[Game] Umineko no Naku Koro ni Chiru - Ep. 7 Requiem of the golden witch

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by chounokoe

And evil person, for me, would be a person who does evil things just for the sake of being evil. Like if for example, Rosa went around the island and just killed all people because it is such an evil thing to do and she enjoys being evil so much. Of course killing people is an evil thing to do nonetheless, the question is wether a person did it for the sake of doing it, or for some other reason and was just to stupid, incapable, weak, disillusioned or whatever to do it.

Exactly, but does an evil act make a person evil? That's a question that was adressed so many times during the series, wasn't it?
Did Rosa do evil things? Definitely! Is she a bad mother? Maybe. Is she an evil person? No!

That's an interesting thought. An Evil person is not the one who commits evil acts, but the one who enjoys them. Of course if someone doesn't enjoy being evil then she will only do evil things when she isn't in full control of her emotions (like Rosa) or out of desperation and so on. A really evil person however will do such stuff even in cold blood and even if it has no real purpose.

Kyrie for example has been definitely depicted as evil in EP7 tea party. Even accepting that half-assed greed motive (which was never really hinted in Kyrie) Kyrie had absolutely no reason to punch Jessica's face to the point of disfiguring her. That was totally meaningless. She didn't even had any grudge against Jessica not a single reason to hate her.

The Kyrie described in EP7 just enjoys being a killing machine, without the slightest remorse. In a way this can also be said for Rudolf, which seems to act like a kid playing the role of a bandit of a western movie.

In short, the very best a culprit can hope for is a justified - but still wrong - reason to kill every single person, as failure to justify even one killing means you intended that somebody die who had nothing to do with it. The old "Love Killer" theory is about the only thing that ever did this, and it might still exist as the "Quantum Suicide Beatrice" idea that cropped up a few pages back. Otherwise I really can't think of a good justification for any one character that isn't pretty much flat-out sociopathy and evil.

What I'm more concerned about is the intelligence of the culprit. I really do not want an idiot culprit. If a culprit exists he should have a reason to kill which I would recognize as an intelligent plan regardless of the lack of morality.

The EP7 didn't show me a particularly intelligent culprit. To blindly trust a suspicious person who claims to be a witch just screams gullibility. And to trust her to the point of initiating a mass murder is really incredibly stupid.

Who the hell can believe in the story of the 900tons of explosive? There are a thousands of reasons to seriously distrust such a claim. Even if it's true in the end, how the hell Kyrie could blindly believe it? If I was in her shoes I'd only believe it if I see it. And most certainly I wouldn't stake my life on it! Because clearly if that was fake nothing would save Kyrie and Rudolf from the death penalty.

And if it wasn't enough, why after both her and Rudolf recognized that the gold was worthless because you couldn't really convert it into money, they so easily believe that Beatrice was able to convert a part of that into 10 billion yens? Why they didn't even think for a second that it could have been a lie? Was it worth the risk?

The Kyrie I knew so far would have used chessboard thinking. The Kyrie I knew so far would have asked herself "why this Beatrice prepared four guns?! Why did she loaded all of them and left them here?"
Clearly there is absolutely no point to use four guns, you just need one and recharge it, at best you need two. This whole situation screamed "trap". The Kyrie I knew would have definitely realized that Beatrice was planning to make the siblings kill each other. Even if it's false in the end, in the situation that was the most logical assumption to make and Kyrie shouldn't have dismissed it. If that was the case then it could be easy to imagine that Beatrice held some grudge against the Ushiromiya family and wanted to destroy it. And what better way to destroy a family than making them kill each other?

In conclusion an intelligent person wouldn't have trusted Beatrice, wouldn't have risked to lose everything and to become known as a cruel mass murderer if there wasn't at least a 95% assurance to get away with it and to get the big prize. Kyrie and Rudolf didn't have half of that.

[Renall]

Moreover, Rudolf is initially reluctant until he starts doing it, then he likes it. That's just eight kinds of screwed up. Depicted as they are in the Tea Party, Rudolf and Kyrie are arbitrary psychopaths who enjoy the pain of others and who cause needless violence well beyond the point where it's necessary.

That makes a good villain in an shoot-em-up action movie, but not so much in a mystery.

[bigemperor]

Well i didn't played the game but i always want to know

1) How long is the game?
2) In general was the episode well received? animesuki like episode 7?
3) did it give answers or dis/approved theories like shakannon

i only want to know that and i will not enter here again until i played the traslation from whitchhunt

[chounokoe]

Originally Posted by Renall

In short, the very best a culprit can hope for is a justified - but still wrong - reason to kill every single person, as failure to justify even one killing means you intended that somebody die who had nothing to do with it. The old "Love Killer" theory is about the only thing that ever did this, and it might still exist as the "Quantum Suicide Beatrice" idea that cropped up a few pages back. Otherwise I really can't think of a good justification for any one character that isn't pretty much flat-out sociopathy and evil.

But I wouldn't even want a scenario where the killings are justified.
I think that's a difficult thing, because it is a concept that calls for justice and like you indirectly said already justice and murder are two mirror concepts, because we consider murder as injustice.
I just want a scenario where I can believe why a character would come to the conclusion that murder is the only option and then feel sorry for him/her, because to me it's obvious that it isn't the only way. I want to see the full scope of tragedy, but at the same time understand that nobody actually wanted to harm anyone he cared for.

An evil sociopath by the way is something that is illogical in itself, because a real sociopath would be completely devoid of feelings. Sure, we often consider 'absence of feelings' and 'evil' to be the same, but it isn't.
A sociopath is also normally very impulsive and unable to coherently plan ahead, will disobey prefixed rules as often as possible and tends to have outbursts of rage again and again.
Yes, Kyrie/Rudolph killing spree from the end of EP7 was, in the way we saw it, a sociopath ending. But I don't believe that is the answer. I believe that the culprit is neither a sociopath nor inherently evil.

I think the culprit is rather clever, even intelligent, but he lacks social abilities that would enable him or her to adress the problems that cause the tragedy. I think in the end it will be everyone's and noone's fault that the murders happened. There will just be someone who carried them out.

[musouka]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

In conclusion an intelligent person wouldn't have trusted Beatrice, wouldn't have risked to lose everything and to become known as a cruel mass murderer if there wasn't at least a 95% assurance to get away with it and to get the big prize. Kyrie and Rudolf didn't have half of that.

Then turn the chessboard around and think about it.

Might I point out that going by the shrine explosion during the summer, Yasu has been preparing for this for anywhere for three to five months in advance. Don't you think it's a little odd she could pinpoint with such accuracy that Ange would not be going to the island in said plans?

[AC-Phoenix]

Originally Posted by musouka

Then turn the chessboard around and think about it.

Might I point out that going by the shrine explosion during the summer, Yasu has been preparing for this for anywhere for three to five months in advance. Don't you think it's a little odd she could pinpoint with such accuracy that Ange would not be going to the island in said plans?

I consider EP 1 as true event, since the META battles were just started because of it.
Following this, we can assume that she only killed the adults and never intended on killing the children. The bomb wasn't her fault as it was stated that the whole thing has something to do with Battler's sin.

Well I think a bomb that explodes after 6 six years could be considered 'an unknown device' at least if we are considering the games timeframe...

[Used Can]

Originally Posted by chounokoe

Well that depends on your definition of when exactly a person or an action is evil. Is a person automatically evil because he or she commits an evil deed, or is just the action evil and the person is just tilting towards a direction on a scale?
For me there is no such thing as inherently evil people, well very few and even they are often so disfigured by legends and myths that you can't tell the real person from fiction anymore, just as well as there are no inherently good people.

Indeed, and this is precisely why I wanted to judge their actions and not them as people, because, ultimately, there's no such thing as good or bad people. However, if we were to categorise the murder of 15 innocent people, then that action itself can be considered evil, because there's simply no way to justify it, no matter how sad or tragic the background of these killers may be.

For example, I'm sure those kids who went on rampage and killed several people before killing themselves had their own complicated circumstances, but I'm quite sure most if not all the people they killed didn't deserve nor did they want to die. Thus, no matter what motive they had to kill people, their actions are still evil, even if they weren't evil people.

Originally Posted by chounokoe

But let's see it from another perspective.
Natsuhi lived together with those people for all those years and did her best to fit in, yet she never did, she even gave birth to a daughter that does not at all fulfill the expectations of the family and has a sister-in-law that constantly rubs it in her face how a failure-at-life Natsuhi is. For her it felt like she acchieved nothing for herself and nobody cared for who she was.

Takano stopped thinking in human perspectives from a certain moment on. Her life was equally tragic and it is understandable what became of her, but on a scale I would still call her the more evil one. Instead of wanting to cure people (which was what her grandfather wanted) she only wanted to win her bet against god and stopped caring for people all together, they became her toys during those last few years. She not only killed them, but robbed them of their humanity.

I can make the same case for Takano. She went through that hell of an orphanage, to Hifumi's house. There she tried to keep up with her life, despite all the horrible things she went through before. Then shit kept on happening, she ended up losing the last person she held dear, and the ideals of this person were trampled on, so she cracked, and decided to have revenge on the town that (according to herself) had made her suffer so much.

Originally Posted by chounokoe

But that is also only a higher output of stress hormones that heightens paranoia. In the end Ryukishi only made it more likely for something to occur that happens to many mass murderers.

Indeed, but because of that, Shion was practically not being herself. Whenever she's not under the effects of the syndrome, she never killed anyone.

Originally Posted by chounokoe

Exactly, but does an evil act make a person evil? That's a question that was adressed so many times during the series, wasn't it?
Did Rosa do evil things? Definitely! Is she a bad mother? Maybe. Is she an evil person? No!

No, but depending on the extent of their actions, it certainly says a lot about the person in question.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by musouka

Then turn the chessboard around and think about it.

Might I point out that going by the shrine explosion during the summer, Yasu has been preparing for this for anywhere for three to five months in advance. Don't you think it's a little odd she could pinpoint with such accuracy that Ange would not be going to the island in said plans?

I'm a little fuzzy, in general, on how long Battler had announced his return leading up to the conference. But let's be generous and assume there was lots of time to write message bottles where he is present before the conference.

What about Ange? Everyone seems to know she's sick, but it seems unlikely she came down with anything well in advance. Logically, the message bottles ought to be depicting both Battler and Ange present, but they don't. So either they were written on incredibly short notice almost the instant the writer knew Battler was coming and Ange wasn't... or they were written after, by a person who knew exactly who did and didn't come.

I know which one I suspect to be more likely.

[chounokoe]

Originally Posted by AC-Phoenix

I consider EP 1 as true event, since the META battles were just started because of it.

Which is quite problematic, because Eva seems pretty 'the deader the better' to me and she does not seem to solve the Epitaph either. Also we have Kinzo appearing and Kanon being staked in the boiler room, all pretty blatant magical scenes, only we didn't know back then.

Well I think a bomb that explodes after 6 six years could be considered 'an unknown device' at least if we are considering the games timeframe...

The bomb does not explode 6 years later, it explodes the day it is set at exactly 24:00 and it has probably been installed by Kinzo when he moved to the island.

Originally Posted by Used Can

[...] so she cracked, and decided to have revenge on the town that (according to herself) had made her suffer so much.

Though that's still proxy-revenge, because actually at fault would be Tokyo who laughed her grandfathers ideas off, but she can't do anything against them instead become god through their help.
But let's agree to disagree, morals are something of subjectivity.

Originally Posted by Renall

What about Ange? Everyone seems to know she's sick, but it seems unlikely she came down with anything well in advance. Logically, the message bottles ought to be depicting both Battler and Ange present, but they don't. So either they were written on incredibly short notice almost the instant the writer knew Battler was coming and Ange wasn't... or they were written after, by a person who knew exactly who did and didn't come.

I know which one I suspect to be more likely.

There is something that popped into my mind just now, so please accept that there will be probaby some mistakes in the idea that you may and should all flatten out.
Let's assume a part of the tea party was true and Kyrie and Rudolph really did kill people, let's not say everyone, but let's say they were involved. Maybe at least Kyrie got informed not to bring Ange into this from the very beginning, because they knew it would be dangerous.
That would again fit into, why Kyrie would make such a hell of a deal out of it, to make Eva feel pity for Ange, because she has 'such a terrible mother'. She just lied to get Eva to take Ange in, in case she really did die.
If Rudolph was in on it, it would also explain the 'I will probably die tonight' phrase and why he could inspect Shannon during Episode 3 and not detect that she was still alive. Maybe he did and just held his mouth shut.

But that would mean, that Hideyoshi is probably in on it too (whatever IT is). He inspected Shannon's corpse in Episode 1 and went with Rudolph and Kyrie to the mansion in Episode 3...maybe they didn't go because they suspected Hideyoshi and Eva, but because the three of them needed to check out something. If they actually knew someone among the servants was planning something and she got the idea that somebody (maybe besides Shannon) was faking their death, maybe that was the reason why she suddenly changed her mind to go to the mansion although she did not want to get food.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by musouka

Then turn the chessboard around and think about it.

Might I point out that going by the shrine explosion during the summer, Yasu has been preparing for this for anywhere for three to five months in advance. Don't you think it's a little odd she could pinpoint with such accuracy that Ange would not be going to the island in said plans?

Are you suggesting that Beatrice Kyrie and Rudolf planned the whole thing together?

How does that makes any sense? For what it was shown in EP7 Rudolf and Kyrie have no other objective but to get their hands on the bank account card. However if they were contacted by Beatrice in advance then why they didn't get it from her directly?

Even assuming that Beatrice promised she would give them those money if they helped her killing off all the other relatives, why they had to take part on that charade? In the first place wasn't it easier to just blow up the whole island? Why would Beatrice need their help?

In addition, if Ange was left home because Kyrie was aware of the planned mass murder, then why the same reasoning failed to trigger in Battler's case?

No it wasn't Beatrice's idea to get Battler back at all costs, It was said in many ways that Battler coming back that very year was something that Beatrice really didn't want to happen. And Rudolf was shown to care a lot about Battler, even in that cruel and merciless tea party.


Granted, the idea that Beatrice and Kyrie somehow are accomplices would explain the Ange's case, and it might be possible. But then the EP7 tea party is still full of inconsistencies. It can't possibly have gone that way.

[ijriims]

I agree that Kyrie was being dumb in the tea party. But if Kyrie was accused of being dumb for not questioning Beatrice's claim of 900tons of explosives, then every adult should be accused of as well.

Basically all of them just accept that as fact.

And who was the first to pick up the gun? Eva, surely she failed to realize it was a trap. (Come to think of it, isn't there a similar scene in

Spoiler for Detective story spoiler:

And Then there were none

where the culprit placed fully loaded guns in one of the rooms)

Obviously the rational choice under that condition was for the siblings to negotiate with Krauss. Ultimately, getting less of a quarter of 20 billions was better than just 1 billion from the bank card and bearing the guilt and risk of murdering.

All the adults were dumb, Eva was being dangerously hot-blooded.


Still, apparently there was some illogical behaviour in EP7 tea party. Why on earth would someone sitting in the underground VIP room dressed in Beatrice's costume while this someone was supposed to be serving inside the guesthouse?

There should be just a maximum of 4 rifles on Rokkenjima (otherwise, in EP3, the adults would take the extra to give to George and Battler, since Battler was taught how to use the gun in case there was extra gun) , if Beatrice had taken all to the underground VIP room, how did the adults get the guns in EP3 and EP6?



Therefore, EP7 tea party should not be the whole truth. I suppose Bern's red should be like this: これは全て真実じゃない。でも、あなたの両親が犯人であることは真実だ

[Jan-Poo]

Yeah all the adults were pretty dumb, but at least they all were depicted as either not particularly smart (Rudolf, Natsuhi, Hideyoshi) outright retarded in their future planning (Krauss) or prone to let their emotions cloud their decisions (Eva, Rosa).
Kyrie however has always been depicted as a person who can keep a cool mind in almost every situation, a person who can understand the situation surrounding her better than anyone else, a person who can always make the best decision. In addition she's never been shown as a person that can take chances or that easily trusts others.

No one was more out of character than Kyrie in that EP7 party, at least inside the underground vip room.

[ijriims]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Kyrie however has always been depicted as a person who can keep a cool mind in almost every situation, a person who can understand the situation surrounding her better than anyone else, a person who can always make the best decision. In addition she's never been shown as a person that can take chances or that easily trusts others.

I suppose the scene of EP6 where Kyrie v.s. Jessica pretty much showed that she can quickly adapt to situation. She just summoned Leviathan, created a closed room satisfying Beatrice's definition, and understood that magic will be dispelled by a witness. For a person who was logical and realistic, she displayed astonishingly ability to understand the unfamiliar situation and acted quickly.

Still, I don't understand why Bern said Kyrie would be killing everyone in Leon's world. Without knowing the existence of explosive and 4 rifles lying in the VIP room, Kyrie killing everyone was even more out of character to me.

[erneiz_hyde]

Just finsihed Ep.7 and the first thing I want to write:

Who's U.N. Owen? A 495 years old witch? Why am I imagining a small girl with a red goth-loli fashion that can use Laevatinn as a plaything?

Still, tricks aside, after playing this episode I can say that the whole ep.6 is a troll. The whole ep.7 suggests that Yasu=Shannon=Kanon=3rd Beatrice, meaning BATTLER, Jessica, and George is battling over the same person.

Following Yasu's life story, I think Gaap is a personification of Yasu's mental disorder caused by the fall which probably damaged the brain somehow, making Yasu somewhat of a klutz (yet maintaing the high intelligence). Also, I think "Shannon" really existed, but somehow went away and her role was taken by Yasu (at the moment Yasu depicted becoming a witch). My point is, if this flashback is real, then I think I can sympathize with why the killings occurred.

Edit: Also, there is still one major riddle that might change how we view the whole story: WHO THE HELL IS BATTLER?

[ijriims]

Well, Shannon does need to be Yasu.

Because in Leon's world, there was no Shannon at all (Leon did not recall Shannon's name, while she had been supposedly working for ten years already).

If Shannon was a separate being from Yasu and Shannon was already working on Rokkenjima when Yasu came, then Leon should not be unable to recognize Shannon at all. As Shannon should have been working on Rokkenjima for quite a bit time as well.

Moreover, when all the senior servants resigned, Shannon said Yasu was the only senior servants left. This could not be true unless Shannon was the imaginary persona of Yasu.


To further elaborate, Yasu's full name should be Yasuda Sayo (安田　紗代）, official codename Shannon, but was not used by senior servants at all (they called her Yasu instead, a derogatory nickname). After successfully solving the epitaph, she was named Leon by Kinzo, so she now had the name Ushiromiya Leon as well. At least this is what EP7 main part wants us to believe....


On the other hand, the existence of a real servant Kanon was more unclear.

[Jan-Poo]

U.N. Owen is the mysterious character that invites the 10 protagonists of "and then there were none" to the island. That's a famous mystery novel by Agatha Christie


As for Shannon existing as a separate entity from Yasu, it is possible, assuming she was a servant that worked in 1980 which only stayed there for the regular 2-3 years.
Then Yasu somehow modeled her new persona around her once she left.

There'd be no problem with Lion not remember Shannon, because he wouldn't remember the Yasu/Shannon not the Shannon that might have existed 6 years before.

The only weak point in this theory is that you either need to imagine that somehow Yasu was able to change her own fukuin servant name, or that at one point in time two servants named Shannon existed.
It's hard to explain why Genji would give to Yasu a name that was already taken by another servant.

[erneiz_hyde]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

U.N. Owen is the mysterious character that invites the 10 protagonists of "and then there were none" to the island. That's a famous mystery novel by Agatha Christie

Yes, well, I know that duh. Clearly you don't get the easter egg then. What I stated earlier was a reference to Flandre, a Touhou character whose theme song is "U.N. Owen was her?"

As you know, Ryuukishi is an avid fan of the Touhou fandom too (petan pettan tsurupettan comes to mind)


Also,

As for Shannon existing as a separate entity from Yasu, it is possible, assuming she was a servant that worked in 1980 which only stayed there for the regular 2-3 years.
Then Yasu somehow modeled her new persona around her once she left.

There'd be no problem with Lion not remember Shannon, because he wouldn't remember the Yasu/Shannon not the Shannon that might have existed 6 years before.

The only weak point in this theory is that you either need to imagine that somehow Yasu was able to change her own fukuin servant name, or that at one point in time two servants named Shannon existed.
It's hard to explain why Genji would give to Yasu a name that was already taken by another servant.

Yes, originally Yasu and "Shannon" were two different persons. It is possible that Yasu became Shannon, when the "Shannon" that Yasu knew quit, or something...

Because, isn't it possible that the name given to an already retired servant can be bestowed to a new servant? Also, Yasu's original servant name was never stated, and Yasu started extremely early in servitude. It is possible Yasu didn't have a servant name until the point Yasu became mature enough and held the name Shannon.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by erneiz_hyde

Yes, well, I know that duh. Clearly you don't get the easter egg then. What I stated earlier was a reference to Flandre, a Touhou character whose theme song is "U.N. Owen was her?"

As you know, Ryuukishi is an avid fan of the Touhou fandom too (petan pettan tsurupettan comes to mind)

Ah sorry I practically know nothing about touhou ^^;

Originally Posted by erneiz_hyde

It is possible Yasu didn't have a servant name until the point Yasu became mature enough and held the name Shannon.

Uhm I don't think that's possible. According to Claire's narration Yasu should have been called with her fukuin name but the servants preferred to call each other by surname and that's something that Yasu disliked. If Yasu didn't have a fukuin name to begin with, she wouldn't have any reason to complain.

Also fukuin names should be created using the first kanji of the real name, it's not like you can get any name you like, and I don't think there are many kanji that can be read as "shan".

[erneiz_hyde]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Also fukuin names should be created using the first kanji of the real name, it's not like you can get any name you like, and I don't think there are many kanji that can be read as "shan".

Actually, the first syllable in Shannon's name (紗) is spelled Sha, so the correct spelling is Sha-non in Japanese, and yes there plentiful kanji that can be read as "sha". In fact (砂) comes to mind. Not only does it look similar, it sounded similar (sa).

[Renall]

We assume quite a bit, of course, but for the sake of argument let's say a lot of servants resign at once, leaving "Yasu" the seniormost.

At this point, what stops her from claiming she's any old name she wants, as long as Genji backs her up on it? A real "Shannon" could exist, she could style herself after such a person (or simply make them up), and the new servants would be none the wiser. How would any of them know?

Of course, if their behavior is unchanged, then we have... a problem. With a lot of things that story is telling us.