[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[DaBackpack]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

I wonder if the typhoon and Ange's absence in the real world and in the tales are merely two more unlucky coincidences along with Battler's return that year and the parents being out of money.
After all it seems she tossed the bottles in the water because she hoped someone would solve her mistery, not because she believed people would believe that 'a witch did it'.
So in the end it didn't matter if they weren't perfectly fitting with the facts, just that someone could solve them.
By a set of coincidences they are missing Ange (which she probably dind't want to reach the golden land in her stories) and used a typhoon (which is a convenient excuse) to trap anyone on the island as it truly happened, two things that truly happened that day.

Then, due to another set of coincidences (Rokkenjima exploding, Eva surviving and selling Kinzo's library, the bottle being found and released to the public, the tales being recognized not as the writing of Maria who's aknowledged as dead) people assumed they were two possible depictions of what happened that day when they were just what if scenarios.

Wasn't it in Ep 5 that Battler talked of how a strange set of coincidences that seem instead connected might lead people to have the wrong perception of what happened when actually it was all strange coincidences?

It might be a hint to what really happened in Prime. A really odd set of coincidences was judged as something made on purpose because... well, it was such a really odd set of coincidences that accepting it as such seemed too unbelievable for the observers.

Even so, it seems bizarre that Yasu left out Ange when she gave so many other comparatively useless characters some mention, like Hideyoshi and Krauss... especially since Ange had been on the island for the previous 6 family gatherings and actually spent time with the other cousins. Sure, it could have happened by coincidence, but why did she choose to leave out Ange? It just seems strange that of all the other people she could have cut out, it was her.

So it sort of seems like post-incident authorship to me.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by DaBackpack

Even so, it seems bizarre that Yasu left out Ange when she gave so many other comparatively useless characters some mention, like Hideyoshi and Krauss... especially since Ange had been on the island for the previous 6 family gatherings and actually spent time with the other cousins. Sure, it could have happened by coincidence, but why did she choose to leave out Ange? It just seems strange that of all the other people she could have cut out, it was her.

So it sort of seems like post-incident authorship to me.

Hadn't it been mentioned that it wasn't the first time she didn't come because she was sickly? Also, even if she did come, her participation for the first 2 years would have been practically nonexistent, for her being a baby and such...
She probably only started having any actual influence in terms of interacting actively with the cousins at maybe 4 or 5, so 1 or 2 years before the fatal conference. We also know that Maria excluded her from any play Beato, due to Ange's behavior when she was 5.

Even if Shannon did some babysitting, which is unlikely, considering she was apparently not considered the most trustworthy servant by Kinzo's children, she probably wouldn't have much of an actual relationship with Ange.
Krauss, Eva, Rudolph and Rosa she practically grew up with and would have met their spouses quite a few times. George, Jessica and Battler were her playmates when she was growing up and Maria was a perfect fit for her fantasies.

[BeyondTheGrave007]

I just finished the anime two days ago and oh my god was it confusing, but I seriously think it was George and Shannon. If not than I'm mind blown.

[Golden Bug-Hunter]

Originally Posted by BeyondTheGrave007

I just finished the anime two days ago and oh my god was it confusing, but I seriously think it was George and Shannon. If not than I'm mind blown.

You, my friend, are in completely the wrong thread for this level of knowledge.

While it seems unlikely that there will be a season 2 of the anime, the visual novels have Umineko Chiru that reveal most of the answers, or at least enough to make it pretty obvious. The manga is approaching the end as well, although if you're waiting for the American release you have quite a bit of time ahead of you.

[BeyondTheGrave007]

Originally Posted by Golden Bug-Hunter

You, my friend, are in completely the wrong thread for this level of knowledge.

While it seems unlikely that there will be a season 2 of the anime, the visual novels have Umineko Chiru that reveal most of the answers, or at least enough to make it pretty obvious. The manga is approaching the end as well, although if you're waiting for the American release you have quite a bit of time ahead of you.

Sorry. I'm new to this website so please excuse my previous message. I'll watch the visual novel. As for the season 2, I really hope they do make it.

[ALPHA-Beatrice]

Originally Posted by BeyondTheGrave007

Sorry. I'm new to this website so please excuse my previous message. I'll watch the visual novel. As for the season 2, I really hope they do make it.

I'll say this in Red The VN is vastly superior to the Anime

More soundtracks, the soundtracks used in their original and not a rehashed or poorly made form(Example: Fake Red Shoes's VN version is more epic than the anime version). The story goes even deeper into detail.

Ep's 1-4(Which the Anime does cover fairly well but leaves out an imaginable amount of detail. But in watching Chiru, I can say in Blue Everything the anime left out was immaterial

Whether you go with the anime version or the VN of eps 1-4, you'll get the same crucial information you need. Though the VN of Ep 4 goes deeper with Maria/Sakutaro and ANGE.

So it's up to you whether you want to review the VN of eps 1-4(1-26 in the anime) or not. I personally did and it was enjoyable. But you don't have to do it IMO, anyone else here can correct me but I believe the anime covered just enough of the Mystery/Fantasy aspects to understand Beato's games.

Umineko Chiru(Eps 5-8) is the second and last installment of the Umineko Series. If Eps 1-4 were the Mystery, Chiru proposes the answers.

However Umineko Chiru only proposes the answers. So you can choose to accept them as they are, or to intellectually question them.

You've only begun to open up the Cat Box called Umineko, the twilight murders of 1986. I believe there's a lot of fun to be discovered and a lot of brain twisters.

[Ayu-ayu]

Originally Posted by haguruma

The first message bottle was btw found adrift in the sea directly after the incident on the next morning when the police was searching the waters around Rokkenjima. It was taken up as evidence but not released as information to the public until the fisherman went out into the open with the bottle he found later on.
Also, research on the bottle and the cork apparently made it clear that the bottle was sealed around the time of the incident.

Do you have a source quote regarding that "research"? Because I just checked both the manga and sound novel for the message bottle in episode 1 and both state clearly that the wine bottle was found by a fisherman several years later.

[Drifloon]

Yeah, the fisherman's bottle was found years later, but the other bottle was recovered by the police on the day of the incident. It's described in EP4.

It seems that, due to evidence from the surrounding area and the fact that the bottle was sealed, the police had decided that its likelihood of being a fabrication was low, and that it had been abandoned within several days before the accident. And the handwriting for both matched. This caused the credibility of the scraps of paper discovered by the fisherman to rise.

[Ayu-ayu]

Originally Posted by Drifloon

Yeah, the fisherman's bottle was found years later, but the other bottle was recovered by the police on the day of the incident. It's described in EP4.

Oh? I'll have to dig that out and check that out too now. That's really interesting, so the second story came first then, and then the first one comes along years later? That seems kind of peculiar, since the way episode 1 frames it, it makes it sound like the first story was found first and that there hadn't been anything in between. Did Ryuukishi goof up here and retcon later? Is one an intentional mislead? Is the bottle described at the end of episode 1 actually the second story's message bottle? Could Ange have her info wrong about when the bottle was found?

Strange to see some seeming self-contradiction here for the message bottles' times of discovery.

(edit--did more research on Ep 4)
Okay, I see, so Ep 4 says that indeed the first story that reached the public was the one found several years later, and that the one found the day after the incident only came to light afterwards, that it had the same signature and handwriting, helping validate the first one publicly released.

This is really interesting though, because perhaps the first story WAS written later as the second one (written first) hadn't come out to the public and Yasu/Ikuko wanted it to be discovered?

[Renall]

It is peculiar, and I think it's peculiar enough that it could be evidence of post-incident authorship. It just depends what accounts you trust. It's also possible, as you suggested, that one was written before and the other written after.

We can't know that the bottle the fisherman found was set adrift on the weekend of October 4th, 1986. We can't even know that he actually found it adrift at all. Maybe he was paid to say he found it and produced the bottle. Anything is possible since he's an unreliable nameless extra mentioned only in the dialogue of other characters. "I heard that a fisherman found it" is not very authoritative when coming from someone who wasn't a direct witness. Although I would note that the anime features a scene where the fisherman actually finds the bottle at the end of the ep1 arc, but it's the anime so I'm automatically suspicious of it. Unless of course the manga closes that hole somehow.

At any rate, if you believe one or more of the bottles was post-incident, then you run into the obvious issue that the person who wrote the message bottles must have survived a considerable length of time after the incident, on the order of years. If you're going to posit the writer was Yasu as is assumed, then you must either conclude that Yasu survived the whole thing and was still alive well into the future, that the bottles couldn't have been post-incident, or that Yasu actually wasn't the writer of the messages after all, or that both were post-incident somehow (in which case you must address the reliability of the one found by the police, which is much harder to attack, plus identify who was the author). There's a lot of collateral consequences from those potential conclusions, obviously, which are matters of debate.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by Ayu-ayu

Oh? I'll have to dig that out and check that out too now. That's really interesting, so the second story came first then, and then the first one comes along years later? That seems kind of peculiar, since the way episode 1 frames it, it makes it sound like the first story was found first and that there hadn't been anything in between. Did Ryuukishi goof up here and retcon later? Is one an intentional mislead? Is the bottle described at the end of episode 1 actually the second story's message bottle? Could Ange have her info wrong about when the bottle was found?

Strange to see some seeming self-contradiction here for the message bottles' times of discovery.

(edit--did more research on Ep 4)
Okay, I see, so Ep 4 says that indeed the first story that reached the public was the one found several years later, and that the one found the day after the incident only came to light afterwards, that it had the same signature and handwriting, helping validate the first one publicly released.

This is really interesting though, because perhaps the first story WAS written later as the second one (written first) hadn't come out to the public and Yasu/Ikuko wanted it to be discovered?

In itself is not that peculiar.
The fisherman bottle was found later but was likely released to the public sooner than the one found by the police. So, if the meta is a construction in Tohya's mind as he learns about the tales and read them it makes sense that to MetaBattler Ep 1 takes place prior to Ep 2 merely because... Tohya read that first.

Originally Posted by Renall

It is peculiar, and I think it's peculiar enough that it could be evidence of post-incident authorship. It just depends what accounts you trust. It's also possible, as you suggested, that one was written before and the other written after.

We can't know that the bottle the fisherman found was set adrift on the weekend of October 4th, 1986. We can't even know that he actually found it adrift at all. Maybe he was paid to say he found it and produced the bottle. Anything is possible since he's an unreliable nameless extra mentioned only in the dialogue of other characters. "I heard that a fisherman found it" is not very authoritative when coming from someone who wasn't a direct witness. Although I would note that the anime features a scene where the fisherman actually finds the bottle at the end of the ep1 arc, but it's the anime so I'm automatically suspicious of it. Unless of course the manga closes that hole somehow.

At any rate, if you believe one or more of the bottles was post-incident, then you run into the obvious issue that the person who wrote the message bottles must have survived a considerable length of time after the incident, on the order of years. If you're going to posit the writer was Yasu as is assumed, then you must either conclude that Yasu survived the whole thing and was still alive well into the future, that the bottles couldn't have been post-incident, or that Yasu actually wasn't the writer of the messages after all, or that both were post-incident somehow (in which case you must address the reliability of the one found by the police, which is much harder to attack, plus identify who was the author). There's a lot of collateral consequences from those potential conclusions, obviously, which are matters of debate.

Although the post incident possibility exists and would solve a couple of problems (namely Ange's absence and the storm) the problem would be why to create them. Umineko says they were done because Yasu hoped that, if Battler weren't to solve her mystery, someone else did.

This would imply that:
- Yasu survived but was parted from Battler, assumed he was dead and, years later, bribed people to say they found her messages that didn't match with the truth as they left out how Eva survived and when the storm started (in the tales the storm started in different moments) and bribed the police into saying a message bottle was found earlier.
- Umineko lied and Yasu (who survived) created the bottles for removing the suspicions from Eva, although the idea it can work is terribly naive as normal people isn't going to swallow the culprit is the witch. Actually, considering the police had declared this to be an incident and the messages didn't match with this version, they would raise even more interest on the case and suspicions against Eva.
- the bottles weren't written by Yasu but... by someone else aware of many facts. Not Tohya though as he was informed about the bottles by Ikuko and by then he hadn't recovered his memory yet. Not Eva either as her writing doesn't match.

As I'm unsatisfied with the above solutions I prefer to think that Yasu wrote the messages earlier, bribed Kyrie and Rudolf so they would let Ange home and as for the storm Ryukishi purposely altered, for his setting the likeness of storms happening in that period and took care to inform us about this through a character dialogue (which is better than what he did with the rain that doesn't wet people.)

Of course people can prefer the other version as well as, so far, we've no red confirming when the messages were tossed in the sea or found.

[Ayu-ayu]

No, my thought here is that the one found by the police (episode 2) was genuinely set adrift or such at the time, but as it was not made public, Yasu/Ikuko eventually put the second bottle out there years later (episode 1).

My current crack hypothesis (though I am still re-reading the story again and I know it is still a bit messy) is that Yasu and Battler escaped together, and that the "drowning" scene is a fiction and metaphor for putting "Beatrice" (and "Battler" for that matter) to rest with the gold.

It may be that the second message bottle and later "forgeries" were meant to be encrypted in such a way that only Ange would put things together over time...having the biggest "key" in the form of Yasu's writing in Maria's notebook. It was necessary for Battler and Yasu to remain hidden under new identities. The car accident and amnesia are possibly an invented story that would eventually allow Ange to meet Battler under his new identity as Tohya, once he is ready to do so--that is, once the events around the island were far enough in the past and the mess over the remaining inheritance was put to rest. It's not that he didn't want to meet her again, but rather the burden of what happened with the family along with the desire to protect Yasu's new identity would have made it difficult to directly meet with her given the scrutiny she was under.


The question is though why several years, if it was intentional? I'm thinking that it was done when they thought Ange would be at an old enough age to be able to start to understand the "love" part of the story...that is to say, close to Yasu's age when she first harbored the feelings that gave birth to her Beatrice.

[Renall]

The only real issue there is the same issue that is always the case with non-amnesia Battler survival: It makes him kind of a huge asshole. Besides, just how much scrutiny would Yasu really be under, especially under a false name? Nobody even knows what happened. The police think it was an accident (somehow). The only reason there'd be any scrutiny on her is if she published the message bottles, so it'd be entirely her own fault, and even then the one bottle the police found in this theory wasn't taken seriously anyhow. Why go along with a plan to publish something that will draw more scrutiny and make it harder to get back in touch with Ange?

Any construction of this sort of theory that I can see makes Battler out to just be a real ass, and all of Ikuko's employees to be incredibly naive; they just totally believe all that crap about a family they've never met if Ikuko-is-Yasu, because there is no family, plus they're totally okay with her having an amnesiac husband that as far as they know she just kidnapped or something. Even if Ikuko isn't Yasu, if Battler isn't amnesiac then the whole thing just gets really, really weird. And Battler had ages to track her down and all the money in the world to do it with and couldn't? Or just didn't want to?

Now I suppose if you want to go even crackier with your theory and propose that Tohya and Amakusa are the same person and all, and he was always sort of there for her... but there's nothing whatsoever in the text that supports that. Like, at all. In fact everything we know about Tohya suggests basically the opposite of something like that.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by Ayu-ayu

The question is though why several years, if it was intentional? I'm thinking that it was done when they thought Ange would be at an old enough age to be able to start to understand the "love" part of the story...that is to say, close to Yasu's age when she first harbored the feelings that gave birth to her Beatrice.

The biggest problem I have with this actually is the aspect that it has been established by EP8, and especially the manga, that Legend and Turn weren't the only message bottles with the Yasu-solution that were thrown into the sea. At least Land of the Golden Witch is also somewhere on the bottom of the ocean.

I would argue that there is no actual gain in one of the message bottles being post-incident...because if one of them is then the other could be as well. Both Legend and Turn tell basically the same story, with the same culprit and the same outcome, just slightly different turning points. If one of them was written pre-incident, why not both?

[Ayu-ayu]

Agreed, Renall, I don't subscribe to the Amakusa/Battler theory at all...it's just too messy, even more so than what I'm already fooling around with. I agree that my current theory seems to make Battler an asshole too, though my own current reconciliation attempt for this is something I'm still working out. But I think Yasu's anonymity being kept is a must while putting out message bottles. If it came out that Ikuko or Tohya were survivors of the incident, let alone if they were sharing info with Ange, the media would go bonkers, and the Sumaderas would be out for blood, and so on.

But yeah, I'm still going through my reread and admit this is more just an exercise for now. And (re: Haguruma's comment) I really need to read more of the ep 8 manga...I do like how many new hints or even answers it is slowly unveiling. I also admit I'm having more difficulty with the bottles being half pre, half post-incident than when I thought both were possibly post...but it still intrigues me that some, if awkward, potential exists there with that gap of several years.

[Ayu-ayu]

I ought to mention a reason I have difficulty accepting Ikuko is NOT Yasu is that I keep seeing things that I don't see how recovering-amnesiac Battler/Tohya could really know about on his own (or non-Yasu Ikuko for that matter) in the forgeries. For one example the Chiesters/Siestas...if anything, Ange would be the only one who would know about them other than Yasu thanks to Maria's book.

I wonder at times if the meta-battles between Battler and Beatrice might be a pseudo-reflection of what "Tohya" and "Ikuko" might have bantered over.

[Dr. Casey]

Originally Posted by BeyondTheGrave007

I just finished the anime two days ago and oh my god was it confusing, but I seriously think it was George and Shannon. If not than I'm mind blown.

Aww. To quote Rena, 'Can I take him home?'

[jjblue1]

I've tried considering the case of Battler making out of Rokkenjima with Yasu alive but unable to contact Ange.

For example it could be that, although not amnesiac he was injuried, feverish, under shock so physically unable to contact her. However the fact that as soon as he's better he gets out and he's promply involved in an accident and loses his memory makes things slightly ridicolous.

Same goes if Yasu kidnapped him and, as soon as he managed to get free and try to escape, she manges to run over him with her car and give him amnesia.

Better theories would be if something with Eva happened, for example she believed him to be the culprit along with Yasu and he was unable to prove he was innocent, expecially because Yasu actually bribed the siblings and there could be things that would put her in a shady position. This might have scared him into hiding to protect himself and Yasu. Then, before he'll realize this is a stupid solution or just after he did and was about to do something against it, he lost his memory.

Another possibility is that he believed Eva to be the actual killer but had no idea how to prove it and was afraid to come out. It'll make him a jerk though because he let his sister in Eva's hands, or a really naive person as he believed Eva wouldn't murder Ange also.

An agreement between him and Eva might also keep him from showing up but I've hard time picturing such agreement.

Still, in the end, I would assume he really lost his memory and the story he told Ange about this is true.
Ange is old enough to face the truth, whatever that could be. If Battler had a reason to not show up sooned he should tell her. Also, if he didn't want to tell her he could simply not meet her.

The whole I'll meet you after so many years for just lie to you and tell you it's me but I've lost my memory and I don't consider you my sister anymore and can you please let me be when Ange is an adult living a normal life seems extremely pointless.

At this point it'll be better if the meeting had never happened for real but was just a dream Ange had before dying.

So I think Battler/Tohya really had amnesia. At best the circumstances of his incident might have been different from what we're told.

[erneiz_hyde]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

I've tried considering the case of Battler making out of Rokkenjima with Yasu alive but unable to contact Ange.

Originally Posted by Ayu-ayu

My current crack hypothesis (though I am still re-reading the story again and I know it is still a bit messy) is that Yasu and Battler escaped together, and that the "drowning" scene is a fiction and metaphor for putting "Beatrice" (and "Battler" for that matter) to rest with the gold.

Battler and Yasu escaped just fine, but of all things to happen during their trip on the boat, Battler had his 'faaall faaall' moment because Yasu sped up not knowing/forgetting Battler's condition. Yasu then had an 'oh crap' moment and Battler promptly drowned along with one of the gold bars. Either Yasu managed to save him then or he washed ashore later like a message bottle, he woke up thinking he was a fish. So the drowning scene was a dramatization to mask for 'shit happens'.

[Dormin]

I always thought the ending with Beatrice and Battler in the boat was a hint towards there was some kind of boat accident. I personally believe the theory that Yasu died in the accident, or that she was meaning to drown (as Beatrice pretty much jumped out of the boat, if I remember correctly).

People seem to theorize that Ikuko is Yasu. Even though I kind of like the theory that she is somehow keeping Battler "prisoner", would this really be the case? Would Yasu just start living a new life with amnesiac Battler like nothing ever happened? Would she even think that Battler is the same person, hence red "Battler is dead"?

But I'm interested to hear why people think Ikuko could be Yasu, even though it is pretty much pointed that she had a way with writing the stories. Does any other evidence exist?