[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Leafsnail]

Originally Posted by Renall

[*]Kyrie and Rudolf are both certain FT victims in ep1 and ep2. Granted, so is Krauss, so that doesn't tell us a whole lot, but under the "all deaths part of the game" theory it could mean Yasu intended all along to include those three particularly as accomplices in addition to Nanjo and the servants. Alternatively though, what did Yasu know or think about Kyrie?

I think Kyrie, Rudolf and Krauss would all probably intended to be accomplices, yeah. Kyrie and Rudolf needed to bring Battler along and leave Ange behind, while Krauss would be useful to have on board due to his ability to control servant allocations.

That said, Yasu actually didn't have as good an understanding of the parents as she thought she did. The first two episodes suggest that she thought all of the parents would meekly go along with her plan due to their bad financial circumstances, but episodes 3 and 4 suggest this didn't turn out to be the case at all. The fantasy scenes in episode 3 seem to be saying that Eva, Kyrie and Rudolf all attempted to revolt against her plan in some way, while in episode 4 it looks like Kyrie and Krauss may have done the same.

I'm not really sure what Yasu knew about Kyrie. She seemed to know there was something up between her and Rudolf, but neither of her stories really go much further than suggesting Rudolf was unfaithful. There certainly isn't any real reason why she should know the secret, unless Rudolf confides his darkest feelings in random servants.

Originally Posted by Renall

[*]Battler has a long and strange phone conversation with Kyrie in ep4, where she appears to be one of the last people alive (and is part of a "group" that just so happens to include Krauss, Shannon/Kanon, and other servants). Kyrie's behavior and attitude strike him as odd and he wonders if she was trying to communicate something to him. Some kind of sudden realization that changes her attitude toward her actions and toward Battler, conveyed in a cryptic fashion?

I'm still not entirely sure how to interpret that phonecall. One idea I had was that Kyrie was being held at gunpoint by Yasu and told to make up a story about magic in order to at least hide the truth from her son, or she could be doing that voluntarily having just emerged from some kind of blind rage. It does strongly suggest to me that Kyrie learnt the secret though, considering her reaction to Battler saying she's a mother to him.

Originally Posted by Renall

[*]Kyrie makes abundantly clear in ep6 that it took an enormous amount of time and suffering to make her desire Asumu's death enough to actually begin plotting it. She thinks of her fortunate victory as complete, but we know that she knows that isn't true because she sees Asumu in Battler.[*]Kyrie's attempt to distance herself from Ange in the ep7 Tea Party could be a hint misinterpreted by Eva as to her true intentions. For example, she's afraid of her association with Ange as a parent leading to some tragedy like her association with her other child.

These both seem like pretty good evidence for the "Kyrie tried to murder Battler" theory. My main issue with it is that we don't really see anything like that in the entire series. I don't know if perhaps Kyrie's knowledge that she plotted to murder her own son for six years would be sufficient.

Originally Posted by Renall

[*]Kyrie seems distinctly disinterested in Battler in the ep7 Tea Party, and Battler's role mysteriously ends as he vanishes from the story entirely. Could that be because there's a missing connection there, and Kyrie's ridiculous shooting spree wasn't merely money-motivated?

That's the main piece of evidence that suggests to me that the ep7 Tea Party isn't just some goats messing around. The Battler scene implies that either the writer has some vague knowledge of Battler's fate (Eva?) or some vague knowledge of Kyrie's true motivation (...Ange, who read Kyrie's diary?). Either way it implies that the ep7 killings aren't just about gold.

e: The ep8 purple text game is a good comparison, that's the kind of thing someone would write if they had no clue about anything.

Originally Posted by Renall

[*]Kyrie takes the revelation about Battler especially hard in ep8. Is there something more to that?

I'm not sure if there really needs to be - simply from what we heard in episodes 3 and 6 there's every reason to believe Kyrie would be absolutely devastated/infuriated by the revelation. It does work well when viewed from that perspective though.

Originally Posted by Renall

[*]The parents would do anything for their children. Might they be less inclined to blame the culprit if they believed the culprit was somehow motivated by a love for their child that was simply misguided or mistaken?[/list]EDIT: Also, Rudolf wants to bring his family together enough that he'd beg Battler to come back. From Rudolf's perspective this makes total sense, because he knows Battler is Kyrie's son and he wants to be with his wife and two children from that wife. To Kyrie, this would look like he's reduced himself to begging Asumu's child to return because she and Ange somehow aren't good enough for him.

It would tie in fairly well with the themes of the series, yeah. I always assumed Rudolf begged Battler to come back because Yasu told him to (otherwise Yasu's whole plan rested on Battler's coincidental return), but it may have been that he then saw it as an opportunity to reunite his whole family by telling Kyrie the secret.

[Golden Bug-Hunter]

Originally Posted by Leafsnail

I'm not sure about the self defense theory. Kyrie's attack on Rosa did seem largely unprovoked - there's no way they were in immediate danger.

Kyrie and Rudolph are the type to eliminate a perceived threat before it fully manifests.

That is, if there is something that they think is a potential danger to them, they have no problem shooting first.

Consider their fight with the stakes in Episode 3, where they start shooting before the stakes even finish introducing themselves. Also, in the episode 8 battle where the first we see of them is a narrowly evaded attack on Erika with a line about how their style is to take out the enemy boss first.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by haguruma

I'm still kind of hinging on Bernkastel saying that the complete Red in EP7 would have been "This is not necessarily all true" (これは全て真実とは限らない) and that she only crafted it to prepare Ange for the worst of all possible cases. So I don't know if we should consider this to be necessarily true.

This actually lead me to an interesting idea and I reread the EP8 manga portion that dealt with Ange discovering Bern's game to her agreeing to go with Bern...and it struck me that (at least in the manga version) it could perfectly mirror how Ange grew up, like I posted in an earlier post.

Spoiler for EP8 chapter 14:

Erika outright says that the Purple Truth Game was made to reflect public opinion and it is interesting how Ange actually goes through all these stages. It also seems a lot more convincing why she would trust Erika and Bern for some reason...

So technically the game at the end of EP7 is only a reflection of a part of the ordeal that Ange went through as a child...which makes me wonder, what is the actual content of the Book of the One and Only Truth that it makes Ange want to commit suicide? Or is it just the confirmation of this worst fear that drives her there?

Did I ever mention how much I love how the manga answers to all the unexplained stuffs?
Well, I think that more than the book making her want to commit suicide, she already wanted it and the truth in the book didn't improve things.
So it can go from it was Kyrie to I've no idea who did it. They're all answers who wouldn't soothe Ange's pain.
Though since originally there were scenes that we should have seen while Ange was reading it, I think the book contained some info on what had happened...
and since one of the censored scenes was Kyrie pointing a gun at someone Kyrie might be responsible for something...

Originally Posted by Leafsnail

I think Kyrie, Rudolf and Krauss would all probably intended to be accomplices, yeah. Kyrie and Rudolf needed to bring Battler along and leave Ange behind, while Krauss would be useful to have on board due to his ability to control servant allocations.

I think if Yasu wanted to play her game it would have been convenient for her to hire everyone as an accomplice and then chose who to use according to how the game progressed.

Originally Posted by Leafsnail

That said, Yasu actually didn't have as good an understanding of the parents as she thought she did. The first two episodes suggest that she thought all of the parents would meekly go along with her plan due to their bad financial circumstances, but episodes 3 and 4 suggest this didn't turn out to be the case at all. The fantasy scenes in episode 3 seem to be saying that Eva, Kyrie and Rudolf all attempted to revolt against her plan in some way, while in episode 4 it looks like Kyrie and Krauss may have done the same.

Well, if the tales were written merely with the purpose of being tales the parents would obey just because they were pieces.
However Ep 3 might have been written by a Tohya who remembered bits and pieces of what had happened and might have unconsciously added in it bits of truth. Undoubtely among the adults Kyrie, Eva and Rudolf are the most tenacious and bright.

Hideyoshi is prone to play along, Natsuhi is stubborn but pretty naive, Rosa is unstable, the less intelligent among her siblings and tends to hide behind them and Krauss is not really that bright either.
So if there's someone to fear I'll go for Kyrie, Eva and Rudolf.

Originally Posted by Leafsnail

I'm not really sure what Yasu knew about Kyrie. She seemed to know there was something up between her and Rudolf, but neither of her stories really go much further than suggesting Rudolf was unfaithful. There certainly isn't any real reason why she should know the secret, unless Rudolf confides his darkest feelings in random servants.

Well Yasu might have overheard a conversation between Rudolf and Kinzo or Krauss in which he confessed what he did.
Natsuhi didn't tell anyone in the family she pushed the servant and yet Yasu knows. Probably Yasu went with her when she went to the grave of the servant's husband and overheard her apology although likely Natsuhi told her to stay away from the place.

Originally Posted by Leafsnail

I'm still not entirely sure how to interpret that phonecall. One idea I had was that Kyrie was being held at gunpoint by Yasu and told to make up a story about magic in order to at least hide the truth from her son, or she could be doing that voluntarily having just emerged from some kind of blind rage. It does strongly suggest to me that Kyrie learnt the secret though, considering her reaction to Battler saying she's a mother to him.

I think it works better if we assume Kyrie was merely thinking to play a prank at Battler. She might not know the other were already dead and might have merely be encouraged into making a criptic talk about magic and someone trying to kill her.

Originally Posted by Leafsnail

These both seem like pretty good evidence for the "Kyrie tried to murder Battler" theory. My main issue with it is that we don't really see anything like that in the entire series. I don't know if perhaps Kyrie's knowledge that she plotted to murder her own son for six years would be sufficient.

I've always thought that the scene in which Eva shot at Battler was a hint that someone actually shoot/tried to shoot at Battler.
After all Rudolf will tell Kyrie the truth only in Ep 8, which might be a hint of how he never managed to tell her the truth when they were alive.

Originally Posted by Leafsnail

That's the main piece of evidence that suggests to me that the ep7 Tea Party isn't just some goats messing around. The Battler scene implies that either the writer has some vague knowledge of Battler's fate (Eva?) or some vague knowledge of Kyrie's true motivation (...Ange, who read Kyrie's diary?). Either way it implies that the ep7 killings aren't just about gold.

e: The ep8 purple text game is a good comparison, that's the kind of thing someone would write if they had no clue about anything.

I think it's most likely Ep 7 guessed something right but that's just what it did. It guessed. When you rule out the Eva culprit theory and think everything is about the gold you remain with the Krauss' family culprit theory, the Rosa culprit theory and the Rudolf's family culprit theory.
Krauss can technically be the less likely as, due to his position he basically controls the gold once it's found (he lives where the gold is and can convert it) and not needing the money right there right now he's the one who's going to be less prone to murder over it.
As for Rosa... she's alone, as in she doesn't has a husband to back her up and nowhere is mentioned she has knowledge in handling weapons of fighting skills and is the less bright of the siblings' group so people might have thought she wouldn't have managed to outsmart her siblings.

So this leave either Eva or Rudolf & Kyrie.

Eva is also good because Eva survived while Rudolf and Kyrie can be interesting because Rudolf, after so many years, insisted for Battler to go back in the family and because Ange survived.

So there's plenty of material to speculate over for the witch hunters and which might have tormented Ange further.
Probably it would have been better for her if a Natsuhi culprit theory or a Rosa culprit theory had been the most popular as she could have bonded with Eva and, at the same time, she wouldn't have suffered of her parents being suspected.

[GreyZone]

Did Ange ever mention to have been ill that day like "curse that illness that stopped me from going together with my family" or something like that? As far as I remember that did not happen. So maybe "Ange was ill" was just a charade towards us, the readers? Or she was perfectly fine, but Kyrie told her, that the doctor said that and she should just listen to her parents and the doctor, or something along these lines.

[theacefrehley]

Originally Posted by jjblue

Well Yasu might have overheard a conversation between Rudolf and Kinzo or Krauss in which he confessed what he did.
Natsuhi didn't tell anyone in the family she pushed the servant and yet Yasu knows. Probably Yasu went with her when she went to the grave of the servant's husband and overheard her apology although likely Natsuhi told her to stay away from the place.

Isn't it mentioned in ep8 manga that Yasu knew about the baby swap through Genji?
If Kinzo could know about whatever information, it's easy to imagine him telling Genji, and from then Genji tells Yasu

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by GreyZone

Did Ange ever mention to have been ill that day like "curse that illness that stopped me from going together with my family" or something like that? As far as I remember that did not happen. So maybe "Ange was ill" was just a charade? Or she was perfectly fine, but Kyrie told her, that the doctor said that and she should just listen to her parents and the doctor, or something along these lines.

From Ep 4's dialogue between Bern and Ange:

".........I can't, ......stop everyone from going to Rokkenjima, can I..."

"You cannot. On October 4, 1986, you are not here."

"......If I were, even stopping everyone wouldn't have been impossible...?"

"Although I cannot imagine how a six year old girl could act to make them turn back. ......That's right. If you were in this place, the probability wouldn't have been zero. If there is a probability other than zero, I can find a miracle."

".........If I hadn't been sick, ...and they hadn't left me behind........."

So yes, Ange aknowledge she'd been sick. Of course she didn't necessarily was. If you tell to a 6 year old he's running a fever he'll believe you, he won't go and check her own temperature by herself, expecially if you're her parent and she has no reason to doubt you.

It seems Ange was prone to get sick of stomach when she was anxious but this hadn't stopped her parents from carrying them along in the previous conference while they hadn't considered it for the 1986 conference.

From Ep 1:

"My my, I wonder, ufufufu, I do wonder...! Our George is still undependable. Ah, but more importantly, how's your little Ange-chan? I heard she was vomiting?"
"Yah, thass right! I was expectin' I could see her face, after so long. Is she alright?"
"She always catches a cold when the seasons change. She's very frail... The truth is that I wanted to bring her, but my family will take care of her this time."
"A wise move, isn't it? She'll get better faster by not bathing in the rotten air at the head house. A child's sickness is more important than an adult's convenience, right?"
"I know of some great medicine fer vomitin' colds! When we get back home, I'll send some to you right away, so use it!"
"Thank you very much, Hideyoshi nii-san. I'm always in your debt..."

From Ep 7:

"Huh? Where's Ange?"
"She went back with Kyrie oba-san to take some medicine."
"Her body really is frail. ......Totally the opposite of Battler."
"She's the sort that gets sick whenever she's stressed. I also used to get sick on big holidays or trips."

Although it's interesting how Kyrie said she wanted to carry her along but it'll be her family who'll take care of her. I've always wondered if Kyrie was the culprit if the motive could have been she had a huge need for money due to the Sumadera blackmailing her using Ange or something and Ange hadn't realized she was being held as obstage by them because too young.

The truth would have been expecially traumatic for Ange as she would be the cause of the massacre, although it would underline at the same time that her parents did it out of love for her, not due to them being simply evil.

In short Bern's game and Battler's game would be both right about something. Ange's relatives were the culprits but didn't do it out of greed or evilness, but for her.

(of course if Ange had been kidnapped the family might have been willing to help... or they might have suggested to call the police, but if Kyrie and Rudolf were out of mind with worry and managed only to barely look calm on the outside they might have ended up doing something stupid)

[GreyZone]

Ange-kidnapped-by-Sumadera theory? Eva somehow got to know that from Kyrie and then she paid the debt back to get Ange free? Maybe Kyries sister did not have enough influence yet, or the money was more important for her at that time? Anyway... it is an interesting theory indeed. "Without love it cannot be seen" indeed.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by GreyZone

Ange-kidnapped-by-Sumadera theory? Eva somehow got to know that from Kyrie and then she paid the debt back to get Ange free? Maybe Kyries sister did not have enough influence yet, or the money was more important for her at that time? Anyway... it is an interesting theory indeed. "Without love it cannot be seen" indeed.

Maybe it's even simpler. When Eva was found by the police and the big fuss arise all she had to do was to play dumb, pretend she didn't know about the kidnapping, claim from now on she would take care of Ange and ask the police to please retrieve her. The Sumadera would have to play along and hand Ange back as if no blackmailing happened. After all if it turned out they were blackmailing Kyrie they could end up being suspected of being the ones who blasted the island away.
We know that afterward Eva had Ange gunder surveillance of bodyguards.

Sure, it could have been done because they were richer now but it somehow feel strange. So was Eva worried for Ange's safety?

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

Well, I think that more than the book making her want to commit suicide, she already wanted it and the truth in the book didn't improve things.
So it can go from it was Kyrie to I've no idea who did it. They're all answers who wouldn't soothe Ange's pain.

I do wonder though, since that scene in EP8 goes into a lot more details on what actually motivated Ange, what society's reaction was like and what her choices were:

Spoiler for Size:

I also found it interesting how Eva-Beatrice basically flat out says what Eva's intention for not denying the rumors around her being the culprit was:


Then Ange's reaction to the all-happy explanation that we see in EP8:


And her understanding of what going on would mean for her:


And finally her coming to an agreement with Bernkastel and actually being told that she is the same as Erika...is kinda interesting

In another panel, when Bernkastel says that what she showed was "not necessarily the truth", she also says that it was all a way to test Ange, because it was the most horrible alternative that Ange herself could ever imagine and whether she had the resolve to find an even more horrifying truth and still go on pursuing it.
If we go by what EP8 now tells us, then Ange basically threw her life and any attachment away in order to learn the truth, so it can't simply be that everybody is dead.

Btw. I love the reaction to "Hey, I heard some people committed suicide after Rudolph took their money" being "Ah well, then it's not big step to killing your whole family!"
That's the kind of logic problem that we ourselves are also faced with, basically gripping at straws to find a palpable argument towards somebody being a killer above the others.

[Renall]

The thing is, if that's the worst thing Ange can imagine, what's in the diary? I mean she was pretty put out by it. If she can already imagine the notion that her parents and brother were the killers, what could possibly be worse?

About the only thing I can think of is something like "I don't know except [details Eva is actually able to confirm]." It's the only thing worse because it thematically goes along with Amakusa's warning to basically not devote her entire life to the pursuit of something, and Battler's warnings about the truth not existing (even though obviously and logically something did happen, even if it was just an accident). Really, the only thing worse than "Yup, your family did it" would be something like "I have no idea what actually happened and I'm the last person who would ever be able to know the truth, so the truth is lost." It'd give Ange's desire a collapse into apparent futility because, as far as she knows, that's it.

The problem is that Ange appears to have read something in there. So either it was exactly as bad as her expectations (in which case shouldn't she have been better-prepared for it?) or it was something really out of left field (in which case why did it seem to bother her even more than the ep7 TP and Bern's ep8 game result?).

[Leafsnail]

I guess Kyrie also killing Rudolf and Battler (assuming he could fake it) would be worse than the ep7 and ep8 scenarios.

[Golden Bug-Hunter]

Originally Posted by Renall

The thing is, if that's the worst thing Ange can imagine, what's in the diary? I mean she was pretty put out by it. If she can already imagine the notion that her parents and brother were the killers, what could possibly be worse?

That's a real tough one. 'Eva doesn't know' would be a contender, but it wouldn't line up with the flashes of 'something' that imply Angie read a thing that happened.

Here's an idea:

Ange read about an encounter between Eva and Battler after the tragedy but before the explosion, where Battler said 'Nope, I'm done with this family. You can be the only survivor. I'm going to go be a hermit with my buddy the crazy person and read mystery books all day. What? Ange? Oh, I'm not cut out to be a dad. You can raise her. You did a bang up job with George after all, right?'

Her beloved onii-chan ran off and abdicated his responsibilities, leading directly to the messed up home life she had with Eva. Because he thought she would be better off that way. And then it went to hell.

[Renall]

I still kind of like the idea that Eva, Battler, and Yasu survived and the latter two left to do a mutual suicide and Eva kinda knew that was happening but accepted it at the time. "Your brother was alive at the end of it all but chose to die anyway and I didn't stop him for reasons you can't possibly understand" is pretty traumatic and ties up a lot of themes:

• How Eva can know what happened but still want to keep a secret from Ange even if the culprit isn't somebody Ange would especially care about, since the recollection of things would either require her to lie to Ange about whether that person killed Battler or she'd have to explain why Battler didn't come back despite not having been killed. She doesn't want to lie to Ange (and in some cases would rather Ange blame her than someone else), and she doesn't want to tell her the truth about Battler either.
• The importance of Battler's promise and the self-destructive impulses he and Beatrice keep showing, leading up to the scene at the end of ep8. It would be very difficult for Ange to accept that Battler chose love for another over love for his sister... but that's something that can happen. When you think of your love as the only thing that matters any action like that would be seen as a huge betrayal, but "with love" you can see that people can make complex decisions that hurt others for the sake of someone more important to them than anything. Eva would understand this, but a six-year-old Ange can't and maybe a very selfish eighteen-year-old Ange can't either.
• Why Battler and Eva have witch forms. If Beatrice becomes a witch from bottling up the truth and concealing it with illusion, Battler's transition to a witch himself would have to match it. Battler being alive after all and conspiring with Eva to hide the truth explains why he's a witch and why Eva is a Beatrice herself.
• Why Battler would lose his memory. He tried to kill himself by certain will and his body survived by a miracle. This would also be why Eva doesn't know he's still alive; she expected him to die because he'd resolved to die himself, so that's how she would've reported it.
• Why this truth would be harder on Ange than a family culprit theory. "My parents were actually bad people" is a hard truth, but it's not a complicated one; Ange can mentally comprehend that her family, motivated by a tangible purpose (money), would do evil. It would be much harder for her to accept that her brother survived a weekend of madness and then killed himself anyway. In her mind, anyone surviving means they would have come back to her. She just assumes this, and it's part of the reason she is so incapable of understanding Eva. Eva didn't come back by default: Eva chose to come back for Ange's sake. She didn't have to do that, and neither did Battler. It's a lot more complicated because asking "What does the truth mean to me?" is an incomplete question. The truth meant something even deeper and different to Battler and Eva, and they made hard choices on what they'd do next... and Ange has been hating Eva all this time for making the decision that put her first, and elevating Battler to mythical status for (potentially) making the selfish one.
• Why Ange would have a difficult decision to make as to how to finally handle her truth. She can decide that Battler didn't actually love her after all (because he betrayed her) and that the truth that doesn't suit her is essentially worthless, or she can put faith in Battler having his reasons even though it hurt her irrevocably and she'll never totally understand what his reasons were and what they meant to him. Thematically it becomes a choice between selfishness - this is what the truth means to me and nobody else - and realizing that her brother coming back wasn't necessarily what Battler wanted - and that just maybe, what Battler wanted was more important to him than even her, and that she has to learn to accept that.

[MysteriousLurkerGuy]

Originally Posted by Golden Bug-Hunter

Ange read about an encounter between Eva and Battler after the tragedy but before the explosion, where Battler said 'Nope, I'm done with this family. You can be the only survivor. I'm going to go be a hermit with my buddy the crazy person and read mystery books all day. What? Ange? Oh, I'm not cut out to be a dad. You can raise her. You did a bang up job with George after all, right?'

Her beloved onii-chan ran off and abdicated his responsibilities, leading directly to the messed up home life she had with Eva. Because he thought she would be better off that way. And then it went to hell.

You'd think something like this would come up at their reunion....

As far as Yasu knowing Battler's parentage (mentioned somewhere up there), could it basically just be the worst secret in the world to try to keep? Kasumi says something about Ange resembling her mother a great deal; if anything, she looks more like Rudolf. Battler OTOH is almost a dead ringer facially; Kyrie and Battler might actually be the only ones Rudolf managed to fool.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by Renall

I still kind of like the idea that Eva, Battler, and Yasu survived and the latter two left to do a mutual suicide and Eva kinda knew that was happening but accepted it at the time. "Your brother was alive at the end of it all but chose to die anyway and I didn't stop him for reasons you can't possibly understand" is pretty traumatic and ties up a lot of themes

I actually like this a lot too, for several reasons.
It doesn't even need to put Battler in a bad light. It could be that they decided that Battler wanted to go and protect Yasu to at least make up for some of the horrible things he kind of caused. We know that even though he didn't know, EP5's ??? makes clear beyond doubt that he blames himself for the things that happened almost as much as if he caused them himself.

Maybe it wasn't even the idea of mutual suicide, but at least the idea to vanish.
Yasu had cast her bottles into the sea so her turning up would actually connect her to these and thus to the crimes, making her the prime suspect (if not even guilty on some accord), so her going public is impossible no matter how much Battler pleads.
Battler is a minor by law so it is unlikely that a Japanese court would actually hand him legal guardianship of a 6 year old, especially if his deceased parents were broke and involved in illegal activities.
Eva was always the safest bet to (a) give Ange a stable home and (b) get her away from the Sumaderas.

According to what Tohya's memories show us, it is not unlikely that Eva either thought he died by accident or committed suicide together with Yasu, either way it is likely that this "you almost got your brother back, if he hadn't valued his loyalty to that person more than you" would send Ange over the edge.

Yes, it would be the message to her, the main person who destroyed your chance at happiness is yourself for doubting Eva over everybody else.

[jTiKey]

[AuraTwilight]

Holy crap I didn't know Ryukishi wrote a new manga.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by haguruma

I do wonder though, since that scene in EP8 goes into a lot more details on what actually motivated Ange, what society's reaction was like and what her choices were:

Spoiler for Size:

I also found it interesting how Eva-Beatrice basically flat out says what Eva's intention for not denying the rumors around her being the culprit was:


Then Ange's reaction to the all-happy explanation that we see in EP8:


And her understanding of what going on would mean for her:


And finally her coming to an agreement with Bernkastel and actually being told that she is the same as Erika...is kinda interesting

In another panel, when Bernkastel says that what she showed was "not necessarily the truth", she also says that it was all a way to test Ange, because it was the most horrible alternative that Ange herself could ever imagine and whether she had the resolve to find an even more horrifying truth and still go on pursuing it.
If we go by what EP8 now tells us, then Ange basically threw her life and any attachment away in order to learn the truth, so it can't simply be that everybody is dead.

Btw. I love the reaction to "Hey, I heard some people committed suicide after Rudolph took their money" being "Ah well, then it's not big step to killing your whole family!"
That's the kind of logic problem that we ourselves are also faced with, basically gripping at straws to find a palpable argument towards somebody being a killer above the others.

I love how the manga gives more weight to Ange's pain and loneliness.
If the people around her suspected her parents to be murderers it was way more likely they shut her out and mistreated her.

Also Eva-Beatrice's sweet smile and kindness while dealing with Ange is so touching I'm melting.

It's interesting also to see Ange's thoughts. She has already decided what the truth is, in a way. She has already decided that the truth includes her family being dead when there could be reasons for which they simply couldn't go back to her.

Ironically it's not that in order to pursue the truth she had to let go of her family. It's in order to pursue the truth she had chosen she has to give up on her family.

Even the comparison with Erika is interesting if we think back at how Dlanor pointed out that Erika couldn't disprove the fact her boyfriend had loved her but yet decided on the worst truth.

As for the logic problem... well, it's really hard to prove that someone who had never killed can actually be willing to murder, expecially so many people. It's hard to reason it out, expecially if we don't know what he's thinking.

We know that potentially everyone can kill and can even have reasons and means to do so... but the strenght of will to do the killing... it's actually the hardest part to reason over. So you go and search for lack of morals, like the girls in the manga did, but actually even criminals can draw a line at certain things.

Kyrie left her family and Rudolf never directly killed anyone. Although they might not have had a common sense of moral it's possible they wouldn't have managed to kill anyone.

After all we know that Natsuhi, so righteous and severe, not only was actually lying to cover up Kinzo but killed a servant in the attempt to kill a baby and that Kinzo potentially caused the slaughtering between Italians and Japanese... though now I'm wondering how we should take that red truth...

Was it a red truth for that game board? Or a red truth for the human world as well?
Had people created a Kinzo culprit theory because he was the only one who survived to the massacre and Bern had turned it to be true in her gameboard which we know is already a twisted world? Or is that a true fact? After all without Kinzo's confession it would be hard to prove him as... there were no survivors.

Ideas anyone?

Originally Posted by Renall

The thing is, if that's the worst thing Ange can imagine, what's in the diary? I mean she was pretty put out by it. If she can already imagine the notion that her parents and brother were the killers, what could possibly be worse?

About the only thing I can think of is something like "I don't know except [details Eva is actually able to confirm]." It's the only thing worse because it thematically goes along with Amakusa's warning to basically not devote her entire life to the pursuit of something, and Battler's warnings about the truth not existing (even though obviously and logically something did happen, even if it was just an accident). Really, the only thing worse than "Yup, your family did it" would be something like "I have no idea what actually happened and I'm the last person who would ever be able to know the truth, so the truth is lost." It'd give Ange's desire a collapse into apparent futility because, as far as she knows, that's it.

The problem is that Ange appears to have read something in there. So either it was exactly as bad as her expectations (in which case shouldn't she have been better-prepared for it?) or it was something really out of left field (in which case why did it seem to bother her even more than the ep7 TP and Bern's ep8 game result?).

Well, Eva likely should have known something, although that something might be incomplete and subjective facts. We know one of the censored scenes showed Kyrie holding a gun... so Kyrie might have done something that, in Eva's perspective, had to be covered up. Theoretically it can even be that Natsuhi jumped on Kyrie instead than Eva and it was Kyrie's gun that ended up killing Natsuhi, not Eva's. Though again, I've a hard time figuring out how all this developed into the Rokkenjima incident.

Originally Posted by haguruma

I actually like this a lot too, for several reasons.
It doesn't even need to put Battler in a bad light. It could be that they decided that Battler wanted to go and protect Yasu to at least make up for some of the horrible things he kind of caused. We know that even though he didn't know, EP5's ??? makes clear beyond doubt that he blames himself for the things that happened almost as much as if he caused them himself.

Maybe it wasn't even the idea of mutual suicide, but at least the idea to vanish.
Yasu had cast her bottles into the sea so her turning up would actually connect her to these and thus to the crimes, making her the prime suspect (if not even guilty on some accord), so her going public is impossible no matter how much Battler pleads.
Battler is a minor by law so it is unlikely that a Japanese court would actually hand him legal guardianship of a 6 year old, especially if his deceased parents were broke and involved in illegal activities.
Eva was always the safest bet to (a) give Ange a stable home and (b) get her away from the Sumaderas.

According to what Tohya's memories show us, it is not unlikely that Eva either thought he died by accident or committed suicide together with Yasu, either way it is likely that this "you almost got your brother back, if he hadn't valued his loyalty to that person more than you" would send Ange over the edge.

Yes, it would be the message to her, the main person who destroyed your chance at happiness is yourself for doubting Eva over everybody else.

I like the idea of Battler leaving with Yasu. Maybe they didn't have to say they planned to kill each other or disappear, maybe one of the two was hurt and the other decided to take a risk and try and leave the island on the boat to get medical aid. And maybe they didn't even plan to disappear from Ange's life. Maybe they wanted to meet her later, when things calmed down.

However things happened and Battler lost his memory and either Eva wasn't informed he survived or decided it was better for Battler to never remember what had happened and start a new life.

In a way this would be bad for Ange as Eva didn't just protect her but Battler as well... although her brother is in a way dead to her, as he doesn't exist anymore and yes, now he's leading a happy life with someone else.

It would explain why Eva kept the diary with herself even when she was about to die and didn't destroy it and called Ange by her. She wanted Ange to read the diary and find out that her brother still lived, even if memory less in some hidden place or could be still alive as the last time Eva saw him he was escaping.
The fact that Ange was given the key to the book of one truth can also be seen as a subtle hint of Eva giving Ange the key to her diary.

On a sidenote the talk Ange and with Erika implied that she expected the truth to be that something caused the bomb to malfuction and explode so it can be she simply had already rejected Bern's truths so finding something that involves more than just an incident could have come to a shock with her.
Ironically though when she cames to her senses she also realized her family loved her... so the truth might have contained something that helped her to get this?

[ErenselTheJester]

Originally Posted by Renall

Oh. Hell if I know. Maybe sometimes a meta-world is just a meta-world.

No, if you can imagine it, the original two stories don't have any written solutions to them which is why no red truth was made for them until EP 4. In EP 3 and EP 4, Ikuko had written set solutions and was challenging Tohya and the rest of the world to solve them at the time. So Red Truths were written in response to the highly- imaginative nature of the thinking process of the masses at the time.

Originally Posted by jjblue1

This is what I theorized as well when I considered the possibility so many post ago... however even to me it had always seemed a little weak.

I'll cut your qoute because I think I can reply by just saying that my theory really wasn't meant to explain absolutely everything just yet but is acting as a basis for a more developed solution to what happened in R- Prime. So I'll have a more detailed version later but, as of right now, it still has a lot of holes.

By the way, does anyone have any idea about that "world peace" thing Amakusa was talking about?

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by ErenselTheJester

By the way, does anyone have any idea about that "world peace" thing Amakusa was talking about?

It's basically that Ange is technically in control of a highly influential corporation with a past that is challenging legal definitions to say the least. If she wanted she could sell the whole company, let it go down in flames, cancel all the stocks at the international market that the Ushiromiya group seems to have gotten back under Eva's control.
Her just tossing the group away or ignoring it wouldn't simply hurt her but a large group of people.

It is also not unlikely that at least due to Amakusa travelling with Ange, Okonogi would also know about the bank vaults, which are also a huge risk if somebody just started throwing that money around and it being questioned.

Above all, rumors about Kinzo acquiring an island full of wartime exposives and stolen gold from Italy are hovering around, but if Ange was to go public with it and actually vouch for them being true, this wouldn't only hurt the group but could kick of a whole other dilemma.

Mind you, Okonogi is apparently quite a selfish bastard, and his main reason for killing Ange and getting rid of the extremist faction of the Sumadera syndicate would be his own gain, so I could see him using words like "world peace" to influence Amakusa as well, who is known to have fought as a child soldier.