[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

It becomes very obvious, really. That's why it seems so weird to have such an obvious hint.

Well, that's kinda the method of a mystery novel: Having you go back and slap yourself silly over how in your face many of the things actually were. EP1 is actually really, really simple once you think about it. It is actually one of the simplest Episodes, but, since we didn't know yet what we were looking for, many elements escaped us.
She could have cut the chain the moment she murdered Eva and Hideyoshi (in that particular narrative) and nobody would be any wiser.

Originally Posted by Kealym

Battler's game is all rainbows and sunshine, all the time, and the plot has at numerous points made a whole plot out of how that's nice sometimes, but is basically a ploy to ignore reality when facing reality is uncomfortable.

Well, it is sorta meant to act as an opposite to Bern's rethoric about the murders and in that sense is of course really "squeaky clean" as Bern puts it. The funny thing is that this is highlighted by her under the terms of "yes, but it's a GM's job to show a one-sided account and the player's job to uncover the truth behind that"...so she already admits that she herself is doing the very same thing.

Bern's game and rethoric is equally guilty of "making it easy" since she paints all the relatives as horrible people who Ange doesn't have to feel guilty about judging. It's both kinda, sorta escapism.

Even Battler admits his game is moreso for the sake of making Ange feel better than anything more than a superficial resemblance to reality, so...

Well, he actually says that it is for her to remember their hearts and souls, the "them that she didn't know or forgot about". I don't think that Battler was effectively lying about them - Bern also mentions how he removed the epitaph in order to remove the "igniting spark that sets off the tragedy" - he is simple showing an amlgamation of everything that got left out of public opinion post-1986.

Originally Posted by Renall

As a phenomenon? Not that different at all. As a discrete crime?

Well, I meant it less on a structural level of the crime but more on a structural level of the fictionalization and mediafication of the crime. For a closer resemblance to Rokkenjima you could take a very famous German case, that of the Hinterkaifeck murders, but I prefered the Zodiac as an example because of the vicinity of crime and mediafication of the events.
Hinterkaifeckt actually has quite the resemblence to Rokkenjima, with rumors of incest, a terrible patriarch, a child said to be the result of incest, the case still being unsolved, legends of ghosts haunting the property etc.
But, since in 1920s Germany the amount of genre-media was already shrinking due to the financial crisis and later on got completely pulled from the market due to the political climate, it took until the 70s before there was actual media on the case (not only newspaper rumors and folktales).

To add a little to what Renall said, I won't pretend to know much about it, but I assume there's a certain period, before which it'd be considered really rude to play around with a true crime narrative.

On the contrary, the first movie on the Zodiac killer, actually titled The Zodiac Killer, was released in 1971...while the case was still very much in the process. There is not much that actually holds back such processes, especially TV movies, books and pop-magazines are really quick to report on these things.

I watched AHS : Coven not too long ago

AHS is pretty fun, isn't it?
This reminds me, Lana Winters from AHS: Asylum is pretty much how I imagined Ikuko to be.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by Kealym

That's a bit unfair of a comparison, no?
In EP3, Krauss isn't an accomplice, and his siblings are being murdered at an alarming rate. In EP7 TP, his siblings are alive and well, and they're bickering over a large (LARGE) amount of money. Are these things really more at odds with one another than the fact that Battler is very rude and thinks poorly of his father, but is still upset when he's been killed? Dang, people can be multiufaceted, when the moment's right.

Are we sure he isn't an accomplice? He and Natsuhi were lead out of the house. It might be they left on purpose.
Also in Ep 7 he basically started the bickering claiming he wanted a bigger share then the others and his title as head acknowledged despite having kept hidden Kinzo's death and not having really helped solving the epitaph. And when his siblings refused he blackmailed them saying he was the only one who could convert the gold so either they were to bow to him or wouldn't get nothing. This is pure greed at his worst because even with much, much less than an equal share to the one of his siblings he could have fixed his problems. With an equal share he still would have saved a lot. But no, he has to impose on them.

I'm not discussing the fact that people can be multifaced but the difference is that Battler is presented as a fundamentally good person who even cry by seeing George lose his parents. Krauss is more like Rosa. She's very sorry she beat her daughter and neglect her but... can't stop. And Krauss is very sorry he's a jerk to his siblings but... can't stop.

Originally Posted by Kealym

I agree that it's possible to suspect Battler, of course, but since it's so unsupported by the text at large, it mostly enters Black Battler territory, where he goes around molesting and killing people for ... ... the love of molesting and murdering people, y'know?

With the adult relatives, we already know that they're in desperate financial straits, are willing to do bad things for their own reasons, and for the most part aren't very attached to each other, emotionally. We already know Krauss is willing to break the law, we already know Kyrolf is willing to basically steal if they can get away with it, we already know Evayoshi is willing to blackmail their own relatives.

With the kids, though, they're really all portrayed as being better than all of that. George, Battler, and Jessica are basically just some really nice, well adjusted kids who more or less can get along with all their relatives, and don't hold the family headship with much regard. Eva might kill someone to be the family Head. Jessica would probs pay someone to take her place as the next one.

While personally I think that it's unlikely the kids would kill for the heck of it they declare to be more or less ready to do so if someone were to threaten/kill their loved ones. Jessica in particular is prone to jump on people first and think after. I don't know how much good Jessica is with her punches but George knows fighting arts and Battler is pretty strong and is hinted he got into fights with others.

In Ep 3 Jessica is blinded by mistake because she jumped on Eva thinking she was the culprit. In Ep 4 Jessica and George kill each other by mistake while thinking to fight the culprit. While Ep 6 seems to paint them as killers, it can be a metaphor to say that they would fight to protect those they love.

So if something happened while the adults were in the gold room (for example the servants faking being dead) or after Kyrie and Rudolf left it (for example they tell the cousins an incident took place and they don't believe them) the cousins could have gotten into an argument among themselves or with them and this might have lead to an increasing in the dead count.

Of course it can also be that Rudolf and Kyrie get out and shoot everyone as Ep 7 hinted. I'm not sure we'll even know what had happened because the only one who might know (but also might not) is Battler/Tohya but he claims he doesn't remember things well... and anyway if things went like in the TEaparty he saw nothing. For him everyone was free to go around and shoot people.

Originally Posted by Kealym

Thing is, only Battler's EP8 game presented such an extreme. All the games before, we saw the relatives being kind but also occasionally cruel or petty. Desperate with the occasional streak of old fashioned honor. Battler's game is all rainbows and sunshine, all the time, and the plot has at numerous points made a whole plot out of how that's nice sometimes, but is basically a ploy to ignore reality when facing reality is uncomfortable.

In a way Battler's game fits how he wanted to think at people. Right in Ep 1 Battler reasons things, with Kyrie, with Eva, with himself and acknowledges there's not a 19 person. However when he sees Eva and Natsuhi arguing on how Natsuhi could be the culprit he gets so impressed by it he refuses the possibility the culprit is one of the 18 and start to wonder if it's possible that the number of the people is 18,5 somehow. as he knows this is absurd he slowly ends up refusing the idea that one of the 18 is the culprit and tries his best to prove there's a 19 person.

Battler insisted into presenting over and over all the people there as nice ones and defending them all. He doesn't search a culprit, he search a way to absolve the 18. Ep 8 is, I guess, his way. In Ep 8 everyone is the nice person Battler saw him or her to be. Sure they have some flaws (Rudolf still switched the baby, Eva and Krauss still argue, Natsuhi still killed the servant, Rosa is still not a good mother) but in Ep 8 they all want to overcome the flaws they probably acknowleged in their heart but never fought actively. Kinzo makes peace with his kids, Eva resolves her conflict with Krauss, Rudolf tells the truth and Kyrie forgives him, Rosa gets along with her daughter.
Battler don't view them as bad people but as good people with various flaws who needed a chance to set things right and fix things among them so he basically removes all the pressure they could have from lack of money and hiding a corpse and place them together in a nice setting.
In a way it's a picture filled with love and trust in his relatives and it could be that things weren't so bad before everyone ended up needing money. Maybe that's how he remembers them when he visited them at 12 or younger.

It's not that they don't have negative emotions ever, it's that they admit they HAD them but now they want to overcome them because there's no reason to have them.

Ange simply couldn't picture them wanting to make peace but for Battler, who decided after 6 years to try and make peace with his father and that Ange remembers playing with Rudolf and getting along with Kyrie, it should have been easier to think if given the chance they would realize their mistakes and make up.

The real obvious lie is that actually they were under a lot of stress generated by money problems, Kinzo's actions, Krauss' fraud and likely didn't feel like making up at all. They were in the middle of a desperate argument and so they ended up behaving at their worst. Battler removes the argument and so they behave at their best. His game is not a complete absurdity... it's more like a possibility lost, like Natsuhi accepting to raise Lion and becoming a good mother for him.

Differently from Bern we can picture many settings in which she would have accepted to do so, starting from Kinzo acting nicely to her already having a child... or simply missing the chance to toss Lion off a cliff and slowly growing fond of him.

They aren't absurd possibilities... they're just possibilities that won't take place because in the past things went different.

Originally Posted by haguruma

Well, that's kinda the method of a mystery novel: Having you go back and slap yourself silly over how in your face many of the things actually were. EP1 is actually really, really simple once you think about it. It is actually one of the simplest Episodes, but, since we didn't know yet what we were looking for, many elements escaped us.
She could have cut the chain the moment she murdered Eva and Hideyoshi (in that particular narrative) and nobody would be any wiser.

LOL, if that was a clue left on purpose this means as soon as I'm going to re-read Ep 2 I'm going to search for another obvious one. I love this sort of things!

[Renall]

Originally Posted by haguruma

On the contrary, the first movie on the Zodiac killer, actually titled The Zodiac Killer, was released in 1971...while the case was still very much in the process. There is not much that actually holds back such processes, especially TV movies, books and pop-magazines are really quick to report on these things.

The thing about Zodiac is that it's similar to Rokkenjima inasmuch as there was some kind of metafiction created and presented for media and public consumption which raised the profile of the case. In the latter case it was (apparently) accidental, with the message bottle stories creating the perception that Rokkenjima played host to a classical murder mystery (and that's probably also where people took the form of it from in-universe when making their assumptions). In the case of Zodiac, the killer actually sent encoded letters to the police and, more importantly, the press.

A serial killer who doesn't announce themselves builds up momentum more slowly, particularly if there isn't some mystique to the case. Zodiac very much intentionally wanted that mystique to build quickly, hence the letters. The phenomenon probably took off in particular because he both taunted police and didn't get caught right away (or ever, really). Compare this with Ted Bundy, who was trying not to get caught and whose mystique probably never would have peaked if he hadn't been revealed to be a charming and handsome man who didn't seem the type to commit dozens of murders.

A more recent example of a quick buildup of public interest would be the D.C. Sniper case. The mystique of the killings there came from the audacity of them, that someone was shooting at people with a high-powered rifle in broad daylight. It began to die down once they identified and caught the shooters because they hadn't done much to either fan the flames while still doing the killings (as Zodiac did) and didn't turn out to be someone surprising or unexpected (as Bundy was).

Rokkenjima has seemingly-unintentional parallels with the Zodiac case in the sense of the phenomenon and meta-fiction surrounding it, so I think it's an apt comparison on that level. An unsolved mystery with a bunch of unexpected elements (in this case, literal "message in a bottle confessions" that don't confess to anything) would probably trigger the public's imaginations quickly and it would be a constantly-revisited case for years and years thereafter. They'd almost certainly make movies about it, at least at some point. By 2000 or so I doubt anyone would even consider it to be rude to speculate on it and I'm honestly not even that surprised that it blew up in the late 80s either. The only unrealistic thing the story suggests about the Rokkenjima enthusiasts is that they'd ever stop.

[jjblue1]

Guys, let's enjoy the last spoiler of Ep 8 Confession of the golden witch Part 3.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
I'll kill to get my hands on the last chapters of Ep 8!

[GoldenLand]

That's a gorgeous piece of art. What a great expression!

I can only imagine what sort of interesting new info we'll be getting when spoilers for the chapter's content come out.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

That's a gorgeous piece of art. What a great expression!

I can only imagine what sort of interesting new info we'll be getting when spoilers for the chapter's content come out.

Well, since it's still 'confession' there's not much to say unless Sayo survived the massacre long enough to write down what happened during those 2 days before the island went KABOOM!

In this case we won't need Tohya/Battler to tell us the truth and if Ikuko found the bottle prior to finding him it might explain why she decided he wasn't dangerous but that also needed to be kept hidden. Sorta.

I still think Ange deserved to have what remained of her brother back but maybe in Yasu's tale she wrote Eva thought him to be the culprit/an accomplice to the culprits and if he were to show up she would have had him arrested or killed?

[GreyZone]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

Well, since it's still 'confession' there's not much to say unless Sayo survived the massacre long enough to write down what happened during those 2 days before the island went KABOOM!

In this case we won't need Tohya/Battler to tell us the truth and if Ikuko found the bottle prior to finding him it might explain why she decided he wasn't dangerous but that also needed to be kept hidden. Sorta.

I still think Ange deserved to have what remained of her brother back but maybe in Yasu's tale she wrote Eva thought him to be the culprit/an accomplice to the culprits and if he were to show up she would have had him arrested or killed?

Would it be too far fetched to claim that Ikuko "finding" the "confession" was a fantasy scene?

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by GreyZone

Would it be too far fetched to claim that Ikuko "finding" the "confession" was a fantasy scene?

Honestly I don't know. The Confession is in Featherine's library and in Tohya's memories so I think that a 'Confession of the Golden Witch' existed.
If Ikuko isn't Yasu it's also needed to explain how she could know everything.

The way she found it though might have been different from the way it was depicted according to the spoilers. But I think we need to see the scene prior to judging it.

I found odd how the paper on which the confession was written was red instead than white but red paper exists or it could have been white paper that got dirtied in blood so... so far we can't really say...

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

Honestly I don't know. The Confession is in Featherine's library and in Tohya's memories so I think that a 'Confession of the Golden Witch' existed.
If Ikuko isn't Yasu it's also needed to explain how she could know everything.

Also, considering it a fantasy-scene is basically going back to the whole "let's refuse everything" schtick. What good would it be to completely lie about this?
What I do consider somehow is that the "bottle message written on blood red paper" might actually be a representation of Battler himself who told her everything.

Though...rethinking it, the text you found said that this bottle as well was tossed before the actual incident

But yes, we need to see the scene to actually judge it
One more week and I can!!!!

[Renall]

"Red paper" is clearly a literary device, meaning that essentially all contents of the document are of the same weight as red truth. Which honestly more than anything would kind of suggest a fantasy of a sort. However the only thing "a message bottle containing the confession found by the side of the road" could really be a stand-in for would be Battler's memories and receiving the confession in some manner through that. And that would obviously say a few things about Battler's memories, as to have been derived from him he'd have to have learned them somehow.

Or maybe she just found a bottle coincidentally containing straight answers instead of a story and never told anyone because people wanted answers so let's Deus Ex Machina shoehorn them in Ikuko's story is already pretty heavy on coincidence, so what's a little more?

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by haguruma

Also, considering it a fantasy-scene is basically going back to the whole "let's refuse everything" schtick. What good would it be to completely lie about this?
What I do consider somehow is that the "bottle message written on blood red paper" might actually be a representation of Battler himself who told her everything.

Yes, the bottle might be an 'embellishment' of what Ikuko really found.

Originally Posted by haguruma

Though...rethinking it, the text you found said that this bottle as well was tossed before the actual incident

If it was tossed before the incident then it can't contain the truth of what happened during those two days.

Originally Posted by haguruma

But yes, we need to see the scene to actually judge it
One more week and I can!!!!

Lucky you!

Originally Posted by Renall

"Red paper" is clearly a literary device, meaning that essentially all contents of the document are of the same weight as red truth. Which honestly more than anything would kind of suggest a fantasy of a sort.

Honestly if that's the case I would have preferred written in red ink. It would still be red truth but it would make it look less odd that written on red pages.

Originally Posted by Renall

However the only thing "a message bottle containing the confession found by the side of the road" could really be a stand-in for would be Battler's memories and receiving the confession in some manner through that. And that would obviously say a few things about Battler's memories, as to have been derived from him he'd have to have learned them somehow.

Unless Ikuko found Yasu and Battler but Yasu was mortally wounded and managed only to tell her her story before dying as some sort of atonement? Or message to pass to Battler?

In this case the sinking of the magic scene would be more like fainting due to her wounds. Battler tries to save her but can't. However he loses memory so he's sort with her.

Originally Posted by Renall

Or maybe she just found a bottle coincidentally containing straight answers instead of a story and never told anyone because people wanted answers so let's Deus Ex Machina shoehorn them in Ikuko's story is already pretty heavy on coincidence, so what's a little more?

I honestly don't like the idea that there was a bottle the story never hinted at (as so far the story only hinted at Yasu tossing her tales in the sea, not her own story without magic involved) that coincidentally was found by Ikuko that coincidentally found Battler as well that coincidentally decided to hide him and bribe the doctor, that was a writer so she could conenct with Battler/Tohya and yadda, yadda yadda, have your fun with the coincidentally.

I mean... it makes sense but I'm really finding hard to swallow how coincidentally an Italian submarine filled with gold and with a beautiful Italian woman ended up in Japan and not in Spain so really, I would apprecciate if the explanation of stuffs that don't make sense avoided coincidences that feel like miracles.

[GreyZone]

I am merely trying to evaluate, if this would kill the Ikuko=Yasu theory or not. But I guess to know it for sure we will have to see the scene(s) for ourselves somehow.


So on one hand we have the "bad implications" created by Yasu being Ikuko... on the other hand we have "endless nine coincidences"-RandomStranger. I am not sure if this can end well... but oh well this game will have no happy ending after all.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

I honestly don't like the idea that there was a bottle the story never hinted at (as so far the story only hinted at Yasu tossing her tales in the sea, not her own story without magic involved)

Well, the basic idea that stories were tossed in the sea exists though, and since the stories are a weird form of confession anyway, it isn't completely impossible that there would be a confessional letter among them.
What I would agree with is that there should either be a letter, Battler at the shore, or Battler with a bottle on the shore...but both events as separate incidents seems too much of a coincidence, there I agree.

that coincidentally was found by Ikuko that coincidentally found Battler as well that coincidentally decided to hide him and bribe the doctor, that was a writer so she could conenct with Battler/Tohya and yadda, yadda yadda, have your fun with the coincidentally.

Well, here it depends how we read the story...whether we accept the meta-world as existent or not. Featherine says that Ikuko was her being written into the story. The question here is, whether this means that Ikuko is a complete work of magic, a literal deus ex machina, or that Featherine uses Ikuko as her conduit to the human world and Ikuko still exists as a human despite that.

The manga is yet to develop on that whole story, which will either follow right after the Confession of the Golden Witch arc or at the end of the manga, I suppose.
The VN also mentioned how Ikuko was an outcast, thrown out of her own family, so if she at least suspected who Battler was it might have become an incentive for her to hide him from the start.

I mean... it makes sense but I'm really finding hard to swallow how coincidentally an Italian submarine filled with gold and with a beautiful Italian woman ended up in Japan and not in Spain so really, I would apprecciate if the explanation of stuffs that don't make sense avoided coincidences that feel like miracles.

Well, I didn't find the submarine story all that hard to swallow. It's not like it is impossible, though a little weird considering that there was a war going on in the Pacific and that Roosevelt had apparently authorized the sinking of any Axis vessel in Pacific waters. With a little luck the way is very likely and Italians after 1943 would have avoided Spain like hell, since this was exactly the place where they would have been killed.

The story of them fleeing to Japan isn't that hard to swallow, a WWII vessel would have also likely been able to make the distance via the sea-channels connecting Eurasia...the only thing demanding a little miracle was the situation in the Pacific, especially around Southern Japan at that time.

And since the name of the witch is Beatrice and Kinzo was said to have made a pact with her during the war...it was actually pretty obvious that she must have been an Italian woman.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by haguruma

Well, the basic idea that stories were tossed in the sea exists though, and since the stories are a weird form of confession anyway, it isn't completely impossible that there would be a confessional letter among them.
What I would agree with is that there should either be a letter, Battler at the shore, or Battler with a bottle on the shore...but both events as separate incidents seems too much of a coincidence, there I agree.

While not impossible I find it quite a jump. The stories are 'confessions' written in a very coded way. You might guess the culprit but not all the backstory. "Confession" presents itself as a mere retelling of Sayo's life with all the details about the backstory and the solution... if it's going to present a mystery after this.
In Confession you must not guess the culprit, you've Sayo's heart presented so that you can judge it.

I admit it's not the first jump in Umineko... but as this is sort of important I would have apprecciated if it was foreshadowed better.

Originally Posted by haguruma

Well, here it depends how we read the story...whether we accept the meta-world as existent or not. Featherine says that Ikuko was her being written into the story. The question here is, whether this means that Ikuko is a complete work of magic, a literal deus ex machina, or that Featherine uses Ikuko as her conduit to the human world and Ikuko still exists as a human despite that.

The manga is yet to develop on that whole story, which will either follow right after the Confession of the Golden Witch arc or at the end of the manga, I suppose.
The VN also mentioned how Ikuko was an outcast, thrown out of her own family, so if she at least suspected who Battler was it might have become an incentive for her to hide him from the start.

Well, the manga already told us the bit in which Ikuko picked up Tohya so a real person calling herself Ikuko and rescuing Tohya either existed or is his delusion... which can explain why she doesn't seem to age. But if Ikuko is a delusion the not aging part is the only hint... and it could be that instead it was a hint to imply that actually Ange never became Yukari and that meeting never took place but was merely written in a tale.

So yes, let's wait and see how things will go.

Originally Posted by haguruma

Well, I didn't find the submarine story all that hard to swallow. It's not like it is impossible, though a little weird considering that there was a war going on in the Pacific and that Roosevelt had apparently authorized the sinking of any Axis vessel in Pacific waters. With a little luck the way is very likely and Italians after 1943 would have avoided Spain like hell, since this was exactly the place where they would have been killed.

Nope. After 8/Sept/1943 a part of the Italian ships that didn't want to end in American or German hands reached Spanish territory. As Spain was neutral they couldn't hand them to either party so the ships were basically stopped there, not under control of Spain but not free to leave and remained there until the end of the war.
Italian sailors had a certain freedom and could come and go from the ships provided they didn't try to get to far and were free to move for the city.

This would have allowed to hide the gold on the submarine till the end of the war as Spain couldn't take possession of it nor inspect the ship. Also since the sailors had a certain freedom they could try to move it ingot by ingot secretly.

Spain was also close to Italy and so comfortable to reach and Spanish-Italian relations weren't bad despite Spain being neutral so the sailors didn't risk being mistreated.

Going to Japan included a risky travel and since Japan was at war and about to lose it the risk that the gold would end in American hands anyway.

Originally Posted by haguruma

And since the name of the witch is Beatrice and Kinzo was said to have made a pact with her during the war...it was actually pretty obvious that she must have been an Italian woman.

Ep 7 mentions Rubens, an Italian soldier... only he doesn't have an Italian name.
Kinzo's children and grandchildren all have English sounding names.

After Virgilia shows up you can easily guess that the name might have been chosen as a reference to the Divina Commedia and can assume it's not necessary of an Italian person but of the child of a Divina Commedia reader like Kinzo or just a coincidence of which anime have plenty.

(I won't go into how Beatrice is pronunced in the Japanese way and not in the Italian way because that's a standard in Japanese media)

Honestly my main suspicious on Umineko involving Italians were due to the huge amount of Italian lyrics in the songs... though there are other series with Italian text in the lyrics and no relation with Italy.

[jjblue1]

Umineko Spoilers!
Part 1

Part 2

Of course I can't read them but from what I can see it seems Syao informed Genji of her plan and... that she's the author of Ep 3 & 4.
So were Banquet and Alliance not forgeries but real messages posted in the net as forgeries but originally authored by Sayo?
And it seems the chapter includes the first meeting between Sayo and Lambda that originally was in a tip.
There are some solutions for the games, Sayo's inner conflict and how the messages were tossed in the sea on the 3rd of October as well as the bank account.

... and I fear Confession ends really on the 3rd of October so no additional info on the truth of Rokkenjima.

On a personal note I prefer if Ep 3 & 4 were written by Sayo as they fit with the fact they're a challenge to Battler from Sayo/Beatrice, while if the author was Tohya it was a challenge to himself. However I'm still confused about why Tohya printed them under his name... sort of. Should we assume that since Ange's meeting with Hachijo was a fantasy all the info about Banquet and Alliance are false?

[Renall]

Technically, we're never told in the VN which episodes are message bottle stories (except that Land was one of them and was lost). It's always been assumed that the two known message bottle stories were Legend and Turn but before the manga I don't know if there was confirmation of that. You're correct that there were claims regarding the authorship of Banquet/Alliance but in fairness the details around that were always pretty fuzzy.

The bigger problem would be a thematic one, or at least a plausibility gap. The text probably clarifies things though.

[Drifloon]

Huh, so it's possible that Yasu wrote EP3 and EP4 afetr all? It's easy to miss, but actually, according to EP6, it was common for message bottle Forgers to claim that their works were authentic message bottles. Obviously that claim was generally assumed to be a lie, but it's entirely possible that "Hachijo Tohya" might have actually been telling the truth about it. That exact possibility is even explicitly brought up in the text, actually.

I had thought about that possibility before - it would make more sense of the meta-plot presenting Beatrice as the writer of all the first four episodes, at least - but at the same time I kind of liked a lot of the implications that could be drawn from Tohya being the author of those episodes. It seems like a shame to lose that, but we'll see what happens.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by Renall

Technically, we're never told in the VN which episodes are message bottle stories (except that Land was one of them and was lost). It's always been assumed that the two known message bottle stories were Legend and Turn but before the manga I don't know if there was confirmation of that. You're correct that there were claims regarding the authorship of Banquet/Alliance but in fairness the details around that were always pretty fuzzy.

The bigger problem would be a thematic one, or at least a plausibility gap. The text probably clarifies things though.

There was no confirmation that Legend and turn were messages in the bottles. What we were told was however that:

Of all the Forgers, Itouikukuro was the one most highly regarded.
"......End of the Golden Witch. I've read that one. ......Seems you love killing off other people's families."
"Is that why you came all this way? Just to say that...? I think not, final descendant of the Ushiromiya family."
In her latest forgery, 'End', she killed off seven of my relatives, at least during the actual story.
No, if you count 'Alliance' and 'Banquet', the other forgeries she's made before now, then she's killed off most of my family in horrible ways, over and over again...
Of course I'd want to complain.
However, all of her works are known for being, in both form and level of completion, the closest tales to those written by 'Ushiromiya Maria' herself.
In particular, Itouikukuro's first forgery, 'Banquet of the Golden Witch', managed to show everything, including Ushiromiya Eva's escape to Kuwadorian. People wondered whether this might be the true story of Rokkenjima, and it even made it onto the talk shows...

This seems to imply the author of Banquet, Alliance and End is the same.
However there's to say the episodes we read are written from Battler's point of view when the narrator should be Maria so... are they remake?
Even Featherine says she used to watch Beato's gameboard from Battler's eyes and now she wants to watch Dawn through Ange's eyes... meaning maybe Battler was the reader/narrator?

[Renall]

If the text even remotely resembles the narration, Maria couldn't possibly have been the narrator of any of those episodes. Unless we're seeing a complete rewrite, I have to assume Battler was always intended as the protagonist/detective. And that would kinda make more sense anyway given Yasu's objectives and the fact that Maria would know more about what was going on.

That still doesn't explain why Yasu would sign her message bottles as Maria, but the mere fact that she did so doesn't suddenly mean Maria would've also been the narrator. The stories are clearly works of fiction anyway.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by Drifloon

Huh, so it's possible that Yasu wrote EP3 and EP4 afetr all? It's easy to miss, but actually, according to EP6, it was common for message bottle Forgers to claim that their works were authentic message bottles. Obviously that claim was generally assumed to be a lie, but it's entirely possible that "Hachijo Tohya" might have actually been telling the truth about it. That exact possibility is even explicitly brought up in the text, actually.

Back then I considered the possibility that Sayo had showed Battler her games and he then unconsciously worked them into his tales as part of memories he sort of lost yet were still there. So he's the author but the idea isn't fully original. However I had discharged that theory in favour of him writing using the memories he had of that day.

Originally Posted by Drifloon

I had thought about that possibility before - it would make more sense of the meta-plot presenting Beatrice as the writer of all the first four episodes, at least - but at the same time I kind of liked a lot of the implications that could be drawn from Tohya being the author of those episodes. It seems like a shame to lose that, but we'll see what happens.

Personally I like that they're written from Sayo/Beatrice... but now I wonder who's playing Lambda's role here. Who wrote Ep 5, the loveless game? Ikuko? Tohya? Someone else? Theoretically Ep 6 should be authored by Tohya to fit with the fact it was written by Battler... so it can be Ep 5 was written by Ikuko who had read Sayo's confession but didn't understand her heart.

There's to wonder something. This means the part about the Teaparty post the slaughtering in the golden room and that's based on Ep 4 is likely fictional... unless Kyrie was an accomplice, she was told about that plan and decided to use it for her own purposes?

Originally Posted by Renall

If the text even remotely resembles the narration, Maria couldn't possibly have been the narrator of any of those episodes. Unless we're seeing a complete rewrite, I have to assume Battler was always intended as the protagonist/detective. And that would kinda make more sense anyway given Yasu's objectives and the fact that Maria would know more about what was going on.

That still doesn't explain why Yasu would sign her message bottles as Maria, but the mere fact that she did so doesn't suddenly mean Maria would've also been the narrator. The stories are clearly works of fiction anyway.

Honestly, at this point I don't know what to think and what we're supposed to believe. Ep 1 seemed to imply the narrator in the messages was Maria and Ep 4 seemed to confirm this but whoever read the episodes have the feeling is Battler.