[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Kylon99]

Hey, further to the point I was making about Maria and Yasu, the people who separate into different personalities and my theory that they were immature because of it. Guess who introduces the subject? Judoh got it...

http://img826.imageshack.us/img826/2...orgepoint3.jpg

!!!
I'm getting the feeling George knew all of this already!

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by Kylon99

Do you think maybe this is the point where Yasu estimates Genji would have 'figured things out?' Because he didn't seem to be all that surprised when he found Nanjo and Kumasawa's bodies. I guess he went searching for the bodies *because* he figured it out at this point.

I guess it's an estimation by the author of how far the can string the servants along, just like the siblings. And that they too may turn on the whole plan.

That makes some sense, but... wasn't the scene like right after Shannon left with George and Gohda? If by then Genji was suspecting Yasu was planning to kill everyone, would he just let that happen?

Originally Posted by Kylon99

The only thing that sticks out to me is; didn't anyone get suspicious after EP1's first twilight? Is it really possible to convince people that real bodies with half ripped off faces were fake? Even though this is fiction... so the argument is, did Yasu really believe this was believable? Ok, maybe everyone else was convinced it was a fake, but Nanjo must have noticed something.

Not only EP1's first twilight, but EP2's as well. Some other parts, too. It's actually one of the main doubts I have about Murder Game Theory.

The other thing is that there are numerous situations where people who where in on the murder "game" would have realized that there were real murders going on, but then they don't mention anything about the original game to anyone else. And at that point there's absolutely no reason to hide the game any more.

For example, if Genji was only participating in a game, but had realized that Yasu really killed Nanjo and Kumasawa, then why didn't he warn Battler and Rosa? ...never mind allowing Yasu to run off alone with Gohda and George.

Originally Posted by Kylon99

That's a good point; I lost track of the episodes. I guess the magic scene showed them committing a love suicide but when Eva found him... did they find them together? I guess if Shannon's body hadn't gone missing then she wasn't really dead yet. So I guess she just shot him and planned to kill herself much later. Same with EP2; she must have shot George first before shooting herself a second time since she needed to hide the revolver.

Well, we know that Shannon's death in a magic scene doesn't necessarily mean Yasu's death.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

That makes some sense, but... wasn't the scene like right after Shannon left with George and Gohda? If by then Genji was suspecting Yasu was planning to kill everyone, would he just let that happen?

If we pin everything on Yasu, then after Shannon's group leaves, the timeline for her is something like:

- Shannon somehow convinces George and Gohda to go to Natsuhi's room and kills them there.
- Then she goes to meet Nanjo and Kumasawa in the courtyard and kills both of them.
- Then she goes all the way to the gold chamber and sets the bomb. (Since the bomb must be set after noon on the 5th, this is the only time she's available in EP2 to do it.)
- Then she goes all the way back to Natsuhi's room, locks it, and kills herself.

That's an awful lot of running all over the mansion and shooting people without Genji noticing, especially since he was allegedly on patrol in the hallways.

[battle22]

Guy's i have anothor question . (lol). what did Ange do to Kasumi and her guard's in reality?

[Cao Ni Ma]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

Not only EP1's first twilight, but EP2's as well. Some other parts, too. It's actually one of the main doubts I have about Murder Game Theory.

Simple, there were no murder game in EP1 and 2, the theory really started going out after ep3 and 4. It kinda solidify in ep5 and was really present in ep6.

What I think happen in EP1 and 2 was that a game of sorts was planned and the adults initially went along with it. Yasu then capitalized on it and murders them for real.

I guess you can claim that its easier to just murder them, but then you'll have to drag their corpses to wherever you want them and properly set them up and the area. Its easier to just have them be there and help out, take a break and have a servant give them some refreshments watch them fall face first and then start ripping their guts out.

Its still pretty silly in some parts. For people like Eva and Hideyoshi to be wholly innocent, they'd have to believe that those 5 where still alive. As mentioned before thats pretty low on the list of probabilities unless they never actually checked the corpses in detail. GENSAWAJO would be doing it to try to spare themselves, which although is something human to do under the circumstances is still pretty scummy when they could have easily overpowered Yasu. Rosa would need to have noticed it and rebelled instantly against any plan they might have had, which means that she would have shot Yasu in her face the moment she noticed they where really dead or when she found Jessica stabbed. So it comes back to some form of collusion with Yasu.

[Kealym]

Originally Posted by battle22

Guy's i have anothor question . (lol). what did Ange do to Kasumi and her guard's in reality?

Well, Ange got beaten up by them pretty bad. Most common explanation is that Amakusa just sniped them from afar, a proper rifle being the object Ange noticed he had on the boat, and the timing just matched up really well with Ange's "I understand magic now" dramatics, as she (very, very likely) knew what was going on.

Also, regarding Yasu's accomplices. Gensawajo seem wholly committed to this girl, and are essentially at her beck and call all the time. We can assume from EP3 that Kumasawa is probably the least culpable of them, but she's still, at best, complicit in it. There's no wiggling around Genji and Nanjo pretty much going along with what they HAD to know were real murders.

At best, EP3 seems to say Kumasawa didn't really -like- this plan, Nanjo has been consistently portrayed as having his loyalty for sale, and Genji is a freakin' robot, so whatevs. XD

[ndqanh_vn]

Originally Posted by Cao Ni Ma

Simple, there were no murder game in EP1 and 2, the theory really started going out after ep3 and 4. It kinda solidify in ep5 and was really present in ep6.

What I think happen in EP1 and 2 was that a game of sorts was planned and the adults initially went along with it. Yasu then capitalized on it and murders them for real.

.

Does it have to be Yasu? From my reading of the stories, it could be anybody who took advantages of the situation and started to murder people for real.

Besides, I'm not actually following Yasu logic if she really used the game to murder people. Setting up a detective games in hope for Battler to remember her is fine, trying to find a way to deal with her multiple personality or whatever it is is fine, but from that to murder is such a big jump that I cannot understand her logic.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

If we pin everything on Yasu, then after Shannon's group leaves, the timeline for her is something like:

- Shannon somehow convinces George and Gohda to go to Natsuhi's room and kills them there.
- Then she goes to meet Nanjo and Kumasawa in the courtyard and kills both of them.
- Then she goes all the way to the gold chamber and sets the bomb. (Since the bomb must be set after noon on the 5th, this is the only time she's available in EP2 to do it.)
- Then she goes all the way back to Natsuhi's room, locks it, and kills herself.

That's an awful lot of running all over the mansion and shooting people without Genji noticing, especially since he was allegedly on patrol in the hallways.

Or...

1) Yasu sets the trigger on "on" when everyone is asleep somewhere between 0:01 and 5:00 of October 5th
2) Yasu kills Kumasawa and Nanjo at the very time they disappear (or shortly after) in secret place "x"
3) Yasu brings Gohda and George to Natsuhi's room where she kills them.
4) Then Yasu makes a phone call to Genji (who is her accomplice, albeit he won't kill people himself) telling him to prepare Nanjo's and Kumasawa's corpses and so on.
5) Before Genji finishes the preparations Yasu kills herself creating the final closed room.
6) profit (sort of...)

Originally Posted by ndqanh_vn

Does it have to be Yasu? From my reading of the stories, it could be anybody who took advantages of the situation and started to murder people for real.

Besides, I'm not actually following Yasu logic if she really used the game to murder people. Setting up a detective games in hope for Battler to remember her is fine, trying to find a way to deal with her multiple personality or whatever it is is fine, but from that to murder is such a big jump that I cannot understand her logic.

Nobody who is sane understands that. I guess that's why some people refuse to believe Yasu actually had the intention to kill people, despite the overwhelming evidence against her. The other most common explanation is that she's simply batshit crazy. Finally it can simply be that Ryuukishi believes that due to that setting Yasu's actions are perfectly understandable, albeit normal people do not. His last interview with Keya seems to suggests that, and we know that Ryuukishi's moral is completely fucked up.

K Love is really a sufficient motive even for murder, isn’t it?!

R And I think people who do not know that, will sadly never understand Umineko. Because Umineko is „the story of a single girl who arrived at that point because she imagined an incident because of the love and madness in herself“, no matter how much I express that, people who don’t share that feeling will never do so.

I doubt that the majority of people who fell in love understands how can love bring you to murder... the very person you love and many innocent bystanders, and I can't really see "love" as the reason behind yasu's actions even though I'm pretty sure I understood her circumstances pretty well. But apparently Ryuukishi believes in that.

[Kealym]

Originally Posted by ndqanh_vn

Does it have to be Yasu? From my reading of the stories, it could be anybody who took advantages of the situation and started to murder people for real.

Besides, I'm not actually following Yasu logic if she really used the game to murder people. Setting up a detective games in hope for Battler to remember her is fine, trying to find a way to deal with her multiple personality or whatever it is is fine, but from that to murder is such a big jump that I cannot understand her logic.

I believe it does have to be Yasu. I can't deny that there are several instances where other people were potential murderers (for example, Rosa killing the adults in EP2 is a very plausible scenario), but ON THE WHOLE, EP1-4 were clearly, clearly written with a crazy ass love deluded Yasu-culprit as the intended solution.

I agree with the sentiment that'd been expressed at multiple points that her motive kinda lies in the Meta, instead of making any real world sense.

[Cao Ni Ma]

Originally Posted by ndqanh_vn

Does it have to be Yasu? From my reading of the stories, it could be anybody who took advantages of the situation and started to murder people for real.

Besides, I'm not actually following Yasu logic if she really used the game to murder people. Setting up a detective games in hope for Battler to remember her is fine, trying to find a way to deal with her multiple personality or whatever it is is fine, but from that to murder is such a big jump that I cannot understand her logic.

This comes back to her reasons in general. She's an emotional wreck while writing these stories, and in these she's not out to play with Battler. For whatever reason (which doesn't include pleasure, revenge or having them experience fear) she murders a whole lot of people. Maybe we can create a version where she in fact doesn't kill anyone in the stories but its very VERY unlikely.

[Bluemail]

I like the idea of the military base -massacre alluding to October 4th-5th 1986.

Originally Posted by Wanderer

Yet another case where Ikuko=Yasu makes the answer a lot easier. It wouldn't be strange that GENSAWAJO would know about Kinzo's past, and through them Yasu could easily have found out too.

In addition, Ikuko's avatar is Featherine, the Witch of Theatergoing. Will was able to witness Kinzo's story through the Theatergoing Authority. Could this be a hint of Ikuko telling this to Will, possibly Tohya? At least Will has that red strand of hair, and fits the theme of Tohya not being exactly Battler, so a stranger in a way. Will also has a cat, which might actually be the same cat Ikuko has.

AuraTwilight said that Tohya wrote the stories and Ikuko edited. I remember reading that Tohya gave ideas and Ikuko wrote. Which is it? I haven't actually read the second half of EP8, but you can see I have spoiled myself a bit. Can't really help it if I frequent this thread.

Originally Posted by Kylon99

I'm thinking the real clue was supposed to be in EP4 and the real confirmation in EP7... but I only noticed it now. (Apologies to anyone else who may have already posted about this.)

So, about Shannon hiding the gun behind the dresser... I was saying this in another post that it's mostly some kind of a hand gun that she used. And that means in all episodes there is a hand gun in play. And I think in EP4, it's supposed to be the first clue that it's a revolver of some kind. Remember the shooting scene at the beginning of EP4, where 'Kinzo' walks in and shoots 6 people randomly? Well...

In EP7, we're shown quite clearly that the Sawed-off Winchester M-1894 that they were using:


That is only 5 bullets. I think the EP4 scene was supposed to show another gun with 6 bullets. Which is why I guess a revolver. I suppose a 30-bullet fully automatic Glock 17 works too, but I assume Kinzo was also interested in 1800-era revolvers too. Also, it was a revolver in And Then There Were None too, right? (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

So the cool thing is that there's a definite hand gun in possession of Shkannon. That explains a lot of the murders that she should have done. The suicide shot from George's back into herself... or even Nanjo at the end of EP3. And of course the wild shooting at the end of EP4 too, with the final shot dumping the gun into the grating.

I bet most of the murders were done with this gun now.

I usually though that the only guns used are the Winchesters, because there's no direct mention of others. Except the flintlocks in EP6, but wouldn't those be even more impractical? But I did notice the amount of bullets doesn't match. Maybe that's hint enough for Ryuukishi. Ah, Kanon did get training with different guns from Kinzo too, though that's only in EP6.

The gun falling through the gaps in the well in EP4 and the EP2 dresser solution sounded very wrong when I thought that a Winchester was flying around. Someone said that the only clue to that solution was that there was a dresser in the room, but there's also the fact that Rosa stopped Battler from investigating further around it (hints as Rosa's involvement as well).

I came to suspect from what people have been saying that 'no-one would dispute that a coffin is a closed room' is actually a line from And Then There Were None. Is that it? In that case I can accept that the solution has relatively enough hints. Though I couldn't remember the line and relate to it when I read Will's solutions. Might have something to do with my book being in Finnish. It's missing right now for some reason, so I couldn't confirm this or if it was a revolver the culprit used. It's very possible.

Originally Posted by Wanderer

Not only EP1's first twilight, but EP2's as well. Some other parts, too. It's actually one of the main doubts I have about Murder Game Theory.

The other thing is that there are numerous situations where people who where in on the murder "game" would have realized that there were real murders going on, but then they don't mention anything about the original game to anyone else. And at that point there's absolutely no reason to hide the game any more.

Originally Posted by ndqanh_vn

Does it have to be Yasu? From my reading of the stories, it could be anybody who took advantages of the situation and started to murder people for real.

Besides, I'm not actually following Yasu logic if she really used the game to murder people. Setting up a detective games in hope for Battler to remember her is fine, trying to find a way to deal with her multiple personality or whatever it is is fine, but from that to murder is such a big jump that I cannot understand her logic.

Yasu probably only murdered people in the fictions, though the game might have been used as a method to convince the victims to move to a more fitting place.

What I got as Yasu's motive is the creation of the catbox leading to the Golden Land. But that might be the motive constructed for the fictional Yasu. A case of love-madness, as you say. The real person might be different, to justify why Battler would forgive her. Unless Ryuukishi thinks that Battler can justify mass-murder when it is done out of 'love', some kind of act of mercy towards the Ushiromiya, who are stuck in pitiful situations and could be happy in the Golden Land. In that case it could be the Rokkenjima-Prime solution.

About Kinzotrice, I think it's not only a joke. Who made the theory might have intended it as a joke anyway. But we can look at the Kinzo we see during the question arcs as Yasu, who is also preparing the roulette and leaving everything to fate. Maybe everyone acknowledged the existence of Kinzo means they accepted the present Yasu as the new head. I'd interpret it as someone being designated Kinzo or everyone agreeing to lie about the death of Kinzo, playing into the story of him moving around, killing people and giving tests. I'd say it's the latter, but I can say the former just to give something to Kinzotrice.

[UsagiTenpura]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

I provided a full translation here:

http://forums.animesuki.com/showpost...postcount=1832

check the one after the Edit, since it's based on a more reliable source and it's complete.

Oh nice, thanks, didn't expect them translated too!

Originally Posted by Renall

Yes, but that claim of yours misses the point that we can't just write off that incident as a matter of course, especially when additional information exists.

Hell yes, I can write off a theoretical incident we know nothing about that the game is entirely unconcerned with and where those who figured out the truth completely wrote it off.
At this point Rokkenjima Prime is like that italian sub's mission. Lost, beyond recoverable.

From my POV you are mixing up what should morally be done (should it actually have happened) with what the game is about.
It's pretty simple too. If Ryuukishi really intended as the goal of his game for us to solve Rokkenjima Prime, he did a ridiculously awful job at it.
You wanting to "solve Rokkenjima Prime", and your disliking of Ryuukishi, IMO, are two sides of a single coin.

Originally Posted by Renall

~stuff~

That's really well made, you should probably leave it in your signature or something and add to it?

R And I think people who do not know that, will sadly never understand Umineko. Because Umineko is „the story of a single girl who arrived at that point because she imagined an incident because of the love and madness in herself“, no matter how much I express that, people who don’t share that feeling will never do so.

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

I doubt that the majority of people who fell in love understands how can love bring you to murder... the very person you love and many innocent bystanders, and I can't really see "love" as the reason behind yasu's actions even though I'm pretty sure I understood her circumstances pretty well. But apparently Ryuukishi believes in that.

Imagining a crime and making it into a story might be illegal on various minor things (at least when real people are the characters) but it is not actual murder.
I also sorta think actually that most people could imagine killing "someone" due to love, for various reasons depending on the specific situation.
What makes Umineko weird is rather that love leads to murdering Gohda, Maria, Kumasawa and such characters.

[Cao Ni Ma]

Originally Posted by UsagiTenpura

Hell yes, I can write off a theoretical incident we know nothing about that the game is entirely unconcerned with and where those who figured out the truth completely wrote it off.
At this point Rokkenjima Prime is like that italian sub's mission. Lost, beyond recoverable.

From my POV you are mixing up what should morally be done (should it actually have happened) with what the game is about.
It's pretty simple too. If Ryuukishi really intended as the goal of his game for us to solve Rokkenjima Prime, he did a ridiculously awful job at it.
You wanting to "solve Rokkenjima Prime", and your disliking of Ryuukishi, IMO, are two sides of a single coin.

Thats not entirely right, the game's first challenge was to find what really happened in Rokkenjima. Battler's struggles to deny the witch and find out what really happened, his attempts at writing these stories further proves this. At one point the characters go "Welp! Something really horrible happened and we rather not tell you because its really painful, just trust us in this!"

Just because we know very little of it doesn't mean we can write it out, its a major theme in the story even if its writer started playing down its importance and never gives us an answer to it.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by UsagiTenpura

Imagining a crime and making it into a story might be illegal on various minor things (at least when real people are the characters) but it is not actual murder.

I doubt that what people are having difficulties to is to understand why a disturbed girl under stress would have murderous fantasies (as long as they are fantasies and not ideations). I think anyone can understand that, you don't need to have fallen in love for that or any kind of particular experience.

I don't know if you get what I mean, but if it was as you say Ryuukishi would whine that people are misunderstanding his story or jumping to conlcusions.

He knows that people have difficulties at accept something, and we know that that something that people have difficulties to accept is that a person would kill for love and not that a person would write a story about killing someone. And he says that it is sad that people cannot accept that and that if they loved they would.

[Renall]

You can't just give up on it. What kind of Justice would that be?

It's probable that we'll never fully comprehend all mysteries and truths of science. There are areas of biology and geology that have been apparently settled for ages, then somebody discovers something new because they kept looking. Should they give up?

And that aside, it may not be as impossible as it sounds to actually know the truth of Rokkenjima, depending on what Eva wrote down and what Touya actually remembers (and Ikuko, if she has memory of it herself). There may be far more detailed primary-source information than anyone ever expected, it's just we haven't seen it. So saying we should just give up on it becomes even more silly.

If you existed in R-Prime, you'd have the ability to see and read about things we've never been able to see. So at the very least we'd know a lot more than we do. The only reason we "can't" is because Ryukishi doesn't want to show us, and he's releasing a booklet where he's going to give us even more info so presumably we eventually "can" learn more.

It may not lead to a perfect final conclusion, but hey, gotta keep trying.

[Jan-Poo]

At this point I wouldn't be surprised if someone will refuse to trust what he will write in that booklet. Or anyway argument that the truth lies in unlikely interpretations of his words.

[Cao Ni Ma]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

He knows that people have difficulties at accept something, and we know that that something that people have difficulties to accept is that a person would kill for love and not that a person would write a story about killing someone. And he says that it is sad that people cannot accept that and that if they loved they would.

Well he's very careful with what he says but he really never did confirmed that she actually killed anyone. When he does he's referring to the stories. The only thing he seems to confirm was the whole "Imagined" thing.

What Im going at is, Is your problem with motive with the real Yasu in prime or fictional Yasu in the stories? From your previous posts it feels like the issue is with fictional Yasu. As mentioned before, she could have whatever reason to actually murder them. Ultimately it doesn't matter, she never intended to satisfy you with their conclusion. Its a personal thing she did to vent her frustration. Chances are she did it because of the love triangle thing.

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

At this point I wouldn't be surprised if someone will refuse to trust what he will write in that booklet. Or anyway argument that the truth lies in unlikely interpretations of his words.

If its the whole "Blame me! I did it! Nobody else did!" thing with Beatrice then yeah I still wouldn't trust it. If its actually something well constructed with information from Prime that actually makes sense, even if it includes Yasu as culprit then I'd be ok with it. He'd have to move heaven and hell for it to be satisfying though.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Or...

1) Yasu sets the trigger on "on" when everyone is asleep somewhere between 0:01 and 5:00 of October 5th
2) Yasu kills Kumasawa and Nanjo at the very time they disappear (or shortly after) in secret place "x"
3) Yasu brings Gohda and George to Natsuhi's room where she kills them.
4) Then Yasu makes a phone call to Genji (who is her accomplice, albeit he won't kill people himself) telling him to prepare Nanjo's and Kumasawa's corpses and so on.
5) Before Genji finishes the preparations Yasu kills herself creating the final closed room.
6) profit (sort of...)

But then wouldn't the bomb have detonated at 12:00 noon? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think a normal grandfather clock distinguishes between AM and PM.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by Cao Ni Ma

What Im going at is, Is your problem with motive with the real Yasu in prime or fictional Yasu in the stories? From your previous posts it feels like the issue is with fictional Yasu. As mentioned before, she could have whatever reason to actually murder them. Ultimately it doesn't matter, she never intended to satisfy you with their conclusion. Its a personal thing she did to vent her frustration. Chances are she did it because of the love triangle thing.

I think I made a point about how I believe the problem is the same whether it applies to fictional Yasu or real Yasu. You still have a mystery where you need to understand the motive of the culprit. Accepting "whatever reason" is not what Ryuukishi through Will told us to do, quite the opposite. And don't forget that Will never talked about Rokkenjima-Prime, from his perspective it probably doesn't even exist. So no, the motive of fictional Yasu does matter.

Now what Ryuukishi said in that interview is quite evident. You can still work it out by claiming he was talking about fictional Yasu, but I don't think it's reasonable to deny that he wants the readers to accept that "love and madness" is a valid explanation for mass murder... in general.

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

But then wouldn't the bomb have detonated at 12:00 noon? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think a normal grandfather clock distinguishes between AM and PM.

That's a good point, but the story was very particular in saying that it will only explode at "midnight". Maybe the device is made it so it can recognize whether it is midnight or noon, regardless of what the grandfather clock itself is capable to display.

[ndqanh_vn]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Now what Ryuukishi said in that interview is quite evident. You can still work it out by claiming he was talking about fictional Yasu, but I don't think it's reasonable to deny that he wants the readers to accept that "love and madness" is a valid explanation for mass murder... in general.

Well...that exaggerated view is something Ryukishi is fond of, in Higurashi we have

Spoiler for Higurashi culprit:

a girl willing to kill a whole village to prove a theory.

However...in Higurashi it kinda work somehow. I don't know, maybe it's just my personal view. Maybe because the villain is still...villainous, however sympathetic she is. And she's depicted as somewhat, uhm, crazy, so for some reason I could follow her logic. It's not really sympathetic, it's just I feel it understandable that such a person may have such a decision in such a situation.

But for some reason, it did not work that way with Yasu.