[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

I admit I'm lost, when you say "amnesia", Judoh, who are you supposing is having amnesia of the three Beatrice and what problem does that solve?

Oh I'm more talking about the explanation for that scene really. I admit I have no idea who Beatrice 2 is so I'm not supposing a who here. I just think that scene suggests whoever it was had amnesia.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by chronotrig

Genji, Kumasawa, and Nanjo know about Kuwadorian and Beatrice 2. Unless you have a better explanation for Beatrice 2 than my theory gives, it seems very likely that those three would know about Kinzo's plans to revive Beatrice through another person.

So why do they all support those plans? That's more assumptions.

Originally Posted by chronotrig

Let me pose a counter-question: how do you explain Beatrice 2 (the Beatrice that Rosa saw)? I claim that the easiest solution for that strongly hints that those three know some of what Kinzo and the -on servants are doing, and furthermore, would have a reason to lie about it.

At this point in my re-reading, I'm actually investigating something even more complicated. I'm suspecting that multiple people may have an intent to be Beatrice on that day and that multiple instances of Beatrice seen on the game board are actually distinct different individuals. Why?

Jessica: "A community of girls with the wrong impressions can be scary. They could have some secret feud behind your back, and hurt someone or make them cry without you noticing it, right?"

Originally Posted by chronotrig

We know that there are about a dozen servants who work on the island at the very least, but Natsuhi says that there are usually only 2 or 3 servants on the island at any time.

Why exactly are there five master keys... and yet the servants jointly say that none of them are spares as per Natsuhi's orders, in Ep2?

Originally Posted by chronotrig

Add in the fact that Kinzo personally controlled all of the -on servants when he was alive, ...

That, actually, is another assumption. I don't read this in the text - what it looks to me is that the -on servants are the best graduates of Fukuin that are given the chance to work for Ushiromiya family, and then Kinzo picks the ones he likes from those and gives them the wing as a special extra reward.

Originally Posted by chronotrig

Also, I don't see how weather changes could result in both of them being scheduled at the same time. If one was unable to leave the island, presumably the other would be unable to enter the island.

It's how the schedule would have to be changed independently for either afterwards to account for that as they aren't the only ones in rotation. It would desync.

Originally Posted by chronotrig

Think about what you're saying. "If Gohda sees a boy at one point in time and a girl at another point in time and their faces look similar even though their personalities and outfits are completely different, then there is a nearly 100% chance that he would guess that they are the same person and not feel like a complete idiot to say it out loud."

That isn't what I am saying, though.

To Gohda, both Kanon and Shannon are competitors for the honor he thinks he deserves, the one wing and the chance to personally serve Kinzo his meals. Not ones to attempt direct action against - he's not a bad person if the text is any indication - but ones to watch. Not just 'a boy in one point at time'. So yes, the chance he might guess that they are the same person is high. The chance that he would say it out loud is not.

But the chance he would be paranoid of either specifically - or alternatively, specially conscious of someone who lost a sibling if he did not notice - is high.

Originally Posted by chronotrig

I have said all of this before, but you have either missed it or ignored it.

No, I just didn't agree with it. Still don't.

It's hard to argue if we fundamentally can't accept each other's arguments, so for the moment, we will just have to agree to disagree until either of us can present sufficiently new arguments.

I'm looking for ones both for my side of the argument and for yours. I ask that you please do not consider your job is done and so too.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Judoh

Oh I'm more talking about the explanation for that scene really. I admit I have no idea who Beatrice 2 is so I'm not supposing a who here. I just think that scene suggests whoever it was had amnesia.

I just wrote down the same in my notes for Ep3. Beatrice-2's lines as seen in Ep3 make her look like an amnesiac with huge sections of everyday knowledge lost, rather than someone born and raised in a sheltered world.

The timing here is also an interesting issue. When Rosa starts her story, she is unable to precisely time it. Rudolf offers 20 years ago, and Rosa agrees immediately and then is more certain, as she cites the number later like it's nothing. In the end of the scene, Beatrice-2 dies, and Battler's narration is so certain that she has to be dead that he repeats it several times with harsher and harsher words.

But when Ronove shares a batch of red about 1967 he explicitly says '19 years ago' several times.

If Rosa's flashback did happen exactly as presented, than Rudolf has to be wrong about the timing because '19 years ago' is one year later.

But what if Rosa is wrong about the level of damage and Rudolf is correct about the timing?

[chronotrig]

Originally Posted by Oliver

No, I just didn't agree with it. Still don't.

It's hard to argue if we fundamentally can't accept each other's arguments, so for the moment, we will just have to agree to disagree until either of us can present sufficiently new arguments.

I'm looking for ones both for my side of the argument and for yours. I ask that you please do not consider your job is done and so too.

I'm satisfied with that, but keep in mind the difference between disagreeing and dismissing the other's argument as completely irrelevant. Whether you agree with my conclusions or not, you have to admit that I have brought up a lot of evidence to support them.

At this point in my re-reading, I'm actually investigating something even more complicated. I'm suspecting that multiple people may have an intent to be Beatrice on that day and that multiple instances of Beatrice seen on the game board are actually distinct different individuals. Why?

Jessica: "A community of girls with the wrong impressions can be scary. They could have some secret feud behind your back, and hurt someone or make them cry without you noticing it, right?"

Actually, I look forward to seeing this. Beatrice 2 is probably the largest enigma of the flashback scenes, especially since her existence is confirmed with the red. There are very few theories that even try to explain this scene realistically, when it clearly must be extremely important.


Edit: Rudolf only says about 20 years. They never get more specific than that, and of course a guess would be rounded off to the decade. I don't think the year is a real problem here.

[Judoh]

@Oliver: For some reason Rosa says to Evatrice "are you going to say your Beatrice!? That's impossible you died 19 years ago!!." In the fantasy scene. So to Rosa it happens around the same time Natsuhi's event happened. I even suggested before that the person who fell of the cliff was really a pregnant servant and was literally "carrying a baby" and that the servant falling down the stairs and being injured was a cover story.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Judoh

For some reason Rosa says to Evatrice "are you going to say your Beatrice!? That's impossible you died 19 years ago!!." In the fantasy scene. So to Rosa it happens around the same time Natsuhi's event happened.

She does, much later. But in the dinner hall scene when she tells her story, Rudolf offers '20' and then Rosa repeats it many sentences later. Something in between may have jogged her memory, and I'm planning to pay special attention to what it might be.

As a side note, have you noticed that Beatrice seems to love the number 19? 19 years ago is the scene that she shows Battler which Ronove later confirms as genuine. 19th person on Rokkenjima that she exonerates with this scene as being dead at the time. And there's something in Ep6 saying that "19 is the age of the true master of this world" if my spoiler memory serves me right.

Originally Posted by Judoh

I even suggested before that the person who fell of the cliff was really a pregnant servant and was literally "carrying a baby" and that the servant falling down the stairs and being injured was a cover story.

That may well be, but I'm not sure yet. The descriptions of the event of the servant falling in Ep5 numerously refer to a fence and end with Natsuhi breaking down and admitting she pushed the servant, breaking the fence in process. And the servant is referred to as 'middle-aged'.

However, while they refer to the 'fence', that's the only time a fence of any kind is mentioned, particularly by a cliff, while there's a lovely staircase with railings inside the mansion itself, perfect for falling... Which would dissociate it from Rosa's story, but Rosa's story is vague enough as it is.

Collating the timing statements on this story and potentially related incidents, here's what I get, and some of it might be interesting:

• Natsuhi's orders about closing all windows and doors for the night cannot have started until she came to the mansion.
• Natsuhi says that Jessica was born 12 years into the marriage.
• Jessica is apparently stated to be 18. That puts Natsuhi into the mansion at 30 years ago, in 1956.
• Gohda connects the orders with a certain event that he is not aware of clearly, in which Natsuhi woke up all the servants, apparently, ordering them to search for an intruder. It is not clear if that event and the event that injured the servant are the same or different, but both happened before Gohda came to work in the mansion. (Incidentally, if the translation of Gohda's letter is correct, the servant was indeed female, but that's the only place where I can see the gender stated clearly. Japanese can be very vague on the subject of gender, so there's the same problem with the baby...)
• Gohda worked for two years. This puts the latest point for all three events at 2 years ago. But that's not very interesting, because...
• Shannon, when mentioning the servant that was injured states that this happened before her time, which puts it at least 10 years ago.
• Something that doesn't seem to be directly related but is odd. Eva's idea of hijacking heirship came to her six months after Krauss married Natsuhi. Resulting marriage to Hideyoshi and presumably, birth of George, are said to have happened 'soon' - but since Jessica is 18 and Natsuhi was said to have been unable to give birth for 12 years, and George is said to be 23 years, 'soon' becomes 7 years. That's not very soon at all, if you ask me, and I'm not sure it fits well. One of the two may in fact be older!

[Shiro Kaisen]

Originally Posted by siberius

I don't understand.
"Furudo Erica increases it by one person" implies that Furudo Erica is the added value and that she is a person ( not a corpse).


The third one can be explained in this way but the second one can’t. Corpses don’t posses any knowledge.

What about this?

Erika washed up on the island, barely alive. She died almost immediately. The person count was raised because she appeared alive, but is dead for the events of Episodes 5 and 6.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Oliver

At this point in my re-reading, I'm actually investigating something even more complicated. I'm suspecting that multiple people may have an intent to be Beatrice on that day and that multiple instances of Beatrice seen on the game board are actually distinct different individuals. Why?

I mentioned this, and it's starting to look more and more appealing. It might also explain the notion that Beatrice's heart is fragile, and that Beatrice's heart is the heart of the island; if Beatrice is a vast number of people, their plans, their desires, and their impressions of the witch, Meta-Battler's job suddenly becomes much harder indeed.

That said, I think it probable that there are at least two Beatrices. I see no reason to think this precludes there being more, though it is unlikely that there are more than one or two people physically posing as Beatrice. Any more and it becomes a farce (any more even non-physically and it gets close).

We should also avoid assuming that Beatrice = Female and automatically turn our eyes to our various favorite female culprits (Shannon, Rosa, Kyrie, etc.). Nanjo almost certainly isn't a physical Beatrice, nor is it likely Maria would confuse him for Beatrice, but I don't think it's impossible that he could have some degree of "Beatrice involvement."

It need not necessarily be a conspiracy. In fact, the variability of events lends credence to a greater number of individual or small-group conspirators than one large group; the differences in killing MO and theatrical presentation of events makes 3-5 groups of one or two people more probable than a single group of 7-10, or even two groups of 5+ each. Yes, the Kinzo conspiracy is larger. But the Kinzo conspiracy may itself be a trick; "ah, so all these people can hide Kinzo's death, it must also be possible for the mystery to be in the hands of a large conspiracy!" Whatever the motives of Beatrice (or the Beatrices), it may not be sensible that they would be appealing to a very large group of people. In fact, the more personal the desires of each "Beatrice," the easier it is to explain their motives.

Having said that, if we believe Battler's sin to be a catalyst, breaking up the number of possible conspirators means either that we must believe his sin against a single independent conspirator led to a bunch of conspiracies in turn (which is absurd), that his sin is of such tremendous importance that it has massive ripples across every character present (I can think of only a handful of things that would make this not seem dumb), or that his sin only affected the midnight event (which does indeed kill everyone, if it can) and the other conspriacies are a coincidence. Which isn't terribly satisfying.

EDIT: I didn't mean to actually use the term "farce" in a technical sense, but heh... Note that Bernkastel's poetry mentions it's a farce by the seventh time... I can't wait for her to reveal that everyone except Battler is Beatrice.

"So Dr. Nanjo..."
"Yes, Beatrice."
"Even Aunt Rosa?"
"Yup."
"Well surely Gohda-"
"He's actually one of the ones disguising himself as her."
"But... why?"
"You've been gone a long time."

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Renall

That said, I think it probable that there are at least two Beatrices. I see no reason to think this precludes there being more, though it is unlikely that there are more than one or two people physically posing as Beatrice. Any more and it becomes a farce (any more even non-physically and it gets close).

I'm thinking of the possibility of two groups actually fielding their own Piece-Beatrice each if some conditions are met and the plan can proceed. If the aforementioned Jessica's statement is to be taken as a hint -- and if it is not a hint, it's fairly out of the blue -- both Piece-Beatrices may actually be involved for personal reasons because of Battler's actions, but other people involved together with them may have different motives entirely and manipulating them further.

In this manner, Battler's sin provides a way for the confusing situation on the board to be created, which requires a Piece-Beatrice to be available even if one is not seen by Battler directly, and causes the murders indirectly.

Oh, by the way.

Umineko Dates Timeline - work in progress. Help with progress would be very nice.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by chronotrig

A mystery novel would rarely spend such huge parts of the openings on character development or story development (most mysteries don't have a very long or compelling backstory), and it wouldn't use things like the colored texts in it.

This is because Umineko is in the same genre of mystery as Lost

Think about it

1. Both have loads of unneeded character development that is central to certain mysteries
2. The mysteries of both take place in a secluded space where nobody outside can help you
3. Both have Pseudo supernatural phenomena
4. When the dominant theory in Umineko was SMALL BOMBS the dominant theory in Lost was TIME GAS

Not a defense for Shkanon though I'm afraid. It's been done before.

[Shiro Kaisen]

Originally Posted by Judoh

TIME GAS

...what? I've never heard this before...

But you're spot-on in the similarities to Lost, however Lost doesn't shy away from supernatural things actually...you know, existing for all to see. There's no reason why Umineko can't have character development without clues though. EVERY SCENE IN UMINEKO doesn't have a clue in it. As Ryuukishi said, if you look too hard, you "drown in a sea of clues."

[chronotrig]

Okay, let's not talk about Lost here. Thanks to all this Umineko translating I'm about 5 seasons behind, and rather not be spoiled

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Oliver

Oh, by the way.

Umineko Dates Timeline - work in progress. Help with progress would be very nice.

This timeline on umineco.info might be helpful.

[rogerpepitone]

John Dickson Carr used elements similar to red text a few times.

The Three Coffins (aka The Hollow Man) stated at the beginning that a few witnesses were giving sincere reports; neither adding nor omitting anything.

The Nine Wrong Answers had a number of footnotes announcing that various hypotheses that the reader might have were wrong.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

This timeline on umineco.info might be helpful.

It does, though Google Translate keeps sticking on Ushiromiya's exotic names. Thanks.

[Thunder Book]

Originally Posted by Judoh

This is because Umineko is in the same genre of mystery as Lost

Think about it

1. Both have loads of unneeded character development that is central to certain mysteries
2. The mysteries of both take place in a secluded space where nobody outside can help you
3. Both have Pseudo supernatural phenomena
4. When the dominant theory in Umineko was SMALL BOMBS the dominant theory in Lost was TIME GAS

Not a defense for Shkanon though I'm afraid. It's been done before.

Look, if we see an Episode about Battle getting a tattoo, I might just kill myself.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Thunder Book

Look, if we see an Episode about Battle getting a tattoo, I might just kill myself.

...with the One Wing? I think writing a will may be in order.

[Tyabann]

Originally Posted by Thunder Book

Look, if we see an Episode about Battler getting a tattoo, I might just kill myself.

Actually, shouldn't he have one already? Eva and Shannon are the only ones with that much exposed skin, so they're the only ones with the Eagle that we see, but shouldn't everyone in the family have a tattoo like that? I wouldn't put it past Kinzo to make them all engrave the OWE onto their bodies forever...

[Thunder Book]

Oh god... what have I done...

[Renall]

Battler could never be on Lost. His fear of vehicles would be entirely well-founded.