[Game] Umineko no Naku Koro ni - Ep. 4 Alliance of the golden witch

[Evy]

Originally Posted by TsundereCake

Spoiler for END OF EP.4 SPOILERS:

What is the romanji of Beato's "who am I?" statement?

Spoiler for this:

...Watashi wa.,.. daare...?

The "da" is a dragged out syllable in this case for some reason since there's a small "a." Without the dragging it would just be "dare."

[TsundereCake]

Originally Posted by Evy

Spoiler for this:

...Watashi wa.,.. daare...?

The "da" is a dragged out syllable in this case for some reason since there's a small "a." Without the dragging it would just be "dare."

Spoiler for Ep.4:

That's funny... since doesn't Beato use "warawa" and not "watashi" when referring to herself? Or is there some other confusing Japanese thing that would make her say "watashi" instead?

[Evy]

Originally Posted by TsundereCake

Spoiler for Ep.4:

That's funny... since doesn't Beato use "warawa" and not "watashi" when referring to herself? Or is there some other confusing Japanese thing that would make her say "watashi" instead?

Spoiler for fdsfgd:

The kanji for "watashi" is used, but I think it can be read differently. It's hard to tell without furigana, though.

[TsundereCake]

Originally Posted by Evy

Spoiler for fdsfgd:

The kanji for "watashi" is used, but I think it can be read differently. It's hard to tell without furigana, though.

Hmmm.... Interesting I wonder if that means anything

[EndlessNine]

Originally Posted by Evy

Spoiler for fdsfgd:

The kanji for "watashi" is used, but I think it can be read differently. It's hard to tell without furigana, though.

Spoiler for VN EP4?:

I've checked, and "watashi" (私) can be read as "warawa" too. But there is a specific kanji for "warawa" (妾), so I think Beato said "watashi" in that scene.

[Jan-Poo]

Spoiler for episode4:

She started using "watashi" (私) a few lines before. I think this means she lost her pride.

[TsundereCake]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Spoiler for episode4:

She started using "watashi" (私) a few lines before. I think this means she lost her pride.

This is very intriguing

[Alair]

I what might be an interesting idea...

One of the weirder bits of information in Episode 4 is that the stories of the previous games (excluding three, at least as of yet) had been carried ashore in bottles and become sort of sensationally famous due to their subject matter, their association with a mysterious serial killing, and of course because they involved a wealthy and powerful family. They're all pinned by a common author who is also identified as the author of Maria's "Solve the mystery of my mysterious demise" letter who is not Maria but is the other unknown second author of her grimoire and who is presumed to be "Beatrice".

Anyways, one of the things that anime episode 12 really drummed in is that magic needs belief to work. I'm wondering if maybe the real secret to Beatrice's power is that there's sufficient people in the future who *believe* that she did these things. The reason she can turn into golden butterflies, summon the Seven Stakes of Purgatory, etc. is that she wrote about being able to do such things and people believed her. Ie, those bottle accounts aren't just some form of whimsy - they're the actual key to her power.

Going by my theory there should be two sets of events occuring in tandem in Rokkenjuma, the first is events as they originally happened in the past, where murders were committed through mundane methods. The second is "Beatrice's" mostly-the-same-but-embellished-with-magic version which is overlayed onto the present by the force of belief in the future. Both sets of events are reflected in the locked off world.

I don't think it's a perfect model but I do think that it could explain quite a lot - in particular why it is that people who seem otherwise sane, credible, and without any conceiveable reason to be lying can claim to see magical phenomenon but, at the same time, why if it's possible for magic to exist it is that people killed by it always afterwards seem to have died from surprisingly mundane means if possibly under mysterious cirumstances (ie, Rosa - killed in 1,000 delightfully imaginitive and unbelievable ways but whom for some reason it was necessary afterwards to revive one last time and simply impale her on the fence).

It also might explain why every game keeps empowering Beatrice. You might suppose that if it's just fiction Beatrice could write anything she liked and boom, power, right? Suppose though that there's a certain barrier to what people are likely to believe. In the first account the magic's almost non-existent, it's hinted at but the closest we get to seeing what might be any *real* magic is the swarm of golden butterflies at the end. Did anyone actually finish the main part of Ep 1 and think "The culprit must be a witch"? In 4 it's mentioned that even the police were taking it seriously until somebody found another account in the same hand writing describing a completely different and far less believeable set of events. With every account what people are willing to believe, what you might call their "magic threshold" maybe, goes up. What might have been laughed off at first becomes entertained and even something people might *want* to believe in.

Mind you, there's a lot this idea doesn't explain. On the magical level, what gives Beatrice the seemingly prerequisite ability to keep rewinding the clock? If she can't and there's only one true set of events that ever occurred then everything falls apart (probably including our sanities). On the practical level, it suggests that Beatrice must survive each game and be a participant in the events that occur - otherwise she wouldn't be able to write about them well enough that her stories would convincingly overlay reality.

So... thoughts, anyone? Is this a new idea or have I just reinvented the proverbial wheel here?

[MeoTwister5]

So you seem to suggest that the reason Beato gains power with every game is that with the appearance of the bottles after each game, Beato somehow gains the power of belief from people who read the contents of the letter and end up believing in the power of the witch?

This wouldn't make sense if the concept of the games is a rewind of sorts. Mind you we're speaking of belief from an individual basis. Rewinding the clock would be similar to rewinding their minds; it's clear enough that each character has no recollection of previous games. It's much more probable for this theory to hold if the concept were similar to the kakeras of Higurashi: multiple world. This way you'd have multiple worlds of multiple people she can convince to believe in her.

[Alair]

Originally Posted by MeoTwister5

So you seem to suggest that the reason Beato gains power with every game is that with the appearance of the bottles after each game, Beato somehow gains the power of belief from people who read the contents of the letter and end up believing in the power of the witch?

Right. The magic of that belief and the outside world's uncertainty about what happened in Rokkenjima is the reason for the appearance of the witch. It's like the gnomes that operate your television set.

The past: Events occur, people are murdered, "Beatrice" survives and writes a pseudo-novelization about the event where the killings are reattributted to Beatrice and her magic.
The future: The bottle is found, people read about it, the sensational stories add to the cult of the witch.
The gameboard: Sits somewhere in between the two where both parts try to happen together. People are killed with mundane means because that can't be erased but at the same time the magic of people's belief brings Beatrice into the picture, acting out events the way she was written about.

This wouldn't make sense if the concept of the games is a rewind of sorts. Mind you we're speaking of belief from an individual basis. Rewinding the clock would be similar to rewinding their minds; it's clear enough that each character has no recollection of previous games. It's much more probable for this theory to hold if the concept were similar to the kakeras of Higurashi: multiple world. This way you'd have multiple worlds of multiple people she can convince to believe in her.

Rewind might not be the best word for it but I don't have a better one to put in its place. Wherever the two days in Rokkenjima actually is occuring it's a place where it's possible to be restarted and run out differently and where the world is trying to hold to two interpretations of reality at once (and where the past is merely an influence rather than the thing itself).

I considered kakera but I don't really think they quite work either - the only variable appears to be what's actually in those two days. Ie, no matter how amny permutations of those two days there might be it's not possible for Ange to attend because she was sick prior to their beginning (and if Bern had a nigh infinite number of worlds she could choose from surely she could find one where Ange'd remembered to wear her warm sweater the night before). Plus even if there are multiple worlds out there we know at least one of them received two "worlds" games which doesn't seem right.

[Jan-Poo]

There is something peculiar about "Maria's letters". From one side they tell you the story of a witch and how she killed everyone. And then at the end they ask for people to find the truth.

Don't you think it's strange? The letters already tell what happened, so why they ask for people to find what happened?

Because it is not what happened. Because what the author of the letter asks is to destroy the illusion. But before asking to destroy an illusion, you first need to create an illusion. It is like a riddle. For example

"I can sizzle like bacon but I'm made with an egg. I have plenty of backbone but lack a good leg. I peel layers like onions but still remain whole. I can be long like a flagpole yet fit in a hole. What am I?"

Almost every riddle as this thing in common. They trick you. They confuse you. They try to evoke in your minds things that are the total opposite of the solution. But the purpose of a riddle is to be solved. The challenge for the one who tries to solve the riddle is to see beyond the illusions, to understand the metaphors.

In episode4 Beatrice has lost her faith in Battler as the one who might solve the riddle, that's why she wasn't interested in the game anymore. It was pointless by then. But if her purpose was just to gain power, what would Beatrice gain from stalling the game indefinitely?

[rogerpepitone]

A revision to my trap epitaph hypothesis:

Spoiler:

For reasons detailed elsewhere, I do not think Kumasawa would have tried to work out the epitaph solution. Is it possible that the notes Ange found were a result of her attempts to write the epitaph?

[Alair]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

There is something peculiar about "Maria's letters". From one side they tell you the story of a witch and how she killed everyone. And then at the end they ask for people to find the truth.

Don't you think it's strange? The letters already tell what happened, so why they ask for people to find what happened?

Because it is not what happened. Because what the author of the letter asks is to destroy the illusion. But before asking to destroy an illusion, you first need to create an illusion.

Or, alternatively it's not enough for for the mystery to be impenetrable, it has to keep people's interest. In order for something to develop into a legend it needs a hook that keeps pulling people along.

Almost every riddle as this thing in common. They trick you. They confuse you. They try to evoke in your minds things that are the total opposite of the solution. But the purpose of a riddle is to be solved. The challenge for the one who tries to solve the riddle is to see beyond the illusions, to understand the metaphors.

In episode4 Beatrice has lost her faith in Battler as the one who might solve the riddle, that's why she wasn't interested in the game anymore. It was pointless by then. But if her purpose was just to gain power, what would Beatrice gain from stalling the game indefinitely?

Gathering power can a means to an end rather than the end in itself. In my head "Battler's Sin" is tentatively linked with why Beatrice and Maria's witch club went from designing spells to make candy drop out of the sky to spells to make candy that makes people explode when eaten. If we assume he somehow committed some high offense against magic then his role in the game as the Acting Prosecutor for the Case of Materialism makes sense - it certainly does not seem warranted by his deductive skills (including said aforementioned candy that makes your stomach explode and then multiplies into *more* candy to fill up the new gaping hole in your stomach. But certainly not by using magic.).

Likewise if he can't even remember what this high offense was then Beatrice, who to avenge the grevious insult has done the magical equivelent of climbing Mount Everest to endure the trials needed to learn the secrets of the Ancient Masters and then venturing back down and becoming the leader of a Stepes tribe and leading that tribe to conquer more tribes until she's assembled a mighty army with which she conquers nation after nation, heading ever eastward towards Japan until and her legions of horsemen (or goatmen) show up on Battler's front door to demand his final penance only to have him frown and kind of squint at her and say "I'm sorry, you say we've met before?" It's enough to make even the most hardened Khan throw their primitive spear away and go find the comfort of the nearest bar.

I've got no idea of what 12 year old Battler could have done that had such an effect on Beatrice (who even red-spoke that it was the reason people are now dying) but I'm sure it's this personal connection that's the reason why it's important that Battler is her opponent. If we were going on deductive skills then the job should almost certainly have gone to Kyrie (from whom Battler cribbed that Kinzo was already dead and whose idle outsider's musings on the nature of the epitaph inspired both Eva and Rosa with how to solve it).

[Bern-san]

Originally Posted by rogerpepitone

A revision to my trap epitaph hypothesis:

Spoiler:

For reasons detailed elsewhere, I do not think Kumasawa would have tried to work out the epitaph solution. Is it possible that the notes Ange found were a result of her attempts to write the epitaph?

Spoiler for epitaph ep4:

a good theory, I think that Kumasawa has sth weird, she may not have the crest but she knows lots of stuff that for example Shanon or Kannon dunnot know

[hodil]

About episode 3.

I just had a sudden inspiration about Battler and Eva-Beatrice's battle at the end. The one circling around kyrie's motive. Actually, im starting to believe that the whole argument was a giantic red herring. Although it has been confirmed that Kyrie did not go to the mansion for food, it was also not confirmed that she went to the mansion to interrogate hideyoshi. I think that the cigarette evidence was pretty weak, and she could have possibly picked it up from anywhere or such.

This would also address that intuition she had about Leviathan and Belphegor waiting for them in the hall. From an anti-fantasy point of view, it gives me the impression that she knows an ambush could have been set. What would this say? Well, it could be as simple as a planned ambush by Kyrie and Rudolph to confront Hideyoshi. Subsequently, if their deaths were faked, they could have have killed Nanjo at the end of the game and somehow died before Eva-Beatrice announce their deaths.

The web of red truths that locked Battler was indeed a scenario created by himself.

And why would kyrie and rudolph go around killing random people? It must be linked to battler's sins.

Oh wells, im simply just doubting situations that arent red-ed and if what i think of ryukishi is correct, slamming the truth right in our face during the middle of the question arcs do not sound like him at all =O

unless...it sounds like the truth after all =)

[Vega Lyra]

Well Ryukishi07 is the master of misleading the audience.
But in either case, Kyrie must have had a reason to go to the mansion such that it takes precedence over even the possibility of being killed. EP3 is a strange episode, since everything goes out of the 'norm' the moment the adults band together.

The scene where Kyrie felt the ambush could have been her sensing Eva was there. I personally believe Kyrie was killed by Eva (represented by Leviathan, envy [envy of krauss' position as the next head?]) and Rudolf by Hideyoshi (represented by Belphagor, sloth [perhaps Hideyoshi's lateness in safeguarding his company? of course, the stakes could represent the other party, or both as well.]) but somehow Rudolf managed to injure Hideyoshi enough that Hideyoshi died. Of course, we can't be sure about their deaths just then.

Forgive me if anything is shaky here, it's been some time since I've gone over EP3.

I wonder how everything will be explained for all of the question arcs when the time comes. There seems to be a lot to process.

[mizou]

found this - umineko fan disk -

[rogerpepitone]

Most of the deaths seem neat and premeditated. By contrast, Rosa's death seems far more like an accident or manslaughter. (Rosa had a gun, but was apparently killed at close range. Trying to push somebody onto spikes is pretty chancy.) Rosa's gun was left at the scene; Rudolf's, Kyrie's, and Krauss's guns were all taken. That suggests Rosa and Maria were killed by a different person.

Side comment: Is there any independent verification that Maria wanted to see her rose? It's bothered me that Maria never mentions the rose again in episode 1 or 2, but becomes suddenly obsessed with in in episode 3. Or maybe whoever removed it in episodes 1 & 2 failed to do so in episode 3.

[Vega Lyra]

Originally Posted by rogerpepitone

Most of the deaths seem neat and premeditated. By contrast, Rosa's death seems far more like an accident or manslaughter. (Rosa had a gun, but was apparently killed at close range. Trying to push somebody onto spikes is pretty chancy.) Rosa's gun was left at the scene; Rudolf's, Kyrie's, and Krauss's guns were all taken. That suggests Rosa and Maria were killed by a different person.

Side comment: Is there any independent verification that Maria wanted to see her rose? It's bothered me that Maria never mentions the rose again in episode 1 or 2, but becomes suddenly obsessed with in in episode 3. Or maybe whoever removed it in episodes 1 & 2 failed to do so in episode 3.

For Rosa and Maria's death in EP3, I'd have to agree that a different person committed their murders. I can imagine Eva killing Maria first out of frustration (fight about gold? did Eva even find the gold? ), and Rosa is shocked enough to pull the gun at Eva, but Eva instinctively uses her wide array of martial arts skills to kill her. I don't think Eva would have planned to kill them beforehand. (Does Eva have an alibi during the time Rosa and Maria were out of the guesthouse? )

For Maria's rose outburst in EP3, I have no clue why she suddenly wanted to see it. This situation seems to be only unique to EP3. There seems to be a heavy fuss about Maria's rose in Umineko.

[MeoTwister5]

Well I personally have always thought that Maria's infatuation with the rose is probably linked towards her mother. Since Rosa=Rose name wise, and Maria needing to take care and sacrifice herself for things/people she perceives to have been corrupted/possessed/etc., there may be a connection.