[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by UsagiTenpura

Lastly I have a sort of challenge to your interpretation: Arc 5.

How do you explain Erika's ridiculous actions without relying on meta-knowledge? You'd have to have a character who genuinely believe they are in a mystery story. I mean you can reason it however you want, Erika's actions make less sense then anything anyone ever "wouldn't put past Kinzo".

Actually, I have a theory that explains how Piece-Erika could be meta-unaware yet seem meta-aware.

What's the probability that someone who

• happens to land on Rokkenjima on Oct 4, 1986
• happens to have detective powers as incredible as humanly possible
• happens to have the precise character faults that would cause her to fail to gather only the information that would be useful in clearing Natsuhi's name

would exist? Practically zero. However, if that someone is Bernkastel's piece then the answer can change to 100%. Remember, Bern's ability is to make anything happen as long as it's probability is higher than absolute 0. In other words, Bernkastel's power over "miracles" might well be called a power over "coincidence", and it's that that generates Piece-Erika's bizarre behavior rather than Piece-Erika being meta-aware herself.

I'm not sure if this interpretation can be used to counter your general arguments or not, though, since it still relies on meta-influence (from the player side rather than the GM side).

There's always what AT said, that she's just a Mary Sue. After all, you don't need a meta-world to have a stupidly-ridiculous character and dumb-beyond-belief coincidences. In other words, it could just be a bad story to begin with.

Originally Posted by rogerpepitone

Why would Erika care whether Natsuhi admitted Kinzo was dead?

Intellectual rapist wants her intellectual orgasm.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by UsagiTenpura

How do you explain Erika's ridiculous actions without relying on meta-knowledge? You'd have to have a character who genuinely believe they are in a mystery story. I mean you can reason it however you want, Erika's actions make less sense then anything anyone ever "wouldn't put past Kinzo".

It's become a trope in modern Japanese detective fiction to make your detective (and other characters) talk about how much their setting is like a mystery novel and to draw direct comparisons...it'sn kind of meta, but only to acertain extent.
Actually if you take away the meta-layer of the Episodes, you have pretty much exactly that.

In one of the first novels of that kind you get introduced to one of the main characters by him saying the following:

Spoiler for Murder in the Decagon Mansion:

The slim handsome young man, nicknamed Ellery, said:

"To me, detective fiction is kind of an intellectual game. A logic puzzle that gives readers sensations about detectives or authors. They aren't about being high or low culture. I despise that once popular Shakai-ha realism.
A business lady murdered in her 2DK; a criminal officer's tireless investigation eventually uncovers her employer slash boyfriend being the culprit - been there, seen that. Political scandals of corruption and ineptness; the tragedy of our distorted modern society ... all out of date.
The best raw materials for detective fiction, let them be called old-fashioned, are master detectives, luxurious mansions, suspicious inhabitants, bloody murders, unsolvable situation, unbelievable motives . . . . the more fictional the better. The point is to enjoy the pleasure of this world of reasoning. But of course it must follow an internal logic." ”

A detective has to be bold enough to want to be a detective and see mysteries in everything in order to succeed. That is basically something that comes out of the "Later Queen Problem" or Kôki kuiin mondai.
The first problem is that namely that what the detective draws as a solution is basically only "the truth" because he is being supported by meta-knowledge and acts according to meta-deceptions...otherwise his solution would just be a theory.
The second problem being that often, only due to the relationship between detective - victims and therefore also detective - culprit a case is created. The culprit will try to eliminate the risk of being caught by the detective by killing any witnesses to his criminal nature...would there be no detective there would probably not be murder.

Also, the "detective authority" that Erika is granted, is basically something that every master-detective of literature has. He must have it, because his goal is not only to find a solution to the case in his world, but also to the case presented to us. The main example are description tricks (叙述トリック), because of course a character would not witness if we as the reader are only presented with a limited view of their sorroundings.

A detective is not there to make sense, s/he is merely a stylistic device which is constructed to help us understand the world and find something of worth in it. The problem is, if the detective is incompetent, mean spirited or simply not in the mood to properly clear up the case, we are left with an unsatisfying resolution (or sometimes an afterword that clears everything up).

How do you explain that Battler's participation in setting up Natsuhi as the murderer by lying to later change side and try to protect her without the meta-narrative that explains just why? Like what's the gameboard reason for you?

You can find a pretty simple solution. Looking at Battler's reactions (especially in the manga adaption) he is clearly unhappy about finding the gold and being declared family head, as if he knew of the consequences.
He was probably filled in on the parents plan to pressure Natsuhi and Krauss into admitting that Kinzô is dead and promising them a large enough access to money to pay their debts. He agreed half-heartedly to play along, but seeing what it actually did to his aunt - especially with gullible buffoon Erika swallowing the hook and probably actually believing in Natsuhi culprit - he decided to ditch the whole scheme.

Also just to know, but according to your interpretation, what's arc 8's real form? I don't see how it could exist in any form without meta-information.

I think the core of EP8 is nothing more than what we see at the beginning: A happy little Ange enjoying a festive Halloween with her relatives at her dear grandpa's mansion, where they all had a wonderful time, including Kinzô's secret daughter who's not at all deranged. This was what Battler would have wanted Ange to think, according to what he is characterized as...what reason would there be for Tôya of all people to write a story about Battler creating a story for Ange, which she refuses only to learn that it is better to have accepted it from the start.

Another problem that meta-inclusion would create is, that it wouldn't leave room for any other works.
We learned that among the forgery authors Hachijô Tôya is the most famous and most respected, but not the only one by far. The story as a whole as we witness it does not leave room for additional games, as they are in a closed relationship to each other. Either every forgery outside of the Hachijô-canon would provide a different story progress from EP3 onward or there is no meta in the texts within prime.

And Ronove revealed to us that for the meta-characters the other games happened, even if out of temporal context (because they weren't written in a fixed order). There is at least also Land and Trinity...and the question is, where would they go?!

[AuraTwilight]

Why would Erika care whether Natsuhi admitted Kinzo was dead? But most of the family has good reason to want Natsuhi to admit to the fraud.

Let me rephrase that: Why would Erika care about exposing a lie for what it is?

There's your answer.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by haguruma

Another problem that meta-inclusion would create is, that it wouldn't leave room for any other works.
We learned that among the forgery authors Hachijô Tôya is the most famous and most respected, but not the only one by far. The story as a whole as we witness it does not leave room for additional games, as they are in a closed relationship to each other. Either every forgery outside of the Hachijô-canon would provide a different story progress from EP3 onward or there is no meta in the texts within prime.

And Ronove revealed to us that for the meta-characters the other games happened, even if out of temporal context (because they weren't written in a fixed order). There is at least also Land and Trinity...and the question is, where would they go?!

This is an excellent point. We have extra TIPS that pretty much flat-out say these forgeries exist, suggestions of such when talking about the sea of fragments, etc. Touya's forgeries may be the ones of greatest importance because of who they come from, but they are not the only ones that exist in the world. We don't see them, but as haguruma said, Ronove actually acknowledges they exist. Some of the TIPS seem like they are taken at least in part from such forgeries, while others are probably jokes. But honestly, most or all of them probably could be. For all we know, so are Lion's world and Ange's Happy 1986 Family Gathering, neither of which is likely as a possible reality (so there's almost no way either is R-Prime, which means either it was invented in-universe or comes from nowhere, in which case it couldn't be in the Meta-Narrative without the Meta-World being fiction-disconnected).

Does that mean Black Battler also exists? I guess, probably. At the same time as Wizard Battler? I guess, probably. Would that make any sense at all if the Meta-Narrative were progressively constructed as part of an official canon? Well, probably not, though who the hell knows.

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by haguruma

The main example are description tricks (叙述トリック), because of course a character would not witness if we as the reader are only presented with a limited view of their sorroundings.

A description trick like this was precisely what Genius Battler used fool Erika, and I also think it can even explain how Erika could see both Kanon and Shannon even in EP5. Think about it this way: Take the picture element out of the parlor scene in question, and simply replace it with the words "Everyone on the island is in the parlor". Now, depending who you were, when you first were reading EP5 you may have interpreted that to mean 17 people or 18 people. Bern/Erika interpreted those words to mean 18, and thus 18 is what manifests on the game board.

I think the whole point is that the "player" is actually a reader, but is called a "player" to indicate that they have some control in shaping the game board. Actually, there are numerous hints that what we see on the game board is a reader's interpretation of the story rather than the story itself.

For example:

• RK07 likens thought/detective novels to a two-way challenge between reader and writer in Umineko, in interviews, and even in Higurashi
• What is a series of stories in Umineko-Prime is called a game board in the Meta-World between a "player" and a "game-master"
• Featherine has Ange read Dawn because she wants to see how Ange reads it
• Umineko's most central theme is based on how perspective changes truth
• "It takes two people to create a world"

There's got to be more I can't think of at the moment.

And even if you thought the number of people in the parlor was 18 when you first read End you would not have been wrong at the time because it was a valid perspective- ShKanon had not yet been irrefutably established in EP5. This would be RK07 playing with "the later queen problem" / "later truths override earlier truths" / "multiple truths may exist in a cat box until you open the box". Also, it interestingly makes Erika being the 18th human a legitimate Red because it actually was a viable truth (the most logically sensible one, in fact) until the moment the GM mandated that there were 17 people. Erika herself wasn't killed until her perspective was "later-queened" into being wrong; and she couldn't live through it because by narrowing the possibilities to only an illogical answer there was no longer any room for Erika's strictly logical perspective in the Meta-World of Rokkenjima.

It also explains another nagging issue: Why ShKanon was not needed to solve anything until EP6- it allowed for a cat box where the reader couldn't know whether there was 1 human inside or 2. This is also why using ShKanon in EP6 killed Kanon, metaphorically, because it erased his human existence as a viable truth.

Originally Posted by haguruma

Another problem that meta-inclusion would create is, that it wouldn't leave room for any other works.
We learned that among the forgery authors Hachijô Tôya is the most famous and most respected, but not the only one by far. The story as a whole as we witness it does not leave room for additional games, as they are in a closed relationship to each other. Either every forgery outside of the Hachijô-canon would provide a different story progress from EP3 onward or there is no meta in the texts within prime.

And Ronove revealed to us that for the meta-characters the other games happened, even if out of temporal context (because they weren't written in a fixed order). There is at least also Land and Trinity...and the question is, where would they go?!

Good points. In EP8 Beatrice was bragging how she also wrote Land which, if the bottles and forgeries included meta, would be a lie immediately apparent to anyone.

[Jan-Poo]

But the purpose of red truths was to open the cat box not to coexist with other red truths. the red truth should represent the collapse of the wavefunction while the blue truth would represent one of its possible outcomes.

that's how it was described and that's the only way a red truth can have any point at all.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

There's got to be more I can't think of at the moment.

Bernkastel promising not to use any "reader techniques" to distort the stage directions on her game board in EP8.

[Cao Ni Ma]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

And even if you thought the number of people in the parlor was 18 when you first read End you would not have been wrong at the time because it was a valid perspective- ShKanon had not yet been irrefutably established in EP5. This would be RK07 playing with "the later queen problem" / "later truths override earlier truths" / "multiple truths may exist in a cat box until you open the box". Also, it interestingly makes Erika being the 18th human a legitimate Red because it actually was a viable truth (the most logically sensible one, in fact) until the moment the GM mandated that there were 17 people. Erika herself wasn't killed until her perspective was "later-queened" into being wrong; and she couldn't live through it because by narrowing the possibilities to only an illogical answer there was no longer any room for Erika's strictly logical perspective in the Meta-World of Rokkenjima.

It also explains another nagging issue: Why ShKanon was not needed to solve anything until EP6- it allowed for a cat box where the reader couldn't know whether there was 1 human inside or 2. This is also why using ShKanon in EP6 killed Kanon, metaphorically, because it erased his human existence as a viable truth.

This is what I was mentioning some time ago. That whole scene in EP6 felt like they we're destroying the possibility of Kanon existing as individual person with those reds (by making him into a part of Shkanon). The real question isn't who Shannon and Kanon really are, but rather, why would a person go trough the trouble of making Shannon and Kanon into persons and whether this person actually did this in Prime.

So that got me thinking, maybe Shkanon didn't really exist in prime. Maybe at one point, Yasu thought about making Kanon into a reality but thought it would be too hard to maintain the act. It would be essentially magic and she already had trouble meeting anyone else other than Maria as Beatrice. But she really wanted to have a "brother" and she really wanted Jessica to have a "boyfriend", so she gave herself and Jessica what they wanted in the only way she could, trough her stories.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by Cao Ni Ma

But she really wanted to have a "brother" and she really wanted Jessica to have a "boyfriend", so she gave herself and Jessica what they wanted in the only way she could, trough her stories.

I think this is exactly what happened and why it is important to understand the duality in the characters problems to get an idea of Rokkenjima prime. Taking the final battle of EP8 as an example, the characters rebell against the attack of Erika (the people wanting the truth no matter what) because it would have taken something from them on a meta-fictional layer.
Like Black Battler said in Forgery No.xxx, the more stories are written about them, the more powerful and the more "true" they become. On this metafictional plane they do exist, but they are dependant on what people believe, because they're nothing else than that "belief".

For example Jessica battled against the notion that Kanon did not exist, because through him she was happy, she got a boyfriend and somebody to turn to. What does this tell us about the real Jessica of 1986? Probably that she was a pretty lonely girl, who's only bright spot she had was school...and at least she got help from "somebody named Kanon" on the school festival in order not to loose her reputation.

Originally Posted by Wanderer

A description trick like this was precisely what Genius Battler used fool Erika, and I also think it can even explain how Erika could see both Kanon and Shannon even in EP5. Think about it this way: Take the picture element out of the parlor scene in question, and simply replace it with the words "Everyone on the island is in the parlor". Now, depending who you were, when you first were reading EP5 you may have interpreted that to mean 17 people or 18 people. Bern/Erika interpreted those words to mean 18, and thus 18 is what manifests on the game board.

Yes, this is exactly the kind of description trick for which a master detective needs meta-powers in order to solve them for us. There would be no need for any character to repeat to the other characters, that there were only 17 people in the parlour, because they were there.
In a novel a detective has to clear this up, though there is no necessity to do this to the other characters...he basically has to solve the meta-mystery for us, the reader, too. But Erika was too arrogant and to rash to understand that problem, she created the second part of the Queen Problem, creating and worsening the case by trying to force the gameboard under her command.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

A description trick like this was precisely what Genius Battler used fool Erika, and I also think it can even explain how Erika could see both Kanon and Shannon even in EP5. Think about it this way: Take the picture element out of the parlor scene in question, and simply replace it with the words "Everyone on the island is in the parlor". Now, depending who you were, when you first were reading EP5 you may have interpreted that to mean 17 people or 18 people. Bern/Erika interpreted those words to mean 18, and thus 18 is what manifests on the game board.

I don't mean to offend you on a personal level, because I don't necessarily disagree with the spirit of what you're suggesting (merely the manifestation in the work you're justifying), but that's the lousiest excuse I've ever heard to justify hack writing.

We don't read Shannon and Kanon separately into that scene. It's true that, as you say, if there were only a series of words and none specifically enumerated who was in the parlor other than "everybody," then the number and list of names would rightfully be determined solely by the reader's own assumptions about who actually exists on the island. That's not just the argument used in ep5, but also effectively Battler's trick in ep6, assuming Kanon into a room he isn't actually in.

That's fine... in your example. But your example isn't what we get. We get Battler narrating 18 people into that room. Now, of course, we can trust Battler or not trust Battler, but the point is that we weren't merely told "and then everyone gathered in the parlor and met Erika, and every person on the island was in that room at the same time." We were shown something in which Erika's character had active participation, and her character is supposed to have certain abilities. It's no longer our mistake that we thought there were 18 people when really there were 17 (and Erika saw this). It's now Erika's mistake that she was shown 18 people yet clearly her piece could only have observed 17. Even if you say that "in the original story, it just said 'everyone on the island gathered in the parlor to meet Erika,'" somebody interpreted that before it reached us and, more critically, before it reached Erika. If that interpretation is lying, it creates a problem scenario based on other things the writer has already said.

Basically your argument seems to boil down to: "That was Battler's reading, the one that we saw. Bern/Erika could have read it differently or seen a discrepancy in it, but because they also believed in the 18 people concept, they would have read it basically the same way, and thus saw no errors."

But I think that flies in the face of common sense and Erika's perceptiveness both as a "player" (whether she's ever a reader or not) and as a character in the story itself. By making Erika dense enough to be lied to in front of both her faces, Ryukishi is intentionally lying to us while waving Erika around to legitimize his lie because surely she'd notice any tomfoolery, so clearly there is none here!

But there is. If we're going so far as to say that we can put Shannon and Kanon together in that room if we as the readers want to, we're pissing all over these supposed observational powers of Erika by allowing her to be deceived by our own mistaken assumptions. That's not how a fictional detective is supposed to work. A detective doesn't overlook a clue because the reader of the story does. If I were retelling a famous detective story and forgot to narrate the discovery of an important clue, it wouldn't suddenly make the detective wrong at the end of the story. I'd just have created a plot hole or a weird conclusion at best. I can't actually stop the detective from noticing unless I change the story, which makes me not a reader but an editor or author.

If Erika-the-character existed in the room, Erika-the-character saw only one person. Period. That's it. It doesn't matter who read it and it doesn't matter who narrated it. The character herself will not act as if she doesn't know something that she actually learned, regardless of whether the reader ever saw it. And if Erika has any access at all to the observational powers of her piece, she should have already known this and thus none of her actions later in ep5 or ep6 would make any sense. Think of the consequences were this not true:

If Erika can be deceived by Shannon/Kanon dual-embodied simply because of a reader assumption, there's no reason Battler couldn't have been equally deceived. If we accept this, absolutely nothing would have prevented Shannon and Kanon appearing before him at once, because we can just handwave the whole thing as "but Meta-Battler (and the reader) didn't know about Shkanon so he assumed they both existed, lol." But then why didn't that ever happen? Because... oh wait, there really isn't any reason at all. Except Ryukishi thought he was being cute in ep1-4, and then decided to be cute a different way in ep5. And, in the process, completely screwed up. I'm not even touching on the whole room separation thing in ep6, but only because Meta-Erika traps herself with words and Piece-Erika wouldn't necessarily be in the same situation. But you can easily read that part as Erika conveniently not noticing something that would've also been inescapable to her piece (Detective Authority or no Detective Authority).

Basically... what are you trying to drive at here, that Erika and Meta-Erika share no information? That's pretty much the only way to get out of this problem, and it would still mean Ryukishi basically cheated (just in a slightly different way, by allowing Meta-Erika to profit from Piece-Erika's information selectively when he felt like letting her and denying it to her otherwise, with no clear delineation as to when he's doing that).

Your arguments about the cooperative nature are - and again no offense personally here, I just cannot agree in any way - utter hogwash. Umineko is in no way cooperative. We do not actually "interact" with Ryukishi, at least not as individual readers. Everything we read from him is filtered solely through his own perspective and we can only interpret and predict the end product. We don't have any opportunity to change it, which is part of what makes for a genuine exchange. He doesn't "get" anything from us, and we don't "contribute" anything to the main body of the work. How then are we helping him "create a world" as anything other than his stooge, constructing his false world on the backs of faulty perceptions he himself is responsible for creating? We may as well not even be in the equation if he's going to abuse us like that.

If Ryukishi makes assumptions about how the reader would read the story, and tailors to those assumptions, he's not doing it out of any sort of interactive capacity. It's strictly predictive, just like our own speculation. To say "I wrote this wrong because you're reading it wrong, and that makes it okay to lie to you about your mistaken conclusions" as if it's some kind of valid defense is spiteful nonsense and I can only hope that isn't what he actually thinks. He cheated. Period. He cheated us and he cheated himself by breaking his own rules, and he broke them more than once. Don't defend that, and don't excuse that. He had every opportunity not to box himself in with his own contradictions.

[Jan-Poo]

I interpreted Wanderer's argument slightly differently. If I understood correctly he says that since Erika believed there were 18 people in the room she saw 18 people and the red truth was consistent with her interpretation.

To further this kind of argument he listed the cases where the reader interpretation affects the gameboard.

Now if this is what Wanderer meant, there is a problem I see with it.

If the detective actively modified the gameboard then that should have become the truth in spite of what the Game Master actually wanted.

If it didn't work that way then Battler in EP6 could have told Erika: sorry bitch but you didn't kill anyone, it was just your imagination.

But he couldn't, because one basic rule of the Games in Umineko is that the player has a realiable perspective. If it didn't work that way it wouldn't even be a game.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

I interpreted Wanderer's argument slightly differently. If I understood correctly he says that since Erika believed there were 18 people in the room she saw 18 people and the red truth was consistent with her interpretation.

Besides your own objection, however, I just can't see this as making any sense. If Erika were merely a very perceptive reader (in her own mind at least), then drawing such a faulty conclusion from this might be understandable.

However, Erika's been given supposed special abilities, like a connection to the piece that represents her and a series of specific enumerated powers (at least in ep5). Once you do that, you're no longer able to declare that Erika just made a mistake in believing something she imagined as she was reading a story.

If I'm reading Murder on the Orient Express, I can make a mistake about something Poirot said, did, or saw and accidentally convince myself that Poirot didn't say, do, or see it. I'll be corrected if it comes up at the end of the book (i.e. it was a clue of some importance), or maybe I won't if it's a minor detail (until another reader corrects me or I reread it). However, the scenario changes drastically if I have a psychic connection to Poirot and the ability to objectively verify certain things he sees and does.

So the escape hatch I see here is "Erika wasn't actually connected to her piece at all." Except then she gets some information she shouldn't have.

[jjblue1]

Random info but in the manga Ep 6 chap 5 is confirmed that Sakutarou itself was a mass produced toy.
Due to Maria's 'magic' (her belief) it became a wonderful, unique toy drenched in her mother's love.
So either Rosa lied to Maria or Maria made up the fact that Sakuratou was handmade (the poor child might have been purposely deluding herself).

Personally I'm starting to think Maria deluded herself.
Since the toy was mass produced it would be easy for Maria to notice Rosa didn't make it so I'm not sure Rosa would have lied over it (it was simpler to tell her 'sorry, Maria, mommy wanted to make you a toy but she didn't manage to do it so she bought one').
Poor Maria wanted her mommy to give her a handmade toy as present so she persuaded herself Sakutarou was handmade.
*sighs* I feel sad for the kid.

But he couldn't, because one basic rule of the Games in Umineko is that the player has a realiable perspective. If it didn't work that way it wouldn't even be a game.

I'm not sure it's the player that has a reliable perspective.
Wasn't that something that the detective has?
Otherwise Battler should have a reliable perspective in EP5 since he's also a player.

[AuraTwilight]

Random info but in the manga Ep 6 chap 5 is confirmed that Sakutarou was a mass produced toy.
Due to Maria's 'magic' (her belief) it became a wonderful, unique toy drenched in her mother's love.
So either Rosa lied to Maria or Maria made up the fact that Sakuratou was handmade (the poor child might have been purposely deluding herself).

Or Sakutarou was mass-produced afterwards by Witch-Hunters after the tragedy. After all, Beatrice is able to say that it was handmade by Rosa and stuff in Red.

I'm not sure it's the player that has a reliable perspective.
Wasn't that something that the detective has?
Otherwise Battler should have a reliable perspective in EP5 since he's also a player.

Technically, no. Battler doesn't ever actually control the Piece Battler, since he's watching a replay of the game.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Or Sakutarou was mass-produced afterwards by Witch-Hunters after the tragedy. After all, Beatrice is able to say that it was handmade by Rosa and stuff in Red.

The exact red sentence is:

That stuffed animal is a special stuffed animal. Made by Rosa for her daughter's birthday, and in the entire world, the only...

I wonder if the sentence can be read:

That stuffed animal is a special stuffed animal. Made by Rosa's factory for her daughter's birthday, and in the entire world, the only

In short Rosa created a toy that she planned to launch on her daughter's birthday. Maybe she wanted to expand her business to toys and she gave the first of those toys to her daughter (sort of like how singers make a song which is dedicated to their own child but sell that song and share it with everyone on the Earth).

This would allow the truth that it was made by Rosa for her daughter's birthday to exist.

I guess that Umineko might also allow that red truth might be disproven and destroyed so that Sakutarou wasn't technically made by Rosa for her daughter's birthday but it was all up to interpretation like 'Kanon is dead'.

Therefore 'made' might means 'made to live in Maria's world' or something like that (I'm not too sure which alternative meaning might have the word used in the original Japanese sentence). However to twist the red truths to this point is something I don't like so I prefer the first explanation.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Technically, no. Battler doesn't ever actually control the Piece Battler, since he's watching a replay of the game.

True. However the game implies Battler in the first 4 games had an objective perspective because he was the detective not the player...

Knox's 7th, it is forbidden for the detective to be the CULPRIT!! The detective is obligated to have an objective point of VIEW. Your theory violates this OBLIGATION!!"

"Furudo Erika is the detective in this game, not me!! And by Knox's 9th, it is permitted for observers to let their own conclusions and interpretations be heard...!!"

"Knox's 8th, it is forbidden for the case to be resolved with clues that are not PRESENTED! Until now, you have been the DETECTIVE! Was it ever shown that you were not the detective this time, and that you were an observer with a subjective VIEWPOINT?!! Unless it was, you do not have the right to falsify your point of VIEW!!"

At least that's how it sounds to me. Battler, to be allowed to have a subjective viewpoint has to show he's not the detective, not that he's not a player... that's how I interpret it...

[AuraTwilight]

That stuffed animal is a special stuffed animal. Made by Rosa for her daughter's birthday, and in the entire world, the only...

I wonder if the sentence can be read:

That stuffed animal is a special stuffed animal. Made by Rosa's factory for her daughter's birthday, and in the entire world, the only

Rosa isn't a factory.

In short Rosa created a toy that she planned to launch on her daughter's birthday. Maybe she wanted to expand her business to toys and she gave the first of those toys to her daughter (sort of like how singers make a song which is dedicated to their own child but sell that song and share it with everyone on the Earth).

This would allow the truth that it was made by Rosa for her daughter's birthday to exist.

This is pretty much the least dickish of all the "Rosa mass-produced Sakutarou" ideas. Personally, I prefer that Sakutarou was mass-produced afterwards by the Witch-Hunters because that's exactly the sort of sick thing they'd do.

True. However the game implies Battler in the first 4 games had an objective perspective because he was the detective not the player...

The games are pretty much two-player. "Player" and "Detective" are pretty much synonymous.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Rosa isn't a factory.

Well Rosa's company is named after her. You could stretch it to mean her company. Though I don't like it personally either. It also doesn't make sense to me as something Beatrice would say in red in this scene. She also didn't finish that line.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Rosa isn't a factory.

I know. What I'm trying to say is that Umineko plays a lot on word plays.
So if Umineko was made by Antirosa instead than Rosa, but was based on Rosa's design, it would still be 'made' by Rosa, though not sewed by her.
Factory owners, company owners, say they made their products, thought they technically didn't make them. Sometimes they didn't even plan them but have a technician planning them.

Yes, it's stretching things but that's pretty common in Umineko.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

This is pretty much the least dickish of all the "Rosa mass-produced Sakutarou" ideas. Personally, I prefer that Sakutarou was mass-produced afterwards by the Witch-Hunters because that's exactly the sort of sick thing they'd do.

I would prefer that too and it would also fit with the 'truth of the future covers truth of the past' theme.

However I don't really find horrible for Rosa to create a toy to celebrate her daughter's birthday and also sell it.
It's pretty common for people in the business world.

At the same time I also see how Rosa could have merely decided to buy a toy to Maria.
There's plenty of moms who've no time to handmade toys, carnival costumes or cakes for their kids' birthdays and that decide to buy them.
They don't mean to be jerk, they just don't have time.

Creating a stuffed toy takes away a lot of time, time Rosa evidently doesn't have or she could spend it with Maria.

Personally, I would find her a better mom if, instead that handmaking Sakutarou, she had devoted that time to be with Maria.

However there are lots of variants over the creation of Sakutarou that can be more or less nice toward everyone.

Let's pretend that Rosa planned Sakutarou and sewed it herself while at work.
Rosa then dies, Eva inherits Antirosa and sells it with everything inside. The buyer find the Sakutarou design.

He has a toy company, likes the design and produces it without even knowing it was Maria's toy.

The toy might sell well and be noticed by Witch Hunter once the Rokkenjima mystery catches their interest or the toy might not sell well and Witch Hunters might never notice it. The bag of Sakutarou ended on the ship due to a mere coincidence and that's the end of the story.

Maria didn't delude herself and Sakutarou, although mass produced, wasn't mass produced due to the witch hunters twisted interest but merely by coincidence.

However the quote in the manga is

A mass produced stuffed animal with a bit of magic is turned into a unique wonderful toy drenched in mother's love. If you dubt that it will be consumed by anti-magic toxin. If belive, magic will become the truth.

It seems to imply Sakutarou was mass produced from the beginning. However the speaker is Ange. She might not know when Sakutarou was mass produced. Since she has a negative view of Rosa she might assume it was mass produced BEFORE Maria received it.

Note that Ange saw Maria with Sakutarou when she was still living with her parents. If Sakutarou was a mass produced toy she should have been aware it was (at the time she was likely allowed to go through toy shops and she should have seen it) and she shouldn't have needed to witness it on the boat.

Actually she should have added it when she pointed out that Sakutarou was only a stuffed toy to Maria.

So, if at the time Ange didn't know (and generally kids manage to know all the toys on the market... I'm always impressed by their knowledge on the subject...) it's possible when Maria received this Sakutarou didn't exist.
This if Ryukishi went for a realistic setting and not for merely a logic one.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

The games are pretty much two-player. "Player" and "Detective" are pretty much synonymous.

Then we enter in game 6 problem. In it Erika is a player but not the detective (I wonder who's the detective in game 6... -_-).

[AuraTwilight]

However the quote in the manga is

The manga is pretty much totally irrelevant; it's contradicted the visual novel before.

Then we enter in game 6 problem. In it Erika is a player but not the detective (I wonder who's the detective in game 6... -_-).

She gives up the Authority of the Detective. That's different from giving up the Detective's ROLE.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

The manga is pretty much totally irrelevant; it's contradicted the visual novel before.

Since Ryukishi said he would use it to give clues my feeling is that when it contraddicts the visual novel, it does so to correct a mistake or to improve things, following Ryukishi's suggestions.
However it's also possible that the manga contains mistakes.

I guess unless Ryukishi confirms he inserted that sentence on purpose to give us a extra hint we'll never know if that sentence is a hint or a mistake (addition/free interpretation/whatever) done by the manga author.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

She gives up the Authority of the Detective. That's different from giving up the Detective's ROLE.

Honestly I was thinking to Knox's 7: It is forbidden for the detective to be the culprit.