[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Xyrius Cherubim]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Because she DOES care who wins; she's explicitly mentioned as being Beatrice's, and then Battler's, guardian. She was neutral in the games because they keep Bernkastel 'trapped' by obsessive interest, but she doesn't want either of them to be actually hurt.

Yep, that's true, at first I thought that Lambda was some kind of character that was extremely annoying because she always changed sides. Yet, i think ur right about her. She only loved Bern so much

[Renall]

Basically, Lambdadelta's biggest troll was to convince everyone she wasn't a good guy the whole time. It shouldn't have been unexpected, what with Ryukishi using Bern/Lambda's appearance to make you initially draw the wrong conclusions, and Bern smashing that with a hammer relatively early.

Originally Posted by Wanderer

Most of the magical characters were crap. They had no core for the reader to explore as characters; yet they got a shitload of airtime, and it only got worse as Umineko went. I almost always found magical scenes too drawn out. In Chiru, a lot of meta-scenes were too long too. I wanted more Rokkenjima! I would have also much preferred 2 more question-arc Games that ran all the way through (unlike how Games 5-6 stopped shortly after the first twilight), that focused less on consequences in the meta-world. And one more thing I would have really liked, probably as an ep8, would have been a full Game from Yasu's POV; just the methods and accomplices would all be a yet-unused variation, with some mix-and-match-borrowing from other Games. Now that would have been interesting.

I certainly couldn't disagree with you on that. The cast was large enough as-is; adding another 20+ people to the 20ish people already being juggled in the stories themselves was just a disaster. I get what the meta-narrative was saying, but I got what it was saying very quickly, so I don't think it was necessary to spend so damn long on it.

As to a different POV arc, I don't think that was strictly necessary, although actually showing some answers (even if it's to answers to questions that weren't ever asked, i.e. "answer" a new arc to shed light on how the old ones worked) would've probably been more interesting than the pity party segments.

[AuraTwilight]

Even if they are metaphorical, they still have to follow a logic inside the story. I.e., they are part of a storyline, Battler can't just give her a funeral that doesn't make any sense.

That's bullshit, and you know it. The 'story' of the Meta-World is to deliver ideas to the reader, and causality and characterization and everything else must take a backseat to this. This has been obvious since the beginning with Battler's immense doublethink, where despite talking to a witch, and supernatural stuff happening around him and bitches teleporting all over the place and time stopping and rewinding and everything he still insists "witches don't exist lol."

That's because, as a character, Meta-Battler is just a vehicle to scrutinize what we're fed and call our attention to stuff that's most obviously bullshit, acting as essentially 'the voice of reason', of which he is incompetent at so that the reader has the fun of doing the work themselves.

But Battler treats the new Beatrice just like the old one. Why would he give her a funeral when she still walking around?

Because she wasn't walking around at the time of the funeral. Even EP6's end says that "reviving Beatrice" is the same as "putting her to rest." The moment Battler and Beatrice realized their feelings for each other, she fulfilled her purpose as a piece and probably ceased existing.

But the gameboards were treats as real INSIDE the story. Whatever Toya said, inside the fictional world of Umineko he wrote there are kakeras, etc.

Yea, and so is Dungeons and Dragons. The characters you pretend to be act like everything is real but they're just puppets wandering around inside the imagination of the Dungeon Master. Same thing.

I certainly couldn't disagree with you on that. The cast was large enough as-is; adding another 20+ people to the 20ish people already being juggled in the stories themselves was just a disaster. I get what the meta-narrative was saying, but I got what it was saying very quickly, so I don't think it was necessary to spend so damn long on it.

In fairness, the Meta-Characters were atleast good for drawing in interest and being fanfic fodder, and crap. They trolled the weak-minded viewers, and, well, making characters is pretty much what Ryukishi is best at and I think he seized onto that desperately.

"Shit, don't know what to do. NEW CHARACTERS!"

If I had to cut down the Meta-Cast, it'd be: Beatrice, Meta-Battler, Bern, Lambda, Featherine, Sakutarou (who honestly did a good job of not being intrusive), Ronove and Virgilia, Evatrice, Erika, Dlanor, Will, Lion, Clair, and Zepar and Furfur (who are fucking awesome).

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

If I had to cut down the Meta-Cast, it'd be: Beatrice, Meta-Battler, Bern, Lambda, Featherine, Sakutarou (who honestly did a good job of not being intrusive), Ronove and Virgilia, Evatrice, Erika, Dlanor, Will, Lion, Clair, and Zepar and Furfur (who are fucking awesome).

Well, they somehow almost all served their purpose...the only ones who I'd say are actually useless are Gertrude and Cornelia, because they are just there so that the Knox Corps aren't just one character, while they actually don't even serve any narrative purpose.

But I agree with you that we could have went without all that characterization for characters who aren't even perfectly consistent. Especially the stakes and the Siestas come to mind. Gaap is debatable...I think his initial idea with her being a representation for "things go missing without an explanation" was nice, but because Virgilia and Ronove were actuall people on the island it didn't really connect.

I don't know how I'm going to survive rereading the passages with the stakes in the PSPban of Umineko...
At least the Siestas only took up relatively little screentime, but the stakes...dear God. Especially when their characterization appears like you can compare it to the family members, but then again not...

[Renall]

My problem was less the matter of volume and more the matter of wasting time with new characters when older characters sufficed to fit the same role.

Do we really need the Stakes and Siestas and the Goats and Gaap and etc. etc. etc.? If their role is too specific to a particular idea (and I've seen no fully convincing evidence they are, only speculation that they might be), generalize the idea and the role so that the same characters can play multiple roles.

In other words, some characters are overlapping (the Stakes/Siestas/Goats), some characters are redundant (Dlanor's aides serve no purpose Dlanor herself cannot serve), and some characters are largely pointless as anything but window dressing (Zepar and Furfur). Other characters are underutilized (Virgilia, Evatrice), underdeveloped (Erika, Dlanor), introduced too late (Gaap, Will), or inconsistently utilized (Erika, Dlanor, Gaap). The former need to be merged, reimagined, or cut. The latter need to have some of what was cut given to them or use the "space" freed up to flesh them out better. Or they need to be written more consistently.

[AuraTwilight]

some characters are largely pointless as anything but window dressing (Zepar and Furfur).

Who despite that are more worthy of screentime than half the meta-cast.

[immblueversion]

Ryukishi07 updated his blog, and I believe he mentioned something about "Tsubasa 2." Does this mean there will be a sequel to Tsubasa containing more stories not already adapted?

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

If I had to cut down the Meta-Cast, it'd be: Beatrice, Meta-Battler, Bern, Lambda, Featherine, Sakutarou (who honestly did a good job of not being intrusive), Ronove and Virgilia, Evatrice, Erika, Dlanor, Will, Lion, Clair, and Zepar and Furfur (who are fucking awesome).

My list would be similar, except I would also cut Virgilia. Her only purpose was in ep3; after that she was just meta-magic noise.

[Leafsnail]

I dunno, I thought Erika was used reasonably well in episodes 5 and 6, even if there were loads of other problems with those episodes. I'm guessing the inconsistency comes from her ep8 appearance...?

[Renall]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Who despite that are more worthy of screentime than half the meta-cast.

They probably could've been one character, although for all intents and purposes they are one character. They'd also qualify as inconsistently applied though, which is strange because they essentially fulfill the same role; the presentation is just off in their appearances, I think.

[rogerpepitone]

The point of Zepar and Furfur is to be a clue to Shkannon. They have to be two separate characters for that to work. The real problem is that Shkannon is a pointless hypothesis that doesn't explain anything.

So either:
a) Eliminate Kanon from the story.
b) Rewrite it so that there are mysteries better explained with Shkannon than Shannon != Kanon.

[Cao Ni Ma]

Originally Posted by immblueversion

Ryukishi07 updated his blog, and I believe he mentioned something about "Tsubasa 2." Does this mean there will be a sequel to Tsubasa containing more stories not already adapted?

I know he did the new one with evil battler and such but are there many stories that weren't included in Tsubasa? I'd think the majority would have been adapted already.

[AuraTwilight]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

My list would be similar, except I would also cut Virgilia. Her only purpose was in ep3; after that she was just meta-magic noise.

She contributed in EP5 too, though, and also in EP6. In every case where she's not just filling space, she's acting as a guide to the truth when Battler (or Chick Beato) need assistance.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

She contributed in EP5 too, though, and also in EP6. In every case where she's not just filling space, she's acting as a guide to the truth when Battler (or Chick Beato) need assistance.

Could Ronove do the same thing? Alternately, could Virgilia do all the things Ronove does? If so, you can cut one of them with little to no effect.

[Kealym]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

I thought that when Will said "the golden truth locks the lock of illusions" he was literally referring to gold, not 'gold text'. In ep2 first twilight, the chapel door was never locked (hence "lock of illusions"), but instead there was a "truth" that it was locked by gold. In other words, there was a bribe (using gold) to lie about it. Remember the 3 golden ingots in the chapel, as well as Rosa's attempt to nab one of them at the end of that arc?

Actually, in thinking about this I think I've just about figured out ep2. Yasu is a culprit, as usual. Accomplices are Genji, Gohda and Rosa; Genji is always loyal to Yasu, while Gohda and Rosa are in it for money:

Spoiler:

First Twilight: I'm not sure exactly how the murders are conducted, but victims were likely lured by gold and killed in the chapel. In the morning the servants and Rosa find it "locked", then Rosa gets the key from Maria's bag and "unlocks" it, and the witnesses to see it unlocked are Gohda, Genji, and Yasu (Shannon and Kanon)* who complete the list of culprits/accomplices. They partake in a collaborative lie; the chapel was never locked in the first place.
*In the anime, Nanjo is also present for some reason.

Second Twilight: While in Jessica's room, Yasu-Beatrice mode destroys Yasu-Kanon mode, thus allowing for "Kanon was killed in this room". Then Yasu-Beatrice stabs Jessica in the back, leaves Kanon's key behind, exits the door, and locks it with Shannon's key.

Wolf and sheep puzzles: Rosa's discussion of Wolf and sheep puzzles at this point is quite relevant, but the twist is that she's actually playing for the wolf side. She knowingly splits the group up such that 2 sheep (Nanjo and Kumasawa) will be with 3 wolves (Yasu, Gohda, and Genji).

The monster in the kitchen: The 3 wolves simply attack Nanjo and Kumasawa, move them, lock the door, and report a fictional story to everyone else, making it seem like a supernatural event and a closed room corpse disappearance.

A word on Rosa here: She probably does not trust her allies (and rightly so!), and taking their keys is likely on her own survival initiative, not part of a wolf plan. Also, she may not have it in her to kill anyone directly, and she definitely does not want to kill anyone in front of Maria.

Natsuhi's room: About this, Will said "a coffin is not a closed room". Sounds like suicide to me. After the door is locked, I think Yasu-Beatrice, overriding Yasu-Shannon, kills George, turns on her accomplice (Gohda), and finally kills herself.

The mysterious letter in the closed room parlor: Probably a plant by Rosa to indite Battler (so she can abandon him but still appear innocent to her daughter). It's also possibly a plant by Maria on behalf of Yasu-Beatrice (I think she was doing a lot of this in ep1), and Rosa is covering for her.

While I can't be certain my ideas are correct, I see no reason to ignore that he literally said "gold truth". It amounts about equally to what you're saying, anyway. Also, remember that Will mentioned "Golden Truth" regarding EP4's first and second twilight. Those seem like the only instances in Beato's game's, also, where we can be certain that a large number of people are holding to a lie in order to build a closed room, so it seems appropriate.

I think your theory about EP2 reflects more or less the consensus, though it should be said that Kumasawa and Nanjo are portrayed, with very, very little exception, as entirely at Yasu's beck and call. The only true sheep Rosa put out (and arguably out of all 18 humans) is Gohda, who noone gives a crap about. Both the degree, and the time at which Rosa was in on the plot is open to the reader's fancy.

... ... actually, thinking on it ... it's rather odd that Gohda survived the fight with demon Kanon. It's extremely odd. No matter how I think about what Yasu's motivations were, there is no purpose keeping Gohda alive that either simply killing him or keeping Nanjo or Kumasawa alive would not serve better. Whim?

Originally Posted by Renall

Could Ronove do the same thing? Alternately, could Virgilia do all the things Ronove does? If so, you can cut one of them with little to no effect.

Well, Virgilia certainly isn't helping this stories extremely disparate gender ratio. The lack of manservice is appalling - appalling, I say! Both of them, and Gaap, should've gotten more screentime, though.

I remamber back in EP4 when I was desperately considering who Gaap's vessel was, and landed on either Nanjo, for the secret-Kinzo-homolust-lulz (though I'm still fairly certain about Genji's), or Jessica, because that just made so ... much ... sense, IMO.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

She contributed in EP5 too, though, and also in EP6. In every case where she's not just filling space, she's acting as a guide to the truth when Battler (or Chick Beato) need assistance.

Originally Posted by Renall

Could Ronove do the same thing? Alternately, could Virgilia do all the things Ronove does? If so, you can cut one of them with little to no effect.

I still think it's apparent that she was only written because so many people refused to accept the magic scenes as possibly metaphorical. It's understandable for Kumasawa to be present in the metaworld and all...but her role as Virgilia could have really been cut down, as much as I like her.

Though I'd still question wether you should actually remove every character who is not essential to the core system of the story. Efficiency is nice and all...and I also prefer a smaller cast with more development over the mess that was the metaworld...but I think giving characters several purposes only because it's more effitient in terms of plot construction, I don't know.

I still think the biggest flaw was that Ryûkishi was actually playing a game with the readers. He might have kept the core story intact, but it really showed in terms of character development. Sometimes I wonder how it would have developed if he hadn't cared for this as a battle of wits at all.

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by Kealym

While I can't be certain my ideas are correct, I see no reason to ignore that he literally said "gold truth". It amounts about equally to what you're saying, anyway. Also, remember that Will mentioned "Golden Truth" regarding EP4's first and second twilight. Those seem like the only instances in Beato's game's, also, where we can be certain that a large number of people are holding to a lie in order to build a closed room, so it seems appropriate.

I think your theory about EP2 reflects more or less the consensus, though it should be said that Kumasawa and Nanjo are portrayed, with very, very little exception, as entirely at Yasu's beck and call. The only true sheep Rosa put out (and arguably out of all 18 humans) is Gohda, who noone gives a crap about. Both the degree, and the time at which Rosa was in on the plot is open to the reader's fancy.

Yeah, your interpretation of Will's "gold truth" remarks is completely viable, but I also like mine. Unfortunately, Ryukishi gave us only 2 examples with the gold text, so we don't have much to go on there.

Upon review, ep4 4th twilight weakens the bribe idea, I think. Another thought- the "gold truth" may refer to Beatrice (the golden witch) and her narrative, which in these cases is a complete fabrication. Example in ep2 is that not only was the chapel door not locked, but the fact that it was a "closed room" was never even discussed later by any of the characters: No one was even pretending it was a closed room (interestingly, this would allow an argument for Rosa's innocence). And of course, the "gold truth" of ep4 first and second twilights were themselves complete fiction.

Gohda is not a true sheep. He also (obviously) lied in ep4 about Kinzo and his entourage in the dining hall. As for the portrayal of other characters, Nanjo and Kumasawa are definitely well connected with Yasu, but regardless of that I think that the accomplices in murder vary from Game to Game, just as the murder methods and order does (all to keep the mystery interesting for Battler).

Originally Posted by Kealym

... ... actually, thinking on it ... it's rather odd that Gohda survived the fight with demon Kanon. It's extremely odd. No matter how I think about what Yasu's motivations were, there is no purpose keeping Gohda alive that either simply killing him or keeping Nanjo or Kumasawa alive would not serve better. Whim?

On the other hand, my theory fits the situation perfectly

Originally Posted by Renall

Could Ronove do the same thing? Alternately, could Virgilia do all the things Ronove does? If so, you can cut one of them with little to no effect.

Originally Posted by Kealym

Well, Virgilia certainly isn't helping this stories extremely disparate gender ratio. The lack of manservice is appalling - appalling, I say! Both of them, and Gaap, should've gotten more screentime, though.

I pretty much thought the same thing, on both accounts.

Originally Posted by Kealym

I remamber back in EP4 when I was desperately considering who Gaap's vessel was, and landed on either Nanjo, for the secret-Kinzo-homolust-lulz (though I'm still fairly certain about Genji's), or Jessica, because that just made so ... much ... sense, IMO.

Jessica would be an excellent explanation. In my case, I thought Gaap may have been Shannon, based on how George dealt with her. I theorized that maybe Gaap was some other personality of Shannon's (haha, the irony), and that George was holding back because he wanted to defeat Gaap without hurting Shannon. So yeah, like you, I thought that there might be some hints in the magic narrative there, but nope. All noise.

[cronnoponno]

Wow, I didn't think you guys disliked certain parts of the Meta World, I liked every part of it, and there were times where I was thinking ''Get on with it, I want to see some red and blue fights!'', I also liked the development even though most of it was pointless, like Goat-Kun.

Ep 5 and 6 pissed me off in that regard though, they ended the Rokkenjima scenes too quickly, and fucking Erika basically cheated. ''Hey btw I knew I would tell you if I sealed a door, but I decided to tell you a bit after I did it because I suck too much to do what I'm good at and troll you in a way that follows the rules, teehee! Enjoy a completely unfair logic error!'', it's a good thing BATTLER was totally prepared for it, I thought Erika was cool until she did that, and at that point I think she shouldn't have been allowed to play the game any further, damn cheater, I was hoping BATTLER would get a full game with no stupidity breaking it halfway.

[Leafsnail]

Originally Posted by cronnoponno

Ep 5 and 6 pissed me off in that regard though, they ended the Rokkenjima scenes too quickly, and fucking Erika basically cheated. ''Hey btw I knew I would tell you if I sealed a door, but I decided to tell you a bit after I did it because I suck too much to do what I'm good at and troll you in a way that follows the rules, teehee! Enjoy a completely unfair logic error!''

...Battler explicitly gave her permission to do that, though. In return Battler got permission to retroactively edit the storyline.

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by cronnoponno

Wow, I didn't think you guys disliked certain parts of the Meta World, I liked every part of it, and there were times where I was thinking ''Get on with it, I want to see some red and blue fights!'', I also liked the development even though most of it was pointless, like Goat-Kun.

Ep 5 and 6 pissed me off in that regard though, they ended the Rokkenjima scenes too quickly, and fucking Erika basically cheated. ''Hey btw I knew I would tell you if I sealed a door, but I decided to tell you a bit after I did it because I suck too much to do what I'm good at and troll you in a way that follows the rules, teehee! Enjoy a completely unfair logic error!'', it's a good thing BATTLER was totally prepared for it, I thought Erika was cool until she did that, and at that point I think she shouldn't have been allowed to play the game any further, damn cheater, I was hoping BATTLER would get a full game with no stupidity breaking it halfway.

The red and blue fights were great. Really great. Anything in the meta-world that featured Lamba, Bern, Beato (not chick Beato), Battler, Will, Lion, Ange, Erika, and Dlanor was usually worthwhile. It was most of the rest of the meta-world that I had problems with. Too much of it was just moe-service with the Purgatory sisters, Siestas, and Dlanor's subordinates etc.

And I thought Erika was fantastic through and through; a top tier love-to-hate character.

Originally Posted by Leafsnail

...Battler explicitly gave her permission to do that, though. In return Battler got permission to retroactively edit the storyline.

I don't remember him needing permission to do this.