Originally Posted by Inbuiltx9

Lol, blowing away the game-board means destroying the world they are in, which would basically be the same as letting everyone die, himself included. Better said: they would all stop to exist. Sure, he can get out of his hell by just admitting he committed a logic-error. Meta-Battler is in the room because he refuses to accept the logic error AND because of the lock. you'd have to ignore basically everything that was stated about the locked room to think otherwise.

So, if you think it’ll be suicide why didn’t Lambda say this would kill him and everyone else but just told him he’ll lose the only precious thing he was left by Beato?

Originally Posted by Inbuiltx9

Let me also ask you that: you know how beato is a "piece" in ep 6. the game-master beato died. So is there a mystery-piece beato? hard to believe right? since mystery-piece-beato does not exist - she would overlap with sayo on the mystery-layer. so what is that beato in the chapel? she's still the piece right? with her memories. Like the piece-beato at the end of ep 5. and look here - shes a piece that is outside of the fantasy layer and interacting with the meta btw (=> NO clear difference between meta and game-board). you know when kanon lets battler out of the room, he tells him to go back to beato and ange. where is he running off too? if I try to make a clear difference between the layers, then poor-fantasy-battler will find, that there is no one waiting for him XD cause piece-beato is currently busy saving meta-battler. unless you want to say Beatos fantasy-piece! (remember, there is no rela equivalent mystery-piece) has suddenly multiplied....hes running off to his own body, if you want to describe it like that.
The longer I think about it the more it appears to me that the problem you're having here is similar to someone asking while watching a musical "are they singing for real in the story of the movie?" XD (Not meant in an offensive way AT ALL), I just thought thats a good comparison

The term piece doesn’t refer to just the pieces on the gameboard.
Pieces is a general term to refer to someone/something who is/can be used or manipulated to further another person's purposes.
ChickBeato’s purpose was to serve Battler and in a way Battler, by placing her on the gameboard, gave her some sort of life. Remember that ChickBeato is the personification of the rules a bit like Dlanor id the personification of Knox. So placing Beato on the gameboard doesn’t mean placing a person on the gameboard but just using on that gameboard the rules.
MetaAnge is a piece in EP 4 but she’s not on the gameboard.
A fantasy piece is just a fantasy. It doesn’t exist. It’s an embellishment, a fantasy explanation. As soon as the fantasy scene ends, goodbye fantasy piece. It disappears and it can reappears later on for another fantasy scene.
FantasyBattler ran nowhere once left out of that room because that scene was purely fantasy and never happened as depicted. PieceBattler might have been told to ran away so that when Erika would be there she wouldn’t see him.
FantasyBattler is just an embellishment, he’s neither PieceBattler who has to act as a real person nor Meta Battler who’s busy being forced to marry Erika.

Originally Posted by Inbuiltx9

Dont think about the difference between fantasy and mystery and meta too much here. its the hell of a logic error anyways. We are NOT shown the scene as it is told from a fantasy perspective, because in the fantasy kanon rescues battler with magic and kanon can go through walls now on that layer, since he just lost his body. its really a mix between mystery and meta at that point when kanon rescues him, because they are in a complete different dimension there - like it is stated, in hell where time flows differently.

So what exactly is the scene we’re told in which we’re shown that Kanon goes through walls? It’s just a fantasy scene.

Originally Posted by Inbuiltx9

You cant explain it because you're bound to have problems with your fantasy-piece-body, mystery-piece-body and meta-body clear-cut difference. Not just with Ange, you also get problems with all the games before, as I explained before.

No, I’ve not. I’ve just explained you how it works.
Please, don’t assume that I’m making baseless theories or that I didn’t run through all Umineko testing them.

Originally Posted by Inbuiltx9

Hehe, Im glad you're already partly agreeing with me Then let me convince you:
I explained that already didnt I? I also thought about that sentence. Of course he says "from when I was very young". Imagine he didnt say that. Imagine he talked about horrible memories of a family gathering where afterwards he was falling asleep and ending up in a room he didnt know. Just imagine that as a viewer that reads Ryukishis story. What would be the very first thing you'd think? I assume it would be: He is definitely talking about prime here. You'd immediately think that, wouldnt you? This sentence -from a story-telling perspective- is just there to make you think he is NOT talking about prime. Just a mean sentence to confuse the viewer. But you know why we can be pretty sure he IS talking about prime? Even though van dine doesnt completely apply, the one thing, that refers to there being no unnecessary clues, seems to hold true- even Will used that to defend against goats. And while there are a whole lot of misleading hints, those misleading hints at least led SOMEWHERE. For example - Battler saying he is the culprit in ep 5 -> he is protecting beato, rudolf saying he is probably killed this night-> killed by kyrie, battler is not asumus son -> he is kyries son. every misleading hint has a solution, just this one, this big fat elephant in the room is leading nowhere, cause there was NEVER EVER mentioned a family gathering that was horrible and where he was locked in a room afterwards. Never. And the way Asumu is depicted and how its stated that she gave him all the love she could, definitely shows Battler had a good childhood. let me repeat: there is NEVER, not once, even REMOTELY mentioned ANYTHING that relates to a family gathering when he was 12 years or younger where Battler had such a horrible memory. But that might not yet completely convince you, so let me go on:
Then what is "when he was very young" referring to? Really, you know how long he's been in the closed room already by that point? Kanon says its been years, and not only does the time in the locked room count. In the meta, time is passing as well. Beato talks about her 6 years as 1000 years, so the flow of time in the world of witches is really not defined that well. and from battlers point of view, certainly much time has passed already. And oh wonder! What was the episode again when they were talking about the flow of time being different in the world of witches? Exactly, it was episode 6! ryukishi is nice enough to give us all the clues we need in this episode. the whole episode 6 is basically saying us over and over again to think about the "flow of time". but if only you consider kanons "how many years have passed in this closed room" alone, this allows battler already to think of himself back then in prime as "very young". Its like 1000 year old beato would refer to herself as young when she was only 20 or something years old. In fact, I think Kanon mentioning the years that battler spend in the room, is supposed to be a giant clue for that. You just have to put 1+1 together here and it is quite obvious, here you have the hint to what happened in prime.

So we just have to cut that sentence because it doesn’t fit to your theory? There are instances where it’s mentioned family gathering weren’t always perfect. Battler was scared by Kinzo who showed him the stakes. Battler was scared by Rudolf and Eva who told him about the witch wandering on the island. It makes plenty of sense that one day he felt asleep while on the island, was left in a room to sleep, woke up alone and got really scared. We’re also told that Battler was prone to get scared as a child right in Ep 1 when he remembers how Rudolf told him that the monsters that were scaring him were just fantasy. We aren’t told everything that happened to all his 12 family gatherings after all.
He didn’t have to repeat in each and every game that hey, once he got scared because he woke up alone in a room.
I really don’t get why you’d jump into interpreting things like Rudolf fearing to be killed as meaning he was killed by Kyrie in Prime (he was much more likely killed by Eva).

Originally Posted by Inbuiltx9

And last but not least, I really can reconstruct the basic events of prime with just these informations. It explains a LOT of everything that happens in the games after that, a lot of Battlers behaviour, a lot of the metaphors, a lot of the red truths. And that is exactly what we should be able to do - solving the story with just the infos given. Without Battlers memores, we cant reconstruct what happend in prime, with them we can. And I think I can explain the ending of umineko now too.

No offense but I think you’re taking too much creative interpretation with Prime.

Originally Posted by Inbuiltx9

Yes, we hear her say Kanon rescued Battler with magic. Nothing more. There is no interruption in the story where Beato could have told her anything more. That is what I mean when I say with your assumptions, you have to interpret this different, that different, add something here, add something there, think info is laking here, info is lacking there, while it is much easier this way: accepting it how it is presented in the VN/manga and just accept that its meta-battlers soul that was in the hell of the logic error and kanon is rescuing him from that hell. no extra interpretations needed, just going with whats described in the vn/manga.
that way, the reason Battler forgot everything while in the room can also be explained very well, something one cant do with your theory. But you just ignored this part of my answer (by the way, even though I have not completely given up on the interpretation that battler himself let the logic error occur, I have a new theory that fits perfectly and in which he does NOT cause it himself - that is one of the reasons after all why you dont want to admit that its meta-battler in the closed room)

You’ve just told me you’ve to interpret differently how Battler said he was scared as a child and made huge jumps between what was presented to us and what you thought happened in Prime but when I say I’m considering part of the plot a scene you’re saying I’m interpreting things differently and this is wrong?
I’m going by what is described in the manga. We’ve a lovely fantasy scene to use as reference. And plenty of instances in which fantasy scenes were just the depicted embellishment used for the story of whom characters were made aware.
Honestly I skipped that part of that answer because I didn’t agree with the basis for your interpretation so to me it was pointless to discuss it.

Originally Posted by Inbuiltx9

So anyways, when reading episode 6 I always thought: wow, thats awefully convenient for Dlanor and Co. to only check the seals on ONE window and let the other one unsealed. I just accepted it that way. And of course, with this I didnt get Anges comment, when they were blocking the blue to get out of the other window, "Isnt this a logic error on their part?". Once again, Im sorry for repeating stuff you all might have figured out from the beginning.

So turns out Dlanor and Co. didnt check any seals on the windows AT ALL. Neither the one in the cousins room nor the one next room over. They only checked the ones in the hall and forgot the windows. So there was not REALLY a logic error, (there wasnt anyways because a trick was possible after all), but they made battler and the others think so. There is always the possibilty to let someone leave from one of the rooms. So if they said in red that both windows are sealed, then it would be them causing the logic error, because THEY would make the game unsolvable by using the red in THEIR turn. thats why they can only use the red maximally for one window - so that there are still pieces that can leave through the window of the next room over. they use their red without having checked the window.
when Dlanor "seals" this possibility as well by saying the blue cant be used for this other window, thats when Ange says "isnt that a logic error on their part?" but the window is still unsealed, they cant seal it completely after all, its just that you can not use any blue for now. they wouldnt create a logic error with this, because they dont completely seal the window, they just say we dont accept any more answers regarding this. And beato later on doesnt need the blue truth. in a way, she uses the other closed room after all.
Ok, thats all, Im sorry for being stupid XD, I know its really trivial, but I didnt get it until yesterday. Just writing it in case there is someone as slow as me...

I’m not sure if I’ve understood your question fully but we were shown in Ep 5 that the gamemaster can withhold some red truths (Cornelia was forbidden from using a red truth) and that Dlanor can seal some possibilities (Battler wasn’t allowed to use red to state that Kinzo was dead even though he was a wizard and territory lord).
Also, Dlanor and Co in truth do not exist. They’re just an insurance that some rules in the game will be respected. Cornelia and Geltrude are revealed to be nothing else but personifications of the seals. They have awareness of facts Erika wasn’t informed of and either has no obligation to inform her or can’t.
Cornelia said to Dlanor she was forbidden by Lambda to use that red truth but not to Erika. If she had told Erika maybe she would have been spared from punishment.
Dlanor, although used by Erika as her ally, is stated more than once as someone impartial.
She’s, after all, a personification of rules that can serve Erika but also can work against her.
In this case Dlanor most likely had instructions to not allow a certain interpretation so he sealed the possibility to use it. Since Beato told Erika that she could remove that seal (not the seal on the window, the seal that stopped people from using that interpretation), evidently Erika took advantage of her position of ‘stand in’ for Battler to act as gamemaster and stop a certain info from being used.
As Gaap said the windows were never checked but very likely the doors weren’t personally checked by Erika either. She just got Battler’s red that the seals were still in place. In order to check the windows she either has to climb on the walls again (though I’m not sure that from the outside she could make sure if the seals are still in place or the window is merely closed) or she has to break the seals on the doors to enter in and check if the seals on the windows are still on work.

Originally Posted by Inbuiltx9

And because Im already using this post to write random stuff:
we know that natsuhi= pride, hideyoshi = gluttony, Rudolph = sloth, Kyrie=envy, Rosa=lust, but I dont know exactly if eva is supposed to be wrath or greed and the same for krauss. cause in ep 3, eva is pretty much greed, but she is also really aggressive sometimes, far more than krauss in my opinion. and krauss is somehow greedy because he wants to keep the family inheritence (at least for a while) to himself, wrath could only fit if we consider his past. Have you discussed this already and came up with an answer?

It was discussed long ago. The gist of it is that each character don’t just represent a single sin. Eva is definitely as prideful as Natsuhi if not more, very prone to fall into wrath, greedy for a position that’s not hers and envious of how Krauss got it easily.
Rudolf is definitely a victim of sloth but he’s also greedy for money and can’t keep his pants on.
Rosa… well, I guess she got lust because she’s desperate for a man but when Maria does something that upset her she’s just wrath.
Pride is something you can actually apply to most of the characters, starting with Battler and going with Kinzo, Krauss, Natsuhi, Eva, George and, in a way, even Jessica.
Gluttony fits with Hideyoshi but we know Battler is a glutton too and it’s implied George is as well and the same applies to Maria.
Sloth works for Rudolf but also occasionally for Battler, Gohda, Kumasawa, and possibly Rosa. In a way for Kinzo too if we consider him prior to meeting Beatrice. In a way this works with Genji also as he’s more of a passive observer of Sayo’s drama but that’s up to interpretation.
Envy is Kyrie but also Eva, possibly Natsuhi (she’s not happy how she’s the only one not having the one wing on her clothes), George, in a minor way Jessica, vaguely Hideyoshi (he claims he’s jealous of Rudolf here and there but in a totally not unhealthy way so I don’t think it’s anything big), Kanon, Shannon before coming to an agreement with Beatrice, Rosa.
Lust is used for Rosa but could also be used for Rudolf and Kinzo and I guess Battler. She’s also used with Jessica and Eva.
Wrath works for Eva but also for Rosa. Natsuhi too can be worked up to wrath (though she requires more built up) and Battler as well is very prone to get angry but he cools down quickly. Kinzo is definitely prone to wrath and so is Jessica who’s slower to cool down than Battler. Krauss too has his wrath moments even if he manages to control them better.
Greed fits all the siblings and their husbands/wives, George, Kinzo, in a way Maria (she was greedy for her mother love but that’s pretty understandable), Shannon and Kanon, vaguely Battler (even if he represses it).
If we include Erika also we’ve her being represented by pride, wrath, lust, sloth (she didn’t check the corpses), envy.
A character can look more prone to fall into the same sin but that’s all. They aren’t personification of a sin, they’re real people who commit various sins. That’s why the stakes used on them occasionally differ.
... hopefully I hadn't forgotten anything that was said...
I hope this helps.

[Mali]

So what exactly is the scene we’re told in which we’re shown that Kanon goes through walls? It’s just a fantasy scene.

Everyone can go through walls...Either the wall has an opening in it or you are a mime! I thought you wouldn't accept this jj - you wrote it is impossible for Kanon to go out of the room because time's stopped. Yet you denied it.

In my opinion it's possible for Kanon to dissapear from the guest room without changing name/role/personality. There are some layouts for ep.6 that makes Shkannon-shenanigans impossible, yet he can dissapear. The time stop is just an metaphor for Erikas decision not to touch the sealed chain. It does not stop anyone from breaking it (except Erika and Kanon).

[AuraTwilight]

Originally Posted by Mali

How do you define "Battler is omniscient"?

"Battler can have perfect awareness and observation of everything that's occured on the Gameboard if he wants to exercise it."

If Sayotrice is true Battler had to "cut off" (Groom Battler etc.) from Piece-Beato. She would remember her true self.
I think it is well explained in the VN with Featherine and Ange or Maria and their pieces. If a game master lose interest in a piece on the game board it "dies", or in other words it dissapears. If they are revived they don't start living from the point they were killed.
So if Battler wanted to play some fun love games and he lost his eye on Erikas piece, it happens.

None of this logically connects or follows. Pieces dying from boredom has nothing to do with Battler's attentiveness to Erika. Ditto whatever you're saying about Sayotrice.

[Mali]

By that definition Lambda played along very well *g*. If you want to disagree when give me an argument please. I don't see anything wrong.

[Inbuiltx9]

I SOLVED UMINEKO! XD (Or maybe not???)

Even though its long I think you’ll find this post interesting, because I think I solved some of the riddles of umineko, (at least with prime Im pretty sure),

Im sorry Im writing so much text, Im sure, my posts will be considered spam before long I just never thought about umineko much before but now that I did start a bit, I cant stop writing posts XD Now I wanted to write down some points I thought about. It doesn’t really fit into an answer post. But if I don’t write it now, I just keep delaying it…
please tell me where I made mistakes – its just a theory after all- and what you think about the following . Some things are what I already postet before, but I corrected some minor things and completed it to build a consistent theory. Again: With some ideas Im not completely sure, feel free to argue against me, please!!! I think you guys probably discussed a lot of it already, so you might have a better understanding of me here and there. please excuse my "arrogant" writing style in question--answer, I just didnt want to write one coherent text, because that would have been annoying to read...

EDIT: please excuse all grammar issues etc. the text has, I wrote it today at 5 a.m. and I was pretty tired....




the end of Episode 3 is a huge repetition of what happened in - or rather - immediately after prime (this part is about ep 3 -the ending: duel with eva-beatrice)

-what does this mean?: Eva Beatrice: “why are you throwing all of your gold, your magic, your life away?” Beato: “because there are some things you cant buy with gold”
Means: well, its said in manga ep 8 – Sayo had all the gold, was the head of the family and still threw her life away because, she couldn’t have the love she wished for

-What does Battler mean when he says (after beato used the red to deny witches): “Beato had to sacrifice herself, all because Im useless”
well, kinda obvious what it means, even though Im not 100% sure of what happened in prime (see down below), I actually don’t think sayo “sacrificed” herself in any way, this is only said due to the context of ep 3. Sayo/beato dies as an "evil witch", not as someone noble - just look at the way beato starts out in the first game and how Beato regretted later on what she did before she died (said so in ep 8 manga. And she wouldnt be in purgatory if she wouldnt regret it in the first place..). so let me change battlers sentence accordingly: "she died/she was forced to take the action she took, all because I forgot her and didnt understand her until the very end"

-What does it mean when Battler cant think anymore at the end of the duel against eva-beatrice and is giving up on solving the murder of nanjo and Beato says: “you really cant think of anything else?” (disappointed) ?
I THINK, not sure about this, that he refers to the time in prime when battler gave up on his “belief”, what Beato mentioned in ep 5, what I AM pretty sure about is the importance of that moment when Battler says he gives up, and that is SOMEHOW relates to prime

-What does it mean when beato says this: “this game is merciless, you only have time to think until 24h” ?
Means: HINT to prime and one of the big reasons I think battler died and so did sayo in prime – he had time to “think” until the “bomb exploded”, and didn’t make it – not sure exactly where there is a metaphor here, “think” could also mean to escape, “bomb” could also mean until sayo killed herself…still thinking




a bit more interesting are the following points:

-beato is tearing the game board apart at the end of ep 3
->and we see what happens when the game board vanished – the world (the meta and everything else) they are in is destroyed, everything is completely black, battler and beato don’t have bodys anymore, they shouldn’t even have a soul, the reason they still have a soul is because this “vanishing of the game board” is in a way, a simulation

-only once battler believes in beato, the world is created anew- beato and battler get their bodies back, the ocean is born and the island stretches out beneath them, “they shouldn’t be here anymore, yet they certainly existed”
Its Means: A lot!!!together! they create a world, BUT: its impossible for beato to create a world alone, you need two people to create a world (said in ep 6 by furfur and zepar) and more importantly: said by BEATO HERSELF in ep 7 – especially manga. Beato is creating a world with maria, during the time battler doesn’t came back to the island, but that’s not enough for her (she says so in the manga), she wants to create a world with battler (continued later...)

-“they shouldn’t be here anymore, yet they certainly existed” (quotation in ep 3 shortly after beato rips the game-board apart and the world went black)
It means: PRIME PRIME!! WHAT HAPPENS IMMEDIATELY AFTER PRIME, beato and battler are dead (yes, just bear with me for a while), and they shoudnt exist anymore yet like its said in ep 3, for “some reason” (this reason is also made clear later on), they still exist

-when beato and battler get their bodies back -“battler was not surprised at his body, beato was”
Means: after they died, they continued to live on and they got their “bodies” back (their “bodies” are “spirit bodies of a human”< - quotation lambda in manga ep 8),they live on in a world of souls, they then create a world - of course without battler being aware of it, he didn’t realize he died and forgot how, beato on the other hand knows about it, but she still didn’t understand it in the beginning either “I was surprised too and didn’t know how this happened” (I don’t know what ep Beato says that, but she refers to the beginning of the world here - explicitly), so no wonder beato wonders about her body – because she is not in sayos body, she has the body she wished for – big breats etc.
-this thing about “spirit bodies” also explains why Beato, kanon and Shannon have different bodies in the world of the souls

-When the world is created at first, its just a small world, then it extends more and more
Means: VERY VERY IMPORTANT HINT, even Ryukishi said in an interview himself, that its VERY important that there are added more and more pieces to the games as the story goes on, even though they are on a closed island. It means this: while at the beginning, beatos and battlers world is still small and its actually “closed off” (they are only spirits now, they are dead) its slowly growing (“more pieces added”) and its growing more and more to become a full-fledged world. More pieces enter that show – they can create a world full of life, a world that is no longer truly “closed off” (well, but it still is, Im gonna continue this point later on), because this is VERY IMPORTANT

[Inbuiltx9]

The following is not just taken from ep 3:

-Lambda manga 8: “Right now you are only the spirit body of a human that is allowed to live in beatos cat box”
Means: we know what beatos cat box is – its created by all the stories that go around in the world, its her message bottles she wrote, beato and battler and the other ushiromiya-members too are allowed to exist because lets say it simply: beato wrote a story. or said in another way: they continue to live in beatos stories (Im leaving touya away for now), now: don’t get me wrong, I don’t!!! mean to say they are “just” figures in a novel or in beatos message bottles, they are the “real” souls, even though you somehow can also interpret it really as just living on as part of a story. The reason I interpret it in the first way follows later (though you never can be 100% sure)

-“for the pieces on the game-board, this is their only life” (Jessica ep 6), “they call it a book, but I am creating worlds”, + the “pieces” on the game-board are not completely controlled and they have emotions and thoughts on their own
Means: the “games” of beato are “stories”, if the pieces in those “games” have emotions, it means basically that: the people in stories have emotions, they “live” for real

-beato and battler and ange etc., everyone from a higher plane can “enter” their pieces in the story, they completely control them, like this they “become their pieces”+ the drawing line between meta and story is vague, pieces enter the meta, people from the meta enter the game-board
Means: Its important! I finally figured out why the concept between meta and pieces-world is so vague! What I was complaining about some days ago actually has a meaning... I thought ryukishi made a mistake, but the reason is that: you can actually live on in a story, you yourself in the meta can DIRECTLY enter the story. Its YOU that goes on living in the story not someone else. This is another reason I think battler and beato (and the rest), that live on through beatos cat box/through beatos stories are in fact the real battler and the real beato. (but again this cant be said with 100% certainty) but other reasons follow.

-Also: at least the end of ep 2 is not told in the message bottle “there is no reason to tell of it” -> at least not all of the meta is told in the message bottles –
the meta exists THANKS to beatos message bottles and thanks to beato and battler creating the world, BUT it still exists independently from the bottles. That’s why I think battler and beato in the meta are the real battler and the real beato, not just figures in a story. ANOTHER reason follows later

-battler says to ange “we are all already dead” + beatos red at the end of ep 4 “please kill me, if you don’t, youll die”, battler: “when I understood everything, I also understood what was the nature of beatos cat box,and I knew I couldn’t go back” (ep 8 manga)
Means: battler is dead and he understood that in ep 5, when he understood why they still existed, even though practically they are dead. I explained that -their world can exist because beato wrote message bottles, another reason why I think they are the real beato and battler –they actually are aware of the fact that they are dead




Stuff follows that relate to the end of umineko

Battler is dead, yet ryukishi says in an interview he can get out of this world once he shows that he understood everything, bern says so too in ep 4
-Means: I asked myself how???? How would battler be able to get out, even though he is dead? I take everything I wrote about before together to say it in a very unspectacular way: by writing a story. Writing a story means you create a world. beatos message bottles were the reasoning their souls could continue to exist after all, and last but not least: people from the meta can enter the world of the game-board or said differently: people from the meta can enter their own stories. By writing a story you can continue to exist.

-battler places a book in the coffin of dead beato (ep 7)
Means: why is a book so important that battler would make it his last gift to her? Because the book is a complete world battler created for beato

-the ever-lasting discussions about if battler wanted to cause the logic error or not, what he says in episode 6 “Im gonna prove I understood everything about this game. I intend to win for the witches side and Im gonna end everything with this game.” Beato: “what will happen to me?” Battler: “the game-board will probably vanish, but I now completely understood magic, and I think I can take you out of the game-board. I think this was your wish”.
What happens when the game-board is ripped apart/vanishes is simulated at the end of ep 3, we see there what battler is talking about when he says “the game-board will probably vanish” => The world/the meta everything will vanish. Then: what does battler mean when he says he can take beato out of there? Its simple now: by writing a story. That’s why a story is his last gift to the dead beato. I already explained that you’re able to continue living in a story. What is beatos wish: well, what she always wished for – that battler comes back to the island and takes her away. And that’s what he intends to do. He cant do it in “real” life, but he can do so in a story.

-battler says “I completely understood magic”
Means: what beato wanted to do, what her magic did was create a world of her own. With gaap, with ronove, with sakutarou and the seven sisters of purgatory etc. Even before sayo was dead she did that, but back then she wasn’t complete because she wanted battler to recognize her world, and not maria. With beatos “magic” (more or less writing message-bottles) the meta was created. To completely understand magic means you’re able to create a world /your own truth, or, to put it bluntly: he can write a story where they will go on to exist even though the truth of the world is that they are dead. Is this supported somewhere? Yes it is! Quite clearly. In the world of witches we have the territory lords followed by the voyager witches and on the highest plane there is the creator witch like Featherine. Featherine is a creator/god because she writes the books. => on the highest level of magic you become a creator. Battler says he COMPLETELY understood magic => he has become a creator.
oh and i wondered why the magic always originated from books - beato and maria fill marias grimoire, ange sees magic only when she opens marias diary, beato wrote the message bottles, and in the stories beato writes in the meta /the games she creates - she can show battler her magic there. Magic is writing books=creating stories=creating a world=living in a world that you desire.


-There was much emphasis on the fact that maria might become a creator and it says then: youll be able to create a world from nothingness
It means: Yes, what I said, to create something FROM NOTHINGNESS. Battler can create a whole new world/a new story in which he takes Beato away from the island and in which he finally keeps his promise. The very fact that they were talking so often about a creator-witch is a pretty big hint.

EDIT: I was asked what the real-life correspondence is for a world that is created from nothingness, simply: how battler can write a story even though he is dead. I already stated my opinion, but MAYBE what we see are really just the final moments of everyones lifes, like "the infinite (time) in the finite (time)", like a big delusion everyone shares shortly before they die. if you need such a real-life correspondence you can also think like that I guess...


-what is battlers goal in ep 6?
1.Battler wants to “prove he understood the game”- he has to somehow show he understood the relations between Shannon, kanon and beato. This he wanted to do with the love duel. We can assume that later on he planned for kanon or/and Shannon (or/and beato) to disappear on the game-board somehow, that’s what the love duel amounted to after all. With this he would have shown he understood the rules and beatos heart and would be allowed to leave the world
2.battlers wants “to end everything with this game”
He wants to let the game-board vanish. Letting “beato rest” (what he promised) refers to that, because beato is a personification of the game-board-rules
3. he wants “to end the game with a win for the witchs side”
He doesn’t want to completely expose everything about beato, but by showing a trick he can still prove he understood beatos heart
4. he wants” to take beato out of the game-board”
He wants to take beato away from the island. He can do so by writing a story her. Since he plans to let the game-board=the meta vanish with this last game, he can do so only with this last dawn-story he wrote. its obvious what he plans to do with dawn now: end it so that beato and he himself can leave the island at the end of the game

-did battler plan the logic error?
NO, because he intended to let everything end with this game. He DID show (indirectly) that he understood beatos heart by setting up the premises for the love-duel, and the game-world could disappear now, but he doesn’t continue the game different from what he initially intended and he abandons it. He doesn’t go on to “play” it until the end where he and beato can leave the island but just leaves it abandoned, because the plot didn’t proceed as planned.

-Ep 7 battler doesn’t want anyone to read the new book dawn
He already let someone read his book dawn before, that is Erika, and that didn’t work out too well. He abandoned his previous dawn and wrote it another way, where no one can play around with the pieces anymore

[Inbuiltx9]

Other implications:

-why is battler still continuing with ep 8?
Well he somehow forgot Ange XD Im back now to my first theories – Ange died in 1992, exactly as bern says in red. She enters the world of the dead exactly BECAUSE she is dead. She jumped from the building, bern says there will be no miracles and she always ends up as minced meat. Then why does battler still say “live ange!” and is making such an effort? Well, she can still live. I already explained how. Continued later on.

-Why is episode 8 called “twilight of the golden witch”? I didnt undestand why its called "twilight" at first
but its a hint. what comes before the DAWN? the TWILIGHT. with the twilight ends beatos game-board world (at the end of ep 8 the game-board vanished, everything becomes black), with the dawn a new story/a new world begins. Ep 8 “twilight” ends with the story that is told in “Dawn”, where beato and battler can leave the island. Actually the story battler wrote in dawn is continuing directly after what happened in twilight. That’s why the ending of umineko is called a “magic ending” even though it’s the true ending. true Magic is the ability to create a world/to write a story, the magic ending is a story-ending, the magic ending is the ending of battlers story Dawn.

-why is battlers story called dawn?
Kinda obvious. Its called “dawn” because that’s when battler and beato can finally leave the island. At dawn on the third day, Beato and Battler leave the island in what some people considered to be reality <=> but this scene where beato and battler leave the island is shown in the "magic ending", the magic ending is a “magic” ending (created with true magic), and this magic ending/the “dawn”, is following after ep 8 "twilight".

-why do beato and battler appear to be on really good terms when they leave the island and seem to understand each other deeply even though they spend only one day on rokkenjima together?
I argued that this magic-ending is the ending battler wrote for beato, the world they can go on living in. all the meta-events DID happen for them, and they didnt spend just one day on rokkenjima. but they were in the world of witches, where time is flowing differently (ep 6 - talk between ange and featherine). battler and beato "enter" rokkenjima in one world, spend almost eternitiy in the witches world and then leave again in another world. so what seems to be one day really is almost equal to eternity.

Do I want to say that ep 8 is part of what battler wrote in "dawn", the story he gave beato and is that the reason why there can be two game-masters - one one the plane in this book (battler) and one on the plane above (bern)?
I dont know yet. We know battler originally planned to end the world in ep 6 already, he said that. but his story was screwed up so he had to write another one again. but I cant really believe he changed and amplified his original story that much. then again, since he defeated erika already, and there is no need to show a kanon/shannon-trick anymore, its possible he could now completely concentrate on ange in his new dawn and change the story to be just happy-go-lucky. the way ep 8 is written also fits with what virgilia said about the "dawn" that battler puts into beatos coffin, something like it being a very fun story. and it would also explain why bern is seen in ep 7 treating the book badly - as she does in ep 8 with battlers game. so we would assume he changed the story of dawn (the ending is still the same), since ange can take the role of another player now. but I dont know yet if that makes much sense, because problems might still come up with this assumption. I havent thought about this all too much, so I cant give a clear answer. right now, just because of wills and lions presence, Id say no, twilight is just an extra game he added to be able to save ange too.




-continuing: how can ange be saved?

Ange had to choose between two doors. Which door did she choose? She went through the door that led her to the “magic ending”! the door is not just a door for fun, ange could have just decided for beatos "trick" to be magic and this would have been sufficient enought to show that magic exists to her. the "door" has a meaning. going through there battler leaves her to go into his new world as well. Ange too can be saved by going into battlers story. Now, what was the magic ending again? It’s the story battler wrote. And it’s the story where he escaped with beato, but where beato drowned and he lost his memories. In this “story” he becomes touya and later on can meet with ange who lives in the same world now. he keeps his promise.
There is a paradoxon – at the end of the magic ending ange is aware of what happened in in the meta (“the witches used the red truth to say Onii-chan died”), that means she has seen what happened in the meta, but this ange in the meta had known ikuko, so she is the same ange that was part of ep 6 who met with ikuko/featherine. but the ange in the magic ending, which is the same as this very ange in the meta!- never met ikuko/featherine (“when I wanted to meat “Touya” I wasn’t invited” – touya: “I was afraid”)
This paradoxon is solved now: Ange HAS seen featherine but when she entered the story, she started at the point where she wanted to jump from the building, she got a second chance now in battlers story7world and she decided NOT to jump. Then she goes on living (at this point, she already lived through ep 3, 4, 6, 7-it’s the same! Ange) but in this world, she doesn’t meet with ikuko and this new truth is now overwriting the old truth - ange doesn’t know ikuko, even though it’s the same ange that met ikuko in ep 6 before.

-what is battlers goal then before he loses his memories?
Its to go back to ange. He promised to her after all. In this new world, he got beato out of the island like promised, but he still has to keep his promise to ange to go back to her, who is now living in “his” world.

-is battler now controlling everything that happens in the world where he becomes touya?
No. It’s the same as before: he really created A COMPLETE NEW WORLD. There are no game-masters anymore or anything. Its really just a real world they are living in. But he still wrote the “beginning” of it. Like its stated- the world of beato and battler constantly kept expanding in the games, more and more pieces were added. And now look what battler managed to do at the end, when he “completely understood magic” – he created the world.

-why is ikuko so d*** weird when she meets someone half dead on the road?
I don’t know yet, I assume she is another “story writer” like battler is originally. And when she asks him “is this your garden”? she actually asks him: “is this your story”? I think ryukishi really tried to hide this with the more trivial things she says after that like “yes, I understand you want to dress up”. But the question “is this your garden?” is quite meaningful. a garden is often used metaphorically this way, as a "small world you care for". the most well-known garden-metaphor where garden is used like that, is gods garden eden i think.

-how can touya and ikuko influence the meta if they are part of a story that happens AFTER the events in the meta occurred?
Well, I am not 100% sure of this yet, but since they talked about featherine having created a paradox before where beginning and end are connected, I think we have something similar here. I think when Battler created dawn, he created a world that would ultimately lead to where he is writing his own story. And like a paradox featherine (that has yet to be created) influences events from the past. The first time featherine appears is in ep 6 “dawn” after all. Once battler creates dawn, featherine appears in the story. But her influence is stretching out to every point in time, cause she becomes a "god" of the meta-world.

why does it seem like in the manga, touya remembers the meta?
Might just be me that it seems that way, but it would be exactly because of what i said, because touya has seen the meta. the meta was not just a story he thought about afterwards.

[Inbuiltx9]

-What happened in prime?
battler talks about that when he is in the locked room in ep 6. he says he has a problem with chain locks, he remembers a horrible family-gathering and he was dozing off afterwards and woke up in a room he didn’t know “incredibly lonely and sobbing” (yes, the only family gathering he can refer to is this one, battler "was never betrayed before coming to Rokkenjima" - ep 4 ronove)
In ep 5 beato: “I knew a man who believed with all his heart and the suffering he went through when he was forced to abandon this belief”, followed by ep 5 beato: "I wont let any human be the culprit".

I can almost completely! reconstruct with this what happened in prime:
Sayo was still alive after she was shot, and left the room before eva did. eva didn’t notice sayo was gone later on, not surprising, considering there were other important matters. Sayo then“saw” what Rudolf and kyrie did, by finding the dead bodies or directly observing them. when battler went to meet with Rudolf at the chapel she somehow stopped him from going there. She probably went back with him to the mansion. At that time everyone pretty much was already dead. “Something big happened with me being completely unaware” - that’s what battler says very often in the episodes.
After sayo and battler went back to the mansion, she led him to the crime scenes and starts their game, where he has to play detective, just like on the game-boards and as sayo had planned it before (ep 8 confession). Sayo keeps quiet about the culprit, she wants battler to find it out by himself. At this point Beato sees herself as the true culprit and not rudolf and kyrie and she wants battler to come to this conclusion too and see what is hidden in her heart and why she "did" (=planned) it. She doesnt want him to come to the conclusion that his parents were the culprits, but that it was ultimately her: "I wont let any human be the culprit". anyways, after verifying that everyone was indeed dead, battler too, didnt want to believe that one of the members of his family was the culprit at first (thats why battler always stubbornly refuses for the culprit to be someone from his family in ep 1-4), but everything pointed towards just that and he "had to abandon this belief". He says in ep 3 that "the worst red for me is where beato forces me to suspect one of the 18". but that is what he is forced to do -> leading to "the suffering he went through when he had to abandon his belief".
But after observing the crime-scene (the dead bodies of rudolf and kyrie lying there with weapons, kyrie having blood all over her clothes from smashing jessicas face etc.), he gave up on thinking there could be someone else responsible for what happened (as shown at the end of ep 3, which largely repeats the events of prime like I said above): “my head hurts, I cant think of anything anymore” beato: “you cant think of anything else?" (disappointed). and with that conclusion - that the culprits are rudolf and kyrie - he completely leaves out sayo as the “true” culprit. In the story of the prime Rudolf and kyrie were supporting sayo, while in ep 1 is was eva/hideyohsi, in ep 2 it was rosa in ep 3 eva/hideyoshi again, in ep 4 everyone. So this time Rudolf and Kyrie are “accomplices”.well sayo initially planned for them to be accomplices – she send them money, but it didn’t work out as planned. Still because everything! SOMEWHAT was part of her plan, because she even considered that her preparations could lead to events she didn’t plan (the “risk” she takes), so even with this outcome, she still consideres herself as the real culprit and she wants battler to solve the murder case and understand who the “real” culprit is. Sayo urged him on (end of ep 3 beato: "dont give up, battler, please, dont give up on thinking, there must be something else"), but he stopped thinking after confirming that rudolf and kyrie were the ones that killed everyone, and he tried to forget his worries by drinking alcohol (genji ep2 : "do you love alcohol that much that you want to spend the last bit of your time drinking it?") That’s why battler is always seen drinking alcohol when hes (almost) the only one left alive on the game-board. Afterwards he was "dozing off" from the alcohol or sayo might have even put something into his glass (kyries reasoning in ep 4 when she thinks about how they were carried off to the prison below kuwadorian, see below why this is an important reasoning). After all, Sayo is angry and disappointed in him because he doesn’t care about who the “real” culprit is (remember: sayo sees herself as the culprit) and therefore he doesn’t care about sayos heart either. That is also the reason why she carries him to a “room he didn’t know” and locks him up in this room with a chain-lock -> ep 6 battler:"I remember waking up in a room I didnt know, incredibly lonely and sobbing". Also, Battler ep 6: “Me and chain-locks don’t go well together, im not really clumsy, but you just cant do anything about them”. The only room we’ve seen having a classical chainlock and the only room we can be sure about battler doesnt know, is the room in ep 4, the one under kuwadorian. Continued after the digression...

digression: the room under the kuwadorian

-Ep 4: krauss, kyrie, shannon, kanon and nanjo are locked up in this room. This room is like a prison cell. Its described as containing torture devices and things to confine people. Remember: what “kinzo” does on the game-board often represents what beato/sayo does (“kinzo is playing a game”, “kinzo is risking everything for a miracle”, “the name kinzo is inherited by the new family-head”, “kinzo is holding a ceremony”), and krauss wonders what that prison is for and imagines how “kinzo” is “having fun” there in this weird room with “beato”. To the question if “Shannon and kanon” (meaning: beato) know about the room, krauss gives the completely ridiculous answer: “no, or else Shannon would have cleaned it” . of course, Shannon knew this room! They wouldn’t be in there if “Shannon” (=beato/sayo) didn’t know this room…this room is packed up with so many important details: 1. the fact that there are “torture devices” – battler and beato always talk about “torture” 2.in the manga you see a moth there = butterfly, 3.in the manga we see a “ring” that resembles the ring Erika gave battler in ep 6. 4. And we see an iron maiden there which in german is called “Eiserne Jungfrau” – the name of dlanors group. There are iron bars blocking the way for krauss and co. when they try to escape. You can only escape by cutting them. It’s a metaphor that basically says that this room cannot be accessed/found from the outside and you cant get out of there from the inside. Kyrie ep 4: “whoever brought us here really didn’t want for anyone to escape”. This room is shown various times in the manga… A bit earlier kyrie also wonders about how they got there – by being drugged? Those are probably Battlers thoughts in prime "reloaded". Because…

End of digression

…because that’s where sayo locked battler up and this is where she leaves him. the Locked room in ep 6 is, from a story-telling POV, a reenactment of what happened in prime. And after waking up in that room, battler still has time to think about everything until 24h of the second day. Because that’s the moment the bomb explodes – and sayo is dying in the explosion (she gave up at that point in time and lets herself be killed off). She doesn’t want to let him survive while she dies so she doesn’t let him out of the room until the very end (“would he cry for me If I died? Probably, and after having no more tears left, hed go on living without me... No! I don’t want anyone else to have him” – beato ep 8 manga).
With this no one knows where battler is. He survives the explosion of course – the room is directly under the kuwadorian, and its shown in ep3/4 by eva surviving, that this part of the island wasn’t affected. Since this room cant be found from the outside, the police never find a trace of him. So in the end battler starves to death. That’s why beatos last red truth in ep 4, when she is just revealing her heart, is this: “you are now completely alone on this island, yet here I am, and I will kill you”. And Ange in ep 8 solves this riddle by saying “YOU can still kill me in a perfectly closed room even if you are not there, because you locked me here and let me starve to death”. Please take a look at this scene in ep 8!!! just look at it in the VN, and you know what Im talking about - she is basically screaming the answer at our faces! And after solving this locked room, Ange says, "with this the last riddle of the golden witch is solved” (Ange manga ep 8 vs. beato). This explains why the world where beato and battler are in in the afterlife is full of “locked rooms” in the first place.
After this sayo wished for all of their souls to meet again (ep 8 manga, confession). And she gets her wish. End of what happened in prime.

other things I thought of


-why does beato die in the middle of the story (ep 5 end)
answer is obvious now isnt it? episode 6 is a reenactment of battlers locked room, ep 5 is a reenactment of what happened in prime too. battler was too late and sayo died before he could understand her.

-who are lambda and bern?
well, they are witches of course. voyager-witches. but they also have a certain metaphorical meaning. lambda is the witch of certainty and she supports beato. that means: whatever happens, its within beatos plans. even what she DIDNT plan for something, it is within beatos plans. (lambda or bern? ep 1 I think (according to meaning): "whatever happens, whatever the dice shows, beato is fine with it". Certainty, a will occuring with a probability of 100%, is on beatos side. Even if Battler would have touched Shannons breats and realized they are fake, even if they would have checked on Shannon in ep 1 and found there is no body-she is fine with it. (thats also why she always is the "true" culprit behind the murderers on rokkenjima, even if kyrie and rudolf murder everyone without her directly planning it, and why she can say in red "it was all my fault" (manga ep 8). if you're fine with every result. then you win with a probability of 100%. Bern is the witch of miracles and represents beatos hope for a miracle in a world where she is fine with every outcome. she hopes for battler to solve the riddle and to realize what she feels/for him to understand her heart.

-Last question: Does Battler love Beato?
He probably doesnt actually. Its basically what ryukishi said in an interview for ep 6: "I dont want anyone to misunderstand. What battler wants is not to be on the same side with beato, but to end the game in a way that is satisfying for her". the "i take you away from this island"-ending is a satisfying end for beato, cause thats what she always wished for. he did promise it and by creating a world where he does keep his promise, he makes up for everything. But even though they married and kissed at the end of ep 6, its always shown that he wasnt as affectionate towards her as she was towards him, even at the very very end when they leave on the boat, it still seems to me to be one-sided. And in ep 8 manga, beato was pretty much friend-zoned. And if you look at his reactions, they also show a difference between beato and him. ep 8 manga - bern (more or less says): "Have you already forgotton what she put you through? Can you just forget that?" Battler: "I thought so too before, but since it was me that tortured her all the time, Im on NOONES!!! side". Really, that doesnt sound like love to me, more like he has a responsability and hes willing to stay with beato to make up for what he did. I dont think he hates her, I even think she means a lot to him, but I dont think its love. Most important question at the end


Sooooooooooooo, that’s it,maybe Im so far off as one can get, but I can still explain some things in more details, but I wont make the post any longer than it already is. i still think with this it fits together.
If you think I made a mistake somewhere, please tell me. And if you agree, please let me know too, because I fear no one will read this long post and of course, if you can explain something differently, all the better. i might still completely revise everything.

the only open question for me is: did eva really survive? It sure seems that way, but the red truths given still somehow make me slightly doubt that.…

[Jaden]

What most readers expect from the story is for it to be essentially a mystery. Then, all the fantasy elements should relate to something non-fantasy, an underlying truth that doesn't rely on any magic and is somehow solvable from reading the novels.

Inbuiltx9, I think your interpretations are fine, but some of them seem to be content with looking at Umineko as a work in the fantasy genre. A specific question I'd like an answer to is this:

What is the non-magic equivalent of creating your own world as a story and continuing to live inside it after death? Is it leaving behind something for living people to read, enjoy, and create fanfiction about? That's what I would imagine. It's still metaphysical, but is at least grounded in reality in some way. People being "immortalized" as chapters in a history book or as internet memes is a common view. But according to your theory, Battler is already dead when he starts to weave his tales that he eventually inserts himself, Beato, and Ange inside. So how does that work in real life exactly?

[Inbuiltx9]

Originally Posted by Jaden

What most readers expect from the story is for it to be essentially a mystery. Then, all the fantasy elements should relate to something non-fantasy, an underlying truth that doesn't rely on any magic and is somehow solvable from reading the novels.

Inbuiltx9, I think your interpretations are fine, but some of them seem to be content with looking at Umineko as a work in the fantasy genre. A specific question I'd like an answer to is this:

What is the non-magic equivalent of creating your own world as a story and continuing to live inside it after death? Is it leaving behind something for living people to read, enjoy, and create fanfiction about? That's what I would imagine. It's still metaphysical, but is at least grounded in reality in some way. People being "immortalized" as chapters in a history book or as internet memes is a common view. But according to your theory, Battler is already dead when he starts to weave his tales that he eventually inserts himself, Beato, and Ange inside. So how does that work in real life exactly?

hehe, thanks for answering. yes, I thought about that too. I know that it is in the highest plane fantasy. but if you want to say that: when you look at the story as being written by touya/ikuko, its only mystery, you'd have a similar problem as me. after all, didnt ryukishi create two stories at the same time? or should we really expect an orthodox mystery? but still, even though I said why I think the way its ultimately a metaphysical world, there is no definite way to say: the souls that lived on are really souls. if you want "mystery" (not really mystery, just real-life), then you can just say: they are the people that live in the story. they are not the original sayo/battler etc. with this, you have pure "mystery" (not really mystery, just real life). because all of it is still just a story.

with the last part imo you're holding on too strongly to the expectation that everything has to have a 100% fitting real-life-equivalent. what is the equivalent of the meta? how is it possible for fiction characters to state things in red like bern does? I understand your question, but I dont even really question that... Here I take it metaphorically like "a story can change your life" or "create your own world and you're able to change the truth as much as you want". I dont ask: battler is dead, how does he write a story?". I KNOW what you mean, you want to say "fantasy is always the decoration of truth". One answer is what I gave you, thinking about it as just the cat-box beato created. the other one I think is really that fantasy taken to its extreme does not depend on reality at all anymore. it can just live on its own.

a true mystery text would also not be about someone writing a fantasy in which the people are playing a mystery-game, is it? there you have a 1st layer -touya/ikuko which is neither mystery nor fantasy, a second one that is fantasy and a third one which is mystery. But theres no problem with still accepting that as mystery right? I think you can let the first layer disappear just fine and have a fantasy which surrounds the mystery. but like I said, its really not possible to say that the souls of them are the real souls, you could just say someone else continued the forgeries and they "lived through that". that still wouldnt be mystery, that would be "slice of life" or something, but you'd have your real-life-correspondence so to speak. and with the following, I might shoot myself in the knee, because I never saw the newest episodes, but wasnt higurashi the same?

And at the end: Imo its still mystery, because the core was about who has done it, how was it done, and why was it done. just because from a narratological POV there is still another layer, it doesnt mean that down at the core, its still a mystery, does it?

I admit though, the sentence that I did solve it was more a joke than anything else, thats why I put my "XD" behind it. and you surprised me a bit - Im still editing the stuff I wrote in the spur of the moment Its 5 am here in the moring, and I somehow thought noone would anwer anytime soon...yes, i didnt consider the time-difference.. I still think there are things that are not correct, but with prime Im almost 100% sure now, and I dont know of a way out of that other than what I described. I also have not seen any answer to how battler would be able to get beato out of the game-board and other questions...Im open-minded though, if there are more convincing answers, Ill gladly change my mind

[Jaden]

OK. I personally have a hard time accepting your theory. It's not because I necessarily demand a classical mystery, but wouldn't it be beyond Urobutcher levels of tragic? It's rather a comically terrible ending.

I already had a hard time accepting Yasu as a culprit because it doesn't seem like she really wants to kill everyone. And yet, her irresponsibility with the bomb ends up wiping everyone out regardless of what happens in the family's own conflict.

But to top that off, the latter half of the story is actually just Battler finding his inner peace while he rots away in a cell? And Ange seeks the truth only to justify her own suicide and to meet her family in the afterlife?

I very much like Umineko, and its open-endedness keeps me coming back to see how others are interpreting it. Also I've yet to read the manga, which I hear is pretty good. All that's keeping me undecided.

But the way I currently see it is there is some wiggle room for a better ending in which all 3 "main characters" actually survive in Prime, and even for alternate culprit theories. (and yes I've not read the manga, but I'm aware of the red text in it. That doesn't change my perspective.)

A minor point about Inbuilt's theory for anyone that's maybe read the original japanese script:
When Ikuko asks "is this your garden?" does she use 庭 (yard, garden) or 園 (man-made garden or other facility)?
If it's the latter, that would be unusual. In that case, I'd have to agree there is a hidden meaning behind her question. If it's the former, well, it could be, or it could not be...

[AuraTwilight]

Inbuilt, instead of responding to your entire thing in quotes, I'll just make bullet points.

1) A lot of what you wrote is...interesting, I guess, but it's not really 'solving Umineko' since it's just posturing about the (unfortunately irrelevant) metaphysics of Umineko.

2) Battler isn't a Creator, as the narrative defines it. Featherine far outranks him in power and Battler still needs Lambdadelta's sponsorship to influence things outside the catbox. He's a Territory Lord, which means he's effectively omnipotent in his territory of stories, but he can't exactly create entirely new catboxes or universes.

And he needs another to birth a world. The author needs a reader. Battler needs his Beatrice. All the prose about creating worlds between two people is symbolism about the fullness of love and that's the basis of his magical power.

3) Battler's ability to write stories isn't 'creating a world from nothing' because he's using pre-existing settings and characters and themes and hopes and dreams. He's using the same magic Beatrice did, which is to take parts of a story and spin them in every possible, imaginable way. Maria's magic is the ability to create an entirely original character, like Sakutarou.

4) You say Battler didn't plan the logic error, but nothing after the 'NO' actually explains your reasoning for this argument.

5) Er...you mean Ange died in 1998, right?

6) Er...Twilight comes after the Dawn. Like, the sun rises, and then it sets? Ryukishi has elaborated that the use of 'Twilight' refers to the dissolution of the gameboard and the lowering of the curtain.

7) Similarly, 'Dawn' according to Ryukishi's statements refers to Beato's rebirth.

8) ...I...really don't think you understand the metafictional nature of Umineko, with your heavy emphasis on magical explanations for why things are happening. You're taking the Meta-World much too literally.

9) I'm pretty sure nothing you're posturing about the Prime Rokkenjima is remotely accurate; that...sort of defeats the points of all the Forgeries if they reflect those sorts of truths, they're not supposed to.

10) You literally said Battler doesn't love Beatrice and you accused ME of warping the text? Lol.

[Bluemail]

Hello, it's been long since I last joined the discussion here, but now that we're talking about the meta world and fantasy in Umineko I'd like to give you my current interpretation of it.

Spoiler for A wall of text concerning Higurashi and Umineko:

I think the meta world does exist, but it's shape is ultimately determined by people living in the human world. If Yasuda Sayo never created a catbox out of Rokkenjima in any human world, there would be no Endless Witch Beatrice in the meta world. If Hachijou Touya never reached Beatrice's heart, there would be no Endless Sorcerer Battler. If Ronald Knox never invented the Ten Commandments, there would be no Dlanor A. Knox.

However, this does not mean the communication is one-way only. The meta world can also influence the human world. Prime examples of this are Bernkastel interacting with Ange, Hanyuu interacting with Rika in Higurashi, and Lambdadelta interacting with Sayo in the Memoirs of the ΛΔ extra TIP and Confession of the Golden Witch. Some kind of strong will or connection between the parties might be required, but it might just come down to the witch's interest in interacting with the human world.

A large part of the meta world is made of the sea of fragments. Those who can travel between fragments are called voyager witches, and those who create them are creators. Bernkastel, Lambdadelta and Hanyuu are voyagers. Featherine is the sole creator introduced to us in When They Cry, with Maria told to have the potential to become one. The ones granted the title of Endless, are almost like creators, but inferior to Featherine. Finally, those who witness all these events from a higher world are theatergoers, us.

Featherine is the creator of the fragments where Rokkenjima and Hinamizawa exist. She has the power to create and rewrite them as she wishes but usually prefers to leave her creations to do as they wish, hoping for stories to emerge that could ease her boredom, and records them. The meta world seen in Umineko, called the purgatory, is a realm of interpretation shown to us, written by Featherine. Featherine is in full control of the meta world, as seen in her fight with Lambdadelta, but it is not that Featherine actively writes everything that happens. The meta world was created just like a fragment except for the metaphysical instead of humans. Metaphysical beings are born, they live and die on their own, based on what happens in the sea of human fragments. Featherine follows what happens and writes down everything interesting enough, and decides its final form that we theatergoers see.


Once upon a time Featherine appeared to people as a god, a piece that became Hanyuu. She fought with Lambdadelta in a game of anti-mystery vs anti-fantasy, where Lambda represented the anti-mystery with the Hinamizawa Syndrome and Hanyuu represented anti-mystery with Oyashiro-sama's curse. This led to Lambda's piece creating a certain fate, that spread into all fragments, and forced Hanyuu into a logic error, where she tried to save Rika by letting her travel between fragments. After a hundred years, this ordeal had given birth to a new witch, Bernkastel. At some point before the events of Umineko, Featherine had died, waiting to be revived to witness something interesting again.

In a certain fragment, Yasuda Sayo created a catbox within which she could create fragments of her own. However, these are not exactly like the ones created by Featherine, but fragments that are interpretations of the original fragment, not "born from the sea of zero". With Lambdadelta's power, she could spread the destruction of Rokkenjima as a certain event into all her fragments, and created the Endless Witch Beatrice. Lambda wanted to use this new mystery setup to lure Bernkastel to her. After stumbling upon the curious mystery of the Rokkenjima witch serial murders, Bernkastel contacted Featherine with the letter seen in the Letter of Bernkastel extra TIP, hoping for her to revive.

In the case of the Hinamizawa disaster, there was no "prime" fragment the events of Higurashi centered around, as Rika and Hanyuu traveled freely from fragment to another in search for a happy one. However, a "prime" fragment appears to exist in Umineko. It is the miraculous fragment where Battler and Eva survived, or alternatively, the original fragment where Lambda met Sayo, where they happened to survive. To unravel the mystery, Featherine wrote herself and her miko into this fragment as an eccentric writer called Hachijou Ikuko and her cat Bern, and adopted Battler who had survived but lost his memory, who then gets the name Hachijou Touya.

Battler awakens in the meta world after Touya reads Legend of the Golden Witch, one of Sayo's message bottles. Unwilling to believe that a witch killed his family, Battler, and Touya in parallel, challenge Beatrice's riddles, and so she appears in front of Battler in the meta world. Meta Battler and Touya go through similar challenges as Touya and Ikuko write the forged message bottles Banquet, Alliance and End of the Golden Witch, combining Touya's memories and theories with Ikuko's own theory of the truth (or the one she found inside Confession of the Golden Witch). They release the forgeries on the internet using the pen name Itouikukuro Reigonamu. Finally Touya reaches the truth and Battler becomes the Endless Sorcerer. Touya now writes a private forgery dedicated to Beatrice, Dawn of the Golden Witch.


Ange's journey into the purgatory is prepared by Bernkastel as seen in the Witches' Tanabata Isn't Sweet extra TIP. In order to motivate the Battler in Touya so he could beat Beatrice and ever see Ange again, she must not accept Eva as her mother and live happily with her. At the time of Eva's death, she finds her diary and reads it. She doesn't accept the truth at first and while standing on the rooftop, almost ready to join her family, she starts thinking things through and with Bernkastel's help, creates the piece ANGE-Beatrice who travels into the meta world to inform Battler of her fate. She is torn to pieces as Touya hears the news that she had jumped to her death.

In the meta world Ange witnesses one of the fragments where she jumps and survives and travels to Rokkenjima as seen in Alliance. She is later invited by Featherine to an alternative fragment where she also meets Hachijo Ikuko and gets to read Dawn of the Golden Witch that was not released to the public. After that she remembers the horrible truth she witnessed in Eva's diary, and suffers a relapse in her thoughts, driving her back to the brink of suicide. To save her, meta Battler, influenced by Touya's wish that Ange's fate could be avoided, opens up one more game board, Twilight of the Golden Witch. After the final game's resolution, Featherine gives us Beatrice and Battler's death scene, a fantasy from October 6th. Ange decides not to jump and lives on as Kotobuki Yukari, while the news inform Touya of another outcome.

I wish to elaborate on this later, but just to get the discussion going, what do you think, everyone? Often the simplest solution is the most accurate.

[Leslie Chow]

I don't even want to go too far into the Rosatrice theories here, but I want to ask four questions:
If Rosatrice was a thing like it is portrayed now,
(1) Why is it Battler's fault that people die according to EP4 Beato?
(2) Why is it a game that Beatrice created for Battler's sake according to EP4, 5? (3) Why would Battler feel guilty for Rosa going crazy about loneliness and money?
(4) Why would it have changed anything if Battler had arrived one year

Okay this is interesting. As much as I would like to answer your questions I can't guarantee a satisfying answer at the moment. But I'll try to answer it nonetheless with what I have at the moment.

(1) Why is it Battler's fault that people die according to EP4 Beato?

Like in Higurashi Watanagashi/Meakashi-hen, Battler is like Keiichi, Shannon is like Mion, Rosa is like Shion and Maria's father is like Satoshi to an extent. Because Shannon told Rosa about Battler's promise, it somewhat reminded Rosa of the promise Maria's father made with her that he'll come back. Like Shion in Higurashi, this served as a trigger for Rosa to commit the murders to punish Battler in a sense.

(2) Why is it a game that Beatrice created for Battler's sake according to EP4, 5?

To punish Battler and have him be aware of his sin.

(3) Why would Battler feel guilty for Rosa going crazy about loneliness and money?

He felt guilty for the character Beatrice Rosa created, since Beatrice supposedly is a representation of Sayotrice theory shown in EP7 and CotGW which represent Rosa and to a certain extent Shannon, who is scapegoated by Rosa's fiction.

(4) Why would it have changed anything if Battler had arrived one year earlier or later?

In my theory, Rosa would have had created the forgeries, CotGW and the resolve to commit the murders between November 1985 and October 1986. If Battler had arrived one year earlier, Rosa at the time wouldn't have had solved the epitaph or made the plans. If Battler had arrived one year later, Rosa wouldn't have carried out the murders, since it was for Battler's sake and there wouldn't be enough sacrifices or that she would have eventually given up and probably Shannon would have been taken by George already as a wife. If this happens, Rosa wouldn't have a co-plotter and George and even Shannon might have even told everyone of her plans. Rosa is the kind of murderer that wants to be understood by Battler, who is like Maria's father (in the sense that he made a similar promise to Shannon).

Again this is not perfect. If I may ask a question, how come a lot of people hate this theory? Rosatrice is actually a pretty good theory. I know a lot of its believers didn't even think to come up to this theory but still. It is plausible, possible, and consistent with the red truths in the story.

Nanjo couldn't have written it. The number was written by Sayo. Nanjo was in the guesthouse with the others and couldn't have left it.
The whole discussion in chap 25 refers to Prime. You've to reject Eva's diary and it's truth if you want to push a Rosatrice theory on Prime. In it Beatrice and Rosa are clearly 2 different people.

Maybe Nanjo didn't but he might've done it as well. I have yet to re-read this part of EP3 concerning his alibi. I don't really have to reject Eva's diary though. Bernkastel did say that it's the truth of the sort. Plus there exists the possibility that what was shown could be in the culprit's distorted perspective. In the part of the VN when Ange opened and read Eva's diary, it was described as something along the lines of a light shown up or something. What may have been shown could have been the culprit's perspective, until she was killed by Rudolf and Kyrie. Also, in Chapter 25, regardless of theory, it is meta-perspective so of course they would be depicted as separate people. Even Shannon and Kanon were shown as separate.

Genji is not so helplessly in the hands of the Ushiromiya. He owns his loyalty to Kinzo, his best friend and saviour but he might decide he owns nothing to Rosa.

He did protect Rosa by not telling Kinzo that she brought Beatrice 2 out on the cliff right? As far as we know Kinzo is unaware that Rosa was partly responsible for Beatrice's death. Plus if we interpret Sayo's rant of "why did you save me" dramatics (which is fictional in Rosatrice), this could refer to Rosa not taking responsibility and just punishment from Kinzo for Beatrice's death due to Genji protecting Rosa from Kinzo.

I thought we ruled out Van Dine but anyway Beatrice wants people to guess her identity, she's not planning to confess it. Kanon is pushing the blame on Rosa in the same way in which in Ep 3 the blame was pushed on Eva.
In the official solution the accomplice in Ep 2 is Rosa, in Ep 3 is Eva.
Like Battler in Ep 5, they're used to hide the true culprit.
Kanon's declaration is just a red herring to push us toward the wrong culprit.

The Van Dine part was a mistake. Sorry about that. I forgot to delete it. Well, it might also not be a red herring though. Kanon looked pretty pissed when he was saying that Rosa killed him and Jessica and that he wanted Rosa to pay. He even told the servants not to tell Rosa. He only became under Beatrice's control when he started fingering his hole (no pun intended).

We're in 1967, Rosa is young and not exposed. Beatrice is uncomfortable with what's being done with her and doesn't really understand it well.

I didn't say Rosa was exposed with porn or sex at the time. I was trying to make a comparison with youths today being exposed to porn to that of Beatrice being exposed to sex when with Kinzo. Yes, Beatrice was uncomfortable with it, but it seemed like it was just when she lost her virginity. It might have eventually became the norm for her and she could have became a sex addict.

This is only possible if we accept that the Beatrice Shannon talked with was Rosa who, contrary to her self centered characterization, decided to take care of a poor servant against which she'll say horrible things in Ep 2 when she doesn't know how to take care of her own child and emphatized with her so much she took upon herself Shannon's feelings.

But didn't you also say that Rosa was on the kids' sides like Hideyoshi? And doesn't Shannon count as one of the kids as well, since she used to hang out with George, Jessica and Battler, kids around her age? So wouldn't it also be possible for Rosa to have talked with Shannon? Yes she doesn't know how to take care of a kid, but she didn't need to raise and take care of Shannon, just talk with her.

That's why I think that before discussing tricks and magic scenes interpretation Rosatrice needs a better basis to work. As long as the premise that pushed Rosa to do all this doesn't seem believable to me, not only the solutions to tricks that require this premise feel weak and unbelievable but the same applies to the magic scenes that require a certain interpretation.

When the Rosatrice's premise will be worked in such way I'll manage to say 'well, yes, I can totally see Rosa doing that' I'll probably manage to be more open to interpretations that go against canon. As it stands it just seems unbelievable.

Sorry about it.

So basically evidence and hints that pins Rosa as the culprit is needed then? Well I don't know if this is enough but at the top of my head here are four:

- Game 2: Rosa calling the servants furniture, a term that was created by Yasu and these words were heard by Battler himself.

- Game 2: In the meta-world, Beatrice seems to know of Rosa's bad experiences very well and what Rosa wanted to do to her siblings. Like, Beatrice said that Rosa wanted to bite off Eva's tongue. This seems like something someone wouldn't say out loud and would keep to themselves. Wouldn't this make Rosa a potential killer, wanting to kill or step over those that wronged her (e.g. EP7 when she didn't back Eva up)?

- Game 4: Earth to earth. Illusions to illusions. When fiction is shut up inside a cat box, it becomes truth.

It is shown that the shutter was locked by George under Battler's surveillance and that he gave the key to Gohda via window. Taking Willard's solution into account, doesn't this translate George switching the labels of the keys or the wrong key? Doesn't this make George suspicious? Also, why would George not lock the shutter for Gohda and Kumasawa? If anything it should serve as a shelter for protection for the two of them, if the cousins believed that people were being killed.

- Game 6: Maria said that Rosa killed everyone (typed as "the others" by Witch Hunt). In Japanese, she said "everyone". Doesn't this point at Rosa having potentially killed everyone? We know that she only killed Sakutaro and Chiester 556, so that shouldn't translate as being "everyone". Plus Sakutaro was with her, so she should have at least referred to Chiester 556.

Hopefully I didn't stumble on the same problems again. If we happen to stumble on the same problems again, then I apologize. But feel free to correct me again, as I might have misunderstood what you must've said and so far you've been constructive.

I wish to elaborate on this later, but just to get the discussion going, what do you think, everyone? Often the simplest solution is the most accurate.

That is a good interpretation right there. Your interpretation is the same one that I had in mind, but your is actually much more detailed and constructive. But concerning your interpretation, I have a few things to ask:

- What's your take about the part that Higurashi is a novel in the VN, Lambdadelta and Bernkastel as TV characters in the manga and Higurashi as a TV show in the anime?

- Skylark 13 and Okonogi in 1998?

- The Ange in the meta-world that said in red that she came from a world where nobody came home?

- The part when Ange was about to choose the trick ending and the magic ending, in the narration that narrated a bit on Ange's thoughts, there were the purple text of the words "left" and "right". Doesn't this suggest that Bernkastel is the true game master and that the Bernkastel and Battler that fought were pieces on a meta-level? What do you think?

- Also, have you read Higurashi Hou? There was also a phenomenon that seemed to resemble the meta-world when Hanyuu talked with Tamura-hime-mikoto. And it was also established that they were actually aliens, including Une. What's your take on this? Are they witches too?

Looking forward for you to elaborate on this interpretation.

[Bluemail]

Originally Posted by Leslie Chow

In my theory, Rosa would have had created the forgeries, CotGW and the resolve to commit the murders between November 1985 and October 1986.

I'm nitpicking, but Legend, Turn and Confession aren't exactly "forgeries", as they are in fact written by "Ushiromiya Maria", the person behind Beatrice. Forgeries are fake message bottles by other people that are presented as written by "Ushiromiya Maria".

As an actual comment, why couldn't Rosa write the message bottles earlier? Sayo began writing the message bottles soon after hearing that Battler is going to return, surely if he would return a year earlier, the same could happen. But there not being all the resolve for the crime yet at that point is a valid answer.

Originally Posted by Leslie Chow

Again this is not perfect. If I may ask a question, how come a lot of people hate this theory? Rosatrice is actually a pretty good theory. I know a lot of its believers didn't even think to come up to this theory but still. It is plausible, possible, and consistent with the red truths in the story.

I think a lot of people hate the theory because its supporters often come off as elitists, who know "the real truth" most people are too stupid to notice, and many people jump on the bandwagon without thinking deeper about it themselves. It would be fine to present it as an alternative theory, but Ryukishi has already made it pretty clear what the real answer is. In my opinion Rosatrice is, while perhaps possible with certain logic, still inferior to Sayotrice in its ability to create a coherent answer to everything. Keep theorising about Rosatrice as an alternative solution, by all means, as it can evolve. But it can never replace Sayotrice as the driving force behind Umineko's mysteries.

I wrote a couple of blog posts countering KnownNoMore's Rosatrice videos some time ago, if you'd like to take a look:
http://heartofthegoldenwitch.tumblr....satrice-part-i
http://heartofthegoldenwitch.tumblr....atrice-part-ii

Originally Posted by Leslie Chow

- Game 2: Rosa calling the servants furniture, a term that was created by Yasu and these words were heard by Battler himself.

It is entirely possible the Beatrice that bribed Rosa used the term before, in a letter, for example. Rosa just took on the word herself, or was instructed to use it. EP8 manga also says that "a servant has to be like furniture" is a rule of Genji's, so Yasuda might not have invented that term in connection to the servants after all. Rosa might have learned the term from him ages ago.

Originally Posted by Leslie Chow

- Game 2: In the meta-world, Beatrice seems to know of Rosa's bad experiences very well and what Rosa wanted to do to her siblings. Like, Beatrice said that Rosa wanted to bite off Eva's tongue. This seems like something someone wouldn't say out loud and would keep to themselves. Wouldn't this make Rosa a potential killer, wanting to kill or step over those that wronged her (e.g. EP7 when she didn't back Eva up)?

My theory is that the EP2 Tea Party is a meta representation of the letter Rosa received from Beatrice that invited her to be an accomplice to a murder game, what Rosa thought about it when she first read it and after she realised Beatrice was really going to kill everyone. She imagined her revenge, but when confronted with a real situation, she couldn't stomach it.

Also, Sayo too knows that the siblings didn't get along that well, and played with that to motivate Rosa. She might not know the exact words Rosa had in her head, unless she actually said it to Eva or someone else at some point, but maybe that isn't so important?

Originally Posted by Leslie Chow

- Game 4: Earth to earth. Illusions to illusions. When fiction is shut up inside a cat box, it becomes truth.

It is shown that the shutter was locked by George under Battler's surveillance and that he gave the key to Gohda via window. Taking Willard's solution into account, doesn't this translate George switching the labels of the keys or the wrong key? Doesn't this make George suspicious? Also, why would George not lock the shutter for Gohda and Kumasawa? If anything it should serve as a shelter for protection for the two of them, if the cousins believed that people were being killed.

George doesn't need to be the one to switch the labels on the keys, as long as Kumasawa and Gohda are in on it. They still think it's all a game, having lied about demons and witches to the cousins before. Also, none of the keys in the servant's room actually have labels, as seen in EP1. Gohda and Kumasawa would immediately realise there is something fishy about the key, but the cousins should not. I'm a bit proud about figuring out the solution to this closed room a long time ago, hehe.

Originally Posted by Leslie Chow

- Game 6: Maria said that Rosa killed everyone (typed as "the others" by Witch Hunt). In Japanese, she said "everyone". Doesn't this point at Rosa having potentially killed everyone? We know that she only killed Sakutaro and Chiester 556, so that shouldn't translate as being "everyone". Plus Sakutaro was with her, so she should have at least referred to Chiester 556.

I think this is up to interpretation, and could refer to just 556 and Sakutarou. Couldn't there also have been more toys Rosa broke?

Originally Posted by Leslie Chow

That is a good interpretation right there. Your interpretation is the same one that I had in mind, but your is actually much more detailed and constructive.

Thank you!

Originally Posted by Leslie Chow

- What's your take about the part that Higurashi is a novel in the VN, Lambdadelta and Bernkastel as TV characters in the manga and Higurashi as a TV show in the anime?

The Higurashi novel might have some relation to the one Ooishi and Akasaka wrote at the end of Himatsubushi-hen. Battler refers to Keiichi's mom as the mother of the main character, though, and I'm not sure that Ooishi and Akasaka would write that book from Keiichi's perspective. It is possible that Higurashi is a novel Ikuko released earlier, which I doubt, as she said that she hadn't shown her manuscripts to anyone before Touya. My guess would be that there is someone else in that fragment that had access to the meta world somehow, as a piece of a witch involved with Higurashi. Or it is a book based to a degree on real events in Umineko's world, perhaps written by someone from Higurashi. We don't know if it involves the plot of multiple timelines.

About the TV shows, well, Higurashi could have been adapted from the novel and... Bern and Lambda once happened to contact someone who thought they'd make great cartoon characters? Featherine is messing around? Don't think about it too much, you'll just get a headache. By the way, while everyone refers to the show in the anime as Higurashi, all clips are actually from the Urahigu skits that came with the Kai DVDs.

Originally Posted by Leslie Chow

- Skylark 13 and Okonogi in 1998?

I do think that Amakusa Juuza is Skylark 13 and Okonogi is Okonogi. As in, they are the same people that appear in Higurashi, but in another fragment, where the Hinamizawa disaster might not have happened.

Originally Posted by Leslie Chow

- The Ange in the meta-world that said in red that she came from a world where nobody came home?

In the world where Battler and Eva survived, no one did come home to her. That means Rudolf, Kyrie or Battler. Gretel is the Ange from 1998 who thought that only Eva survived, and had yet to meet Touya. And even then Battler would never actually come home, but that isn't important.

Originally Posted by Leslie Chow

- The part when Ange was about to choose the trick ending and the magic ending, in the narration that narrated a bit on Ange's thoughts, there were the purple text of the words "left" and "right". Doesn't this suggest that Bernkastel is the true game master and that the Bernkastel and Battler that fought were pieces on a meta-level? What do you think?

I think that Beatrice just borrowed Bernkastel's idea, to highlight the question of if Beatrice can be trusted. Even if you trust everything she says, the sleight of hand is all logical. But if she lies as the culprit, she can also make it an impossible magic trick. I'm not actually sure about all of this riddle's implications, so I'd like to hear your interpretations.

Originally Posted by Leslie Chow

- Also, have you read Higurashi Hou? There was also a phenomenon that seemed to resemble the meta-world when Hanyuu talked with Tamura-hime-mikoto. And it was also established that they were actually aliens, including Une. What's your take on this? Are they witches too?

I have indeed read Hou. While I'd like a clarification from Ryukishi how canon Outbreak and Kamikanshi-hen actually are, they have elements that fit. I think Hanyuu, Tamurahime no Mikoto and Une are metaphysical beings similar to those in Umineko that are born of the idea of the different tribes of brain parasites. The parasites are their vessels, the anti-fantasy version of them. The brain parasites cannot travel between fragments, but at least Hanyuu has powers similar to voyager witches in that she can observe different fragments. I don't remember if Tamura and Une did that. Them being aliens probably refers to the brain parasites originating from outer space, but could also refer to an ability to traverse the sea of fragments searching for a fitting one to live in.

[Inbuiltx9]

Umineko-solution…part 2… showing that Im right... XD

I still have to read the answers (if I got one…-will do so!), but these days Im busy with RL and I also had to verify my theory.

And I found plenty of more hints, actually the whole of Umineko seems to be one giant puzzle now. Absolutely EVERYTHING hints at prime and at the meaning of the magical ending of Umineko.


Big hints in ep 4 to the ending of Umineko

Just look at episode 4. When Rosa destroys Sakutarou.
it opens a hole in Marias chest and she is becoming a black witch. She “hates, hates, absolutely hates everyone” and wants Rosa “to share the same fate.” Now if that isn’t a reference to Beatos/Sayos last feelings before she died…That’s basically repeating how Sayo felt when she became a black witch before the rokkenjima-accident. But... that is not REALLY true- cause sayo/beato never was a true witch (Ange says so at the end of ep 4 and lambda too: “if it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t even believe you were a witch yourself”)





Beato is no real witch+the meaning of TRUE Magic

So why is Beato no real witch? Because she needs someone to acknowledge her.
True magic is the possibility to create happiness in your world and change the world however you like. It doesn’t need ANYONE to acknowledge this magic, all this magic needs is for you yourself to believe in it. to understand that we were shown maria's past and that’s also hidden (or sometimes even clearly stated) in the talk between Ange and Mammon in ep 4.

Ange: "If you won't be satisfied enough until someone acknowledges you, that's the same as not acknowledging yourself..."

We all know that Beato always needs someone to acknowledge her – its Maria in her Mariage Sorciere, its Lambda at the start of the meta-world, where Beato didn’t know what happened and Lambda was needed for Beato to believe she was really a witch. Beato doesn’t acknowledge herself, therefore she is not a real witch (Ange ep 4 to beato: “its because you’re not a real witch”). Maria could have become a TRUE witch, she created happiness where there was none, and had friends and everything was fine, even though other people called her pitiful. But Maria didn’t care and her magic was the real thing, that’s why she could have become a witch of origins and make 1 from 0. But still, Maria was not wise enough yet, she was still depending somewhat on what other people said and believed, because she was too young (Im quoting ep 4 here) and so Ange really hurt her with her words. Maria ALMOST made it, but she too lost against the "red truth"...
Now let me say what ryukishi basically does here: he shows us what magic truely WOULD mean, what it WOULD BE capable of, but he uses the WHAT IF-story, because Maria didnt really succeed. We dont get to see "real magic" until the very end of episode 8...(ep 6 that was intended for that was interrupted, or: "abandoned")
While Maria in Mariage Sorciere was able to make 1 from 0, Beato could only make more from an already existing 1. And that’s why at the end of ep 4, the golden land falls apart once Maria leaves. There is no one who acknowledges Beato now as a witch, and since she has not reached the status of a “sapiens” (sorry let me borrow this word from the Stoa, cause it fits PERFECTLY), she alone cant sustain the world.

At the end though, Beato wants to share her world with battler, and not with maria. But battler doesn’t acknowledge her. And thats why he really is somehow torturing beato... Also, in prime the same happened before sayo died. He was “too late” in understanding it. battler being "Too late" is also a big reference to prime btw. its not just referring to the meta-world. Like, when Im checking my theory now, basically EVERYTHING is referring to prime...




I believe in magic now

Ep 4-Mammon: "We think, therefore we are. Whether you acknowledge or deny magic, the existence of the magic called the Seven Stakes of Purgatory...is therefore a fact."

And with this, you actually can believe in magic. My understanding was always: believe in magic and you can see it, but ultimately, that’s just a delusion, because the red says otherwise (“magic doesn’t exist”). But the concept of Umineko is not that. Its that magic really DOES exist as long as you believe in it. The truth of the world is different, but your own truth is forming the world. I don’t know if I explained it well – but the concept of Umineko itself is that the magic TRULY exists if you allow it to exist in your world. So its really not something cheap like “believe and you share the same delusions”.

We see what (white=true) magic really looks like for the first time at the end of ep 8, so I guess thats what ryukishi meant when he said he'd make everyone believe in magic with his last episode. Since magic is "autarchic" or "self-acknowledging",theres really no need to explain how this ending is possible even though Battler is dead. Its sufficient to say: magic exists.





They are ALL DEAD! after what happens in prime

Ep 4:
Mammon:"Do humans live so that they can be satisfied at the moment of their death?"
Ange:"Woudlnt it be pretty tough if you were unsatisfied about something at the moment of your death?"
Mammon: "If so, then humans live only so that they can meet a satisfied death."

That is Beato! Sayo died without being satisfied, and so did everyone else! “I wonder if Marias soul is still wandering about with a hole in her chest” (Ange ep 4). Yes she is! And when Maria gets Sakutarou back, she can finally rest peacefully (“leaves the golden land”). And sayo is full of grief too. Sayo DIED before being satisfied, she did NOT happily leave the island with battler. Battler was TOO LATE before she died. Like he is too late in the games as well. Everyone that dies goes to purgatory (like kasumi, mammon: “if you have the tiniest bit of virtue, well see each other in purgatory”).

Beatos death after the 5th game refers to her death in prime. And Battlers locked room in ep 6 refers to his locked room in prime, the beginning of the "world" in ep 3 refers to the beginning of the "world" in/after prime, the tests in ep 4 refer to the tests in prime, oh and beato changing her decision in ep 4 probably refers to a decision-changing in prime, etc. pp. its ALL conncected to prime. but we've been saying : "no, we cant know what happened in prime yet" -_- Thats pretty dumb...




The capsule-machine-scene in ep 4 is meaningful! and hinting at the ending of Umineko (who would have thought?!)

Even though they are all dead, Battler STILL manages to save beato. And I already explained how. Battler can actually grasp happiness quite easily. That’s what the capsule machine-scene is for. Ange ep 4: “Even though the content of the capsule was cheap, I wanted to grasp this tiny bit of happiness myself, but I couldn’t, so Battler Onii-chan helped me. After just 2-3 trials he easily grasped the capsule and gave it too me. At that time he really seemed to be so reliable”.
What Ange cant do – find happiness on her own, Battler can. And he says in ep 6 he understood “true magic”. Now, Im almost 100% sure he really created the happy ending/magic ending of umineko himself. Cause he can use true magic and thus create an ending sayo wished for. After a few trials (the first episodes) he can achieve happiness on his own easily. Magic is difficult, but after a few trials, he has no problems in using the most difficult magic there is. And he doesn’t need anyone to acknowledge the world he created, because that’s...well, thats what true magic is about.
Oh! and this! Bern ep 6: "then I will just leave, but, battler, you need an observer for your game." (beato always needed someone to "observe" her games.) Battler: "No, we dont need anyone to acknowledge our game but Erika and me ourselves". Makes sense NOW. Battler really understood magic there...



No he did NOT create the logic error on purpose

TRUE MAGIC is NOT something banal and lame like “Im able to trick everyone with my play-acting”. When he says “I completely understood magic” in ep 6, he means THIS, he refers to the magic-ending he creates. To the fact that he can achieve happiness for them.




Battlers role in the story and his character + black vs white magic

I always had the impression that, even though they always said it was battlers fault that everyone died in the first place, and even though they talked about “battlers sin”, that that was kinda harsh. After all, he had a habbit of talking without thinking (still has it with 18), he was only 12 years old, and his mother died shortly afterwards. He didn’t even neglect his promise on purpose, he just forgot…I know they say that is EXACTLY what his sin is, but I never really saw it as a true “sin” the way I understand the word. He might have caused it, but he never did anything on purpose. And that’s also why I always see him as the true "good guy" in the story. Beato is a black witch, I think we should think of him as a white “witch” - and in ep 4, Ange explained this concept: You should just take on the hatred another person feels and let it vanish with your white magic. Black magic does the opposite- it`s putting everything on someone else to get rid of one's own bad feelings. lambda ep 6: "We have to throw them into hell so we are sure we are still on this side." Also just think about erikas reactions in ep 6 "ah I understand. its nice to be finally on this side."

And I think Beato put a LOT of her hatred on battler (yes, she somehow hated him too (manga ep 7)) but he is “like a phoenix” and is always standing up. Honestly, I sometimes wondered if everything was alright with him XD, since he was never taking revenge and he "forgot too fast" (bern ep 8). I also found it strange how he was getting along pretty well with beato in ep 3, considering what happened in ep2. And how he would hear Beato out at the end of ep 4 and promise her to help her even though Beato had thrown him into the sea of oblivion and just let Ange die only moments before. And at the end , in the manga of ep 8, he says he forgives Beato, because more hatred would lead to nothing. And he even wanted to be friends with Bern, who was a giant a*** in ep 6. Battler was always honest. he was always presented as "innocent" (Ronove) and "pure for his age (Beato ep 4). the only “flaw” is his naivety – which also leads to him misjudging a situation over and over again. Like with ep 2 – he misjudged the servants “no one is guilty, kumasawa would never do something like that, nor would gouda nor…” –but they were ALL involved in it ;he constantly misjudged his family – especially striking in ep 4 when they all lied to him; in ep 6- he misjudged Erika; in ep 8, he misjudged Bern; in ep 3- he misjudged Beato and Virgilia and when he was 12, he misjudges the feelings of Sayo and didn’t realize what life she led and what that promise meant to her. Even Ange wanted to tell him in ep 4 he shouldn trust her because he wouldn’t know if she was on his side, but he still wants to shake hands just after hearing he shouldnt trust her. Though he immediately realized that he was "wrong" in doing so when Ange doesnt want to…
I think that’s pretty much what Virgilia refers to when she says in ep 5 that “there is a weakness Battler has”. That’s like a golden threat (no pun intended) in the story. Every mistake he makes stems from that, and so its also the reason why he never gets what he wants. his way of trusting everyone and forgiving everything is surely the harder one and he only gets is rewarded for his efforts in the last scene of the story, but his "naivety" is also the reason he can achieve true happiness. I think thats one of the main messages of umineko. In the end, he never ever is causing anyone harm on purpose. So his "stupid" behavior is not surprising anymore. If we really think along the lines “black magic vs. white magic” that really makes sense.

No he did not create the logic error on purpose XDDD Cant repeat it often enough XD

That’s why its so weird to say “battler understood true magic, he can make a fool out of everyone now by tricking people like beato did”. That’s like COMPLETELY going AGAINST EVERY CONCEPT that was ever established. like the one point that enables battler to save beato is now completely gone and he starts to trick and betray his opponents. It makes more sense to say: He understood true magic, and that is creating a world, where Beato can finally rest in peace, where he fulfilled his promise to her to take her away from the island, and where he makes it back to Ange. He NEVER EVER wants to trick anyone the way beato did in ep 3. But he is so naive that Erika -who is the complete opposite to him and doesnt trust anyone - could fool him completely (because that is the weakness of his character!). the reason ep 6 didn’t work out as planned is the same reason why nothing ever works out the way he wants it– because he is faaaaar too naïve and wants to believe in the good side of his opponent... he always trusted the "wrong" people (that basically refers to everyone XD), so its really no wonder his plans were screwed up in ep 6 too.
the way I see it, thats another message of umineko: the way of trusting others and of forgiveness is very very hard, much harder than just to become a "black witch", but you'll be rewarded IN THE END -> With the magic ending AGAIN, not everything went exactly as planned but in the VERY! end, he made it. That is true magic, that is what he means by saying he is able to take beato out from the game-board. and this character trait of believing in the good side of someone is the reason he is able to let everyone find peace in his last game. saying : "oh, he manipulates everyone now, just like beato, isnt it wonderful!" (sarcasm) is completely destroying everything about his character and about the message of umineko.


Other

More proof that magic ending = battler-wrote-a-story-ending

I already said before that the magic ending in ep 8 is battlers story and how even the lyrics of Shikata Akiko (last song that plays when beato and battler drown in the sea) refer to that:
“Riposa in pace nel racconto, que ho scritto … ecco il mio ultimo incantesimo" (I dont know how to write Italian, I can only understand it)
Translation: “Rest in peace in the story that I have written. See here, this is my last magic”.

So, Im pretty sure with what Ive written until now, just because it all starts to make sense now…still have to read the answers (?) though.





with this, maybe Prime will never be revealed...

What I fear now!!! Is that Ryukishi might NEVER show what happened in prime. Because that way two stories exist at the same time -the one where touya/ikuko write a book and the one Im convinced of, where they are all in purgatory and battler manages to create a new world. And because ryukishi said in "our confession" that he reveals everything about beatos stories but that he wants the reader to understand the "third story" on his own... Im really afraid he will not show it. But even without it, IMO the Touya/Ikuko ending doesn’t make any sense at all and doesn’t explain anything, but I could think that Ryukishi wrote it this way for people who absolutely don’t want a metaphysical explanation to have an answer in Touya/Ikuko. Like I said – I don’t believe that this is what the story truly is about just because:
-you cant explain what true magic is
-you cant explain what battler means when he says “I completely understand magic now and I believe I can take you out of here”
-you cant explain what happened in prime
-you cant explain why Ange in the real world sees the same delusions that are only contained in a book that Touya/Ikuko write
-you have to explain a whole lot with “lie” “lie” “lie”
-your characterizations and concepts don’t make any sense (for example you have to say: "battler now FINALLY has learned how to trick everyone."... now if that wasn’t really a meaningful ending to his "journey" in his search for the blue bird…(sarcasm))
-your story has no message and follows no progression (mine is: battler from not-understanding-magic-at-all to create-a-whole-world & battler-coulnt-save-sayo-while-alive to battler-saves-beato-with-magic)

-but still, there are obviously enough people Ryukishi managed to "convince", even though it doesn’t make sense. AT ALL! I still hope for ryukishi to reveal prime though. the people who dont believe in magic can just say: then nothing ever happened, they all died in prime and noone made it out alive. The end. XD
I prefer: Its the story of some people who died without having their life fulfilled but they were saved with magic.

Last question I wanted to readress: "But Umineko is supposed to be mystery!"
The core of the story will always be a mystery. Because Battler has to find out who, how and why to even get out. Nothing is hindering the story though from amplifying itself in order to contain other, really great messages that cant be transported that well in a raw mystery, like the whole issue about the truth and the question about forgiveness and redemption. So there is really no problem to say: umineko is a mystery. but Umineko is also a fantasy.
And Im sorry to say, if I have to judge the genre of umineko (Ill be so bold here since I just finished my studies in literature) and decide for a shelf the librarian should put the book on, it would be fantasy no doubt. just because of the fantasy elements. they always (not just in umineko) overrule the mystery-elements so to speak. It doesnt matter at all if the fantasy elements are real or not in the story. Alice in Wonderland is not "drama" either, just because it was all a dream. Neither is the Wizard of Oz. So judging from this perspective, its always fantasy. That doesnt change the fact though that this fantasy in Umineko includes a mystery and thats what the core of the story is made of. Everything I mentioned now is only possible to understand if you solved beatos game-boards, and they are nothing more than pure mystery.

[AuraTwilight]

Like I said – I don’t believe that this is what the story truely is about just because:
-you cant explain what true magic is
-you cant explain what battler means when he says “I completely understand magic now and I believe I can take you out of here”
-you cant explain what happened in prime
-you cant explain why Ange in the real world sees the same delusions that are only contained in a book that Touya/Ikuko write
-you have to explain a whole lot with “lie” “lie” “lie”
-your characterizations and concepts don’t make any sense (for example you have to say: "battler now FINALLY has learned how to trick anyone"... if that wasn’t really a meaningful end to his story…)
-your story has no message and follows no progression (mine is battler from not-understanding-magic-at-all to create-a-whole-world, battler-saves-beato-with-magic)

Except none of this is true and you very easily can. If you're going to say Ryukishi managed to "convince" these people, it means that this is the logical intention made to take away from the novel.

People insisting Ryukishi is deliberately tricking the reader and they found the TRUE TRUTH HE SECRETLY MEANT are uh...kind of engaging in Death of the Author.

Which is antithetical to the themes of Umineko as established in episode 5 most obviously.

[Inbuiltx9]

Originally Posted by Higurashi-Z

I don't have time now to read everything here about the discussion if battler planned the logic error or not but would like to remember that he hintet at that on ep 8 when playing poker with the cousins :

And another thing that I would like to say is that is that as far as i remember the scene about the logic error is the only when they about their next move as playing a card game with lambda looking what cards battler had on his hand. In all the other scenes they an anology about playing chess and not poker

Yes, he wins in the end! In the very very end!!! This quotations doesnt refer to only game 6, it refers to the whole of umineko. he loses every game, but in the very end he wins. thats the main point of the story, like I already pointed out. thats why this is said in ep 8, and not earlier. if you havent read the discussion, please do. Cause I think that it is showing it pretty clearly.

And yes, it was the only scene. But 1.) this is lambdas analogy. Its always! been like poker somehow from beatos perspective. And 2.) its because battler is the game-master now. we somehow see the story from his pov, which is "create a lie". Beato too was always thinking: what move could they make next? And acting and preparing accordingly. and 3.) most importantly its because of the strange rule where they blatantly lie just for the other to uncover that lie. here battler also notices that they act like politicians.
I dont see these two points as hints as suppporting any side of the discussion.

[Inbuiltx9]

Originally Posted by haguruma

But Battler is doing the very same mistakes that Beato did again, both in EP6 and much more strongly in EP8. He IS to a certain degree accepting the role as a black sorcerer, just as much as Beato took on the role of the black witch, and he is running away with it, forgetting Ange's actual feelings.

Thats a good point! But I dont think he ever forgot Anges feelings. Actually, I think it even would have workes out if Bern didnt intervene. Because she was never meant to be a "player" like Bern told her. But Im not saying you're becoming flawless once you understood magic. I also doubt that he planned on Beato drowning herself. It just shows that you can never control and know what people think. Understanding the other is quite difficult.
And I also find it hard to say he took on the role of a black sorcerer just because he makes mistakes. He made a mistake in ep 6 too. Like I already said, he is naive, and thinks everybody will just get along. That is not "black magic" like beatos magic - black magic is defined as putting all the negative emotions on someone else and is not true magic, "but just a sin". Beato IS putting all her negative emotions on someone else-on the ushiromiya family before she died and also on battler (see at ep 8 -bern: "did you already forget what you went through?" Battler: There were times when I thought that too, but it was actually me torturing her all the time. And more hatred would lead to nothing".
Battler never ever did what beato did (I just wrote a post), and true magic, the "white magic" is doing away with all the hatred. So for him to make mistakes because of his naivety and misjudging the situations so often, is really not the same as becoming a "black sorcerer".

EP8 basically spells it out what magic in Umineko is: It is learning to accept the truth, and then find a way to construct your life around it. What Battler is doing in EP6 is exactly the same thing that Beato was doing, except that he is shifting blame away from everybody close to him.
Looking at Dawn now, it has one very distinct feature that none of the other Episodes feature: Until Erika willingly steps up to become the murderer, there is no culprit, it is just a game. And when Erika becomes the culprit they weave the illusion of the witch around the victims, not the culprit. It is the ultimate present that Battler could think of.

Isnt that just what battler is doing if you think of battler planning for erika to be the culprit? thats One of the major reasons I think he DIDNT plan it that way. He would really be a black sorcerer if he just shiftet the blame onto erika. But he said he "understood true magic" and that is NOT true magic. That is BLACK magic. You say is a black sorcerer because he planned the ep 6 to happen this way. I say he didnt plan it this way because he is a white sorcerer.
And I also say: because he didnt plan it, the game was "abandoned". The game was called this way, it was never called "finished". But thats what it would be, if everything went according to plan, wouldnt it? We also dont know what battlers plans were, who was supposed to be the culprit (Battler himself?), if there was supposed to be a culprit at all.. We dont know.
The ultimate present Battler could think of is of course this: fulfilling Beatos wish. And what is Beatos wish? She clearly stated it, we dont have to guess: its for Battler to take beato away from the island. Battler ep 6:"Im able to get you out of the "game-board" (read:island, because the game-board only includes the island, look at the opening to have it illustrated ) , I believe that is your wish". Isnt it quite obvious what Battlers plans were for ep 6?
And not only ep 8 is saying what magic is - I think ep 4 is much much more interesting and revealing concerning magic.

Actually, I think EP6 perfectly fulfilled the promise he gave to Beato and that is why he decided to give it only to Beato (which rings a little of, not releasing it).

If you think he fulfilled the promise thats good. Im glad we agree on the point that battler wanted to fulfill his promise in ep 6. But I think the promise was: I come back for you and Im going to take you away" and later on sayo always thinks while she waits "hurry, take me away from here already!". She suffers on this island, she is enclosed there (bird cage metaphor). I think the most important part of his promise is still missing in the end. Sayos wish was never for anyone else to be the culprit, no actually thats the least thing she would want. End of Ep 5: "Im the culprit! believe me! Im the culprit! Why wont you anyone believe me? Im never letting a human be the culprit!" So dont you think the wish battler wants to fulfill is the wish we know about, and not a wish we have to make up? We know about the wish that she wants battler to take her away from the island. And thats what happens and the end of ep 8.

I have to agree with what AT is saying here, you are searching for a problem where there technically is none. I don't even know if I'd call it a paradox.
Yes, the blood splatter here makes it quite likely this was meant to be Red Truth: There will be no people who were able to survive, when the seagulls cry. But, while it was always meant to imply the passing of the storm, this scene calls into question when this point in time "when the seagulls cry" is supposed to be. It is basically the same as her Red Truth that she "will not allow this story to have a happy ending" which, while true, is not necessarily true for everyone (Ange).


Maybe the differentiation that we are doing between personality and persona is a little bit to confusing while reading, so maybe instead of persona we should talk of identity.
For me, Sayo doesn't have a crisis of personalities, but of identities. This stems from both her actual identities - Yasuda Sayo and Ushiromiya Lion - being powerless (Sayo) or legaly non-existent (Lion), which forces her to use her work identity Shannon for all her problems. Yet, once she learns that her identity as Shannon might not suffice to fully express her full potential, she constructs other identities to express them. Out of fear of rejection she refuses to grow as one person and instead adds new identities, like tumors, to herself.


I would argue that, even Erika not falling for any of the traps would have been fine. In that case the game would have ended as just that, a game, and the explosion would have been disguised as the witch.
I would say, like I explained above, that Battler's only goal with this story was, to lift the blame from everybody, yet he wasn't above accepting Erika's readiness to become the villain of the play.


EP8 manga loudly cheering in the background


I would highly agree.
EP8 largely suggests that Battler/Tohya had never intended to contact Ange and that he had hoped that his stories would do the trick for him. It clearly shows that he hadn't expected the level of frustration and anger that had built in Ange over the years. He is actually revealed to be quite a dick in this one (and his redemption only kind of works, even in the highly editet manga version).


Actually, the TIP Gamemaster Battler gives a little insight into the process that Ryukishi implied to be happening in the meta-world. The Gamemaster is a god of sorts, yet he can't lie back but has to prepare every eventuality, every character background, every motivation in advance, or else the game breaks down.
We only have to make the logical jump and think of the gamemaster being an author again. If you don't prepare your plot accordingly it's forced to run into complications and plot-holes, which then can be abused by readers and critics to interpret your story differently than you wanted them to.


Yeah, I think the guy is just a little bit clumsy at expressing himself. But there's this stereotype that people who write the longest novels are the ones who are worst at directly expressing their thoughts...so that would fit.
I also wouldn't read too much into some of the throwaway lines in his interviews, at least not beyond the direct confirmations he gave for his plot ideas. I still think for example, that with this line he wanted to say that men and women act like that in life a lot of times, because they are taught to act like it, but it also drives them unhappy because they forget other important aspects.
But maybe that's just me expecting more from an author who actually wrote some quite inspiring characters.[/QUOTE]

[Inbuiltx9]

Originally Posted by haguruma

But Battler is doing the very same mistakes that Beato did again, both in EP6 and much more strongly in EP8. He IS to a certain degree accepting the role as a black sorcerer, just as much as Beato took on the role of the black witch, and he is running away with it, forgetting Ange's actual feelings.

Thats a good point! But I dont think he ever forgot Anges feelings. Actually, I think it even would have workes out if Bern didnt intervene. Because she was never meant to be a "player" like Bern told her. But Im not saying you're becoming flawless once you understood magic. I also doubt that he planned on Beato drowning herself. It just shows that you can never control and know what people think. Understanding the other is quite difficult.
And I also find it hard to say he took on the role of a black sorcerer just because he makes mistakes. He made a mistake in ep 6 too. Like I already said, he is naive, and thinks everybody will just get along. That is not "black magic" like beatos magic - black magic is defined as putting all the negative emotions on someone else and is not true magic, "but just a sin". Beato IS putting all her negative emotions on someone else-on the ushiromiya family before she died and also on battler (see at ep 8 -bern: "did you already forget what you went through?" Battler: There were times when I thought that too, but it was actually me torturing her all the time. And more hatred would lead to nothing".
Battler never ever did what beato did (I just wrote a post), and true magic, the "white magic" is doing away with all the hatred. So for him to make mistakes because of his naivety and misjudging the situations so often, is really not the same as becoming a "black sorcerer".

EP8 basically spells it out what magic in Umineko is: It is learning to accept the truth, and then find a way to construct your life around it. What Battler is doing in EP6 is exactly the same thing that Beato was doing, except that he is shifting blame away from everybody close to him.
Looking at Dawn now, it has one very distinct feature that none of the other Episodes feature: Until Erika willingly steps up to become the murderer, there is no culprit, it is just a game. And when Erika becomes the culprit they weave the illusion of the witch around the victims, not the culprit. It is the ultimate present that Battler could think of.

Isnt that just what battler is doing if you think of battler planning for erika to be the culprit? thats One of the major reasons I think he DIDNT plan it that way. He would really be a black sorcerer if he just shiftet the blame onto erika. But he said he "understood true magic" and that is NOT true magic. That is BLACK magic. You say is a black sorcerer because he planned the ep 6 to happen this way. I say he didnt plan it this way because he is a white sorcerer.
And I also say: because he didnt plan it, the game was "abandoned". The game was called this way, it was never called "finished". But thats what it would be, if everything went according to plan, wouldnt it? We also dont know what battlers plans were, who was supposed to be the culprit (Battler himself?), if there was supposed to be a culprit at all.. We dont know.
The ultimate present Battler could think of is of course this: fulfilling Beatos wish. And what is Beatos wish? She clearly stated it, we dont have to guess: its for Battler to take beato away from the island. Battler ep 6:"Im able to get you out of the "game-board" (read:island, because the game-board only includes the island, look at the opening to have it illustrated ) , I believe that is your wish". Isnt it quite obvious what Battlers plans were for ep 6?
And not only ep 8 is saying what magic is - I think ep 4 is much much more interesting and revealing concerning magic.

Actually, I think EP6 perfectly fulfilled the promise he gave to Beato and that is why he decided to give it only to Beato (which rings a little of, not releasing it).

If you think he fulfilled the promise thats good. Im glad we agree on the point that battler wanted to fulfill his promise in ep 6. But I think the promise was: I come back for you and Im going to take you away" and later on sayo always thinks while she waits "hurry, take me away from here already!". She suffers on this island, she is enclosed there (bird cage metaphor). I think the most important part of his promise is still missing in the end. Sayos wish was never for anyone else to be the culprit, no actually thats the least thing she would want. End of Ep 5: "Im the culprit! believe me! Im the culprit! Why wont you anyone believe me? Im never letting a human be the culprit!" So dont you think the wish battler wants to fulfill is the wish we know about, and not a wish we have to make up? We know about the wish that she wants battler to take her away from the island. And thats what happens and the end of ep 8.

I have to agree with what AT is saying here, you are searching for a problem where there technically is none. I don't even know if I'd call it a paradox.
Yes, the blood splatter here makes it quite likely this was meant to be Red Truth: There will be no people who were able to survive, when the seagulls cry. But, while it was always meant to imply the passing of the storm, this scene calls into question when this point in time "when the seagulls cry" is supposed to be. It is basically the same as her Red Truth that she "will not allow this story to have a happy ending" which, while true, is not necessarily true for everyone (Ange).

Well, no point in arguing about that any more I guess. My point is NOT if the red truth can be valid or not, my point is DOES IT MAKE SENSE TO PUT SUCH A RED TRUTH THERE. and Im looking at it from a story-telling POV. But this wont be resolved. I also find it hard to believe Eva died now, but this red truth doesnt make any sense for me. If you're perfectly fine with it thats ok too. I dont have any explanation anyways.

Maybe the differentiation that we are doing between personality and persona is a little bit to confusing while reading, so maybe instead of persona we should talk of identity.
For me, Sayo doesn't have a crisis of personalities, but of identities. This stems from both her actual identities - Yasuda Sayo and Ushiromiya Lion - being powerless (Sayo) or legaly non-existent (Lion), which forces her to use her work identity Shannon for all her problems. Yet, once she learns that her identity as Shannon might not suffice to fully express her full potential, she constructs other identities to express them. Out of fear of rejection she refuses to grow as one person and instead adds new identities, like tumors, to herself.

Good explanation! Though I dont really think that this just comes from lion vs sayo, but more from the fact that she was never accepted. But apart from that, I completely agree with you.

I would argue that, even Erika not falling for any of the traps would have been fine. In that case the game would have ended as just that, a game, and the explosion would have been disguised as the witch.
I would say, like I explained above, that Battler's only goal with this story was, to lift the blame from everybody, yet he wasn't above accepting Erika's readiness to become the villain of the play.

I disagree. His goal is stated, we dont have to guess: he wants to end the game completely, win for the witch, prove he completely understood magic and release beato from the game-board because he believes that is her wish. Nothing of that came true, so the game was abandoned. I dont think we need adicional intepretation here.
I also find it hard to believe that his goal was to lift the blame. because thats what umineko is NOT about - its saying: ACCEPT the faults and redeem yourself. Thats what purgatory is about. Not "it wasnt me, it was all her!". And thats also why in ep 8 manga, everyone confessed and readily accepted all of the sins. There is no more "putting blame on others". I can NOT imagine ANY situation in which battler with his characterizations and role in the game would EVER try to shift the blame on someone else.

I would highly agree.
EP8 largely suggests that Battler/Tohya had never intended to contact Ange and that he had hoped that his stories would do the trick for him. It clearly shows that he hadn't expected the level of frustration and anger that had built in Ange over the years. He is actually revealed to be quite a dick in this one (and his redemption only kind of works, even in the highly editet manga version).

The point was: he is in a similar situation as Sayo. And he is afraid. Dude, he lost his memories. He doesnt have any feelings for Ange at all. How is he a "dick"? For a while he couldnt contact Ange at all, he only could have learned of her identity through the last book, all the others werent popular enough. And even though he didnt feel anything for this girl and was afraid he still wanted to meet Ange. How is he a dick??? I sure dont think he planned on losing his memories...

Actually, the TIP Gamemaster Battler gives a little insight into the process that Ryukishi implied to be happening in the meta-world. The Gamemaster is a god of sorts, yet he can't lie back but has to prepare every eventuality, every character background, every motivation in advance, or else the game breaks down.
We only have to make the logical jump and think of the gamemaster being an author again. If you don't prepare your plot accordingly it's forced to run into complications and plot-holes, which then can be abused by readers and critics to interpret your story differently than you wanted them to.

Agreed. At least he has to try to think of everything. At some points even beato was having a hard time...