[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[gdmcrjunkie]

Originally Posted by GreyZone

But Asumu "left something behind" after her death that made Kyrie remember her: Battler... Oh the irony

She says it ended though: "I was lucky to be pardoned after just 18 years."

[GreyZone]

Originally Posted by gdmcrjunkie

She says it ended though: "I was lucky to be pardoned after just 18 years."

I am not sure, but maybe Rudolph told Kyrie the secret about Battler at that time already. That would also mean that in EP6 we got a hint that could be easily missed about Kyrie being Battlers real mother.

[Drifloon]

Maybe Rudolf was married to Asumu for 6 years before Battler was born? I don't really remember the specifics.

[Poetic Justice]

So i watched the 9 hour youtube video and now I'm heavily leaning towards Rosatrice theory despite the fact that there are plenty of holes in it. Fact is i hated Yasu/Shannon theory since it's inception. I still find it absolutely stupid how Yasu is switching between multiple personas and killing them off one by one.

Hopefully a few years from now Ryukishi will reveal the truth in an episode or something.

[Cao Ni Ma]

Urgh, yeah that video has been discussed to death here. You wont find many that subscribe to what it proposes in here though.

e-Yes, Shkanon is dumb, but you simply cannot discard it as the truth given everything that happened in the stories and Our Confessions. They are part of the "reality" of the stories. Whether or not it actually happened in Prime is something else entirely.

The only way I would think that Shkanon wasnt an actual thing was trough Wave theory as one of the possible paths that was collapsed at one point the story and RK07 didn't really do a good job explaining quantum mechanics in the story to justify using it.

[rogerpepitone]

Originally Posted by Drifloon

Maybe Rudolf was married to Asumu for 6 years before Battler was born? I don't really remember the specifics.

Kyrie mentions in Episode 3 that Asumu was pregnant when Rudolf married her.

[GreyZone]

Kyries "18 years of hell" ended with the revelation that Battler is actually Kyries' son. I cannot see any other reason.

[GoldenLand]

Originally Posted by Poetic Justice

So i watched the 9 hour youtube video and now I'm heavily leaning towards Rosatrice theory despite the fact that there are plenty of holes in it. Fact is i hated Yasu/Shannon theory since it's inception. I still find it absolutely stupid how Yasu is switching between multiple personas and killing them off one by one.

Hopefully a few years from now Ryukishi will reveal the truth in an episode or something.

Yeah, what Cao Ni Ma said. Yasu/Shannon/Kanon on the gameboards is a solution which has problems, certainly, and I can see how people would dislike it and find it stupid, but hating the author's clearly intended solution does not make the solution wrong. Ryukishi's not going to pop out with "Hah! I lied about Yasu, and actually Rosa was Beatrice" in a few years. If Ryukishi had had a better editor working on the second half of the series, maybe he would have been able to explain Shkanontrice in a way more of the audience found satisfying.

It's good when people put effort into making a case for alternatives, though. Knownnomore's theories may be full of gaping holes and fail to provide a credible alternative, but he tried, as a good goat should. 9 hour videos are impressive! It's just, well. In terms of trying to get a theory taken seriously, Shkanontrice may be ridiculous, but Rosatrice is much more ridiculous, and Rosatrice is contrary to Ryukishi's intentions to boot.

Originally Posted by Cao Ni Ma

The only way I would think that Shkanon wasnt an actual thing was trough Wave theory as one of the possible paths that was collapsed at one point the story and RK07 didn't really do a good job explaining quantum mechanics in the story to justify using it.

Huh, that sounds interesting. It'd be fun if someone made up a more comprehensive Umineko wave collapse Shkanon theory. Even if Ryukishi didn't lay the groundwork well enough for it.

[Renall]

Of course that theory can be dismissed out of hand simply for cherry-picking its "facts," particularly from ep7 and ep8. Rosa does make a more compelling culprit than many by nature, but the fact of the matter is that there's just very little to actually suggest she has the necessary background to do what is done to the victims after death. It also has trouble accounting for the truth of Shkanon, which we pretty much have to accept even if we don't like it as a culprit theory.

Essentially a coherent Rosatrice theory would have to:

• Cite actual dispository evidence of her mystery background and association to Battler.
• Account for why Shkanon is true (and why it's even happening) but why all the things that point to Shkanon/Yasu as Beatrice are misleading.
• Explain either how Rosa can be the culprit on all game boards or why Shkanon or someone else is being used as a gameboard culprit to cover for Rosa (and how evidence on the boards actually proves this).
• Provide a coherent explanation for why neither Eva nor Battler would wish for information of Rosa's involvement to go public, and why Eva would refuse to even tell Ange about it in private.
• Explain both how ep7 applies to Rosa, why it's presented the way it is, what textual evidence proves it's strictly metaphorical and/or related by second degree to the actual culprit, and why Clair accepts Will's answers.
• Provide coherent rationalization for how someone as impulsive as Rosa managed to outwit her considerably sharper siblings (she doesn't do so hot in the ep7 Tea Party, for example) and everyone else, while sometimes being dead.
• Address the additional information provided in Our Confession and the manga that shows a near 1:1 correspondence of Yasu to Beatrice, such as the ep8 manga suggesting Shannon and Beatrice use the same spraypaint trick, or the extra material detailing Beatrice's conversation with Natsuhi about the baby.
• Oh right, address the baby.
• Not use any of the information pertaining to Bern's gameboard in ep8 unless it can be demonstrated that it is relevant and all rules from the board are accepted if any rule from the board is used (e.g. if you're going to cite to it, you also have to accept things like Shkanon and George only being able to murder children).

KNM attempts to do some of these things, but falls flat on others or reaches for very flimsy explanations for others (the ep7/ep8 stuff especially). I'm sure it's possible, but it runs up on a lot of issues. Shkanon is basically a case of "stupid, but apparently true." It's understandable why people would look for a better solution; it's easier than accepting that the one we got wasn't good. That doesn't mean that better solution actually exists in the text. In fact, if Rosatrice were true I'd argue it makes the ending of the work even worse, because it fails to address that point and make sense of it in its entirety. At least we got some resolution to the Battler/Yasu thing in ep8.

But hey, if you don't like the answer, write a nine-hour video or fan episode about it. He kinda left the door open for that in Dawn. Then got mad about it later I guess, for some reason.

[gdmcrjunkie]

Originally Posted by GreyZone

Kyries "18 years of hell" ended with the revelation that Battler is actually Kyries' son. I cannot see any other reason.

In Episode 6 Rudolf says he still hadn't told them after the 1st twilight. So, I can only think of three explanations:

1. Kyrie somehow found out by herself (although I'd expect her reaction to be more along the lines of "You not only dumped me but also stole my baby?!?" Maybe she has accepted it...)

2. Battler returning home was one of the conditions for her hell to end (maybe because Rudolf and Ange didn't consider their family complete without him there? Doesn't sound like hell to me)

3. "Battler will die here, we'll also get rid of our debt and the three of us will live happily ever after~"

And then there's of course 4. Ryukishi got confused, but I promised myself I wouldn't think that again after I found out Shannon starting to work at Rokkenjima 10 years earlier wasn't a mistake. Either way now I know I didn't misunderstand something simple, thanks

[Poetic Justice]

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

If Ryukishi had had a better editor working on the second half of the series, maybe he would have been able to explain Shkanontrice in a way more of the audience found satisfying.

So in the end we're just supposed to accept that Ryukishi made mistakes if the official explanation is true? Because there are plenty of holes in it too.

[AuraTwilight]

The man forgets doors exist when he constructs closed rooms. Should anyone be surprise?

[MysteriousLurkerGuy]

Originally Posted by gdmcrjunkie

In Episode 6 Rudolf says he still hadn't told them after the 1st twilight. So, I can only think of three explanations:

1. Kyrie somehow found out by herself (although I'd expect her reaction to be more along the lines of "You not only dumped me but also stole my baby?!?" Maybe she has accepted it...)

Maybe she looked in a mirror. At least with Ryukishi07's artwork, Battler looks a hell of a lot more like her than Ange does, and Ange is said to resemble her a great deal.

Originally Posted by gdmcrjunkie

2. Battler returning home was one of the conditions for her hell to end (maybe because Rudolf and Ange didn't consider their family complete without him there? Doesn't sound like hell to me)

If #1 is true, could well be. Her son doesn't want to be part of her family, and she can't reveal her own relationship without exposing his father's greatest sin....Ehh, probably not.

Originally Posted by gdmcrjunkie

3. "Battler will die here, we'll also get rid of our debt and the three of us will live happily ever after~"

If Bern and Featherine know the undisputed truth at the end of EP7, then what the hell is EP8 about, besides paying off the rest of Ryukishi07's mortgage?

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Poetic Justice

So in the end we're just supposed to accept that Ryukishi made mistakes if the official explanation is true? Because there are plenty of holes in it too.

Out of curiosity, define "holes." There are a few actual genuine plot holes (like the missing door in ep3 that gets addressed in the manga, and a few character threads that are dropped), but I'm curious what doesn't work otherwise. I mean, we can't even be sure Shannon and Kanon existed separately on a regular basis outside of the stories, and in the stories we can't use the "people would notice" argument because they can be written not to notice as a genre convention.

Thematically, most everything is basically wrapped up. You can not like it (and I don't, personally), but the intent of the author seems clear enough and I can't think of a single reason why the official position cannot be true. It would take an outright contradiction of that nature to really constitute a fatal flaw in the original intention.

Further, even if the original intent appears to fail, that's not proof of deliberate concealment of higher knowledge. That's an easy trap to fall into, but there's no rational reason to assume that absent considerable evidence that there is such knowledge present. Notably, the ending of the story has to be explained in the language of the "hidden story," and wrap it up properly. Otherwise you've just claimed there's another, hidden answer that's wrapped up in an even worse manner than the fake "surface" one. That is, you're saying not merely that the story ends badly, but that it's unworkably pretentious and ends badly.

[Poetic Justice]

Originally Posted by Renall

Out of curiosity, define "holes." There are a few actual genuine plot holes (like the missing door in ep3 that gets addressed in the manga, and a few character threads that are dropped), but I'm curious what doesn't work otherwise. I mean, we can't even be sure Shannon and Kanon existed separately on a regular basis outside of the stories, and in the stories we can't use the "people would notice" argument because they can be written not to notice as a genre convention.

How about the red statement in the linked room murder where it was stated in red that 6 people are dead. And shanon and kanon were stated as different people

[theacefrehley]

Originally Posted by Renall

Out of curiosity, define "holes." There are a few actual genuine plot holes (like the missing door in ep3 that gets addressed in the manga, and a few character threads that are dropped), but I'm curious what doesn't work otherwise. I mean, we can't even be sure Shannon and Kanon existed separately on a regular basis outside of the stories, and in the stories we can't use the "people would notice" argument because they can be written not to notice as a genre convention.

Out of curiosity, which part of the manga addresses the ep3 missing door?

[Cao Ni Ma]

Originally Posted by Poetic Justice

How about the red statement in the linked room murder where it was stated in red that 6 people are dead. And shanon and kanon were stated as different people

It has to do with the definition of the word "people" in the game. The same way they can claim that "Battler" was dead in EP8. Its also how how they can claim Kanon/Shannon to be dead regardless of the episode really.

Its how the "author" of the stories actually feels about it. Or in case of RK07 its a backhanded trick to try and deflect suspicion from them since by his own admission the servants were getting lots of suspicion at the time.

[Drifloon]

As I've said before, the arguments used by Rosatrice supporters to claim that Shkanontrice is "impossible" are all built on the assumption that the red truth must be taken absolutely literally, and that terms like 'people' must have a single consistent definition that applies to every single red statement made throughout the series. KNM's entire video series is built on this assumption, but I really don't know where it comes from. There's no reason to think that Ryukishi is particularly concerned with being absolutely logically consistent, and the whole point of a lot of Chiru was that he wants the readers to look for the bigger picture, the "heart", rather than becoming preoccupied with little details in closed room puzzles and coming to clear, unambiguous definitions for everything.

I honestly don't understand what it is people even see in Rosatrice in the first place. Even if they do believe that Shkanontrice is "full of holes", by the same standards Rosatrice must be as well. Given a choice between two explanations that are full of holes, it would make much more sense to take the one that's thematically consistent and makes for a much better story, as well as a much more interesting and three-dimensional culprit. But I think the source of a lot of this confusion is probably simply that a lot of Rosatrice supporters just don't remember the series that well when they watch KNM's videos, and have to rely on his own extremely biased summaries to remind them of the details.

To anyone who seriously believes in Rosatrice, I'd ask them to just reread the second half of EP7 with KNM's theory in mind. I genuinely feel that it would be completely impossible for anyone to do that and come out of it at the end still thinking that Rosatrice makes any sense.

[jjblue1]

On the positive note it seems that EP 8 manga version is getting even more awesome as it looks like the goats, while facing Dlanor and Will, are giving more theories than just the ones we got in the visual novel. The pictures implies the goat tried to deal with some mysteries in... Ep 2 I think as there's Battler with Rosa facing Natsuhi's door all covered in paint and there's also the chapel door closed with a key. There's also Shannon's death always in Ep 2. Maybe there's Ep 1 as there's a hand picking up or placing down a letter behind Jessica and Battler's back, and I think they talk about who gave Maria the umbrella. Also a bunch of theories on Ep 3 and 4 I think, expecially Nanjo's death in Ep 3 and Kumasawa's and Gohda's death in Ep 4?

At least those are the pictures shown although I can't read the dialogues and some other pictures aren't really clear.

Anyway I'm pretty excited with it as it could provide even more hints! Though Dlanor and Will shot down all the theories, of course so hints are likely solely on what's wrong, not on what's right... but well, I seem to remember I wasn't the only one who wanted to see the goats trying to address the mysteries in Ep 8, was I?

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Poetic Justice

How about the red statement in the linked room murder where it was stated in red that 6 people are dead. And shanon and kanon were stated as different people

I agree that's a cheat, but it's clear where he intended to go with it. Personalities or characters or whatever are people and a person can die with their body still being alive. Whether you like it or not (and I don't), it applies to Battler in ep8 and "Battler" is biologically alive in some form. If you're going to take all red as literal and all death as permanent biological death, then Toya isn't Battler at all and how does that work exactly? Likewise if everything that has the weight of red truth is literally true in all games everywhere then Jessica survived and George is only capable of killing Maria.

Certainly you could argue that amnesia and killing off a character you're portraying are different, and I'd agree with you, but it's not a hole if we look at what the author was claiming. It's just a very poorly-defined exploit of a rule nobody knew existed because he didn't tell us first. The simpler explanation for that is bad writing to cover up something that was more obvious than he thought it was going to be.

Now I would ask you, which is more reasonable: That he did this deliberately despite almost exclusively providing evidence, particularly in Chiru, of Shkanon/Yasu as the core of Beatrice solely to mislead you from the "real truth;" or that he just isn't a very good writer and had to cheat to temporarily deflect suspicion from a theory that people were pretty much aware of as early as ep2? Shkanon wasn't hated so much because it wasn't supported by anything as because people didn't want it to be true, because it appeared blatantly obvious that it was possible from the outset of the story and seemed a phenomenally stupid idea (and still is, but what can you do at this point?).