2010-08-30, 13:12 | Link #16821 |
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Join Date: Aug 2009
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Looks like a deepest analysis of rules XYZ so far
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/nm11865694 Anyone willing to spend some time and translate? |
2010-08-30, 16:46 | Link #16822 |
Back off, I'm a scientist
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: In a badly written story.
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Well, if anyone wanted a fresh supertheory, here's one.
(I use the term "supertheory" not because it's "super good" -- actually, it's rather bad, because a lot of pieces are missing -- but because it relates not to implementation details but to the overarching plot elements, i.e. "what is going on and why". In that sense,"Shkannontrice Culprit" is a name of a broad class of supertheories. This one is not of this class.) Anyway, on to the details... Spoiler for Too long, don't read.:
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2010-08-30, 17:48 | Link #16823 |
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In case anyone was in any doubt that George is involved in the fake murder ceremony, he has a secret conversation with Kumasawa at the start of ep1... for no apparent reason. I guess Natsuhi and Rosa both have little points at which they "talk to Kinzo", after which stuff begins to happen... so perhaps they're told their "role" in this ceremony? If some of them don't realise things have gone wrong and are still playing their roles, this means there could be dramatically different "noise" each time, even if the setup is the same.
The point at which the penny drops is different in each episode: - In episode 1, Natsuhi realises things have gone wrong when Kinzo's body turns up in the boiler, and Kanon is "stabbed". The boiler thing wasn't planned, so she decides to take everyone up and try to defend them. - In episode 2, Rosa realises things have gone wrong when Battler pulls the stake out of Shannon's head. Thus she decides to make a run for it. - In episode 3, Eva realises things have gone wrong when Jessica pulls the stakes out of Natsuhi and Krauss. It's possible that she was actually helping to fake the ceremony (which is why an Eva culprit theory seems to fit so well for much of the episode). - In episode 4... it's basically impossible to say. As part of this theory, I would say that the guns wielded by the adults all fire blanks (hence Jessica's blinding). It's meant to be a sortof "Bang bang, you're dead" type game, and they don't want any fatalities caused by people not realising what's going on. Thus adults with guns can be attacked and killed without difficulty. |
2010-08-30, 18:11 | Link #16824 | |||||
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What I really want to get at, is that we cannot fully discard Chiru aspects now that we have them, and because they are referred to as clues, we would have to see if our theories hold up against them. Let's look again at the solution of the logic error in Episode 6: We have the group of Shannon, George, Hideyoshi, Nanjo and Kumasawa in a room with only the door sealed and Gohda, Krauss, Rudolph, Genji, Jessica and Kanon in a room with window and door sealed. Battler's room is impossible to enter, yet when Erika has searched the room, he is gone. The solution is that Kanon came to his rescue and not only that, the room is sealed again after Battler is gone and three people have stepped over the threshold of that room during that time. Battler is not Kanon and Erika is not Kanon. The seals on the room where Jessica was also in has not been broken, meaning that no physical existence has passed over the threshold of that room after it was sealed. But Kanon came and let Battler out and went in himself. We know that nobody except the person who owns the name Kanon can assume it. And most important, after Battler had left Kanon was not in the room, yet the door was locked from the inside. This means, unless you really want to imply that a ghost Kanon flew through the walls of the guesthouse, someone in the other room of the guesthouse was not only him or herself, but also Kanon and was able to discard that 嘉音と言う存在 (existence called Kanon) as soon as he entered the closet in Battler's room. The only people within that other room were Shannon, George, Hideyoshi, Nanjo and Kumasawa. The only other option is the existence of an additional 18th person on the island, who was not locked inside one of these two rooms and was so far not witnessed by anybody, but is also Kanon. BTW: I do not believe that the Chiru Episodes serve any other purpose than to function as excersizes to prove a theory that was developed during the first 4 games. They are exceptional scenarios that could have happened and are vastly different from the first 4 games for a reason, to show, that a great difference does not change the outcome of the events and that there are several rules within the overarching scenario that become apparent when people react to it differently (like Erika, Lion or Will). The logic error for example is nothing that would have happend, it is an excersize, to see if your theory can work around it without having to rely on the magic solution. At least that is how I understand Chiru. I hope you don't mind if I pick out one or two things, maybe you can work on them yourself or someone else can. Maybe you noticed those holes yourself and just did not adress them, I don't know... If Shannon and George actually planned to run away together, but he changed into a raving madman only during the 1st day of the conference, how was Shannon then able to create the bottle letters early enough to throw them into the ocean before the typhoon started? Especially considering that she only gets the ring on the night of the 4th (between 22:00 and 24:00) and the typhoon actually arrives at Rokkenjima around 18:00 of the 4th. Quote:
And why would the plan had been in danger only if he had entered the shed again next morning? Did he fail to kill Shannon? Why did he want to kill her in the first place? If she was not among the victims, why did anybody say that she were? Quote:
Was the chapel ever locked in your theory? Because if she was, how did George enter and leave? Quote:
And there are still many murders that are impossible for George to commit. Kanon, Kumasawa, Nanjo, Genji and Natsuhi during Episode 1. Jessica, Nanjo and Kumasawa during Episode 2. Kyrie, Rudolph, Hideyoshi, Rosa and Maria during Episode 3. Episode 4 of course anything is possible, as long as one can find a theory why Kumasawa, Gohda and Krauss should cover him and why Jessica should lie about him being killed. Quote:
I'm not trying to attack your theory for the sake of attacking, just to see if you can work around those.
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2010-08-30, 18:19 | Link #16825 | |
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One thing is the absence of an evidence that you normally wouldn't expect. Another thing is the absence of an evidence that you normally would expect. The fact that it was never mentioned that anyone used the restroom doesn't raise any suspicion because it's something that you normally do not expect. However the fact that Shannon and Kanon are never seen both at the same time in front of Battler and that the same can't be said for any random two persons among the closed circle (excluding Kinzo who in fact is already dead) is suspicious enough. To make another example, the fact that the cousins' grandma's name was never mentioned is something that most people think is strange. However I doubt anyone wondered which is Gohda's grandma's name. Anyway you didn't really get my point before. I never said something that ridiculous like "since a disguise exist then any disguise can exist". I said that the definition of clue to justify a disguise is probably more subtle and less evident than you think. If you think that a stronger clue must exist, then let's start from a disguise we are sure of its existence. Beatrice is settled, but then what about Shannon? Where is the clue that shows that Shannon is dissimulating her real look?
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2010-08-30, 18:49 | Link #16827 | ||||||||
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From the point of view of characters in a story, we begin from the assumption that every individual character is exactly that; an individual. We do not have reason to suspect otherwise until something suggests to us that this is not so. In other words, "innocent" means Shannon != Kanon, and "guilty" means Shannon = Kanon. The guilty side has the burden of providing affirmative evidence that the two are one. Such evidence is scant and exists only in Chiru. Shkanon fans engage in intellectually dishonest and unfair burden-shifting, pointing at mountains of non-exculpatory evidence and claiming it is inculpatory. In other words, that the evidence of something being true is the lack of evidence that it is not true. In addition to being an unfair position to force upon the debate, it is an exceedingly vulnerable one; unlike most theories, it can be singlehandedly crushed at any time no matter how strong the "evidence" is, because all the evidence rests on one thing. To use the red text as an example, saying Nanjo is not a murderer instantly shuts down all lines of speculation that, because he has no alibi, he could be the murderer. This was the lesson ep5 was trying to teach people. Natsuhi could have committed the murders during a period around midnight and was the only person who could have done so; however, we had an input error in assuming as a premise that any murder was committed at that time. Natsuhi was linked to the crime by no actual evidence (well, there were a few things, but they are so minor as to be largely irrelevant to Erika's conclusion), and attacking the premise was the only way to extract her from being framed. The fact that real evidence exonerated her speaks to the shakiness of the theory. This is why discussion of motive is so important. Motive can be used to show that, in the absence of direct evidence, something is more or less likely. It can be used to show that among the vast galaxy of people who had no alibi, this person had inclination. That still may not be enough to avoid reasonable doubt of course. In the absence of direct evidence of a two-identity swap, we are left with circumstantial and inadmissible non-exculpatory evidence (which does not prove the matter asserted no matter how hard we wish it to) and motive. And all motive ascribed to Shkanon exists only in Chiru. It is not possible to derive any evidentiary speculation (as opposed to wild speculation) of a motive for Shannon/Kanon to dress up as the other for any practical or rational purpose using only the evidence declared to make the game "solvable." It is possible you are still right, if ryukishi is cheating or Shkanon is true, but irrelevant. Otherwise, people are making up evidence that does not exist and leaning on non-evidence as evidence because they lack all else. If they are correct, it is not because they reasoned soundly to the answer. Quite the opposite; they were lucky because they are inclined to make irrational guesses. This is so counter to the notion of a fair mystery that were this the necessary thought process to "solve" Umineko, it could not be called such. Of course, that could be exactly what the author intended; fiction rewards irrational thought processes (this is the heart of genre-savviness). I would be disappointed, but clearly most people would not care. Quote:
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2010-08-30, 19:10 | Link #16828 | ||||||||||
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So my answer to that is that message bottles are actually multiple drafts of a story, kept in bottles for appearance's sake, and there were possibly quite a lot of them. Bottles only exist in the world of Rokkenjima-Prime but not in any other world, miraculously surviving the explosion and thrown into the sea. Every episode is outright fiction in a bottle, and no bottle actually describes events that occurred in Rokkenjima-Prime. They were written as a piece of mind and meditation on future possibilities, and presented to Meta-Battler as cycling reality which actually isn't real, selected because the culprit in them was George. In other bottles the culprit could have been different. Quote:
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A plausible variant though is that George took a real gun and shot at the shadows through the small window of the shed. He might have shot someone he didn't expect to see there. Quote:
They start off the party with tea, get ready to rise like zombies and wait. Rosa walks off to call Maria, but actually drops asleep because the tea contained sedatives, everyone else is asleep at the table. Then they're gutted for real and George leaves a taunting letter from "Beatrice". Quote:
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Now, who actually managed to shoot George (and when) is a good question, but it is related to a much more generally important question on who Gaap is supposed to be. If we can conclusively select who is Gaap's vessel, this can conclusively pin down a lot of other information.
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2010-08-30, 19:13 | Link #16829 | |
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But if not Shkanon, Kanon can be his accomplice.
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2010-08-30, 19:21 | Link #16830 | ||||||
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Only when every clue is connected do the real ones form the truth, while red herrings tend create lapses. But only the confession of the culprit or an involved individual (in case the culprit is dead) does really confirm the truth of that matter. This is not a court where we can only judge guilt with legally proven evidence or a confession, we can start to judge at everything that does not contradict, because this is a mystery, not a scene at court. For example the often reffered to puddle of water in a locked room and a stabbed victim, can only form a legal connection of evidence if there is proof that this puddle ever existed. If no substantial, lasting proof for that existence (for example a photo) is found, it can not be used as ample evidence. Yet in a mystery, as soon that this is described we can conclude, that a murder weapon of frozen ice was used to create the illusion of a vanishing weapon. To not let two people, who are supposed to be twi individual, turn up in front of the detective at the same time, in a story where it is possible to create cover up culprits, like witches, goat-men and demons out of the blue, is more than just the absence of evidence it is a clue and while in court we might rely on evidence, we base our ideas on clues in a mystery. Quote:
In a mystery the absence of evidence is as much a clue as the existence of evidence. The fact alone that we can be sure in a mystery that no other than the introduced characters can be found guilty in crime, makes it so different from a real case, or could you convict someone who has nothing to speak against him, yet because he is the only one without a perfect alibi has to be guilty? In court the acussing party has to prove guilt, in a mystery the victims have to prove innocence. Quote:
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Both letters are written and signed by the same person who sent the letters containing the keys to the money and some entries into Maria's diary. In your theory that would also be Shannon. But why would Shannon know of a crime happening on Rokkenjima, especially asking for people to solve that crime in the name of Ushiromiya Maria, if she did not know by that time, that a crime was going to happen in the first place. Your theory leaves that part of the story completely unaccounted for and for someone who is often calling for physical improbability the idea of the bottle being miraculously thrown into the ocean by the explosion and then one of them travelling 2 times their normal speed to reach their destination in time, is rather weak. The author of those letters must have known that a crime was about to occur and that it was impossible for anybody to survive. That person also wanted for certain people to have a share in the wealth if nobody else could have it, so a theory of 'her and George running of together but abandoning all their money and having no place to run to' seems highly improbable. Quote:
EDIT: To be exact it is this one, Will: 始めから、危ういゲームだったな。・・・・・・もしもあいつが、それでも死に顔を見たいと言って踏み入って いたなら、どうしていた。(That was a risky game from the very beginning. ...had he by any chance stepped in, saying that he wanted to see your face in death despite everything, what would you have done?) Clair: 運命に身を委ねる、ということなのです。(I gave over my whole self to destiny, is what I would have to say.) Will: お前のルーレットというヤツだな。(So, the one you call your roulette.) Quote:
And it canot have been Kanon either, because it was said that he was the first two die in Kyries group, in other words the 9th victim. Even if he did shoot Jessica after she shot George, that would leave Shannon to kill Kanon, Nanjo, Krauss, Kyrie and maybe or maybe not Maria.
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Last edited by chounokoe; 2010-08-30 at 19:48. |
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2010-08-30, 19:44 | Link #16831 | ||||||||
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If we approach it with all our genre knowledge we will, in fact, always be looking for the secret twin, the lying doctor, the scheming mother, the mysterious stranger who is in fact not as guilty as he or she looks, the slighted heir. We will point to the least likely culprit because they are in fact the most likely culprit. In short, exactly what we have been doing. That is a trap waiting to be sprung on a reader who thinks himself too clever for mysteries. I refuse to step into such a trap on the mere possibility that it exists to spring. Quote:
The evidentiary burden is harder to reach, but evidence is not that necessary. They could convict because they liked my tie better than the defendant's. But that's irrelevant. Quote:
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2010-08-30, 20:03 | Link #16832 | |||||
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For example, though, she dumped them into the water near the mouth of the sub pen cave, discarded as failed drafts, and they got blown out by the pressure wave coming in through the tunnel with the water - but didn't break because the tunnels caved in soon after that. Quote:
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Will just gets railroaded all the way and only realises it in the very end. I didn't say it was a complete theory.
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2010-08-30, 20:31 | Link #16833 | ||||||||||
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"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." That is one of the oldest detective rules to ever be created. Your other possibilities solve none of the mysteries, while the disguise theory is supported by a simple fact. "If it doesn't exist, murders cannot happen." Therefore, however stupid improbable, it must be the truth. Even Ellery Queen, the most fair among Golden Age writers used this rule. Quote:
But the police proceed to prosecute the surviving man anyway. It's a logical scenario, and it applies here. Quote:
I'm all for accusing Ryuukishi of cheating. But only when it's right. This isn't one of those times. Quote:
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Umineko isn't fair, that's for sure. But it's not impossible. I said before that mystery novels are an even duel between reader and writer, each with the same odds of winning. Umineko is more like 95-5 favoring the writer, but that small 5 still exists. Quote:
I dropped my previous attitude because while my complaint was valid, it was nothing people weren't aware of before. The mystery is an unfair duel, but people want to win this fight and be the 1-to-1000 shot in every underdog movie ever. It's not that the fans wouldn't care about an unfair solution. They want to see the meanest, most unfair trick in the history of mysteries, and figure out the hell out of it. Quote:
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2010-08-30, 20:34 | Link #16834 | |||||||
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I beg your pardon, but every character in Umineko is following a trope of some mystery novel or another, no matter who the culprit is, he would be following a certain convention, because the setting of Umineko in itself is so heavily inspired by tropes. Krauss would be the older brother in financial conflict. Natsuhi the wronged wife who only wanted to be perfect. Jessica the misunderstood daughter who wanted to be free. Eva the overzealous woman who was never respected. Hideyoshi is the nice joking uncle who has a dark agenda. And so on, and so on. I you were to name a culprit I could also construct an argument why nobody should believe it because it is trope, but this is not the point of discussion. By your way of thinking, you are not only avoiding falling into a trap, you are avoiding to take any step at all. Quote:
# 朱志香の死体発見時、朱志香の部屋にいたのは、戦人、譲治、真里亞、楼座、源次、郷田、紗音、熊沢、南條の みだった。 # 死体の朱志香ももちろん含む And more important even B) if 'everybody else' is in the other room and a real substantial Kanon is not in the other room. How could he leave the other room with 'everybody' in it without breaking the seal and enter Battler's room in the first place? No...entering maybe, but how was he able to lock the door?! I'm sorry, but death is impossible, unless he died of 'unknown reason X' the very moment he went into the closet. Quote:
And saying that she did not write the messages because she was suspecting something but out of boredom is a horrible sell-out. Then you could as well argue, that the whole stories are fiction anyway, Eva found the gold, told nobody, went to Kuwadorian and got everything for herself and she only cares for Ange, because she has nothing better to do. It would betray the whole concept of Umineko.[/quote] Quote:
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Okay, then I say the relationship between George and Shannon is a lie, it never happened and was all part of the magic scenes. Sounds cheap? Yeah, because it is. EDIT: Quote:
Without having to resort to 18th person X it is very hard to imagine how that person hiding already in the room could be among the people in the guestrooms, but I would be delighted to hear a suggestion.
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Last edited by chounokoe; 2010-08-30 at 20:54. |
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2010-08-30, 20:46 | Link #16835 | |||
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Sorry, but you're dissolving into "I can call your theory cheap but you can't call mine cheap because I won't ever accept it can be called cheap." Two can play that game, only it's not particularly interesting and doesn't get anyone closer to the truth.
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2010-08-30, 20:59 | Link #16836 |
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I can definitely see Shkannon as a sortof trap. The fact that noone in the series has even seemed to consider the possibility (especially considering that "Kanon is Battler", "Beatrice is Battler", "Jessica has multiple personalities", "Kanon is George", "Eva has multiple personalities" and so on has been suggested) is definitely suspicious. The thing is, this would happen whether it's a trap or the real answer.
Personally, I feel that the theories presented on the actual gameboard are basically always wrong, but are meant to sortof get you thinking (this means I strongly distrust any vanilla Kanon-culprit theories, since episode 2 implies so strongly this isn't the case, for instance). |
2010-08-30, 21:06 | Link #16838 | ||
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It is an assumption by one of the witch hunters, I think it was the professor with whom Ange met in EP4. He commented on how unlikely it was for one of the bottles to reach the shore so quickly if it had been sent out after the typhoon has started.
Of course he only says unlikely, but what reason would there be to insert that bit of trivia if it did not serve a purpose. It's too unnoticable for a red herring. Quote:
That would be like the culprit confessing, thinking the detective has uncovered his tracks, when everybody was short of accusing another person. Quote:
I was questioning your theory because it has holes you can immediatly point at. I pointed them out before another might pick up on them because of the ammount of half-knowledge still flaoting around about EP7. But it's a whole other business if you are deliberatley changing the ground that people are battling on. And excluding a whole Episode from the canon of the truth, just because the pieces in it do not fit into the truth you created in your head leads the whole series ad absurdum. If you say 'one GM' is able to create a whole game full of lies, you can as well say every game is a lie. Isn't it all more fun if we all accept the pieces to the puzzle we have and work with them as they are, instead of slicing the pieces together so they fit my idea of the final picture?!
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2010-08-30, 21:31 | Link #16840 | |||
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The logic of the bottles being the coverup, or prediction, or plan, however, is irrational. If you don't want anyone to ever figure out what happened, you do everything except make them think about it. Everyone would settle on a wrong story about an accident and that would be it. So you would definitely never send out more than one bottle, if you would send one at all. You can only create a fantasy if no bottle exists. The only way bottles are useful is when they are misdirection from start to finish and have nothing to do with what happened at all. Since we are assured so much that they do have something important to tell, I'd say they do... they tell of things she worried about happening and things she wanted to happen, in a form she felt comfortable with. Not intended for public consumption and getting released by accident. Quote:
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I'm not excluding it. I am, however, doubting it a bloody lot, both in truth of many presented statements and their interpretations. You aren't accepting any single episode as truth from start to finish either, are you?
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