[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[DgBarca]

The Qilian theory is not confirmed in red, not that I don't believe it but I feel like searching some alternative...
I started to look for information about Qilian and found something on "Qilian moutains"...near it there is a town...and in this town...
...I think I found a very, very good alternative for the sweetfish river...
Like Eva said, it's linked to the ocean, and it has an 里 in it's name...But...I can't get it to 6 characters...I just can't...
Ho and I am just talking about the Great Wall.

Well...Since I don't think of anything to make it 6...I guess it's better to give up...But damn I like this idea...

It's not like I am raging about EP7...just that a riddle can have multiply solution, like it's said in EP5...and EP6 about the cheese. And I miss brainstorming part of Umineko

[UsagiTenpura]

My biggest problem with Qilian theory is that I feel it doesn't answer anything but itself. It does fit the epitaph, but I don't really see how it leads to the gold. Suppose things are as the Qilian theory said, then I ask, isn't the epitaph the long way around?

If there's some sort of device you can find by looking around the church (or inside) then I'm really surprised it wasn't everyone's first guess at where the gold was hidden. Guessing the truth from the epitaph's Qilian answer doesn't seem any easier then doing so without solving the epitaph. As for how to operate the device, if Qilian theory is right then it seems the possibilities on how to use said device are limited. Arc 5 also tells us Erika herself wasn't too clear and tried more then one thing on it.

So yeah, the way I see it now, I actually think the Qilian answer is the truth but I'm disappointed. It seems obvious to me that it's purpose (for Ryukishi) was making something cryptic enough to fit the murders in his serie. It's purpose as a "way to find the gold" however feels very weak. I suppose it's only real meaning in the end was to hint that the one who finds it becomes the successor.

Edit: To me an intelligent riddle would've included that the "device" isn't recognizable as a device, and that the epitaph's solution (possibly the "honorable name") would be what hints as to what this device actually is. If the device isn't recognizable as such then the Qilian solution doesn't help that at all. Saying "but it tells you to look for something suspicious near or inside the church" is already what anyone would do anyway. Remember the epitaph has been there only for two years (at least in display for everyone to see) but even kid Battler and Jessica used to look around for the gold. If no one finds it is seems really stupid to give them an additional riddle that doesn't even really helps you find it. It's just making things harder... then again this could be the reason I guess. People end up trying to solve a riddle rather then try to find the gold directly, and if the riddle is harder then finding the gold then publicly displaying it would be a good way to drag their attention to a harder problem.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by Sentou

Also, her putting on different personas also rubs me the wrong way. People who will treat you mean one second around other people and nice when you are alone are called many things. A Sociopath is one of those terms.

Yeah... there is another word for it. It's called a "teenager". Lot's of teenagers gossip about people behind their backs I'm sure you've done it once or twice too. That doesn't make her suspicious, or, of all things, a "sociopath" it just makes her a stereotypical, preppy, high school, girl. Which we already knew she was.

[LyricalAura]

My understanding was that since you're supposed to sacrifice the letters of the key from the original 13-letter phrase, then the next step after figuring out "quadrillion" would be to look for that word on display somewhere. So the device in question would be the physical letters of the chapel relief, which would be incredibly non-obvious unless you had solved that first piece of the riddle.

Even if someone stumbled across the device by accident, there are at least 13 choose 6 possible combinations to enter, for a total of 1716. And that's a lower bound assuming that the other letters in the relief aren't also dummied up as buttons, and that the discoverer already knows the combination is 6 letters long out of a 13-letter word.

[UsagiTenpura]

Keep in mind I'm uncertain what arc 7 says and only goes with the idea that it says the Qilian solution is true.

I'm not sure why you say 13, quadrillion has 11 letters. Also there's only five "inputs" on said device, the five "gouge". According to Qilian theory the "device" is something that has the possibilities of "up, down, left, right, and uuh center".

The possibilities aren't that high.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by UsagiTenpura

Keep in mind I'm uncertain what arc 7 says and only goes with the idea that it says the Qilian solution is true.

I'm not sure why you say 13, quadrillion has 11 letters. Also there's only five "inputs" on said device, the five "gouge". According to Qilian theory the "device" is something that has the possibilities of "up, down, left, right, and uuh center".

The possibilities aren't that high.

Sorry, 11 letters. But I think you're not understanding the sequence of events that the theory proposes.

1. Figure out the key is "QILIAN".
2. Figure out the place to offer the key is "QUADRILLION".
3. Find out "QUADRILLION" is at the chapel.
4. Discover the chapel relief device and enter the key to get directions somehow.
5. Follow directions to reach successive devices.
6. Manipulate each device according to the rest of the twilights to reach the gold.

Based on EP5 the trail leads out into the woods somewhere, and we know that the woods are huge, dense, and largely impassable. It's not a place people are going to be wandering around stumbling over the devices, especially if they're somewhat hidden (which they seem to be, again based on EP5).

[UsagiTenpura]

What you say that "quadrillion" (the word itself on top of the chapel's entry) is the "first device"?
... That's even more silly, what they have to "stealth borrow a ladder"?

[Yopee]

Guys, just call her a tsundere. Or tsundora as George calls it haha

[DgBarca]

Yeah, if "tear apart the two who are close" means "go to the chapel, because it's the place for burials and all", why "praise my honourable name of high" wouldn't mean "go to Kuwadorian" ?

[Dlanor A. Knox]

I dont know if this is already asked or said yet, but is the Chapel Catholic?

[UsagiTenpura]

From what I remember (could really be wrong on this) the chapel isn't of any specific faith. It's almost like Kinzo did it for fashion and style rather then real belief.

[ameskitty]

Originally Posted by Sentou

Likewise, Jessica's fake asthma bothers me, even if one could argue that she uses it benevolently.

Fake asthma? Didn't she just say that she sometimes fakes that she has an attack coming on? (unless that's what you're referring to)

An asthma cough is very difficult, if not impossible, for somebody without the condition to fake.

[AC-Phoenix]

Originally Posted by Winar

Non denied by red humans, who can be culprit:
Eva, Hideyoshi, Rudolf, Kyrie, Rosa, Jessica, George, Maria, Nanjo AND BEATRICE-3 if she is human.
Others: Natsuhi, Krauss, Battler (denied in ep5); dead Kinzo (denied in ep4, saved by gold in ep5); servants Skannon, Kumasawa, Genji, Gohda (all denied in ep7, servants not culprits).

So easy? But no one besides Kinzo, before 5 episode, was claimed in red text as not-culprit, core arcs really answers about real murderer?

es and no.
One of the servants could still be the cultprint.
Why?

Kinzo is dead and someone inherited his name.
That person wouldn't be a servant then.

You also have to think baout the following:
The entire thing is based on a Real-Uminekoworld event.
There is no need for the Knox rules to affect the real cultprint...

Ep 2-8 would then only point the EP 1 Cultprint out

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by AC-Phoenix

You also have to think baout the following:
The entire thing is based on a Real-Uminekoworld event.
There is no need for the Knox rules to affect the real cultprint...

Ep 2-8 would then only point the EP 1 Cultprint out

The declarations that "X is not the culprit" in episode 5 had nothing to do with Knox. It had everything to do with them not being the culprit though.

Also it's probably not yout fault, but please use spell check. It bugs me to see you spell culprit as "cultprint" every time. "Cult" and "print" are words, "culprit" is also a word, but "cultprint" is not a word.

[AC-Phoenix]

Originally Posted by Judoh

The declarations that "X is not the culprit" in episode 5 had nothing to do with Knox. It had everything to do with them not being the culprit though.

Also it's probably not yout fault, but please use spell check. It bugs me to see you spell culprit as "cultprint" every time. "Cult" and "print" are words, "culprit" is also a word, but "cultprint" is not a word.

You know I really started asking myself where I got that 't' and 'n' from, since a few seconds
oO

[Helmet-kun]

Eh... I'll just...Dump this theory here.

Spoiler for What I originally thought:

I was thinking that the real 'miracle' was that Natsuhi conceived before Kinzo stepped in, thus avoiding the whole tragedy altogether. Then the reason why no Beato= Lyon was because Beato was the one thrown off the cliff, died, and became the ghost that haunted Rokkenjima. Hell, if Shkanontrice is true, it would explain why Shannon/Kanon weren't exist at all in Lyon's world (alternatively, one could think that Kinzo wouldn't thought of using the orphanage, and therefore didn't receive Kanon or Shannon.)

...Though, I'm thinking that there are flaws to this (excluding the fact that the game revolves around the 'what if Lyon wasn't thrown off the cliff'), considering that I haven't played the games in a long while. Though, my only reasoning for this is because Leon has similar characteristics to Jessica despite being...'adopted'. If I recall correctly, blonde hair isn't exactly common in Japan, is it?

[Winar]

Originally Posted by AC-Phoenix

Kinzo is dead and someone inherited his name.

No one besides Kinzo can claim his name, but for example Kinzo=Ushiromiya family head, and person who becomes next family head can use "Kinzo" as title.

Originally Posted by Winar

Eva, Hideyoshi, Rudolf, Kyrie, Rosa, Jessica, George, Maria, Nanjo AND BEATRICE-3

Better to say not BEATRICE-3, may be something like "Ushiromiya family head=Beatrcie (to become golden witch Beatrice you should solve epitaph, to become Ushiromiya family head you should be acknowledged by others members, or solve epitaph, find gold and other will acknowledge you). But I am confused about other names:
For Eva, Hideyoshi, Rudolf, Kyrie almost impossible simulate death in ep2 (and for Eva and Hideyoshi impossible simulate death in ep1, stakes in their heads)
For Rosa almost impossible simulate death in ep3
For Jessica almost impossible simulate death in ep4
For George impossible be Beatrice-3 in ep4, Battler saw corpse in garden and after this spoke with Beato-3.
For Maria almost impossible be culprit
Doctor Nanjo could be helper of the culprit, but not be culprit by himself.

[Will Wright]

Well, I can say this. Episode 7 was interesting. I was very pleasantly surprised by the Van Dine rules. I am a fan of Van Dine myself, and I have been using them to try to solve the mystery since episode 1. Shkanon existing or not, I deny that they are the culprit.

Has it been confirmed if the Van Dine rules apply to the earlier episodes or not?

I recall that Van Dine once clarified the love rule was "love is allowed only if it contributes to the puzzle, it is not admissible however for love to be the detective's goal. The detective must bring the culprit to justice and find out the truth hidden behind lies. Love is a good motive, and can also make interesting puzzles. But the reason behind the detective's efforts must be for justice, not love."

I'm paraphrasing from a book about Dine, so I'm sorry if it's innacurate. But the general gist of it is that love is okay, but the book must be about the mystery not about love, unless love is part of the mystery.

If Ryuukishi did his homework, he can use that to justify how the rules don't break anything.

I don't believe that the tea party where everybody kills each other is real. No, I don't believe it's a fragment either.

Because of Dine's 12th. There can be only one culprit no matter how many murders are committed.

Of course, you could argue that Dine's rules don't apply, or that Ryuukishi is using a modified version of them. We would have to wait for the next interview with Ryuukishi to know for sure.

But assuming that Dine is true(which I will for the rest of this post) there are many theories we can construct. For this, I will construct a theory where the culprit is Kinzo. I just caught up with the game(began them last week) but I'm a big mystery fan, grew up with them and finally got my own mystery book accepted for publication recently.
This is my theory before I looked up any of the online theories(I'm only now catching up with them) so it's...Well, judge it for yourselves. From what I read of the topic so far, the theory that Shannon and Kanon are the same person is called Shkanon right?

Spoiler:

Kinzo is dead is well known, however if we are willing to count different personalities as different tones of red, I propose that Goldsmith is an alternative personality of Kinzo. Shkanon is in fact real. The problem with Shkanon is that it was stated in red at the end of episode 6 that this is tale of 17 people. If Shkanon is correct, then that number should be 16. If we add Goldsmith back into the table, then the number goes back to 17.

For the first game, it explains all murders as Kinzo has no alibi. The Eva/Hideyoshi closed room was faked, as Kanon(being part of the conspiracy) lied about it. Kinzo is conducting the entire series of murders because when Battler came back, he was afraid that Beatrice/Shannon would be stolen from him. Shaky, but you can work your way around that with many more plausible motives if we assume Kinzo to be alive.

All subsequent deaths in the first game can be explained.

For the second game, it is equally easy to solve once we have person X being Kinzo, who has no alibi. Third game, it's the same. Nanjo's murder can be explained. After so much stress killing people, Kinzo died from his previously foreshadowed heart condition.

This is not murder or suicide, so it dodges Dine and Knox.


Episode 4. If Kinzo is still alive, episode 4 is easier to solve. He opened fire at everyone with machine guns, as previously foreshadowed by his war background. This dodging "Kinzo is dead" could establish him as the culprit, and his motive was laid out to us as soon as episode 2. He is conducting the murders in the hopes that Beatrice is revived.

Shaky theory, but possible I believe. There are probably a lot of variations of it that people already discussed it.

Also in order to small bomb the hell outta everything while we are it, this is not And Then There Were None.

This is And Then There Were No Orient Expresses.

Over half the game is an accomplice. If we assume the Kinzo is alive theory, then Natsuhi's faking becomes...A lot more sinister. She is not the culprit, but could be an accomplice. Alternatively, Kinzo and Krauss decided to fake Kinzo's own death so that Natsuhi would go along with it. But she is borderline delusional, so let's go with "she's helping Krauss and Kinzo to fake Kinzo's death."

If that's right, then the following people would have to be accomplices:
Genji
Shannon/Kanon
Natsuhi
Krauss
Not Gohda(poor Gohda)
Kumasawa
Nanjo

That's A LOT of accomplices. Krauss still had half his face in episode 1, which we can argue as Kinzo backstabbing him. Natsuhi's calm posture could have been because she was prepared for him to die.

Positive points about Kinzo is the murderer theory: Decent amount of foreshadowing, tecnically possible.

Negative points about Kinzo is the murderer theory: Pushes things a bit, and makes everyone seem like a jerk. It has no love.

About Yasu:
If they exist, Shannon and Kanon do not exist. That would be because I argue that Shkanon were Kinzo's second attempt at bringing another baby to Natsuhi, which she eventually rejected.

About Battler's sin:
Coming back, he was 'stealing' Beatrice from Kinzo, which prompted the murders. His coming back could have triggered Shannon's beato personality, which gave Kinzo the final push to lie to himself about the magic working/go insane.

Well, that's it for my theories on Umineko. Probably wrong, but I felt like trying to solve it my own way.

[Pikumin]

Originally Posted by Will Wright

Kinzo is dead is well known, however if we are willing to count different personalities as different tones of red, I propose that Goldsmith is an alternative personality of Kinzo. Shkanon is in fact real. The problem with Shkanon is that it was stated in red at the end of episode 6 that this is tale of 17 people. If Shkanon is correct, then that number should be 16. If we add Goldsmith back into the table, then the number goes back to 17.

Was it not stated at the end of ep 6 that there are only 17 people including Erika? That means that normally there are only 16 people, making your Kinzo theory impossible, right?

I firmly believe in the Shkanontrice theory, and I think it can explain lots of the murders and phantasy scenes, particularly in the second and third games.

Over the two days, Shkanontrice is torn between choosing George, Jessica, and Battler who promised to come back for her on a white horse six years ago(for Battler, this probably wasn't a very big deal since he forgot about it, but Shkanontrice, being a servant trapped on Rokkenjima, must have seen Battler as her salvation).

In the second game, Jessica is the first to be rejected, as Kanon stabs her in the back and kills her. As for the scene with the zombie Kanon, what I suspect happened was Shannon ran to the boiler room and changed into Kanon(and perhaps took the cleaver that was shown there in the first game to use as a weapon) then went back and killed Nanjo and Kumasawa. Also, in the scene in Natsuhi's room where George and Shannon are killed, Beato gives them a speech about how love is nothing but lust. Assuming that Shannon, Kanon, and Beatrice are all the same person, Beato's speech could be symbolic of Shannons own decision that George only wants her for her body. The brief appearance of fake Kanon in this scene may symbolize the revelation of Shannon and Kanon being the same person to George. Shannon then kills George and maybe fakes her own death, although I'm not positive about this, as being staked in the head would be difficult to fake. What makes me suspect that she is pretending to be dead is that when Battler tries to look at her face, Rosa(who is an accomplice of Shkanontrice) violently pulls Battler away from her. Because of this, Battler only got a very brief look at Shannons face, and therefore was unable to notice that she was just playing dead. Also, if i'm not mistaken, didn't the stake that was supposedly jammed in Shannons head immediately fall out the moment Battler moved her? Shannon probably didn't expect anyone to touch her while she was playing dead, so she only stuck the stake to her head very loosely.

In the third game, Shannon fakes her death for the first twilight. Later on when George finds her, Shannon kills him and continues to play dead. Later still, Shannon gets up and kills doctor Nanjo. She then takes Jessica and leads her away(since Jessica is blinded at this point, Shannon doesn't need to change her disguise to Kanon, she just needs to put on the Kanon voice. However, since she is still dressed as Shannon, she doesn't let Jessica touch her, as she might notice from the feel of the clothes that it isn't Kanon).

Although I'm not sure if Shkanontrice is the main culprit, or why she would kill so many people(unless she knows about the bomb and feels she has nothing to lose). ^^;

[Renall]

I still maintain, and if ep7 is accurate as well, that if Shkanontrice is true, he/she/it is a despicable and deranged individual who is blaming Battler needlessly for something which is absolutely not his fault.

I prefer, however, to think that this apparent conclusion means one of the premises is wrong (Shkanon isn't true, Battler's sin isn't what it's portrayed to be, the reason for a charade are explicable, any/all of the above, etc.). I think ep7 is suggesting that one of our outputs (only Eva survives) is wrong.