[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Li Jianliang]

Originally Posted by Kamar

I'd really like a confirmation that the original Japanese said in unambiguous terms that the knock actually happened, because everything I saw in the English translation was either vague or seemed worded to intentionally mislead you into thinking a knock that didn't happen did happen.

People keep saying "it definitely said it happened" but I thought I was paying pretty close attention to the wording and if there was something that unambiguous IN RED I totally missed it. (Admittedly I was up ~6 hours past when I'd normally go to sleep, so yeah).

It just seems REALLY suspicious to me that LD was so quick to jump in with something as oddly worded as "No one misheard a knock" (or whatever the exact wording was) after being so stingy with it.

There are some slight terminology differences in the red and blue text below and Witch Hunt's translation, but all of the red and blue text were taken directly from the game and translated fairly literally.

Spoiler for All of the red and blue text concerning the letter and knocking:

Given the mysterious circumstance under which the letter appeared, it was from that moment when the story took a turn for witches and magic.
Erika wants to destroy the fantasy from there.

How did the dining room look last night?

Gertrude and Cornelia recreate the previous night's scene. The adults were having their 'family discussions' with Battler. Halfway through, Kanon and Shannon came by with snacks.

So where was everyone at this point in time?
Gertrude: "Ladies and gentlemen, may I humbly say this. Before the family meeting, Erika, George, Jessica, Maria, Nanjo, Gohda, and Kumasawa exited the mansion and moved to the guesthouse."
Cornelia: "Ladies and gentlemen, may I humbly say this. May I offer to say, out of the remaining people, only Krauss, Natsuhi, and Genji were in the hallway of the second floor, and everyone else was in the dining room."

The mansion was locked, so no one could re-enter it.
With everyone accounted for, there was no one left who could've knocked on the door and placed the letter there. An argument for the witch's side.

...Ah, what a boring trick. No one said that the letter was placed there right at midnight; it's common sense to believe it was already there before then.

Minutes before the letter was discovered, Kanon and Shannon entered the room and they repeatedly said that they did not see anything out of place in the hallway; no letters.

Erika: "It means that only someone amongst Krauss, Natsuhi, and Genji, who weren't in the reception room, saw a chance immediately afterwards and placed the letter. No, it's possible that it was someone who should've gone to the guesthouse."

Erika: "The mansion was locked and it seemed like no one outside could've entered, but if there was someone who pretended to return to the guesthouse and secretly hid within the mansion, then there wouldn't be any problems if it was that person who placed the letter."

Now the problem is the knock. Different from the letter, the knocking must've been done by someone at that very moment.

Erika laughs. Is this the best they can do to convince her that witches exist?

Erika: "First of all, I certainly can suspect that the knocking was from something knocking on the door of the dining room. Or, for instance, due to the mansion's structure, when you knock on a specific pillar on the second floor the sound is transmitted through the pillar, and the people in the dining room misidentified it, like the door was knocked on."

Erika: "Or, by chance, they misheard some sound for knocking and misidentified it in the same manner. Or perhaps a tape recorded with the sound of knocking was secretly played, and it was manipulated so that they would hear it at just the right timing."

Erika can think of many ways to create the knocking sound. She starts to get a little haughty.
Lambdadelta steps in. She'll do her a service with the red truth.

First, the letter.
The best explanation is that someone not in the dining room secretly placed the letter there, isn't it?

Krauss, Natsuhi, and Genji did not even touch the letter!

Bernkastel: "...Oh? Well then, at the moment when Shannon and Kanon came to serve and closed the door, who was the very last person of the last to enter the dining room...? Suppose it was Kanon. Then wouldn't it have been easy for Kanon, the last person, to secretly and quietly drop the letter when he closed the door?"

Lambdadelta: "Out of everyone in the dining room- no, I'll put it in simpler terms. Not a single person in the mansion at the moment of 24 o'clock! No one placed that letter in the hallway."

Bernkastel: "I see. Then I'll explain it this way. Someone who existed outside of the mansion at the moment of 24 o'clock, placed the letter somewhere other than the hallway in advance. Then it moved by some sort of method, and finally came to be "placed in the hallway"."

Erika: "This is hypothetical, but what if it was pasted to the underside of the bottom of the food service cart loaded with teaware, which the servants pushed in? A simple adhesive, like it would peel off as time passed. Soon, it did peel and fall off and became "the letter the witch placed" that shouldn't have been there. In short, it was a classic trick in which the real sender tried to create an alibi for that moment in time by making the letter appear at a different time."

The culprit was lucky that the letter fell off right in front of the door of the dining room. If it wasn't done right, then it could've fallen off elsewhere, like the kitchen or after entering the dining room.

Lambdadelta attacks Erika's theories about the knocking first.
Lambdadelta: "Krauss, Natsuhi, and Genji did not knock!"

Lambdadelta: "This doesn't mean it's just limited to no knocking on the door, okay? It means, if you guessed it was a pillar that transmitted sound or the play button for a recorded cassette tape, they never generated that sound of knocking! And of course, not directly or indirectly, intentionally or accidentally, or even unknowingly!"

Bernkastel: "I'm already driving the wedge in, but I'll repeat. Perhaps someone other than Krauss, Natsuhi, and Genji knocked, or made a sound that was misidentified to be knocking."

Cornelia: "Ladies and gentlemen, may I humbly offer to say this. May I offer to say, that at the moment of 24 o'clock, other than Krauss, Natsuhi, and Genji in the hallway of the second floor and everyone in the dining room, not a single human existed within the mansion."

Gertrude: "Ladies and gentlemen, may I humbly say this. May I say, in addition to Krauss, Natsuhi, and Genji, no one in the dining room knocked, either. This 'knocked' includes everything that generates the sound of knocking, directly, indirectly, intentionally, unknowingly, and accidentally."

Dlanor: "In short, it means that no one out of all people in the mansion could have been the source of the sound of knocking. ...And by "all people", it includes people who no one apprehended or were not observed, if there even was one."

'All people in the mansion' contains even the unknown Person X hiding secretly in the mansion.
Therefore, without any wordplay, it means that "no one within the mansion could've knocked".

Erika: "...I see. No matter how you spin it, you're saying that only the guesthouse group could've created the sound of knocking, right? For example, me. What if, I, Furudo Erika, recorded the sound of knocking on a cassette tape, set it up somewhere secretly, and gave it some mechanism that made it play right at 24 o'clock?
Of course, I couldn't have been in the mansion at the moment of 24 o'clock. There aren't any problems with this, are there?"

If the knocking happened without the letter, then people would've looked out into the hallway, saw nothing, and went back to their business. Reversely if only the letter was there, then it might've been ages before someone opened the door and noticed it.
Only by having the two coupled together was it possible to give them a greater significance and claim that someone else, perhaps a witch, was there.

However, it has been declared in red that not a single person within the mansion placed the letter in the hallway.

Lambdadelta: "I'll reiterate the red about 'placed in this hallway' in finer detail. Not a single person within the mansion, no one placed the letter in the hallway. That's the general idea behind everything, direct, indirect, intentional, accidental, and unknowing."

The theory about the letter peeling off of the food cart doesn't work, because then Shannon and Kanon would've "indirectly, unknowingly" placed it. If the letter peeled off due to the passage of time, then it would've been "accidentally, unknowingly" placed, and of course that's no good, either.

Bernkastel asks Lambdadelta to repeat something in red. Naturally, Lambdadelta puts on her act about how she doesn't answer things in red so readily like Beatrice.
Bernkastel bribes her with the promise to "give her a full-body massage with marshmallow and kompeito scrub and a good, hard rub to exfoliate her the next time she's in bath".

Lambdadelta: "Uhhuhuhuhu, that's a promise then, absolutely. Drool! ...Well fine, I'll service you ♪
I comply to your request for repetition. "At the moment of 24 o'clock, only Erika, George, Jessica, Maria, Nanjo, Gohda, and Kumasawa existed outside of the mansion"!"

In short, no matter how you slice it, the group of eight* with Erika couldn't have been in the mansion, and everyone within the mansion couldn't have been outside.

*: I think this might be a typo in the game. Erika's group only has seven people, not eight.

Erika: "If so, then maybe the letter wasn't pasted to the food service cart but the ceiling of the hallway. The ceiling of the hallway is unexpectedly high, so even if it was pasted in plain sight, maybe no one noticed it. If this was the case, then it definitely would've fallen into the hallway. And if someone outside of the mansion did it, that's able to evade the red, too! Good! Me...!."

Gertrude: "Ladies and gentlemen, may I humbly say this. No letter ever existed on the hallway ceiling."
Cornelia: "Ladies and gentlemen, may I humbly say this. Let it be known that the letter never touched the food service cart."

Erika has lost her haughtiness and she's getting flustered again. The details of her deduction are being struck down one by one.

Gertrude: "Ladies and gentlemen, may I humbly say this. Everyone outside of the mansion could not do anything in the mansion after the family meeting started."
Erika: "Well then, before the family meeting, someone outside of the mansion set up some sort of mechanism. Besides on the ceiling or the food cart!"

Erika didn't specify an object or place, so those words didn't become the blue truth. Everything said in red has destroyed all other blue truths Erika proposed about the letter.
She is losing everything again.

...To Erika, words that deny her deduction are the worst agony and humiliation, more than anything else.

Dlanor suggests that Erika considers the knocking sound again. Her blue truth about the cassette tape still holds.

Erika: "That's right, my blue truth for the knock should still be valid...! Not everything has been denied...! My Master! I'll show you that I'll most certainly solve the mystery of the letter. Please allow me more time...!! But for the mystery of the knock, I certainly got to the bottom of it here! With the blue wedge of "someone outside of the mansion set up a mechanism with the cassette tape or such to make the sound of knocking be heard"...!"

None of the people would misidentify the sound of knocking.

Lambadelta: "It means they didn't misidentify the sound of knocking, in short. It means they didn't mistake another sound that closely resembled the sound of knocking for the sound of knocking. Stuff like 'the pillar made a knocking-like sound when it was knocked on' is out. Even if the sound of knocking was recorded in a cassette tape, that would also be "the sound of a tape recorded with the sound of knocking", thus not the sound of knocking. So that's out, too!"

Lambdadelta: "In short, it means, in reality, everyone correctly discerned the sound of knocking on that door and absolutely couldn't have misheard it. It means it's absolutely impossible for them to have mistaken any sound except directly knocking on that door for the knocking!!"

Bernkastel: "...In short, you're saying, other than knocking on that door, nothing else would deceive them. If so, then how does this sound? Like, there was some mechanism that knocked on the door for me. Or there was an automatic door knocker-like mechanism, so, consequently, it was possible to knock without touching."

Lambadelta: "The knocking was from a person knocking on the door by hand, okay? I won't accept that it was knocked by a mechanism, uhhuhhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhu!! The knock was heard when it tolled 24 o'clock. At that time, all people in the dining room definitely heard it. And none of them misidentified the sound of knocking. Krauss, Natsuhi, and Genji had nothing to do with the knock. Besides all of the above, no one else existed within the mansion. And I point out that the knocking was from the act of knocking on the door by hand while standing directly in front of the door."

Lambdadelta and Bernkastel are taking delight in the back-and-forth of red and blue truths and rolling in laughter. It does seem to be impossible to explain without resorting to witches and magic.
Erika, through pangs of mental agony, swears that she'll solve the mystery in time.
If she doesn't, she'll become an useless game piece, which Bernkastel will completely forget about and allow to collect dust for all eternity, never to be played again.

[blitz1/2]

Originally Posted by Li Jianliang

There are some slight terminology differences in the red and blue text below and Witch Hunt's translation, but all of the red and blue text were taken directly from the game and translated fairly literally.

Spoiler for All of the red and blue text concerning the letter and knocking:

Given the mysterious circumstance under which the letter appeared, it was from that moment when the story took a turn for witches and magic.
Erika wants to destroy the fantasy from there.

How did the dining room look last night?

Gertrude and Cornelia recreate the previous night's scene. The adults were having their 'family discussions' with Battler. Halfway through, Kanon and Shannon came by with snacks.

So where was everyone at this point in time?
Gertrude: "Ladies and gentlemen, may I humbly say this. Before the family meeting, Erika, George, Jessica, Maria, Nanjo, Gohda, and Kumasawa exited the mansion and moved to the guesthouse."
Cornelia: "Ladies and gentlemen, may I humbly say this. May I offer to say, out of the remaining people, only Krauss, Natsuhi, and Genji were in the hallway of the second floor, and everyone else was in the dining room."

The mansion was locked, so no one could re-enter it.
With everyone accounted for, there was no one left who could've knocked on the door and placed the letter there. An argument for the witch's side.

...Ah, what a boring trick. No one said that the letter was placed there right at midnight; it's common sense to believe it was already there before then.

Minutes before the letter was discovered, Kanon and Shannon entered the room and they repeatedly said that they did not see anything out of place in the hallway; no letters.

Erika: "It means that only someone amongst Krauss, Natsuhi, and Genji, who weren't in the reception room, saw a chance immediately afterwards and placed the letter. No, it's possible that it was someone who should've gone to the guesthouse."

Erika: "The mansion was locked and it seemed like no one outside could've entered, but if there was someone who pretended to return to the guesthouse and secretly hid within the mansion, then there wouldn't be any problems if it was that person who placed the letter."

Now the problem is the knock. Different from the letter, the knocking must've been done by someone at that very moment.

Erika laughs. Is this the best they can do to convince her that witches exist?

Erika: "First of all, I certainly can suspect that the knocking was from something knocking on the door of the dining room. Or, for instance, due to the mansion's structure, when you knock on a specific pillar on the second floor the sound is transmitted through the pillar, and the people in the dining room misidentified it, like the door was knocked on."

Erika: "Or, by chance, they misheard some sound for knocking and misidentified it in the same manner. Or perhaps a tape recorded with the sound of knocking was secretly played, and it was manipulated so that they would hear it at just the right timing."

Erika can think of many ways to create the knocking sound. She starts to get a little haughty.
Lambdadelta steps in. She'll do her a service with the red truth.

First, the letter.
The best explanation is that someone not in the dining room secretly placed the letter there, isn't it?

Krauss, Natsuhi, and Genji did not even touch the letter!

Bernkastel: "...Oh? Well then, at the moment when Shannon and Kanon came to serve and closed the door, who was the very last person of the last to enter the dining room...? Suppose it was Kanon. Then wouldn't it have been easy for Kanon, the last person, to secretly and quietly drop the letter when he closed the door?"

Lambdadelta: "Out of everyone in the dining room- no, I'll put it in simpler terms. Not a single person in the mansion at the moment of 24 o'clock! No one placed that letter in the hallway."

Bernkastel: "I see. Then I'll explain it this way. Someone who existed outside of the mansion at the moment of 24 o'clock, placed the letter somewhere other than the hallway in advance. Then it moved by some sort of method, and finally came to be "placed in the hallway"."

Erika: "This is hypothetical, but what if it was pasted to the underside of the bottom of the food service cart loaded with teaware, which the servants pushed in? A simple adhesive, like it would peel off as time passed. Soon, it did peel and fall off and became "the letter the witch placed" that shouldn't have been there. In short, it was a classic trick in which the real sender tried to create an alibi for that moment in time by making the letter appear at a different time."

The culprit was lucky that the letter fell off right in front of the door of the dining room. If it wasn't done right, then it could've fallen off elsewhere, like the kitchen or after entering the dining room.

Lambdadelta attacks Erika's theories about the knocking first.
Lambdadelta: "Krauss, Natsuhi, and Genji did not knock!"

Lambdadelta: "This doesn't mean it's just limited to no knocking on the door, okay? It means, if you guessed it was a pillar that transmitted sound or the play button for a recorded cassette tape, they never generated that sound of knocking! And of course, not directly or indirectly, intentionally or accidentally, or even unknowingly!"

Bernkastel: "I'm already driving the wedge in, but I'll repeat. Perhaps someone other than Krauss, Natsuhi, and Genji knocked, or made a sound that was misidentified to be knocking."

Cornelia: "Ladies and gentlemen, may I humbly offer to say this. May I offer to say, that at the moment of 24 o'clock, other than Krauss, Natsuhi, and Genji in the hallway of the second floor and everyone in the dining room, not a single human existed within the mansion."

Gertrude: "Ladies and gentlemen, may I humbly say this. May I say, in addition to Krauss, Natsuhi, and Genji, no one in the dining room knocked, either. This 'knocked' includes everything that generates the sound of knocking, directly, indirectly, intentionally, unknowingly, and accidentally."

Dlanor: "In short, it means that no one out of all people in the mansion could have been the source of the sound of knocking. ...And by "all people", it includes people who no one apprehended or were not observed, if there even was one."

'All people in the mansion' contains even the unknown Person X hiding secretly in the mansion.
Therefore, without any wordplay, it means that "no one within the mansion could've knocked".

Erika: "...I see. No matter how you spin it, you're saying that only the guesthouse group could've created the sound of knocking, right? For example, me. What if, I, Furudo Erika, recorded the sound of knocking on a cassette tape, set it up somewhere secretly, and gave it some mechanism that made it play right at 24 o'clock?
Of course, I couldn't have been in the mansion at the moment of 24 o'clock. There aren't any problems with this, are there?"

If the knocking happened without the letter, then people would've looked out into the hallway, saw nothing, and went back to their business. Reversely if only the letter was there, then it might've been ages before someone opened the door and noticed it.
Only by having the two coupled together was it possible to give them a greater significance and claim that someone else, perhaps a witch, was there.

However, it has been declared in red that not a single person within the mansion placed the letter in the hallway.

Lambdadelta: "I'll reiterate the red about 'placed in this hallway' in finer detail. Not a single person within the mansion, no one placed the letter in the hallway. That's the general idea behind everything, direct, indirect, intentional, accidental, and unknowing."

The theory about the letter peeling off of the food cart doesn't work, because then Shannon and Kanon would've "indirectly, unknowingly" placed it. If the letter peeled off due to the passage of time, then it would've been "accidentally, unknowingly" placed, and of course that's no good, either.

Bernkastel asks Lambdadelta to repeat something in red. Naturally, Lambdadelta puts on her act about how she doesn't answer things in red so readily like Beatrice.
Bernkastel bribes her with the promise to "give her a full-body massage with marshmallow and kompeito scrub and a good, hard rub to exfoliate her the next time she's in bath".

Lambdadelta: "Uhhuhuhuhu, that's a promise then, absolutely. Drool! ...Well fine, I'll service you ♪
I comply to your request for repetition. "At the moment of 24 o'clock, only Erika, George, Jessica, Maria, Nanjo, Gohda, and Kumasawa existed outside of the mansion"!"

In short, no matter how you slice it, the group of eight* with Erika couldn't have been in the mansion, and everyone within the mansion couldn't have been outside.

*: I think this might be a typo in the game. Erika's group only has seven people, not eight.

Erika: "If so, then maybe the letter wasn't pasted to the food service cart but the ceiling of the hallway. The ceiling of the hallway is unexpectedly high, so even if it was pasted in plain sight, maybe no one noticed it. If this was the case, then it definitely would've fallen into the hallway. And if someone outside of the mansion did it, that's able to evade the red, too! Good! Me...!."

Gertrude: "Ladies and gentlemen, may I humbly say this. No letter ever existed on the hallway ceiling."
Cornelia: "Ladies and gentlemen, may I humbly say this. Let it be known that the letter never touched the food service cart."

Erika has lost her haughtiness and she's getting flustered again. The details of her deduction are being struck down one by one.

Gertrude: "Ladies and gentlemen, may I humbly say this. Everyone outside of the mansion could not do anything in the mansion after the family meeting started."
Erika: "Well then, before the family meeting, someone outside of the mansion set up some sort of mechanism. Besides on the ceiling or the food cart!"

Erika didn't specify an object or place, so those words didn't become the blue truth. Everything said in red has destroyed all other blue truths Erika proposed about the letter.
She is losing everything again.

...To Erika, words that deny her deduction are the worst agony and humiliation, more than anything else.

Dlanor suggests that Erika considers the knocking sound again. Her blue truth about the cassette tape still holds.

Erika: "That's right, my blue truth for the knock should still be valid...! Not everything has been denied...! My Master! I'll show you that I'll most certainly solve the mystery of the letter. Please allow me more time...!! But for the mystery of the knock, I certainly got to the bottom of it here! With the blue wedge of "someone outside of the mansion set up a mechanism with the cassette tape or such to make the sound of knocking be heard"...!"

None of the people would misidentify the sound of knocking.

Lambadelta: "It means they didn't misidentify the sound of knocking, in short. It means they didn't mistake another sound that closely resembled the sound of knocking for the sound of knocking. Stuff like 'the pillar made a knocking-like sound when it was knocked on' is out. Even if the sound of knocking was recorded in a cassette tape, that would also be "the sound of a tape recorded with the sound of knocking", thus not the sound of knocking. So that's out, too!"

Lambdadelta: "In short, it means, in reality, everyone correctly discerned the sound of knocking on that door and absolutely couldn't have misheard it. It means it's absolutely impossible for them to have mistaken any sound except directly knocking on that door for the knocking!!"

Bernkastel: "...In short, you're saying, other than knocking on that door, nothing else would deceive them. If so, then how does this sound? Like, there was some mechanism that knocked on the door for me. Or there was an automatic door knocker-like mechanism, so, consequently, it was possible to knock without touching."

Lambadelta: "The knocking was from a person knocking on the door by hand, okay? I won't accept that it was knocked by a mechanism, uhhuhhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhu!! The knock was heard when it tolled 24 o'clock. At that time, all people in the dining room definitely heard it. And none of them misidentified the sound of knocking. Krauss, Natsuhi, and Genji had nothing to do with the knock. Besides all of the above, no one else existed within the mansion. And I point out that the knocking was from the act of knocking on the door by hand while standing directly in front of the door."

Lambdadelta and Bernkastel are taking delight in the back-and-forth of red and blue truths and rolling in laughter. It does seem to be impossible to explain without resorting to witches and magic.
Erika, through pangs of mental agony, swears that she'll solve the mystery in time.
If she doesn't, she'll become an useless game piece, which Bernkastel will completely forget about and allow to collect dust for all eternity, never to be played again.

This exchange of red and blue makes Battler's theories seem like a joke. Then again, he is incompetent...

[ameskitty]

Originally Posted by Li Jianliang

Spoiler for All of the red and blue text concerning the letter and knocking:

Lambadelta: "The knocking was from a person knocking on the door by hand, okay? I won't accept that it was knocked by a mechanism, uhhuhhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhu!! The knock was heard when it tolled 24 o'clock. At that time, all people in the dining room definitely heard it. And none of them misidentified the sound of knocking. Krauss, Natsuhi, and Genji had nothing to do with the knock. Besides all of the above, no one else existed within the mansion. And I point out that the knocking was from the act of knocking on the door by hand while standing directly in front of the door."

Note that the text saying that they all "definitely heard the knock" is not in red. If I'm reading through this correctly I can hypothesize that Lambda can say as much as she wants in red about a knocking described in her game, but the knocking in question never occurred in reality. The door was opened either because Kanon and Shannon were leaving, somebody related to the culprit falsely stated that they thought they heard somebody knocking, or they wanted some fresh air. The letter was placed at a time earlier than 24:00, (I think?) making all relevant red texts worthless.

It's the letter-placement texts that make it a bit difficult :/.

It's as simple as how in EP4 Beato said that nobody else could claim Kanon's name in response to his appearance to the servants, contradicting his earlier death, but you can just as easily state that Kanon never appeared before the servants and the scene was a complete lie.

Could this be one of the "poisonous tricks" Ryukishi was talking about, I wonder? Red texts covering an event that didn't happen? That's awful nasty if you think about it.

[MeoTwister5]

I'd like to think about it this way:

If the red text is stated for an event that did not exist, then the red still chronicles the truth insofar as assuming that if such an event will exist at some point, it will exist in the manner stated by the red text.

I think that line of reasoning has some similarities to a priori but my mind is too hung over from a party last night to function enough.

[Kamar]

As always, the simplest way to explain something impossible is that it didn't happen. This kind of scene may be more believable than something like the ridiculous magic fights, but a big theme of this episode in particular is that just because something is believable doesn't mean it is true.


Edit: Also, can someone point me to the closest skip-point if I want to re-read this scene?

[luckyssol]

Originally Posted by Li Jianliang

Spoiler for All of the red and blue text concerning the letter and knocking:

Bernkastel asks Lambdadelta to repeat something in red. Naturally, Lambdadelta puts on her act about how she doesn't answer things in red so readily like Beatrice.
Bernkastel bribes her with the promise to "give her a full-body massage with marshmallow and kompeito scrub and a good, hard rub to exfoliate her the next time she's in bath".

Ah, this must be a preview for episode 6


Anyway, I'll add to my previous theory that it was actually the front door of the mansion that was knocked on. The door to the dining room hall was not locked. There was no need to anyone to knock on it since they could have simply entered the room.

Shannon and Kanon knocked on the door to dining room prior to entering. As servants, it's expected they would behave this way.

The front door to the mansion was locked. If someone who did not have a key wanted to come back inside the mansion and didn't know it was locked then it is natural they would have knocked.

Key problem: Rudolf mentions that the door was not locked after he heard the knock. That means he perceived that the knock came from the door to the dining room hall.

[k//eternal]

Well, it wasn't stated that the location of a knock couldn't be misheard, just that nobody would mistake a non-knock sound for a knock...

[TTR]

Originally Posted by k//eternal

Well, it wasn't stated that the location of a knock couldn't be misheard, just that nobody would mistake a non-knock sound for a knock...

Wait, so can someone pull up the japanese for Lambda's red? It stated that "The knocking was from a person knocking on the door by hand." Does this mean that "the knock (i.e. the knock that the people in the dining room) is defined as the sound of a hand on that specific door" or that "a knock is defined as the sound of a hand on any door?"

I THINK it's the first definition merely because Lambda already defined the recorded sound of a knock as "the sound of a tape playing back a knock" and not "a knock" itself. Therefore, on a similar train of though, a knock on the main mansion front door would have been identified as such and NOT just any knock. Not only that, but I have a feeling that they wouldn't have heard a knock on the front door anyway.

[ijriims]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

How do you Explain Natsuhi's clock showing 0:07? It couldn't have possibly took her 40 or so minutes to get to her room after Genji told her about the call.

If you read the SN again, it was portrayed that Genji told Nanjo the mysterious man was calling Natsuhi again, and then he redirected the phone call. AFTER THAT, he and Krauss returned to the parlor and he saw the family ring on Battler's finger.

This contradicted with the red text that Genji went DIRECTLY to the waiting room after redirecting the phone call.

So either the scene where Genji and Krauss went to parlor did not happen at all, or actually happened much earlier than the phone-directing scene. My opinion was the latter, so Battler recieved the ring at around 11:20, then Genji and Krauss came in a few minutes latter. At around 24:00, the mysterious man called and Genji redirected the phone call, then he went straightly for the waiting room.

[luckyssol]

Originally Posted by ijriims

If you read the SN again, it was portrayed that Genji told Nanjo the mysterious man was calling Natsuhi again, and then he redirected the phone call. AFTER THAT, he and Krauss returned to the parlor and he saw the family ring on Battler's finger.

This contradicted with the red text that Genji went DIRECTLY to the waiting room after redirecting the phone call.

So either the scene where Genji and Krauss went to parlor did not happen at all, or actually happened much earlier than the phone-directing scene. My opinion was the latter, so Battler recieved the ring at around 11:20, then Genji and Krauss came in a few minutes latter. At around 24:00, the mysterious man called and Genji redirected the phone call, then he went straightly for the waiting room.

We discussed this a few months ago. Genji did go directly to the waiting room after transferring the call to Natsuhi. AFTER THAT he and Krauss returned to the dining room.

However, this begs the question why would they do that?

[Li Jianliang]

Originally Posted by ijriims

So either the scene where Genji and Krauss went to parlor did not happen at all, or actually happened much earlier than the phone-directing scene. My opinion was the latter, so Battler recieved the ring at around 11:20, then Genji and Krauss came in a few minutes latter. At around 24:00, the mysterious man called and Genji redirected the phone call, then he went straightly for the waiting room.

It was 11:49PM, according to the game, when Natsuhi, Krauss, and Genji left the dining room. Kanon and Shannon came into the room shortly afterwards with tea and snacks, then came the knocking, the clock tolling 0AM, and people getting the door after a pause. Battler puts on the ring and Krauss and Genji return to the dining room at 0:04AM.
Natsuhi also hears the clock tolling right after Genji tells her about the phone call.

[MeoTwister5]

Originally Posted by Li Jianliang

It was 11:49PM, according to the game, when Natsuhi, Krauss, and Genji left the dining room. Kanon and Shannon came into the room shortly afterwards with tea and snacks, then came the knocking, the clock tolling 0AM, and people getting the door after a pause. Battler puts on the ring and Krauss and Genji return to the dining room at 0:04AM.
Natsuhi also hears the clock tolling right after Genji tells her about the phone call.

There's still a bit of a big time gap inbetween. As the VN presented we only could assume that Natsuhi and Krauss were only in that same hallway talking the entire time after they left until being called by Genji, in fact we don't have much of an idea of what Genji was doing before he called Natsuhi. Likewise, did Genji and Krauss go back straight to the conference after? The clock struck midnight the moment Genji told Natsuhi of the call, and we have approx. 5min in between before Krauss and Genji went back.

[Raneh]

Originally Posted by Li Jianliang

It was 11:49PM, according to the game, when Natsuhi, Krauss, and Genji left the dining room. Kanon and Shannon came into the room shortly afterwards with tea and snacks, then came the knocking, the clock tolling 0AM, and people getting the door after a pause. Battler puts on the ring and Krauss and Genji return to the dining room at 0:04AM.
Natsuhi also hears the clock tolling right after Genji tells her about the phone call.

I noticed one strange line by the narrator, it was when the people found the letter.

Spoiler for pic:

"Barely an hour ago", if they arrived after 11:49PM and the letter was found at midnight how is that barely an hour? Time seems screwed up here too.

[LaplaceNoMa]

I'm sorry to disrupt any ep5 discussions going on, I was just re-reading eps 1-4 in order to get ready for ep5 and I've noticed something in Tips about Battler's death: it says that he was with Jessica at the moment of his death and then this disrupting phrase about 'Wolves and sheep puzzle'. Does anyone have any idea about that?

[Leinne]

Originally Posted by LaplaceNoMa

I'm sorry to disrupt any ep5 discussions going on, I was just re-reading eps 1-4 in order to get ready for ep5 and I've noticed something in Tips about Battler's death: it says that he was with Jessica at the moment of his death and then this disrupting phrase about 'Wolves and sheep puzzle'. Does anyone have any idea about that?

From ep2 rosa's explanation to get rid of everyone. the TIPs say, Jessica wasn't there, Battler was with Eva, the wolves and sheep puzzle (sth like this)
If you think about it it hints a very good part of the mystery in ep3 about Eva being the culprit.
Let's suppose you're alone in a room with just another person, everyone has been killed and you know you aren't the killer, then what does that make the other person?

[Arachanox]

Originally Posted by Raneh

I noticed one strange line by the narrator, it was when the people found the letter.

Spoiler for pic:

"Barely an hour ago", if they arrived after 11:49PM and the letter was found at midnight how is that barely an hour? Time seems screwed up here too.

I haven't gone back and checked the clocks myself, but I have heard of a theory that 'the dirty trick' Ryukishi mentioned in his interview was that the chronology of EP5 is a bit messed up on purpose. As in, the 'clocks' we see in between scenes are wrong, and the narration isn't telling the true time either.

edit: To an extent. That isn't to say that 'no crime was committed between 24:00 and 1:00...' things are false, since they are in red.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by Li Jianliang

I want to say the clock being off is just a minor incidence that has no significant bearing on the meat of the game, so it wouldn't matter if someone else checked the clock against watches or other timekeepers. The clock just happened to be off; maybe one of the overarching witches did it to humiliate Erika with a seemingly chronologically impossible situation. If Erik happened to be in the room, then I wager this mystery wouldn't have been so, because Erika easily could've checked the time (the detective cannot miss anything important and the detective's words must not be false) with some crazy method. Also, the people in the dining room just discovered enough gold to last 10 lifetimes and trying to get on each other's good side, I doubt anyone would be fastidious about "hey the clock's a minute fast!!" George wasn't in the room. It was a pendulum clock that chimed, I believe, which usually has a hutch over the clock face that prevents people from touching it and doing a quick manual fix job on the spot.

Natsuhi and Genji would notice.

Originally Posted by ijriims

If you read the SN again, it was portrayed that Genji told Nanjo the mysterious man was calling Natsuhi again, and then he redirected the phone call. AFTER THAT, he and Krauss returned to the parlor and he saw the family ring on Battler's finger.

This contradicted with the red text that Genji went DIRECTLY to the waiting room after redirecting the phone call.

So either the scene where Genji and Krauss went to parlor did not happen at all, or actually happened much earlier than the phone-directing scene. My opinion was the latter, so Battler recieved the ring at around 11:20, then Genji and Krauss came in a few minutes latter. At around 24:00, the mysterious man called and Genji redirected the phone call, then he went straightly for the waiting room.

Let me premise that my point is there is no way to explain this mystery without acknowledging that what it's been shown is fake. You can state your theory if you acknowledge that, but in that way you open the way for many interpretations and not just your.

However if you think that your theory makes it work somehow without recurring to something that has been faked in the scenes then let me say this:

Your theory doesn't work. It is a fact that Eva was still knocking at Kinzo's door at 23:00. So if your theory is true that means in merely 20 minutes the scenes of Krauss restraining Eva happened, and then the family went all the way to see the gold, the discussion started and then they all returned to the mansion. In merely 20 minutes.
Not only that, in that amount of time Krauss and Natsuhi made themselves absent, Shannon and Kanon arrived with a serving cart they talked with the relatives, a knock was heard a letter with the ring was found etc etc.
All this in merely 20 minutes...

That doesn't work for me.

[rogerpepitone]

Beatrice states that if the epitaph is solved, the murders will stop. But it appears that they don't.

One character (X) is masterminding all deaths that occur prior to the discovery of the gold. A different character (Y) masterminds any deaths after the discovery.

If the epitaph is not solved, both Battler and Maria survive to the tenth twilight. If the epitaph is solved, Maria dies at the first twilight following the solution. No envelopes or magic circles appear after Maria dies, and she is present at the discovery of most envelopes.

Episode 5: There's a slight glitch in Erika's reasoning. At one point, she claims the 1st twilight murders were done prior to 1 AM. Except that's impossible; Rosa was still alive at that point. Erika ultimately covered that by claiming Natsuhi went downstairs after 3 AM; still, she slips between "crime occurred" and "killer entered / left the second floor of the guesthouse". That could be a hole for the real explanation.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by rogerpepitone

If the epitaph is not solved, both Battler and Maria survive to the tenth twilight. If the epitaph is solved, Maria dies at the first twilight following the solution. No envelopes or magic circles appear after Maria dies, and she is present at the discovery of most envelopes.

There is a magic circle at the First Twilight in ep5. Although it is rather distinctly pointed out as crude and amateurish by the witches, so...

Let's go back to ep1 for a moment. In ep1, Kanon may have faked his death. Kanon, Shannon, and Krauss are the only people who could have committed all the murders by themselves. Krauss and Shannon require that you believe they were not really killed. This is unlikely for Krauss, but at least possible for Shannon. However, Kanon still being alive is very much possible, and indeed the red text enforces it. After the parlor murders, Natsuhi finds a letter which causes her to rush out to the foyer. She is in an immense hurry. Why?

Kanon is the young man from 19 years ago, or acting in the role of that person whether or not he really exists. If he isn't the man, his actions are meant as some other outlet for his anger which arises from an as-yet unclear source. If he is, then his desire for revenge should be obvious. His goal is specifically revenge against Natsuhi, although he may have other targets. He may also be working with some other killer or mastermind, while dealing with his own plans on the side. After faking his own death, Kanon was in a position to take out Natsuhi, so he sent her a letter that only she would have clearly recognized as being from the man from 19 years ago, which ensured she would rush to where she was told to go. He then shot her. It's possible that they had a confrontation and Natsuhi simply couldn't bring herself to fire out of guilt, leading to her own death, but that's largely immaterial.

My main problem with this is that too many things point toward Kanon and I'm instantly suspicious of people being too suspicious. If that makes sense.

[rogerpepitone]

Incidentally, what evidence is there that there was a letter in the parlor in episode 1? Jessica, George, and Battler failed to notice it. It wasn't found on Natushi's body. We have only Maria's word that it existed in the first place. Even in the best case, she's not a reliable witness. At the very least, she's lying or mistaken when she claims that Beatrice wasn't one of the other people on the island. She was also in a terrible position to see Natsuhi with the letter. Battler's a big guy, and he was probably right between Maria and Natsuhi. Even if he didn't block her sight, IIRC, he was grabbing and shaking her at the time. Human reflex would be to focus on him at the time. (Natsuhi's actions could be better explained if she got instructions during the phone call to Kinzo's study.)

As for the first twilight in episode 5, those circles could have been made while Maria was still alive.