[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by chounokoe

Why should, without any proper indication, one game, that they are clearly using as a battleground in Episode 4, suddenly be not a part of their battle?!

There is proper indication, up until this moment Battler doesn't know he's fighting at all. Why shouldn't it be part of their battle directly, because it concerns the reliability of Battler's perspective.

But if you're not willing to pause for a moment to think what such an assumption might lead to, whatever.

[chounokoe]

Originally Posted by Oliver

But if you're not willing to pause for a moment to think what such an assumption might lead to, whatever.

I did pause and think and honestly did not come up with a value for that theory, except that everything Battler said about this game in the battle of Episode 4 is pointless, because he has no insight into that game.
Or if you draw the line even further, it makes Episode 1 worthless, because it is not directed towards Battler and we were told that the events of Rokkenjima change because of something he did. This would imply that the first game was not directed towards him, therefore not towards the problem he poses and was therefore not concerning the culprit of the Rokkenjima mass murder incident.

This is the only result I could draw from that assumption, but please, tell me what you draw from it. I'm always open for other theories to consider.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by chounokoe

This is the only result I could draw from that assumption, but please, tell me what you draw from it. I'm always open for other theories to consider.

One of the major problems with any variant of Shkanon is the ridiculously effective disguise, which is never actually hinted at. However, this is not a problem if Kanon does not have a bodily existence at all and only exists as information, then the only thing that requires explaining is why everyone's talking about him like he exists. The biggest stumbling block to Kanon not existing at all are the scenes in detective perspective where Battler sees Kanon. The great majority of those occur during Episode 1, after which, Kanon very rarely shows up in front of Battler at all.

[chounokoe]

Well, considering their different appearances, you could blame it all on being a description trick. Everything is a fictional description of events and practically noone in the world of 1998 will know what Kanon and Shannon actually looks like, so Yasu could practically invent their appearance, fitting the circumstances.

Regarding disguise there is one scene in Episode 1, where Battler is just about to touch Shannon's breasts and she seems astonishingly OK with that. You could put it all on the 'she's a servant part', but when she is with George?!
This could be explainable (considering that those were disguises) by the fact that Shannon would have to be a disguise, too, anyway. Yasu is described as incredibly not sex-specific regarding his physical appearance...which would largely clash with Shannon's rather large breasts. So one could make up the theory that those are fake.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by chounokoe

Regarding disguise there is one scene in Episode 1, where Battler is just about to touch Shannon's breasts and she seems astonishingly OK with that. You could put it all on the 'she's a servant part', but when she is with George?!
This could be explainable (considering that those were disguises) by the fact that Shannon would have to be a disguise, too, anyway. Yasu is described as incredibly not sex-specific regarding his physical appearance...which would largely clash with Shannon's rather large breasts. So one could make up the theory that those are fake.

Shannon's reaction could be explainable in a variety of believable ways and the variety is so great that it's almost irrelevant. George's reaction is not explainable.

• If George knows about Kanon, he knows there's a chance Shannon is getting caught now and he has to stop Battler.
• If George doesn't know about Kanon, there are only two reasonable normal reactions, neither of which occurs:
  • "It's mine, back off!" (in a spectrum of severity)
  • "Battler, quit being an idiot!" (also in a spectrum of severity)

There is a third option -- George and Shannon's romance is fake, so George doesn't actually care. However, there is Word of God that it is not.

[chounokoe]

Originally Posted by Oliver

Shannon's reaction could be explainable in a variety of believable ways and the variety is so great that it's almost irrelevant. George's reaction is not explainable.

But there was actually a reaction, even if it is disturbing. It was Jessica who stopped Battler's action, wasn't it?
But still I agree that it is difficult to really pin it down and it's hard to prove right now, at least without relying on trust into a certain theory. I'm in the middle of rereading the first 4 Episodes, seeing if the theory holds water and those are such points that are shaky, to say the least.

The problem, as explained before is, that if you want to believe in a culprit that is outside the known 17 living characters, you have to believe at least in Shkannon to bring the count down to 16.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by chounokoe

Well, considering their different appearances, you could blame it all on being a description trick. Everything is a fictional description of events and practically noone in the world of 1998 will know what Kanon and Shannon actually looks like, so Yasu could practically invent their appearance, fitting the circumstances.

What descriptions? Along with various characters personalities not being adequately described we also have characters appearances not being adequately described other than Battler's impressions from the first game. A couple people here don't beleive Jessica actually has blonde hair because she's not described as having any. It's left completely to the sprites or the reader to make that basis as this book is a visual medium.

EDIT: Heck! Do we really know that Kyrie and the Sumadera's have white hair? The visuals show she does, but is she ever described as having it?

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by chounokoe

But there was actually a reaction, even if it is disturbing. It was Jessica who stopped Battler's action, wasn't it?

In either case, George's reaction should have occurred earlier than Jessica's, who's reacting not to something that concerns her directly, but rather, to a general breach of propriety. Mind you, Jessica's reaction implies she doesn't know about Shkanon. If she knew, it would be her priority to keep the secret, ("It wasn't a secret, you just didn't ask." doesn't cut it.) so she would react much quicker. If she doesn't know, letting Shannon exact her own punishment and only interfering if that for whatever reason fails is perfectly within normal spectrum.

Originally Posted by chounokoe

The problem, as explained before is, that if you want to believe in a culprit that is outside the known 17 living characters, you have to believe at least in Shkannon to bring the count down to 16.

There are less story-disturbing ways to destroy the people count. For example, you can express numbers in base 11. That defeats Erika's "I'm the 18th" statement as well - 18 in decimal is equal to 17 in base 11 and Erika replaces Beatrice's piece which is not participating in the game.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Judoh

A couple people here don't beleive Jessica actually has blonde hair because she's not described as having any. It's left completely to the sprites or the reader to make that basis as this book is a visual medium.

<agrees and comments>

There's a classic Tolkien studies argument brought up in the field frequently whenever a particularly silly idea is advanced. It says that Aragorn didn't wear any pants, because he is never described wearing any, and challenges the opponent to prove otherwise by citing the book.

We either have accept sprites as a guide at least to some degree, or conclude that Jessica doesn't have hair at all.

[Renall]

Some authors don't describe people at all. Some readers criticize this, others call it a style issue and wouldn't have it any other way.

Indeed, some people hate descriptions. Writing a VN would be perfect for them; you don't need to describe the house, or the garden, just show 'em.

It'd be nice to just consider the backgrounds part of the "text," though we have to reconcile it with the fact that they're based on real photographs.

[Will Wright]

Originally Posted by Renall

Some authors don't describe people at all. Some readers criticize this, others call it a style issue and wouldn't have it any other way.

Indeed, some people hate descriptions. Writing a VN would be perfect for them; you don't need to describe the house, or the garden, just show 'em.

It'd be nice to just consider the backgrounds part of the "text," though we have to reconcile it with the fact that they're based on real photographs.

Dine's 16th even encourages the lack of non-plot relevant descriptions!

It really is something to consider.

[chounokoe]

Originally Posted by Oliver

There are less story-disturbing ways to destroy the people count. For example, you can express numbers in base 11. That defeats Erika's "I'm the 18th" statement as well - 18 in decimal is equal to 17 in base 11 and Erika replaces Beatrice's piece which is not participating in the game.

Well, I'd like to ask some questions on this, because honestly my knowledge of mathemathics is rudimentary at best and wouldn't be enough to base a theory on.
But be it as it is, I never heard of this method before and had some research to do to actually get a basic grasp of this. So what you are saying is that it can be assumed that the 'additional person' is hiding in a 'usually unused number', like 0 or pi? Did I get this right?

If that was so, can you give an example of mathemathics or equasions being hinted at in Umineko? I'm not asking this because I can't believe it, it's just something I would hardly pay attention to.
For me this is hard to believe and I think would fall under the point of unspoken agreements and into the same realm as Knox's or Dine's rules. It is also agreed upon, that no difficult scientific knowledge shall be used without proper placement and foreshadowing in the story...that would be the same as Knox's rule that no hard to understand or inexistent devices shall be used.

Dine's 16th even encourages the lack of non-plot relevant descriptions!

But still it is up to the author to use that to his advantage and properly hide a trick within that lack of description. As long as it would be hinted at (which I'm searching for while rereading) it would count.
It's not like Trick's in mystery novels wasn't a widely discussed topic and even criticized from many directions, because it can be discussed wether or not it is fair to use a trick and how far that can be solely be used for the reader. That is something which meta-mystery is concerned with, as you can divide tricks into two basic categories, those played on us and the characters in the story and those played on us alone.

物理トリック (physics trick), 心理トリック (psychological trick), 密室トリック (locked room trick), アリバイトリック (alibi trick), 一人二役トリック (double role trick) and 体損壊トリック (corpse tampering trick) would fall in the first category, but of course 叙述トリック (description trick) is mostly something that is played on us readers alone and it's questionable how far that is fair. But of course meta-mysteries solve that in so far, that there are other characters on an overarching plane, that commit the same mistakes or even guide or mistaken believe along, when in fact the solution might be rather apparent.

EDIT: This is, by the way, the reason why the genre of Anti-Mystery was coined, because there are some mysteries, that while being clearly that, they refuse to follow the laws of classical mystery fiction.

[TehChron]

Originally Posted by Renall

And who would that be? About the only people that would seem to fit for ep1 are, say, Natsuhi or Kanon. Everybody else doesn't seem to work very well.

What about Maria?

We could honestly consider Maria to be the Detective in Episode 1, as she fits the criteria. You know, where she has an alternate personality that is highly competent but also twisted and believing in magic.

And the Erika situation shows that the detective can be someone besides Battler.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by TehChron

What about Maria?

Maria alleges that she has seen the culprit prior to the end of the episode, which would make for an unfair advantage in clues between detective and reader since she's seen the person and the reader hasn't.

So if she were the detective, she'd be a pretty bad one.

[TehChron]

Originally Posted by Renall

Maria alleges that she has seen the culprit prior to the end of the episode, which would make for an unfair advantage in clues between detective and reader since she's seen the person and the reader hasn't.

So if she were the detective, she'd be a pretty bad one.

To be fair, you can't really go out and claim that Erika was a perfect example of one either.

Moreover, it's not really a unfair if she has already stated that she's seen the culprit, and recognizes her as "Beatrice" rather than who's dressing up as Beatrice. So it's already indicated that this "Beatrice" person is both suspicious and likely the culprit.

[Renall]

ep7 somewhat hints that "Beatrice" can be recognized by Maria even when physically appearing to be another person, so I don't think it's entirely plausible to argue Maria was simply fooled. If ep7 is even remotely accurate, she first meets "Beatrice" in the guise of someone else anyway, which means she probably could associate that person with the person she's met.

In other words, she could tell them who it is, but won't.

[TehChron]

Maria's testimony is already suspicious. If that were the case, she'd call Shannon or Kannon or whomever Beatrice at every possible opportunity. She's shown a complete disregard for discretion pretty much the entirety of the series.

On the other hand, if we accept the possibility that Maria recognizes Beatrice as the Beatrice as early as Ep 1, and considers Yasu's other personalities to simply be "disguises" or "vessels" for Beatrice, then that completely matches up.

From her perspective, it's not "someone dressing up as Beatrice", but rather "Beatrice dressing up as someone else", which explains her defensive, even petulent reaction to that question when it's posed to her each episode.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by chounokoe

Well, I'd like to ask some questions on this, because honestly my knowledge of mathemathics is rudimentary at best and wouldn't be enough to base a theory on.
But be it as it is, I never heard of this method before and had some research to do to actually get a basic grasp of this. So what you are saying is that it can be assumed that the 'additional person' is hiding in a 'usually unused number', like 0 or pi? Did I get this right?

No, you did not. Don't they teach you the concept of number base in school, wherever you are? Because this is by no means difficult, this is elementary grade 8 math. The real idea of a number base cheat is that "17" is not necessarily "seventeen". It is two digits written one after another, which can translate into a different actual number depending on the base, that is, the number of distinct digits your numeric writing system has to work with.

In the most commonly used number base, decimal, counting goes 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 -- that's when your digit slot runs out and you go to 10. In another common number base, hexadecimal, counting goes 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F - then you go to 10 too, only that "10" actually means the number "sixteen". You can have less or more digits, and base 11, where "17" would actually mean "eighteen", provides the best fit in our case according to Ep6.

Originally Posted by chounokoe

If that was so, can you give an example of mathemathics or equasions being hinted at in Umineko? I'm not asking this because I can't believe it, it's just something I would hardly pay attention to.

Yes. Kinzo mentions that 6x9=42. This is a Hitchhikers Guide reference. Most fans of HHGTTG also know that 6x9 does make 42 - in base 13 and consider that part of the joke, even though Adams was not aware of it when writing, which probably is part of a joke, just a different one.
There are T-shirts mentioning base 13 on them, even.

Originally Posted by chounokoe

For me this is hard to believe and I think would fall under the point of unspoken agreements and into the same realm as Knox's or Dine's rules. It is also agreed upon, that no difficult scientific knowledge shall be used without proper placement and foreshadowing in the story...that would be the same as Knox's rule that no hard to understand or inexistent devices shall be used.

An irrational number base, like the golden ratio base, now that would be bloody difficult scientific knowledge. The idea of base 11 is required high school knowledge in many parts of the world. Also see epitaph solution and the amount of historical knowledge it requires, which far exceeds what school program in Japan offers.

For me, a device to detonate 900 tons of completed munitions, like torpedo warheads, rather than bricks of TNT, is "hard to understand". Maybe because I understand how complicated would such device have to actually be to still allow the use of those munitions as munitions on very short notice.

[chounokoe]

Originally Posted by Oliver

No, you did not. Don't they teach you the concept of number base in school, wherever you are? Because this is by no means difficult, this is elementary grade 8 math.

As far as I remember this never came up in school and I visited a pretty good one. Mind you, I was never a really good math student, because somehow the basic concept of mathemathics bore me to death and I never bothered with them so much.
Still as far as I understand it still boils down to the point, that in that theory the culprit would be hiding behind a different metric system than that used in what we call everyday life.
You could of course count the brain excersize by Battler in several Episodes, were he muses that the culprit must exist as an X in the space of 18<X>19 ... still wouldn't such a solution border on physics?! There could be the point that, because the culprit is never actually described as a full person within the context of the bottle letters and the apocryphs, that he does not become a full person countable by the 'everyday' metric system and can therefore only ever be X.

What bothers me about that, is that you could then basically hide infinitive culprits behind 17. Then again you could really have a personal army, consisting of goat people, stake and gun wielding girls and what not. Or is there a definitive reason why 17 can ONLY by 18 and nothing else?!

Yes. Kinzo mentions that 6x9=42. This is a Hitchhikers Guide reference.

Could you just briefly point out which Episode that was? Was it the discussion with Krauss in Episode 4?

An irrational number base, like the golden ratio base, now that would be bloody difficult scientific knowledge. The idea of base 11 is required high school knowledge in many parts of the world. Also see epitaph solution and the amount of historical knowledge it requires, which far exceeds what school program in Japan offers.

Well, I agree that this part of the discussion might boil down to personal oppinion. For me the solution of the epitaph was a basic linguinstic excersize and I just did not believe in the solution, because I doubted Krauss hint about Taiwan too much. You don't need much historical knowledge for that, as soon as you got Taiwan as the 懐かしき故郷 you pretty much can't go wrong.
In my country (Germany) apparently base 11 is not required knowledge, though I'm not certain of that, and I don't know how that is in Japan. Also it would heavily rely on what the author regards as solvable, because if he, too, is rather bad at math, he wouldn't include a solution based on it.

Also the system for detonating the bomb, while I agree with you would be much more complicated in real life, is in the end a system everybody can understand.
You have got a timer, an ignition and explosive material, as long as the basic function can be understood something may count (as I must say, could work for your base 11 example).
To use a counter example, rigor mortis and livor mortis are much more complicated than just the result we get in the end, still it is something that can be used to deduce in a story, because it can be boiled down to simple mechanics.

For example a wave producing device, which sets off tectonic waves, which triggers small motions of the crust around Rokkenjima, which sets off a small earthquake, which then again triggers a volcano and thus destroys the mansion's sorroundings, would probably be a device that would fall into the category of forbidden devices.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by chounokoe

As far as I remember this never came up in school and I visited a pretty good one. Mind you, I was never a really good math student, because somehow the basic concept of mathemathics bore me to death and I never bothered with them so much.

Me neither, just so you know. But that doesn't stop me from being able to compute 2³² in my head, although it's an exercise I wouldn't like to repeat, as it's quite taxing on short term memory.

Originally Posted by chounokoe

What bothers me about that, is that you could then basically hide infinitive culprits behind 17. Then again you could really have a personal army, consisting of goat people, stake and gun wielding girls and what not. Or is there a definitive reason why 17 can ONLY by 18 and nothing else?!

Episode 6 gives a strict "17" rather than "no more than 17". Erika says "18th". 17 base11=18 base10 but there are no other pairs of number bases which can produce the same result.

Originally Posted by chounokoe

Could you just briefly point out which Episode that was? Was it the discussion with Krauss in Episode 4?

Ep2, Kinzo rants at Genji and Shannon and orders them to write down his will:

"Didn't I say they should pass the time as they like?!! They can sing if they want, dance if they want! They're even free to hang themselves by the neck or jump into a boiling kettle!! Until 13 people die, they can spend their time as they like. If that's too boring, then they can wonder about whether 6x9=42, or something!! That's the answer to the mystery of man and the universe!!"

Originally Posted by chounokoe

Well, I agree that this part of the discussion might boil down to personal oppinion. For me the solution of the epitaph was a basic linguinstic excersize and I just did not believe in the solution, because I doubted Krauss hint about Taiwan too much. You don't need much historical knowledge for that, as soon as you got Taiwan as the 懐かしき故郷 you pretty much can't go wrong.

I have initially arrived at Taiwan from the logic that "the town was torn up by the war" but "rebuilt", said by Rudolf in Ep3. There are remarkably few places in Japan that ever were, because the Allies never landed in Japan before the capitulation, and for most of the war, aircraft did not have the range to bomb anything in Japan itself -- Tokyo and the entire Kanto region, (constantly firebombed since 1944) Hiroshima, Nagasaki, (nuclear) Okinawa (Battle of Okinawa) and Taiwan. (1943 air raid) Eva visited there as part of a vacation and thought it would be believable that she did, so it's a tourist destination in 1986 for a wealthy Japanese woman, which excludes everything except Okinawa and Taiwan. Bernkastel says that the "actual location is not spoken in any of the fragments" which excludes Okinawa.

Then I found out that Japanese involvement with Taiwan is downplayed in modern Japanese school curriculum and the 1943 raid, which only happened because Taiwan was a Japanese colony at the time, is normally avoided and not mentioned.

Originally Posted by chounokoe

Also the system for detonating the bomb, while I agree with you would be much more complicated in real life, is in the end a system everybody can understand.
You have got a timer, an ignition and explosive material, as long as the basic function can be understood something may count (as I must say, could work for your base 11 example).

We also know that Ryukishi is quite knowledgeable about military hardware, down to where the major bases of Kaiten were.

There's one thing about munitions, they are usually designed to minimise the chance of them blowing up from anything other than the stock detonator -- otherwise, one lucky shot into the magazine of a turret would destroy a very expensive warship, not to mention cost thousands of lives. Which basically means that either you wire every one of the presumed 600 torpedo warheads (or other completed munitions) together, or only a fraction of them will actually detonate, scattering the rest across the island. That would fail to produce the promised 1km crater.

Originally Posted by chounokoe

For example a wave producing device, which sets off tectonic waves, which triggers small motions of the crust around Rokkenjima, which sets off a small earthquake, which then again triggers a volcano and thus destroys the mansion's sorroundings, would probably be a device that would fall into the category of forbidden devices.

No contest there, if only for the reason that no such technology is known to exist period.