[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by ALPHA-Beatrice

The Manga depictions are more awesome than the Visual Novels.


I mean you can just feel Beato's pain when she's basically like: "You lied all those years ago!"

I agree! Actually we need something more than just red truth for this! Is there a colour for a truth that's also awesome?

Originally Posted by haguruma

I'd also like to add that I find it more and more likely that something happened between the cousins, largely George and Jessica as well.

The love duel is all romantic and sweet as long as it's a fantasized ideal about rejoining a fractured soul, mending the rift, yadayadayada, but if you think about it in a complexer fashion, it also implies confronting those two young, emotionally not exactly stable people with the reality that it is up to their resolve who wins Yasu's heart.

It is also interesting how in the love-duel it was said that there was almost no chance for Kanon to win in any scenario, that Shannon always had the upper-hand. If we look at Shannon's characterization throughout the series, it actually paints a pretty horrifying light.
Shannon, especially in EP1-3 (in 4 there is no real time to address that point) she welcomes the opening of the doors to the Golden Land - which we now know means the explosion of the bomb - with open arms. It is Kanon who tries to fight that future, but Shannon insists that her purpose in life is fulfilled by accepting George's ring. In other words, Shannon always winning basically tells us that Yasu would equally rarely reach the decision to survive past October 6th.

Yes, I also think something happened between the cousins. Also it always striked me as odd how in the first teaparty after they all waved off Battler for being silly in not believing in the witch, Jessica actually was the one who encouraged him in discovering the truth.

"...Shannon..., Shannon...!! Hang in there...hang in there!"
"What's going on?! Damn it, what the hell is that red stuff...?!"
It expanded rapidly, covering half of Shannon's face...

...Then, the stupid dunce Battler finally realized...
"P, please, Battler-kun...! Please believe in Beatrice...! I beg you...!! Aaaaaaah, because you won't believe, because you won't believe, aaaaaaaaaah..., the magic is, ......the magic is dissolviiiiiiiing!!"
For the first time in his life, ......Battler heard that sound, like a pomegranate splitting.
The red spray even landed on Battler's face...
Poor Shannon's face had been split in half, ...and her last horrible moments in that storehouse were repeated once again.

"U, uwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, Shannon, Shannon!! Uwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!"
"D..., da da da, damn it, damn iiiiiiiiiiit! Stop it, stop it, stop it!! Don't humiliate the dead, don't humiliate the deeeeeaaaaad!!"
"Uuuu, ......gah, .........eeeggh!!"
This time, the redness spread across George's entire body...

It was like the beautiful cloud drawn by milk when it is poured into black tea. It spread out and extended across his entire body.
......As it did, it seemed to give George increasingly greater pain.
Looking at this bizarre spectacle, ......Battler was petrified as he frantically thought with his pitifully clumsy imagination...about the nature of this strange death George and the rest were experiencing...

Eventually, ......that redness reached the nearby Jessica as well......
"Gah, .........eeh, ......ack, ............hh!!"

"S, stop it, stop it, stop it!!! What did Aniki do, what did Jessica do, just STOP IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!!!"
"B, ......Battler......, ......d, ...don't let the witch, ...break your spirit......! ......Deny her, erase her... A, ......as long as at least one person denies her, she's an illusion that can't exist......! Aaaaahhhh, gghhh!!"

"A, are you alright, Jessica?!! Whaa, A, Aniki?!?!"
George was no longer recognizable as a human.
...He looked like the pile of leftover meat after the good, delicious meat has been scraped off to be cooked.
...The only thing that even resembled a human was the shape of his lower jaw and rib cage.

And it was clear that Jessica, who was covered with a steadily strengthening redness, was approaching the same fate.

"............Uu-. ...Battler. ......Quickly, believe in Beatrice... .........If you don't, .........everyone's magic, .........will dissolve...""M, Maria, it's all over your body, too......!!!"
"I revive all the dead with my magic. ......But as long as you don't believe, that magic will hold no true power. *cackle*cackle*cackle*! But I'm sure that a man like yourself won't surrender to something like this, right...?"
"B, ...Battler......! We, ......didn't want to doubt our friends... We refused to face reality, ...and gave in to the witch......! But, ...Battler, you won't.........won't, ......give in to the witch......! Geh, ggghh, ......gggggghhkkkkkkk!!!"
"Jessica, Jessicaaaaaaa, waaaaAAAAAAAaaaAAAahh!!"

And it's interesting how she says they didn't want to doubt their friends... not each other, their relatives, or the servants, friends. On the island only Shannon and Kanon fit that definition.

Although the episodes show a Jessica that's supportive of George/Shannon and seems to believe Shannon always had an interest in George, can it be real Jessica figured out Shannon's feelings for Battler? Maybe she never went after Kanon, maybe she even know the truth about him being Shannon and her words were merely the words of a friend who deeply cares for Shannon and is seeing her slip into depression and trying to push her to react and Yasu romanticized everything.
In the love duel she's shown as having lot of doubts and being forced into it, contrary to George, who has no qualms in taking part to it and even in EP 4 her choice was more altruistic. She's maybe the only one in Umineko who's not willing to do everything without second throughts for her loved one.

Originally Posted by haguruma

AND I still am incredibly fascinated by the ending of EP5 and what that tells us about what happened between Battler and Yasu/Beato.

Spoiler for For Size:

This kind of makes me wonder whether this doesn't also reflect a direct mindset of what happened on the island...especially considering that it is the plot that makes Toya actually remember stuff.
Especially in connection with how he later mourns Beato's loss after the finally realizes that she isn't around anymore when he solved her riddle.

EP 5 is awesome in portraying those moments... though I wonder if there even was a promise in Battler's eyes.
We've a retelling of what went on between them from Shannon's point of view and later on EP 5 seemed to imply there really was a promise although the scene shown doesn't match with the one shown in Ep 7 (but it can be a problem of the two manga being drawn by different people... although EP 7 could have at least placed that scene in the same place as Ep 5).

However the short version of the talk according to Shannon is that Battler promised to be back the following year with a white horse and take her away.

To Battler's eyes however he might not have even considered the 'to be back next year' as a promise as being back at the moment should have looked like something absolutely natural. He was always back the following year because his parents always went to visit Kinzo. In Battler's version the promise could have been: if you'll tell me you want to leave the island I'll be back with a white horse to take you away.

After all, let's look at the promise cutting out Shannon's thoughts and descriptions:

"How long do you plan to be a servant, Shannon-chan?"
"......I don't know."
"If, someday, you decide to quit..."
"If I do......?"
"Come over to my place. And then, ......we won't need to worry about time running out anymore."
"......That's right. ......We could be together......as long as we wanted..."
"I know that day'll come someday."
"......You think it will...?"
"Yeah. I'm certain of it. When that day comes, ......I'll come for you, riding a white horse."
"......Wha......?"
"I, ...... I wonder... when that day will come..."
"Very soon, once you've made up your mind."
"Huh.........?"
"Any time's good for me. This is your life we're talking about, Shannon-chan. You should think about it carefully before you decide. .......And once you've made up your mind, I'll respect your decision, no matter when you make it."
"O, ......okay......"
"I'll keep on waiting until that day comes."
"Nn, ......ah...... I, ......I'm glad... ......Thank you......"
"Heheh......"
"......Thanks for giving me time."
"You have all the time in the world."
"No. ......I'd feel bad if I kept you waiting too long."
"Hahaha."
"So, I've prepared myself. ......No, I should say that I will prepare myself. ......I'm not going to quit my job right now. ......Yes, ...one year. ......I'll do it in one year. One year from now, right here, ......I'd like to make my decision."
"......A whole year, huh? That sounds good. Spring, summer, autumn, winter. ......That's a good amount of time to look deep into your heart."
"S, ......so...next year......"
"Yep."
"I'll be waiting for that day to come."
"Yes. ......I'll be waiting too...... ...Make sure......you come, okay...?"
"Yeah."
"......Don't forget. Come here next year, okay?"
"Yeah. I'll definitely come. I'll meet you here."

Shannon never said she would surely go with him the next year, just that the next year she would decide. Which can means she'll leave or not.
And Battler might have taken her 'don't forget' as a 'don't forget you said you'll take me away if I decide for a yes'.

So, ironically, we'll go back into the shy love Virgilia spoke about in Ep 5, with Battler waiting for Shannon's decision without saying anything and respecting she might have decided to leave with George and Shannon believing instead that, since she already took a decision, he was supposed to come and pick her up and since he didn't he's sort of rejecting her.

Though now I really want to check the discussions between George and Battler to go and see if there's a hint that the two might have quarreled over Shannon or that Battler might have discovered George either pushed him far from Shannon or slid in between the two. After all we know George was a 'supporter' of the idea Battler were to leave the Ushiromiya and even tricked Shannon into spending time with him with the excuse of searching a hat he didn't lose.

Contrary to popular belief I find hard he might have managed to hid Battler's letter with Shannon and the others staring at him as he handed them but he still might have worked to part Battler and Shannon further. After all his motives toward Shannon weren't exactly pure at the beginning.

It'll be interesting if actually, contrary to the gameboards he never fell in love with Shannon, he just wanted to get revenge on her for not falling for him and on Battler for being more successful.

It'll give Yasu one more motive. George didn't really love her, he just played with her, Jessica loves her as a friend, but that's not enough for her, Battler doesn't remember his promise to her... and maybe if she were to tell the truth to the siblings about her identity they too would reject her and refuse her as Lion.

Although Ryukishi said the adults are the ones who're the most suspicious about the whole incident, it might have been the family conference that year was pretty catastrophic for Yasu.

[Renall]

Kyrie is way too obvious, and if you're going to finger her as the culprit I think you need to give her a bit more credit than "Yeah I'll just shoot/stab everybody and rely on this bomb I'm not sure really exists or will actually work to cover it all up, #YOLO." If she was planning to kill, she must've had a better plan in mind than that.

Also the ending of ep8 suggests Eva had more knowledge of Battler's fate after midnight than the ep7 Tea Party would suggest, and after that sequence I find it hard to believe Eva wouldn't have been pretty suspicious of Battler.

[Leafsnail]

She's certainly obvious, but at the same time the series is finished. There won't be any new evidence that brilliantly overturns all our assumptions and gives us an unexpected culprit.

As such, I think that the episode 7 Tea Party is a mystery to be solved, not some weird and entirely misleading red herring that Ryukishi decided to put near the end. I believe it's Eva's diary/The Book of One Truth, and thus it's told from her perspective, so things that Eva couldn't know (Kyrie's mental state, the exact nature of any scenes where she's not present) aren't in it. It also ends abruptly with quite a lot of time left to go (possibly because Ange just couldn't read any further). I'm not sure what to make of the ep7 Tea Party otherwise - is it just Ange having a bad dream or what?

My "solution" for ep7 would be:
Kyrie didn't really plan the murders out very far in advance at all. Her learning Rudolf's secret would be a key part of her motive, and I don't think he told her it until the 1986 conference. The secret gave her an overwhelming desire to punish Rudolf, and in the gold room she saw a chance to wipe everyone else out and snatched it.

Knowledge of whether the bomb actually exists/work is a fair point, but I think she decided it was probably real based on her read of Yasu, and in that state decided to chance it. She may also have surmised that Yasu must have had an escape method, and therefore decided that even if there was no bomb they could probably still escape before anyone discovered what had happened.

She'd vaguely know about Battler's fate for a simple reason - after the end of what we are shown, she looked around the island. She never found Battler's body. Under my "ep7 is what Eva thought went down" theory she didn't think he was a culprit, though. Maybe because Kyrie's speech to her implied she didn't care about anyone except Rudolf, and therefore she wouldn't accept Battler as part of the culprit group.

Although even this theory doesn't guarantee Kyrie is the culprit, I guess. You could probably explain Eva's observations of Kyrie and Rudolf as them playing parts in a murder play. Or you could say Eva just made it all up for some reason. And that kindof fits what we see in episode 8.

e: On second thoughts I'm not sure if it really makes sense if it's the diary itself, given the chronology of episode 8. But it still has to have some kind of meaning, like "this is a thing these characters could do" or "this is kindof similar to that diary you never get to see" otherwise I don't see the value in it at all.

[Golden Bug-Hunter]

Ah, it's good to see you sharing my theory about ep 7 tea party Leafsnail, that said...

I don't think there was a Kyrie 'rampage' motive in play. My read is that Eva, Rosa, and Krauss were having 'accidents' while they fought over the gold, while Kyrie and Rudolph were standing off to one side. They kind of look at each other and go 'Welp, everyone else is murdering each other off and can't be trusted. What say you and me eliminate the threats so we can survive this madness?'

After all, if Kyrie was rampaging, it would only make sense for her rampage to start with or at least include Rudolph. But we know he survived until Eva found him and shot him her-self.

And of the cousins and servants, the only confirmed kill is George since Eva saw the body. She never bothered looking for anyone else, just assumed Kyrie and Rudolphy MUST have butchered them.

[Leafsnail]

I'm not sure about the self defense theory. Kyrie's attack on Rosa did seem largely unprovoked - there's no way they were in immediate danger.

I don't think she'd kill Rudolf. If you think back to her thoughts from 6 years ago, she only ever thought about killing Asumu. Even though Rudolf was really the one who betrayed her. Therefore I think her aim wuld be to punish Rudolf, not to punish herself further by murdering her lover.

The ep7 Tea Party ends abruptly with lots of time still to go. It seems likely that Eva looked around the island afterwards to survey the damage/search for survivors.

[Drifloon]

Personally I think the EP7 tea party is just meant to be a demonstration of the kinds of theories that people are coming up with in the future, and to show the horrible impact that those kinds of speculations have on Ange. It's a way of setting up themes to lead into EP8.

I mean, at the very end of that episode, we get Ange in the chapel saying:

"Today, a kid in class bullied me......`@` He said the people on TV were saying Mom had ties to bad people.`@` ......So, he said that Mom and Dad were the culprits, and that they probably killed everyone......`@` ......I asked Eva oba-san, hoping she'd say it wasn't true, but she didn't say anything......`@` ......Mom and Dad aren't bad people, are they?`@` Are they...?"

I'm inclined to take that as the anti-fantasy version of the whole sequence with Bernkastel in the theatre. There doesn't really have to be any truth to the events that are shown; what's important is that it's the sort of thing that a lot of people in the future believe to be the truth.

[jjblue1]

Well, for me Ep 7 Teaparty (and Bern's game) has sense as a theory that became popular after Eva died (or when she was about to die). In Prime it can't be proved what had happened and in the meta Ange hadn't yet read the diary but it's already facing them and she had been told they aren't quite the truth.
So, if we assume the meta is a reflection of Prime, in Prime someone had been spreading the idea her family killed everyone (proved also by the Battler culprit theory getting more popular) and this is mentally torturing her.

On a sidenote though I hope Eva looked at least a little for everyone else because it'll be rather ironic if Kyrie actually hadn't managed to kill anyone and Eva just blasted everyone up in the belief they were all death.

Originally Posted by Leafsnail

I'm not sure about the self defense theory. Kyrie's attack on Rosa did seem largely unprovoked - there's no way they were in immediate danger.

In Ep 7 Teaparty, yes. But it can be due to the narrator. Rosa had a loaded gun and her behaviour seemed unstable. Maybe to another observer she might have looked like she was ravaging and threatening so if we could hear his/her version he/she would have depicted a much scarier Rosa.

It's the trick of having different points of view. We see Erika's drama with her boyfriend and we feel sorry for her and think he's a jerk. To him though she might have been obsessive and suffucation and jealous to the point of paranoia so that after a certain point he ended up falling out of love for her, loving someone else and chasing her away.

There's an interesting scene in Ep 3 also where it's shown an episode from Eva's youth in which Krauss seems a jerk... but actually it's Krauss that tried to protect Eva from Kinzo's anger when he wanted to disinherit her so maybe his behaviour that Eva hated so much stems by poor skills in relationating with others (he was also awkward with Natsuhi).

Originally Posted by Leafsnail

I don't think she'd kill Rudolf. If you think back to her thoughts from 6 years ago, she only ever thought about killing Asumu. Even though Rudolf was really the one who betrayed her. Therefore I think her aim wuld be to punish Rudolf, not to punish herself further by murdering her lover.

The ep7 Tea Party ends abruptly with lots of time still to go. It seems likely that Eva looked around the island afterwards to survey the damage/search for survivors.

There's to say Kyrie in Ep 6 lived with the delusion that, had her baby survived, Rudolf would have chosen her over Asumu. If she figured out or was told that her baby survived and Rudolf not only didn't chose her but stole her baby from her (causing her a lot of pain) and still chose Asumu, she might have felt less merciful toward him.
It would prove basically the opposite of her theory. Asumu didn't need a baby to tie Rudolf to her... while she needed to have 2, one of which Rudolf stole from her while the second might have been acknowledged only because Asumu was dead.
In short Rudolf never loved her but loved Asumu and took her in only because she got pregnant again and he couldn't switch her second baby... or because he needed a replacement mother now that Asumu was no more.

Originally Posted by Drifloon

Personally I think the EP7 tea party is just meant to be a demonstration of the kinds of theories that people are coming up with in the future, and to show the horrible impact that those kinds of speculations have on Ange. It's a way of setting up themes to lead into EP8.

I mean, at the very end of that episode, we get Ange in the chapel saying:



I'm inclined to take that as the anti-fantasy version of the whole sequence with Bernkastel in the theatre. There doesn't really have to be any truth to the events that are shown; what's important is that it's the sort of thing that a lot of people in the future believe to be the truth.

I agree.

[GreyZone]

With ep7 as book of truth from Eva's perspective, Eva could be the detective with a style similar to ep1 where "non-magical scenes without the detective" can be lies or wrong interpretations. So everthing that happened in the gold room after Eva was almost killed may have been a lie, including Kyrie shooting Beatrice, who instead of staying in the bed, may have run away. After all there must be some reason why Battler suddenly disappeard and never got to the chapel, where Rudolph and later Eva was waiting.

@jjblue1: "Rudolf would have chosen her over Natsuhi" I assume you mean Asumu instead of Natsuhi.

[Leafsnail]

I don't think they're a lie so much as Eva trying to fill in the blanks. It's true that she may have simply gotten the wrong idea, though.

I guess it just being an insidious theory is possible, although annoying considering it's the only real attempt to explain what happened on Prime in the entire series. The thing I'd say is strange about it if viewed from that perspective is Battler. Doesn't the 1998 fan-theory peg Battler as a culprit too (as in the episode 8 purple text game)? So why does he appear in the ep7 tea party only to vanish without explanation? It seems kindof like the ep7 author had some reason to think that Battler might have survived, or at least a reason to think something odd happened with him.

About Kyrie's motive - yeah, she'd certainly be very angry with Rudolf. I don't think she'd show him any mercy. But at the same time, she still loved him, just as she still loved him after he left her for another woman. Killing Rudolf would really be punishing herself - in order to get her revenge and cause him real pain she'd have to go for his family.

[GreyZone]

Originally Posted by Leafsnail

I don't think they're a lie so much as Eva trying to fill in the blanks. It's true that she may have simply gotten the wrong idea, though.

Yes, but even if she "filled in the blanks", she may have filled them wrong. Or maybe intentionally left them out. Or she or someone else ripped out some of the pages, e.g. her meeting Battler and losing him again.

It may have been like that: Yasu told Battler to use the passageway to go to the boat. But he was reluctant to leave everyone else behind so he waited while Yasu went ahead. After everyone was dead or at least when Eva realized that time to find survivors to rescue was up, she went back to the gold room and met Battler there and she insisted to go to Kuwadorian, but Battler didn't want to leave Yasu alone, so somehow they seperated and maybe later on Eva thought that Battler was just a halucination, induced by her hopes to find someone innocent alive and the fact that she did not find Battler's corpse, which is why her meeting with him was not in the "book of one truth".

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by GreyZone

With ep7 as book of truth from Eva's perspective, Eva could be the detective with a style similar to ep1 where "non-magical scenes without the detective" can be lies or wrong interpretations. So everthing that happened in the gold room after Eva was almost killed may have been a lie, including Kyrie shooting Beatrice, who instead of staying in the bed, may have run away. After all there must be some reason why Battler suddenly disappeard and never got to the chapel, where Rudolph and later Eva was waiting.

@jjblue1: "Rudolf would have chosen her over Natsuhi" I assume you mean Asumu instead of Natsuhi.

*nods* Yes. I feel stupid. How could I do such mistake?

Originally Posted by Leafsnail

I don't think they're a lie so much as Eva trying to fill in the blanks. It's true that she may have simply gotten the wrong idea, though.

I guess it just being an insidious theory is possible, although annoying considering it's the only real attempt to explain what happened on Prime in the entire series. The thing I'd say is strange about it if viewed from that perspective is Battler. Doesn't the 1998 fan-theory peg Battler as a culprit too (as in the episode 8 purple text game)? So why does he appear only in the ep7 tea party only to vanish without explanation? It seems kindof like the ep7 author had some reason to think that Battler might have survived, or at least a reason to think something odd happened with him.

I would really like to know what exactly Bern planned for Battler as in Ep 7 he just... disappeared. Though it'll be interesting if he walked till the chapel, saw Rudolf and George dead and than entered in and saw Rosa, Hideyoshi and Shannon dead, then went back and saw Eva shooting Kyrie and assumed Eva was the culprit. Then he either attacked her and she shoot at him too but without realizing it wasn't a fatal shoot and assumed he died or he escaped planning to call for help. According to what went on Eva would either feel guilty for believing to have killed him or unsure about what had happened to him.

Originally Posted by Leafsnail

About Kyrie's motive - yeah, she'd certainly be very angry with Rudolf. I don't think she'd show him any mercy. But at the same time, she still loved him, just as she still loved him after he left her for another woman. Killing Rudolf would really be punishing herself - in order to get her revenge and cause him real pain she'd have to go for his family.

Yes, but she could have a honest moment of blind fury and if at the time she had a gun in her hands a shoot might end up being exploded before she realized it... or she could plan to shoot Rudolf and herself out of rage and desperation.

After all her chat with Eva was pretty weird... and there's the words she supposedly told Eva that weren't delievered to us, if I don't remember wrong...

Originally Posted by GreyZone

Yes, but even if she "filled in the blanks", she may have filled them wrong. Or maybe intentionally left them out. Or she or someone else ripped out some of the pages, e.g. her meeting Battler and losing him again.

It may have been like that: Yasu told Battler to use the passageway to go to the boat. But he was reluctant to leave everyone else behind so he waited while Yasu went ahead. After everyone was dead or at least when Eva realized that time to find survivors to rescue was up, she went back to the gold room and met Battler there and she insisted to go to Kuwadorian, but Battler didn't want to leave Yasu alone, so somehow they seperated and maybe later on Eva thought that Battler was just a halucination, induced by her hopes to find someone innocent alive and the fact that she did not find Battler's corpse, which is why her meeting with him was not in the "book of one truth".

That can be. I wish there was a way to know the truth of Prime but so far there's too little...

[Leafsnail]

Originally Posted by GreyZone

@jjblue1: "Rudolf would have chosen her over Natsuhi" I assume you mean Asumu instead of Natsuhi.

Well Natsuhi did mysteriously get pregnant at around the same time after years of failing to.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by Leafsnail

Well Natsuhi did mysteriously get pregnant at around the same time after years of failing to.

LOL And here the weird theory that Rudolf slept with every woman in Umineko and is the father of all the children takes shape... then of course Kyrie had to kill everyone as her jealously grew to an unbearable level... oh, and the servants get trashed out because she thought of them as Rudolf's accomplices.

[Leafsnail]

This theory explains a lot. For instance, Rudolf didn't actually swap the babies deliberately, he just attends so many births that he got mixed up.

[GreyZone]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

That can be. I wish there was a way to know the truth of Prime but so far there's too little...

Well we still got things from the EP8 manga to look forward to, I guess we have to wait until it finishes.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Leafsnail

About Kyrie's motive - yeah, she'd certainly be very angry with Rudolf. I don't think she'd show him any mercy. But at the same time, she still loved him, just as she still loved him after he left her for another woman. Killing Rudolf would really be punishing herself - in order to get her revenge and cause him real pain she'd have to go for his family.

Wait. Hold on. I'm not convinced that makes sense. Why would Kyrie think along those lines? She knows Rudolf is engaged in a bitter inheritance dispute with his siblings and that they're as inclined to cheat him and leave him high and dry with his problems as he is to be generous toward them with money he doesn't have. Is Rudolf really going to suffer if she murders Maria? Why in the world would Kyrie believe that to be the case?

The only person I'd see her having cause to kill in order to punish Rudolf is Battler, "Asumu's son," to sort of annihilate any connection Rudolf has to Asumu. If she knows Rudolf was lying about all that and Battler was actually her son, she'd lose all motive to kill Battler. She would never, ever kill her own son.

I can only see such a rampage scenario being motivated by a desire to "punish" Rudolf somehow if Kyrie instigated it by mistakenly thinking she killed Battler before learning he was actually her son. At that point I could maybe buy her snapping and deciding to murder the family as some sort of twisted strike against the honor of the family generally that led to her murdering her own son. But then you run up on issues like when Kyrie would've decided to do that, how she tried to kill Battler, and why and how she failed without knowing she did.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by Leafsnail

This theory explains a lot. For instance, Rudolf didn't actually swap the babies deliberately, he just attends so many births that he got mixed up.

This makes so much sense. Here, we've solved Prime!

[Leafsnail]

I think Rudolf does still hold affection for his family - it's only really Krauss and maybe Eva that he has reason to hate. Enough at least to feel terrible if they were all killed due to him, in the same way that Battler feels bad after being told all the deaths were due to his sin. My theory basically held that being told the sin was what caused Kyrie to switch to Murder-Mode though, which is why the "just kill Battler" thing isn't an option (and also why she did not kill Battler).

"Kyrie intended to kill Battler from the start" is actually a pretty interesting idea though. I guess Yasu might have learnt of the plan and used her murder mystery game (blank bullet, makeup) to try and trick Kyrie and save Battler, allowing that theory to work.

[Renall]

Well, let's assume that Kyrie is the Prime culprit and look at some parts of the series assuming this to be true:

• In ep1, Kyrie suggests a romance is a harder mystery than a mystery, and addresses Battler somewhat cryptically regarding stuff like how to treat women. Foreshadowing that she will be the culprit and understanding her motivation is more about romance than your usual mystery motives (like money)?
• Kyrie and Rudolf are both certain FT victims in ep1 and ep2. Granted, so is Krauss, so that doesn't tell us a whole lot, but under the "all deaths part of the game" theory it could mean Yasu intended all along to include those three particularly as accomplices in addition to Nanjo and the servants. Alternatively though, what did Yasu know or think about Kyrie?
• Eva-Beatrice discusses Kyrie's mental state in ep3. She's the only person to have her mental state explored in any red statement. The crux of the red is "Kyrie is shown to have done something, but we know that Kyrie would not have actually done something for that reason." Viewed as foreshadowing we could say that it could mean something like "Kyrie was the culprit, but she wouldn't have tried to kill everyone just for money because she'd know it wouldn't work or wasn't necessary. But she still killed, so she must have had a different reason."
• Battler has a long and strange phone conversation with Kyrie in ep4, where she appears to be one of the last people alive (and is part of a "group" that just so happens to include Krauss, Shannon/Kanon, and other servants). Kyrie's behavior and attitude strike him as odd and he wonders if she was trying to communicate something to him. Some kind of sudden realization that changes her attitude toward her actions and toward Battler, conveyed in a cryptic fashion?
• Kyrie makes abundantly clear in ep6 that it took an enormous amount of time and suffering to make her desire Asumu's death enough to actually begin plotting it. She thinks of her fortunate victory as complete, but we know that she knows that isn't true because she sees Asumu in Battler.
• Kyrie's attempt to distance herself from Ange in the ep7 Tea Party could be a hint misinterpreted by Eva as to her true intentions. For example, she's afraid of her association with Ange as a parent leading to some tragedy like her association with her other child.
• Kyrie seems distinctly disinterested in Battler in the ep7 Tea Party, and Battler's role mysteriously ends as he vanishes from the story entirely. Could that be because there's a missing connection there, and Kyrie's ridiculous shooting spree wasn't merely money-motivated?
• Kyrie takes the revelation about Battler especially hard in ep8. Is there something more to that?
• The parents would do anything for their children. Might they be less inclined to blame the culprit if they believed the culprit was somehow motivated by a love for their child that was simply misguided or mistaken?

EDIT: Also, Rudolf wants to bring his family together enough that he'd beg Battler to come back. From Rudolf's perspective this makes total sense, because he knows Battler is Kyrie's son and he wants to be with his wife and two children from that wife. To Kyrie, this would look like he's reduced himself to begging Asumu's child to return because she and Ange somehow aren't good enough for him.

[haguruma]

I'm still kind of hinging on Bernkastel saying that the complete Red in EP7 would have been "This is not necessarily all true" (これは全て真実とは限らない) and that she only crafted it to prepare Ange for the worst of all possible cases. So I don't know if we should consider this to be necessarily true.

This actually lead me to an interesting idea and I reread the EP8 manga portion that dealt with Ange discovering Bern's game to her agreeing to go with Bern...and it struck me that (at least in the manga version) it could perfectly mirror how Ange grew up, like I posted in an earlier post.

Spoiler for EP8 chapter 14:

Erika outright says that the Purple Truth Game was made to reflect public opinion and it is interesting how Ange actually goes through all these stages. It also seems a lot more convincing why she would trust Erika and Bern for some reason...

So technically the game at the end of EP7 is only a reflection of a part of the ordeal that Ange went through as a child...which makes me wonder, what is the actual content of the Book of the One and Only Truth that it makes Ange want to commit suicide? Or is it just the confirmation of this worst fear that drives her there?