[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Renall

The reason Battler probably objected to Kinzo's body being included is that he either knows Kinzo's body isn't in either room and would find it annoying to exclude that in the red, or he doesn't know where the body is, in which case he doesn't want to risk mislocating it.

...or wishes to leave the position of Kinzo's body undefined as of this moment because he plans to define it in the future for a different purpose -- assuming that red text imposes constraints and the actual truth can remain undefined until red regarding it is uttered or a reliable perspective stumbles on it.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Oliver

...or wishes to leave the position of Kinzo's body undefined as of this moment because he plans to define it in the future for a different purpose -- assuming that red text imposes constraints and the actual truth can remain undefined until red regarding it is uttered or a reliable perspective stumbles on it.

I would argue he still kind of needs to know where the corpse is or at least how it gets to wherever it ends up before he starts defining it in red. While he may understand "the truth," it seems possible there are details he didn't know if those details were not attainable through the things Beatrice has shown him. And it's possible there were things Beatrice didn't even know.

Of course a good idea of the corpse's location may have been known to Battler, in which case he just wasn't going to define it.

But it all winds up the same either way: He didn't want to state that Kinzo's corpse was in the other room, because that would just be silly and not what Erika meant by "all other people."

[Kylon99]

Originally Posted by Renall

Yes, but you still have problems likeid Battler exclude Kinzo or not? Going just by the red he didn't, even though he was asked to. Or is that what he meant by "all other people?" Did he or didn't he? He objected to it because Kinzo's corpse wasn't supposed to be in that room, and Erika asked him to deal with that... but did he? How can we be sure?

That's the problem with using the red in that manner.

I would assume that since the context is relevant that he did exclude Kinzo. And not just white text, but it seems story context. Are they talking about a particular episode or in general?

This DOES make it hard to sort through the red but then again it's always been hard to do that. Or rather, we are now aware that it's hard to sort through the red and we need to take care...


It's kinda funny. Around EP2-3, people were quoting only the red even though I asked a bunch of people (not on this board) to start listing the text around it and even the blue.

But now, look at EP6... if you don't provide the context all you get are a bunch of useless "I acknowledge." 8)

[Judoh]

So should we make a white text wiki for the context of other episodes then?

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Judoh

So should we make a white text wiki for the context of other episodes then?

The best solution would be to break down the entire text into scenes, Japanese and English lines side by side, and leave a place for commentary next to each. Marking every line with who is supposed to be saying it and whether we're certain about it would also be a good idea. This is not very feasible for copyright reasons, space reasons, workload reasons, and due to the difficulty of searching through the entire mess.

But splitting out the individual scenes where red is actually used and doing that just for them only would probably help.

[Tyabann]

Semi-tangent here: The usual rebuttal to the red about "No body double tricks exist" has to do with context as well.

Whenever I bring this up, someone who wants Kyrie et. al to still be alive after the first twilight points out that it only refers to the last three twilights, but, looking back, I don't think that's actually true; I'm still in the process of rereading the episodes, but I recall Battler had been going on about body doubles for some time during the Ep1 argument. It's only when he brings up the possibility of Genji/Kumasawa/Nanjo using doubles that Beatrice comes out with that red, but look at what she says:

Regarding the unidentified corpses, all of their identities are guaranteed. Therefore, no body double tricks exist!

Wouldn't the wording here cover ALL the unidentified corpses that Battler had argued could be false up until that point? And then we have the second part... in other words, BECAUSE all unidentified corpses are in fact the people they appear to be, there are no body double tricks, at least in Ep1.

This would pretty much kill any possibility of anyone other than Shannon and Krauss having survived the FT, unless you want to argue about the definition of a corpse.

[Renall]

I am certain it's meant to refer to all unidentified corpses. Two problems:

1) Who is "unidentified?"

2) What is a "corpse?"

The former follows logically from the partial identification of Krauss and Shannon, the latter was directly raised in ep5.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

Regarding the unidentified corpses, all of their identities are guaranteed. Therefore, no body double tricks exist!

Wouldn't the wording here cover ALL the unidentified corpses that Battler had argued could be false up until that point? And then we have the second part... in other words, BECAUSE all unidentified corpses are in fact the people they appear to be, there are no body double tricks, at least in Ep1.

The problem is if you interpret this line of red like this the therefore in the red has to be key to understanding it. And like I pointed out before there is another red where the therefore could be key. It uses relatively the same argument.

[Definition check. That "three people" refers to the number of bodies, correct? That means three bodies went in and out, right?] Of course. Three people, that is, three bodies, went in and out of the room. Only you and Kanon entered, and only Battler left. I already stated with the red truth that all names refer only to the actual people. Therefore, the names "Erika", "Battler", and "Kanon" refer only to the actual people.

Why should this red be an exception if we interpret the other one that way?

To me I thought Beato was trying to deny Erika's theory that you can escape the location check by having more than one name you can be referred to with.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Renall

2) What is a "corpse?"

"死体" used in this statement seems to mean pretty much only "dead body" and nothing else. I.e. nothing living could be 'it'.

[Tyabann]

Originally Posted by Renall

The former follows logically from the partial identification of Krauss and Shannon, the latter was directly raised in ep5.

Well, the difference between the 'corpses' in Ep5 (and any of the staked corpses, really) is that the Detective saw, in full glory, the extent of the damage done to five of the FT victims.

I know I'm retreading old stuff here, but how difficult would it have been to fake injuries like that? If the anime is any reasonable source at all... that's some highly detailed makeup, especially for 1986.

[Renall]

Oh, I don't think anyone even remotely has a chance to be faking except Shannon in ep1, but I'm just pointing out they did address the possibility.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

Well, the difference between the 'corpses' in Ep5 (and any of the staked corpses, really) is that the Detective saw, in full glory, the extent of the damage done to five of the FT victims.

I know I'm retreading old stuff here, but how difficult would it have been to fake injuries like that? If the anime is any reasonable source at all... that's some highly detailed makeup, especially for 1986.

Hard to say, but fake gore has been around for a long time. The mess from the first twilight in EP2 is definitely possible, but I don't know whether head damage to the extent of EP1 is or not.

I do think it's important that we find out, but not only because someone could have survived the first twilight. If the real wounds were masked by the faked ones, that could result in the conspirators continuing on with their act even after the first twilight was discovered. That could introduce an enormous amount of noise into the story. For instance, we have that bizarre scene in EP1 where the servants and Maria tried to freak Battler out about Beatrice's existence, which could be explained if they were still in playacting mode at that point.

[Kylon99]

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

For instance, we have that bizarre scene in EP1 where the servants and Maria tried to freak Battler out about Beatrice's existence, which could be explained if they were still in playacting mode at that point.

I thought that and the pretending to be dead part of the first twilight for most of the episodes was related. That pretending to be dead was also part of the plan to make Battler acknowledge Beatrice.


By the way, I once said that perhaps Battler had made a flippant remark 6 years ago about how great it would be to play the detective in such a spooky Western mansion. And that his family decided to play a big prank on him. 8) I don't think this is true though, since I don't think the first twilight fakery is a prank... but it would make a nice fanfic. I can imagine someone making graphic adjustments to make the entire cast of Umineko troll-face Battler... 8)

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Kylon99

I thought that and the pretending to be dead part of the first twilight for most of the episodes was related. That pretending to be dead was also part of the plan to make Battler acknowledge Beatrice.

While that 'playing dead' sequence sounds very likely, and more and more likely as more episodes roll off the press, the adults (who are the bulk of the first twilight victims) doing it for entertainment purposes is a stark contrast to everything else they are shown doing up to that point and for most of the rest of the text.

Makes for a lovely fanfic, sure, doesn't smell of The Answer™. There has to be a reason for this to happen, and I suspect that reason can also be the source of the further murders.

[Renall]

It could be someone's idea to have people fake their murders. The adults might be convinced by some inducement, either threats or promises.

Take ep2 for instance. They go to the chapel, they acknowledge Beatrice, they're found there killed the next morning. They surely didn't commit suicide or let themselves be murdered. What if they were convinced to sit in the chairs and "fake" being dead with the gold bars as proof of a reward? "Fake your deaths here and I'll give you your father's gold" would definitely be one thing that could get Krauss and Natsuhi on the side of the other siblings and their spouses.

Naturally, you'd have to explain why Rosa didn't end up dying too (maybe she didn't go along with it; but why not mention it later?). But then again, if Rosa didn't believe anything actually dangerous was about to happen, or if she was in on the "play" murders in a different role (being the one who "discovers" the bodies for instance), she might only realize something was wrong at the exact moment where speaking up about it would make her look suspicious.

I doubt anyone actually went to the shed in ep1 to "fake" having their faces ripped off. But they could have been going there to "hide" for whatever reason, then were killed later.

A closed room murder is a difficult trick. One thing people have always wondered is how many people must be in on it for the murders to work. Of course, if the victims are actually helping themselves die unwittingly, it becomes much easier to construct elaborate scenarios. Beatrice seemed to waffle in ep3 about the involvement of the victims in the First Twilight. Were they accidentally helping their murderer?

[Oliver]

Sure, there are many imaginable ways they could be convinced. I just mean that whatever these ways are, they have to be part of an unbroken logical chain starting with 'whydunnit' and continuing past that into further atrocities -- otherwise we end up with characters requiring to be aware of the red text that restricts their actions and follow it for no reason other than to create closed rooms. Working from the closed room end does not seem to produce any kind of consensus.

The more I look at it, the more I'm suspecting that we're actually dealing with a riddle rather than a straight murder mystery story, i.e. a message encoded as a metaphor which also happens to be a murder mystery text, with the encoded and mutilated message as the key single clue to understanding the murder mystery part.

Just like the epitaph itself, by the way.

[Kylon99]

Originally Posted by Renall

It could be someone's idea to have people fake their murders. The adults might be convinced by some inducement, either threats or promises.

I doubt anyone actually went to the shed in ep1 to "fake" having their faces ripped off. But they could have been going there to "hide" for whatever reason, then were killed later.

So that's what I've been saying in some of my earlier posts. It could be that in every episode there is a plan to get people to fake and maybe only in EP4 did it not work. Also the faking occurs around midnight and appears to be based from the mansion. It occurs when people take a break. In EP5 when no one took a break, whoever it was switched to the guest house instead. I believe if we compare over all 6 episodes we are left with Genji or Kumasawa... but need to double check this.

There's another event where someone will further murder them. Then it appears there's another event, related or not where the bodies are moved. In the case where the bodies are not discovered until 6am, all those events have taken place.


Also, we know the fakery is not a prank as people stay pretending dead even though people (at least Battler) is visibly upset at seeing them dead. We know that at first the fakers agree since they get to choose the rooms sometimes. We also suspect that drugs may be involved to aid them as sometimes they have to play dead for a long, long time like in EP5. And even the most unwilling family members like Natsuhi, Rosa or Kyrie go along with the plan so something very serious is causing them to do this.

[Renall]

One thing to note is that most of the closed rooms in ep1-4 are actually constructed by the imagination of the survivors or entirely in the Meta-World. Many of them are not traditional closed rooms or even closed rooms at all. Just because something is called such doesn't mean that it is. In that sense, there can be no conscious intent behind creating the "closed rooms," and the lack of awareness of the red text actually helps in thinking about these situations not as puzzles, but as the outcome of events.

Imagine you're a piece on the board who lacks the luxury of red text. How would an analysis of the murder scenes change without that? You might think it makes it harder to reason, but is that really so?

[DaBackpack]

I'm sorta new here, but I'd like to give my two cents and maybe see if I'm on the right track.

Well, I've read up to Episode 5 of the Visual novels and I'm starting to think that the whole "mystery" of Umineko is actually comprised of multiple parts.

Like in Higurashi,

Spoiler for Heegooraaahhshee:

There was the mystery of the main culprit (Takano Miyo), as well as the issue of "how to make people not die" (find the happy end) and "what the hell is going on in the first place."

So, I think Umineko is the same way:

For us to totally accomplish the vague goal of "solving the mystery," we actually have to do the following:

1.) Obviously, prove that magic is not responsible for any of the murders
2.) Find the "rules" of the Umineko universe (What exactly is a witch? Deciphering Beato's purpose, and figuring out what the heck the enchanted text really is)
3.) Solve the epitaph and find its significance on the murders
4.) Find the main culprit, if there is one
And, perhaps an overlooked one...
5.) Find out how to make everyone survive in the end



Now, Episode 5 gives HUGE hints regarding almost all of these facets of the mystery.

(I may be completely wrong here, but bare with me)

Spoiler for Massive spoilers from Episode 5:

In the ??? tea party in Episode 5, Battler has an epiphany involving, like EVERYTHING.

Well, EVERYTHING is rather vague.

We must remember what happens almost immediately before Battler "reaches the top of Mount Purgatory."

We can imply this:

a.) Battler uses the Decalogue, as well Virgilia's extremely useful red truth to figure stuff out.
b.) The mystery IS solveable. After all, Battler did it.
c.) The mystery IS solveable using information that is readily available to us, the viewers. After all, Battler and Dlanor previously had the discussion of what entails a "fair mystery." Dlanor makes an allusion to that "Aha!" moment that most detectives get before deciding the culprit. This reassures the audience that the mystery is possible to solve. If we connect that to this, then we can assume that Battler is the detective and that there are enough hints to complete our mission.
d.) No information is withheld from the audience. Fair mystery and all.

Battler is more intelligent than me, so maybe I'm missing something here.

I guess my question is... What exactly did Battler "find out?"

It's safe to assume that yes, Battler did solve the murder mysteries.

He obviously figured something about Beatrice, which allowed him to use the Golden Text after attaining the title of "Endless Sorcerer."

"Proof that Battler finally understands Beato" or something like that.

You might be asking why it matters what Battler figured out.
Well, I want to know what is possible for me, the reader, to find out as well.

Regarding the Epitaph, we know that two (four, if we include Rosa and Erika) people have solved it.
The location of the gold may or may not have something to do with Kuwadorian.
There is stuff involving Kanji characters... as well as an atlas, if we take Eva's reasoning to be correct.

IF Battler figured out the Epitaph (not the Battler controlled by Erika on the game board, but our "Meta-Battler"), then by Ryukishi07's own logic, it must be possible for us.
Or at least the Japanese fanbase.
Thus, we come across a problem addressed by Ryukishi himself: the later queen problem (sp?).
Battler obviously knows the layout of the mansion better than we do. This would make most people think that solving the Epitaph would be pointless, because we have no way to confirm our beliefs.

However, if the "detective" figured it out, then the clues must be available for us as well.

If he didn't solve it, though, then there's a good chance that we do not have enough information to solve it.

As per finding the happy end, Erika's arrival on the island certainly has something to do with it.
Perhaps there are certain conditions that must be met, like in Higurashi.

In Higurashi, there conditions are like this (if I remember properly...):

a.) Rika (or someone) must prevent her friends from going insane
b.) Rika must not be killed, or everyone dies
c.) I think Tomitake and Takano cannot be declared dead after Watanagashi

I think that Umineko's conditions may go something like this:

a.) The epitaph must be solved to prevent EVERYONE from dying (even if only one person survives, as is in Eva's case)
b.) The Illusion of Magic must be denied.
c.) A culprit must be declared, even if it's the wrong person

This is assuming, of course, that no one dies after Natsuhi's trial in Ep. 5.

If they do end up dead, well, the above is false.

Any thoughts...? I could completely have the wrong idea, here.

[Judoh]

The murders don't stop after the epitaph is solved. In fact Ryukishi said if you know "the answer" you should be able to figure out what happens after Hideyoshi dies. In other words the murders still happen.