[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Will Wright]

Originally Posted by rogerpepitone

I posted an abbreviated version of the Locked Room Lecture a while back.
http://forums.animesuki.com/showthre...42#post2797842

I don't think Ryu is anywhere near Carr as far as locked rooms go; too many of the mysteries is Umineko are based on the absence of duplicate keys. (On the other hand, this is likely deliberate; as Wright mentioned, solving one Carr-quality mystery would likely tie down a good deal of Umineko.)

Oh, thank you for posting that, that saves me the type to copy and paste.

I don't think anyone is near Carr as far as locked rooms go, but what I meant was more of a comparison about their themes than about their skills.

They are the same kind of writer, though Carr is miles ahead.

To explain what I mean with a comparison, if mystery writers are fencers, then both Ryuukishi and Carr fight with a foil, even if Ryuukishi barely made junior varsity while Carr is the Olympic champion.

If someone ripped out the last ten pages of a mystery novel, and in those ten pages was all the denouement we expect out of a mystery resolution, does that render the work incompatible with the rules? For all we know, that's exactly what happened in End. And is there a significant difference between a book which happens to have those pages ripped out and a book that just didn't have them?

If you gave a mystery fan a copy of The Hollow Man without the solution, I'm sure they would get the only(even if contrived) solution possible.

A mystery is a mystery when the reader has a fair chance of making "the summation" all by himself without the help of the detective.

As for the difference, yes there is. A book intended not to leave the answer in the end is more likely to have clues than the other way around.

[Oliver]

I think a distinction should be made between a story that is complete and a story that is not. A mystery that misses large numbers of pages can by itself be Knox/Dine compliant - when available in it's complete form. Umineko, however, is definitely not available in it's complete form anywhere.

See also the Later Queen Problem.

[Will Wright]

Originally Posted by Oliver

I think a distinction should be made between a story that is complete and a story that is not. A mystery that misses large numbers of pages can by itself be Knox/Dine compliant - when available in it's complete form. Umineko, however, is definitely not available in it's complete form anywhere.See also the Later Queen Problem.

The problem is that Ryuukishi said that Umineko was solvable by episode 4. He sent his "Challenge to the reader" so to speak.

[Renall]

Yes, and that is true.

I think it would have been better had he approached it on the level of criticism. As a meditation on the mystery genre, what makes a mystery "solvable," what makes a mystery "complete," etc., it can be quite interesting. He's just made certain promises that I think may have been ill-advised for him to say.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Will Wright

The problem is that Ryuukishi said that Umineko was solvable by episode 4. He sent his "Challenge to the reader" so to speak.

Did he say that in red?

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Oliver

Did he say that in red?

Why lie? Have you no love for him?

...perhaps that's a bad question to ask.

[Will Wright]

Originally Posted by Renall

Why lie? Have you no love for him?

...perhaps that's a bad question to ask.

I'll take that question.

Let's just say that sometimes Umineko makes me feel like the mystery genre is my father and Ryuukishi has 6 fingers.

[Oliver]

It's a love-hate relationship, if you ask me. Reading Umineko has been an intellectually stimulating experience, however, it consumed more time than it might deserve.

Speaking of the red and interviews in particular, I am fairly sure that at least one of R07's interview statements about a solution to a particular puzzle (07151129, that is) is mathematically impossible and therefore not true.

It does seem like he wants to you read between the lines, but while reading between the lines, there's no way to convince the majority that what you see there is not just speculation.

[rogerpepitone]

@Will: True; Ryu and Carr liked doing the mystery / horror mix. I'm very surprised that Ryu hasn't mentioned Carr

I found this site many years ago; it might be a good starting place for those interested in some of the writers mentioned:
John Dickson Carr / Carter Dickson / Carr Dickson
S. S. Van Dine
Ellery Queen
Agatha Christie
Father Ronald Knox
Soji Shimada

Sakaguchi Ango isn't included, unfortunately. Also, I think _Cat of Many Tails_ by EQ edges out _Ten Little Indians_ for body count. (Also, I think the medical definition of serial killer requires a cooling-off period between crimes, which makes 10LI and UNNKN mass murders, not serial murders.)

[Will Wright]

@rogerpepitone:
I'm not sure whether to thank or curse you for that website, for I am bound to spend days reading all of it. It is delightfully written, and its Van Dine section is wonderful.

Most shockingly of all, it taught me that I'm not the only person to doubt the authenticity of the novella.

Thank you very much for this, I loved that website.

[Used Can]

Originally Posted by Will Wright

The problem is that Ryuukishi said that Umineko was solvable by episode 4.

I may not be remembering correctly, but if I do, I also remember R07 saying he didn't expect anyone to be able to solve it (although, he said there were people with some decent footing) until EP6 or EP7.

If I were to make an analogy, I think you could say you have a door, and from EP1-4 you're looking for pieces to be able to make the door's key. By EP4 you have all those pieces. If you're intelligent and/or lucky enough, perhaps you can put up all those pieces together and make the key. So, technically speaking, you can open the door at that point. However, in Umineko's case, R07 didn't expect readers to be able to do that. At best, perhaps, you could put several pieces together properly, but never get the full key. Maybe you could even have had the right idea on how to made the key, but you thought that the process you thought of wasn't correct - for a or b motive - and discarded it. So, until you went through EPs 6 and/or 7, you had no idea or certainty on how to build this key.

[TehChron]

Originally Posted by Will Wright

@rogerpepitone:
I'm not sure whether to thank or curse you for that website, for I am bound to spend days reading all of it. It is delightfully written, and its Van Dine section is wonderful.

Most shockingly of all, it taught me that I'm not the only person to doubt the authenticity of the novella.

Thank you very much for this, I loved that website.

Oh, so it's like a TV Tropes of mystery novels?

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Used Can

I may not be remembering correctly, but if I do, I also remember R07 saying he didn't expect anyone to be able to solve it (although, he said there were people with some decent footing) until EP6 or EP7.

If I were to make an analogy, I think you could say you have a door, and from EP1-4 you're looking for pieces to be able to make the door's key. By EP4 you have all those pieces. If you're intelligent and/or lucky enough, perhaps you can put up all those pieces together and make the key. So, technically speaking, you can open the door at that point. However, in Umineko's case, R07 didn't expect readers to be able to do that. At best, perhaps, you could put several pieces together properly, but never get the full key. Maybe you could even have had the right idea on how to made the key, but you thought that the process you thought of wasn't correct - for a or b motive - and discarded it. So, until you went through EPs 6 and/or 7, you had no idea or certainty on how to build this key.

But this would go back to Will's earlier objection: That isn't "solvability." That's "guessability."

Alternately, it's possible to arrive at "the answer" without having any capacity to structure an explanation for the answer. People were saying "Shannontrice" by ep4. But to say you could construct the scenario as has been presented (assuming for the moment that it's authentic) would be absurd or, should you touch upon it somehow, guesswork.

Certainly the form it takes is different then to now.

[Used Can]

Originally Posted by Renall

But this would go back to Will's earlier objection: That isn't "solvability." That's "guessability."

The issue here is, the game is solvable. All the necessary hints are given, and even some clues on how to piece them together as well, although in a slightly cryptic fashion. So, this doesn't require the need to guess, but to know how to piece all the information provided by the author. However, R07 didn't expect readers to be able to do that before EP6 and/or EP7.

I think that, when R07 said the game was solvable by EP4, he simply meant that there were enough hints to be able to do it - as in, it was potentially solvable ("potentially" being the keyword here). However, that never meant the vast majority of fans would be able to. For example, Umineko is a story in which you do not only need the clues, but also a particular mindset in order to be able to interpret the clues properly. We got the "Without love it cannot be seen" line shown to us several times during the first four episodes, but, no matter how much it was shown, barely anyone took it seriously. It wasn't until EP5 that most fans (of course, this whole example comes down to what I've seen on the Internet, and some people I know) started taking it seriously.

And the "love philosophy" (for calling it that way) is not all you need, but also being able to take the story for what it is. For example, a big issue many fans (myself included) had with Umineko was the idea of ShKanon. There was simply no way many of us wanted to accept that sort of answer, no matter how much it may have been hinted and how it may have been presented; so, we decided not to even think about that possibility. So, even if you had "love" and tried to understand the characters, if you weren't willing to take the story for what it is, and leave your own tastes/prejudice aside, you wouldn't be able to solve this story either. Of course, there's also the chance you thought of and/or accepted the idea of ShKanon, yet you were unable to see the big picture, perhaps because some things seemed unreasonable, or you plainly simply couldn't see it.

Umineko, by EP4, has enough clues and enough information (including the proper mindset to be had) on how to piece those clues together. However, how the reader process all this information is unrelated to R07, since he can only do so much. So, this is why he probably thought most readers wouldn't understand the answer until EP6 and EP7, in which you get a lot of rather obvious information regarding the answer.

[Renall]

I disagree. You may be right that all the "bricks" existed, so to speak, to build the "wall" that is the solution. However, the "mortar" didn't exist, and to a certain extent still doesn't exist (or is a pasty substance we're told is mortar, but could actually be a wholly unsuitable product). And you can't build a wall without mortar. You can mix up your own batch, slather it on the bricks, and build a wall, but you're basically throwing together what you have and hoping your "mortar" mixes up well enough to hold up the wall. And as far as we know, there are several substances that will work to stick the bricks together in the shape of the wall as Ryukishi intended it.

But we don't know that one of those mixes is the "mortar" he intended to be used, if indeed he intended one to be used at all (which would be cheating if not, but...). It's a big difference between "you can arrive at a solution" and "you can arrive at the solution." There is no confirmation feedback like most classic mysteries. We can set up our wall, but we don't have the benefit of a hammer to test whether it actually holds up.

Metaphorically speaking, and I know this metaphor is belabored, we can lather together the bricks we got from ep1-4 into a thing that has the shape of a finished wall, but we have no idea whether what we've pasted it together with was the mortar (the "right answer") or peanut butter (a valid and non-disprovable, but wrong answer).

[Leafsnail]

Well, the introduction did warn us:

Spoiler for Umineko Introduction:

The genre of this work is probably a serial murder mystery.

However, that does not guarantee that reasoning and guesswork are possible.


Those who enjoy stupid puzzles that are made to be solved can leave now.

Umineko no Naku Koro ni is the worst kind of tale, created without any intention of letting all of you solve it.


However, to all of the worst kinds of people, who hear that and just want to challenge it more, welcome.

I am myself sending out this tale to make these worst kinds of people surrender.


No matter what kinds of strange events occur, all of you will try to explain it with humans and tricks, and deny all mysteries, as the worst kind of human supremacists.

Please, try to explain each one of the many baffling cases with humans and tricks as best you can.


I want to see how far I can penetrate everyone's human supremacy.


The culprit is a witch. All alibis and tricks are magic.

This is not a mystery, but fantasy!

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by Renall

But this would go back to Will's earlier objection: That isn't "solvability." That's "guessability."

Alternately, it's possible to arrive at "the answer" without having any capacity to structure an explanation for the answer. People were saying "Shannontrice" by ep4. But to say you could construct the scenario as has been presented (assuming for the moment that it's authentic) would be absurd or, should you touch upon it somehow, guesswork.

Certainly the form it takes is different then to now.

This is what I always assumed since Ryuukishi stated that umineko was "solvable" from EP4. I could never really believe that the information given were enough to reach a 100% understanding of everything especially with 4 more episodes to go.

That's why I don't think it is even worth it to try to solve umineko to the minimal details, that isn't even meant to be done. What the Episodes from 1 to 4 provide are only a lot of hints about the "what", but for what concerns the "how" you can only use a lot of guesswork which isn't really an intellectually stimulating challenge in my opinion.

I think you agree with the assertion that a complete solution of umineko starting from EP4 is not possible, and yet Ryuukishi said it was solvable, and he also said that a lot of people got close to the truth. So I think the inevitable conclusion is that the solution Ryuukishi expects the readers to reach is not the kind of complete solution you are aiming to.

I could make a list of stuff that can be easily predict from various hints in EP1-4 but yet lack any substance to make us understand "how" they came into play.

Kinzo's death before the game start: easily understandable, but the whole story that led to its concealment was not.

Shannontrice: tons of hints, but the bit about her being the child of 1967 Beatrice, the bit about her being 3 years older than what it's been said, the bit about Natsuhi refusing her when she was a baby, and indirectly or directly causing the incident that led to her allegedly death, all of this was absolutely not predictable.

Battler as Shannon's first love: It could be seen, but there was a total lack of details. The only thing you could say was "Shannon loved Battler", but how it started, how it developed, what kind of relationship the two had, nothing of the sort was ever mentioned.

Rokkenjima incident: It could be deduced that a major destructive force engulfed a big chunk of the area around the mansion, but the nature of this "force" was everyone's guess. Sure no one ever thought about the ridiculous idea that the tragedy was caused by 900 tons of explosive setting off. And in the case EP8 will reveal that it's a volcano eruption, then I could tell you that it could be deduced but not the how this fits with the rest of the story (the fact that Beatrice apparently knew the tragedy was coming).

Supposing shkanon is true: Then this was definitely deduced very early. But the how? We have seen a lot of different interpretations, a lot of attempts to explain it, but none of them actually grounded on some definitive facts.


I think I don't need to go further. Unfortunately I fear there's really no way to solve umineko completely without recurring to guesswork, because there is clearly a lack of vital informations to understand every particular in the minimal detail.

The only thing that we can hope to do is to deduce the general facts, but the how they happened is outside of our grasp.

[Used Can]

Originally Posted by Renall

I disagree. You may be right that all the "bricks" existed, so to speak, to build the "wall" that is the solution. However, the "mortar" didn't exist, and to a certain extent still doesn't exist (or is a pasty substance we're told is mortar, but could actually be a wholly unsuitable product). And you can't build a wall without mortar. You can mix up your own batch, slather it on the bricks, and build a wall, but you're basically throwing together what you have and hoping your "mortar" mixes up well enough to hold up the wall. And as far as we know, there are several substances that will work to stick the bricks together in the shape of the wall as Ryukishi intended it.

I think, following your metaphor, the instructions on how to come up with the proper "mortar," but this information is all over the place, and it is rather cryptic.

So, by the end of EP4 you have a lot of bricks and random info on how to hold the bricks together. However, if you do not understand that information, or even worse, if you missed some of that information (especially, the most crucial parts of it), then you're going nowhere.

Originally Posted by Renall

It's a big difference between "you can arrive at a solution" and "you can arrive at the solution." There is no confirmation feedback like most classic mysteries. We can set up our wall, but we don't have the benefit of a hammer to test whether it actually holds up.

But of course you won't have any sort of confirmation of certainty on whether your wall is sturdy or not by EP4. Wouldn't this be a very shitty mystery if you could solve it, with full certainty, midway?

The confirmation/hammer you're asking for is in Chiru. From EP5 to EP7 we've been receiving many things: 1) Additional information on how to put our wall together (this time, in a much more blatant fashion than before) and 2) We've also started receiving some hammers to test our "walls".

Originally Posted by Renall

Metaphorically speaking, and I know this metaphor is belabored, we can lather together the bricks we got from ep1-4 into a thing that has the shape of a finished wall, but we have no idea whether what we've pasted it together with was the mortar (the "right answer") or peanut butter (a valid and non-disprovable, but wrong answer).

The problem is, I believe, being solvable doesn't mean you'll get certainty that you've solved it. You can piece several theories (many walls) or just one big theory/wall, to the point in which you believe everything makes sense. You can even pity your theory/theories against other ones to see which one is more stable. You can even re-read the story to test your theory as well. If you were clever/lucky enough, perhaps you arrived to the right answer, because everything for you to have arrived to it was there. However, you cannot have any confirmation until Chiru.

[chounokoe]

Originally Posted by Used Can

But of course you won't have any sort of confirmation of certainty on whether your wall is sturdy or not by EP4. Wouldn't this be a very shitty mystery if you could solve it, with full certainty, midway?

Well, technically that is exactly what is expected from an orthodox mystery. Well not exactly half way through, but as soon as the investigation is done the reader was expected to be fully capable of solving the novel. Practically without even having to read the further chapters containing the solution by the detective. That was only in there to give the reader confirmation about his own deduction.

That is exactly one of the points, why detective fiction has been discriminated against so often throughout it's existence.
Many classical orthodox mysteries are technically not real literature, at least that's what's claimed by critics at their times, because many had no real plot, no real plot curve, because they were sticking to the mystery rules of their time, like flies to honey.

I would agree, many of the great works of the Golden Age are fantastic puzzles, but as stories they often suck big time.
That is one of the many points that changed in the 80's in Japan in terms of mystery and detective fiction. And I can't imagine, that there aren't some parts of the shinhonkaku-movement and even those novels that came after in Umineko...
So I think approaching it just from the angle of the rules of classical, orthodox, Golden Age mysteries is something that is backing many people into a corner.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Used Can

The problem is, I believe, being solvable doesn't mean you'll get certainty that you've solved it. You can piece several theories (many walls) or just one big theory/wall, to the point in which you believe everything makes sense. You can even pity your theory/theories against other ones to see which one is more stable. You can even re-read the story to test your theory as well. If you were clever/lucky enough, perhaps you arrived to the right answer, because everything for you to have arrived to it was there. However, you cannot have any confirmation until Chiru.

I came across this bit in The Crooked Hinge that seemed relevant (it's kind of shocking how many bits are relevant to Umineko, actually):

"The exercise of pure logic is often comparable to working out immense sums in arithmetic and finding at the end that we have somewhere forgotten to carry one or multiply by two. Every one of a thousand figures and factors may be correct except that one; but the difference in the answer to the sum may be disconcerting."

To extend the comparison, saying the story is "solvable" just means that all of the figures and factors are available to you. There's no requirement to tell you if you've done your math properly until after your test is graded, although you might have the opportunity to check your answer by talking to other students in the hall.