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BLambda · 2010-08-30, 13:12

Looks like a deepest analysis of rules XYZ so far
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/nm11865694
Anyone willing to spend some time and translate?

Oliver · 2010-08-30, 16:46

Well, if anyone wanted a fresh supertheory, here's one.
(I use the term "supertheory" not because it's "super good" -- actually, it's rather bad, because a lot of pieces are missing -- but because it relates not to implementation details but to the overarching plot elements, i.e. "what is going on and why". In that sense,"Shkannontrice Culprit" is a name of a broad class of supertheories. This one is not of this class.)

Anyway, on to the details...

Spoiler for Too long, don't read.:

No, I'm not going to struggle too much to defend this, I know there's too many holes. But maybe someone likes this enough to plug them.

Leafsnail · 2010-08-30, 17:48

In case anyone was in any doubt that George is involved in the fake murder ceremony, he has a secret conversation with Kumasawa at the start of ep1... for no apparent reason. I guess Natsuhi and Rosa both have little points at which they "talk to Kinzo", after which stuff begins to happen... so perhaps they're told their "role" in this ceremony? If some of them don't realise things have gone wrong and are still playing their roles, this means there could be dramatically different "noise" each time, even if the setup is the same.

The point at which the penny drops is different in each episode:

- In episode 1, Natsuhi realises things have gone wrong when Kinzo's body turns up in the boiler, and Kanon is "stabbed". The boiler thing wasn't planned, so she decides to take everyone up and try to defend them.

- In episode 2, Rosa realises things have gone wrong when Battler pulls the stake out of Shannon's head. Thus she decides to make a run for it.

- In episode 3, Eva realises things have gone wrong when Jessica pulls the stakes out of Natsuhi and Krauss. It's possible that she was actually helping to fake the ceremony (which is why an Eva culprit theory seems to fit so well for much of the episode).

- In episode 4... it's basically impossible to say.

As part of this theory, I would say that the guns wielded by the adults all fire blanks (hence Jessica's blinding). It's meant to be a sortof "Bang bang, you're dead" type game, and they don't want any fatalities caused by people not realising what's going on. Thus adults with guns can be attacked and killed without difficulty.

chounokoe · 2010-08-30, 18:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Renall

All of that would be evidence that a person is disguising as another person assumed prior to have an independent existence. Instead, what we have is an assumption based on missing evidence which, if true, necessitates that a person be disguised.

I think by now we all know how much you hate the idea of Shkannon, so don't bother explaining why you don't like it. I have not found any definite prove of a real disguise regarding Shannon and Kanon, so I'm also still searching for that one. Yet you cannot say that them never appearing at the very same moment is insufficient evidence. What I wonder right now, in which contexts are Shannon and Kanon referred to as seperate existences? Maybe more people know about that than we know.

What I really want to get at, is that we cannot fully discard Chiru aspects now that we have them, and because they are referred to as clues, we would have to see if our theories hold up against them.
Let's look again at the solution of the logic error in Episode 6:
We have the group of Shannon, George, Hideyoshi, Nanjo and Kumasawa in a room with only the door sealed and Gohda, Krauss, Rudolph, Genji, Jessica and Kanon in a room with window and door sealed.
Battler's room is impossible to enter, yet when Erika has searched the room, he is gone. The solution is that Kanon came to his rescue and not only that, the room is sealed again after Battler is gone and three people have stepped over the threshold of that room during that time.
Battler is not Kanon and Erika is not Kanon.
The seals on the room where Jessica was also in has not been broken, meaning that no physical existence has passed over the threshold of that room after it was sealed.
But Kanon came and let Battler out and went in himself. We know that nobody except the person who owns the name Kanon can assume it.
And most important, after Battler had left Kanon was not in the room, yet the door was locked from the inside.
This means, unless you really want to imply that a ghost Kanon flew through the walls of the guesthouse, someone in the other room of the guesthouse was not only him or herself, but also Kanon and was able to discard that 嘉音と言う存在 (existence called Kanon) as soon as he entered the closet in Battler's room.
The only people within that other room were Shannon, George, Hideyoshi, Nanjo and Kumasawa. The only other option is the existence of an additional 18th person on the island, who was not locked inside one of these two rooms and was so far not witnessed by anybody, but is also Kanon.

BTW: I do not believe that the Chiru Episodes serve any other purpose than to function as excersizes to prove a theory that was developed during the first 4 games. They are exceptional scenarios that could have happened and are vastly different from the first 4 games for a reason, to show, that a great difference does not change the outcome of the events and that there are several rules within the overarching scenario that become apparent when people react to it differently (like Erika, Lion or Will).
The logic error for example is nothing that would have happend, it is an excersize, to see if your theory can work around it without having to rely on the magic solution. At least that is how I understand Chiru.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oliver

Well, if anyone wanted a fresh supertheory, here's one.

I hope you don't mind if I pick out one or two things, maybe you can work on them yourself or someone else can. Maybe you noticed those holes yourself and just did not adress them, I don't know...

If Shannon and George actually planned to run away together, but he changed into a raving madman only during the 1st day of the conference, how was Shannon then able to create the bottle letters early enough to throw them into the ocean before the typhoon started? Especially considering that she only gets the ring on the night of the 4th (between 22:00 and 24:00) and the typhoon actually arrives at Rokkenjima around 18:00 of the 4th.

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In Episode 1, these are Kyrie and Rudolf, who grab Krauss by the arms and drag him off to the shed. Their plan is to keep him there until either he breaks down and admits what he did to Kinzo, or Natsuhi does, whichever comes first. Eva and Hideyoshi are in on it - they actually lock the shed and the witnesses in it. Later, George drops by and shoots everyone.

How did George get the key to the shed to unlock it again after the witnesses were locked in? Why did Eva and Hideyoshi not participate in that action? Where they trusting Rudolph and Kyrie enough for that to happen? I don't think so.
And why would the plan had been in danger only if he had entered the shed again next morning? Did he fail to kill Shannon? Why did he want to kill her in the first place? If she was not among the victims, why did anybody say that she were?

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In Episode 2, this is Jessica, planning to scare Maria out of her Beatrice affliction by staging a zombie halloween party and demonstrating how scary her own pranks can be if she tries. Only, someone drops by to implicate Beatrice and kill everyone, and that is once again George.

Why would the parents go along with a suggestion from Jessica, especially one that seems so selfcentered and absolutely beside the point during that moment?
Was the chapel ever locked in your theory? Because if she was, how did George enter and leave?

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Other episodes have other Noise Generators. Whether George actually murders everyone himself or enlists anybody's help is left to implementation details.

Who would be that enlisted help and why would he or she help George, when his plot seems so terribly selfcentered and egoistic and it seems rather unlikely that he would let said helper survive?
And there are still many murders that are impossible for George to commit. Kanon, Kumasawa, Nanjo, Genji and Natsuhi during Episode 1. Jessica, Nanjo and Kumasawa during Episode 2. Kyrie, Rudolph, Hideyoshi, Rosa and Maria during Episode 3. Episode 4 of course anything is possible, as long as one can find a theory why Kumasawa, Gohda and Krauss should cover him and why Jessica should lie about him being killed.

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her only option is to try to talk him into stopping. In case she can't, she turns on the bomb, betting on quantum suicide so that one day, in another world that she will never see, Battler will remember... and stop George before he kills anyone.

If Shannon is Beatrice in this theory and George is the culprit, how can he be found shot in the forehead in the arbour in Episode 4, before Battler meets with Beatrice? And why is Shannon then found with a wound that is highly improbable to inflict on her own, at least without the weapon being found nearby?!

I'm not trying to attack your theory for the sake of attacking, just to see if you can work around those.

Jan-Poo · 2010-08-30, 18:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Renall

Again though, these aren't evidence, they're absences of contradictory facts. By the same logic I can state that since no one ever announces they need to go to the bathroom, the entire family never once actually uses the restroom for the entire 48 hours. That isn't unsupported by the evidence given, but it lacks a large amount of affirmative proof.

I think we have discussed this matter before.

One thing is the absence of an evidence that you normally wouldn't expect.
Another thing is the absence of an evidence that you normally would expect.

The fact that it was never mentioned that anyone used the restroom doesn't raise any suspicion because it's something that you normally do not expect.
However the fact that Shannon and Kanon are never seen both at the same time in front of Battler and that the same can't be said for any random two persons among the closed circle (excluding Kinzo who in fact is already dead) is suspicious enough.

To make another example, the fact that the cousins' grandma's name was never mentioned is something that most people think is strange. However I doubt anyone wondered which is Gohda's grandma's name.

Anyway you didn't really get my point before. I never said something that ridiculous like "since a disguise exist then any disguise can exist".
I said that the definition of clue to justify a disguise is probably more subtle and less evident than you think.

If you think that a stronger clue must exist, then let's start from a disguise we are sure of its existence. Beatrice is settled, but then what about Shannon? Where is the clue that shows that Shannon is dissimulating her real look?

Leafsnail · 2010-08-30, 18:45

There does actually seem to be positive proof of the restroom thing - Bernkastel suggests that Battler mashes himself up to go down the sink of the bathtub. Wouldn't it be significantly easier to go down the toilet instead...?

Renall · 2010-08-30, 18:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by chounokoe

I think by now we all know how much you hate the idea of Shkannon, so don't bother explaining why you don't like it.

Was there any purpose to that personal dig?

Quote:

I have not found any definite prove of a real disguise regarding Shannon and Kanon, so I'm also still searching for that one. Yet you cannot say that them never appearing at the very same moment is insufficient evidence.

But it isn't evidence. Well, I should back onto my legal education and say that it is, at best, circumstantial evidence only. It is "evidence" such that you would be laughed out of any court of merit, because it is equivalent to the statement "there is no evidence to prove that the defendant did not murder the victim." This is not evidence in any court in which innocence is assumed. The other side would - rightly - demand you provide affirmative evidence which tends to make the matter asserted more likely. If lack of an alibi alone were evidence of guilt, we would all be murderers in the eyes of the law. This is why the burden is on the person claiming guilt - the affirmative and non-default state - to demonstrate up to some evidentiary burden that their claim is more likely.

From the point of view of characters in a story, we begin from the assumption that every individual character is exactly that; an individual. We do not have reason to suspect otherwise until something suggests to us that this is not so. In other words, "innocent" means Shannon != Kanon, and "guilty" means Shannon = Kanon. The guilty side has the burden of providing affirmative evidence that the two are one. Such evidence is scant and exists only in Chiru.

Shkanon fans engage in intellectually dishonest and unfair burden-shifting, pointing at mountains of non-exculpatory evidence and claiming it is inculpatory. In other words, that the evidence of something being true is the lack of evidence that it is not true. In addition to being an unfair position to force upon the debate, it is an exceedingly vulnerable one; unlike most theories, it can be singlehandedly crushed at any time no matter how strong the "evidence" is, because all the evidence rests on one thing. To use the red text as an example, saying Nanjo is not a murderer instantly shuts down all lines of speculation that, because he has no alibi, he could be the murderer. This was the lesson ep5 was trying to teach people. Natsuhi could have committed the murders during a period around midnight and was the only person who could have done so; however, we had an input error in assuming as a premise that any murder was committed at that time. Natsuhi was linked to the crime by no actual evidence (well, there were a few things, but they are so minor as to be largely irrelevant to Erika's conclusion), and attacking the premise was the only way to extract her from being framed. The fact that real evidence exonerated her speaks to the shakiness of the theory.

This is why discussion of motive is so important. Motive can be used to show that, in the absence of direct evidence, something is more or less likely. It can be used to show that among the vast galaxy of people who had no alibi, this person had inclination. That still may not be enough to avoid reasonable doubt of course.

In the absence of direct evidence of a two-identity swap, we are left with circumstantial and inadmissible non-exculpatory evidence (which does not prove the matter asserted no matter how hard we wish it to) and motive. And all motive ascribed to Shkanon exists only in Chiru. It is not possible to derive any evidentiary speculation (as opposed to wild speculation) of a motive for Shannon/Kanon to dress up as the other for any practical or rational purpose using only the evidence declared to make the game "solvable."

It is possible you are still right, if ryukishi is cheating or Shkanon is true, but irrelevant. Otherwise, people are making up evidence that does not exist and leaning on non-evidence as evidence because they lack all else. If they are correct, it is not because they reasoned soundly to the answer. Quite the opposite; they were lucky because they are inclined to make irrational guesses. This is so counter to the notion of a fair mystery that were this the necessary thought process to "solve" Umineko, it could not be called such.

Of course, that could be exactly what the author intended; fiction rewards irrational thought processes (this is the heart of genre-savviness). I would be disappointed, but clearly most people would not care.

Quote:

Let's look again at the solution of the logic error in Episode 6:
We have the group of Shannon, George, Hideyoshi, Nanjo and Kumasawa in a room with only the door sealed and Gohda, Krauss, Rudolph, Genji, Jessica and Kanon in a room with window and door sealed.

Incorrect. We have a group of "Shannon, George, Hideyoshi, Nanjo, and Kumasawa" in a room and "everyone else" in another room.

Quote:

Battler's room is impossible to enter, yet when Erika has searched the room, he is gone. The solution is that Kanon came to his rescue and not only that, the room is sealed again after Battler is gone and three people have stepped over the threshold of that room during that time.
Battler is not Kanon and Erika is not Kanon.
The seals on the room where Jessica was also in has not been broken, meaning that no physical existence has passed over the threshold of that room after it was sealed.
But Kanon came and let Battler out and went in himself. We know that nobody except the person who owns the name Kanon can assume it.

So far, so good.

Quote:

And most important, after Battler had left Kanon was not in the room, yet the door was locked from the inside.
This means, unless you really want to imply that a ghost Kanon flew through the walls of the guesthouse, someone in the other room of the guesthouse was not only him or herself, but also Kanon and was able to discard that 嘉音と言う存在 (existence called Kanon) as soon as he entered the closet in Battler's room.
The only people within that other room were Shannon, George, Hideyoshi, Nanjo and Kumasawa. The only other option is the existence of an additional 18th person on the island, who was not locked inside one of these two rooms and was so far not witnessed by anybody, but is also Kanon.

And here is where your logic veers afield. These statements are not supported by the evidence presented. They are merely an interpretation. There are many ways to "leave" a room without needing to enter or leave it, and a Person X is most certainly not required to be the "other" solution.

Quote:

BTW: I do not believe that the Chiru Episodes serve any other purpose than to function as excersizes to prove a theory that was developed during the first 4 games. They are exceptional scenarios that could have happened and are vastly different from the first 4 games for a reason, to show, that a great difference does not change the outcome of the events and that there are several rules within the overarching scenario that become apparent when people react to it differently (like Erika, Lion or Will).

In the words of Jeffrey Lebowski: "Well that's, like, your opinion, man."

Quote:

The logic error for example is nothing that would have happend, it is an excersize, to see if your theory can work around it without having to rely on the magic solution. At least that is how I understand Chiru.

I believe that the prohibition on arbitrary piece behavior means that every scenario, no matter how seemingly absurd, must be plausible on the game board. Ignoring motive for how ep6 could possibly have happened is not rational no matter how silly the Logic Error dog-and-pony show makes it appear in the meta-world. Exactly like magic scenes in the first arcs.

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I hope you don't mind if I pick out one or two things, maybe you can work on them yourself or someone else can. Maybe you noticed those holes yourself and just did not adress them, I don't know...

My big question for Oliver is how George logistically is capable of committing the murders. There are far too many times he's simply out of the loop in terms of opportunity, and by his theory, Beatrice won't do the killings for him because she doesn't want to.

Oliver · 2010-08-30, 19:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by chounokoe

If Shannon and George actually planned to run away together, but he changed into a raving madman only during the 1st day of the conference, how was Shannon then able to create the bottle letters early enough to throw them into the ocean before the typhoon started? Especially considering that she only gets the ring on the night of the 4th (between 22:00 and 24:00) and the typhoon actually arrives at Rokkenjima around 18:00 of the 4th.

Nothing about the bottles is plausible in the first place -- if the bottles actually contain accounts of events that ever occurred in any possible world, the author has to have extrasensory perception of those worlds into the future.

So my answer to that is that message bottles are actually multiple drafts of a story, kept in bottles for appearance's sake, and there were possibly quite a lot of them. Bottles only exist in the world of Rokkenjima-Prime but not in any other world, miraculously surviving the explosion and thrown into the sea. Every episode is outright fiction in a bottle, and no bottle actually describes events that occurred in Rokkenjima-Prime. They were written as a piece of mind and meditation on future possibilities, and presented to Meta-Battler as cycling reality which actually isn't real, selected because the culprit in them was George. In other bottles the culprit could have been different.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chounokoe

How did George get the key to the shed to unlock it again after the witnesses were locked in?

The key was returned to the servants room in the mansion, which was never actually locked in red. Gohda is in the shed because he was a witness, remember?

Quote:

Originally Posted by chounokoe

Why did Eva and Hideyoshi not participate in that action? Where they trusting Rudolph and Kyrie enough for that to happen? I don't think so.

Their role was to pressure Natsuhi, while Kyrie, Rudolf and Rosa are working on Krauss. Whoever gets the full dirt on the Kinzo story first wins a better share of the inheritance.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chounokoe

And why would the plan had been in danger only if he had entered the shed again next morning?

Sorry, I can't parse that sentence. Notice that the seal on the shed doors in this setup is made by the culprit, i.e. George, to ensure the bodies are discovered. Otherwise nobody would even look into the shed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chounokoe

Did he fail to kill Shannon? Why did he want to kill her in the first place? If she was not among the victims, why did anybody say that she were?

Implementation details. Can we avoid talking about it for the moment? It's way too likely to turn into another pointless Shkanon dispute.

A plausible variant though is that George took a real gun and shot at the shadows through the small window of the shed. He might have shot someone he didn't expect to see there.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chounokoe

Why would the parents go along with a suggestion from Jessica, especially one that seems so selfcentered and absolutely beside the point during that moment?

I have actually written a long and complicated Ep2 theory back in the day, in which Beatrice sends the family another letter saying that Maria solved her riddle and found the gold (the three gold bars are the proof, Maria's weight in gold) so placate her and make a party, or you're very probably not getting anything. If George has access to the gold, and he probably does in this theory, he can do this on his own, ever so helpful to his cousin.

They start off the party with tea, get ready to rise like zombies and wait. Rosa walks off to call Maria, but actually drops asleep because the tea contained sedatives, everyone else is asleep at the table. Then they're gutted for real and George leaves a taunting letter from "Beatrice".

Quote:

Originally Posted by chounokoe

Was the chapel ever locked in your theory? Because if she was, how did George enter and leave?

It wasn't. Doesn't have to be. Mind you, it is never said that it can be opened with the chapel key either. It is quite possible the lock is simply broken.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chounokoe

Who would be that enlisted help and why would he or she help George, when his plot seems so terribly selfcentered and egoistic and it seems rather unlikely that he would let said helper survive?

Implementation details, lots of.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chounokoe

And there are still many murders that are impossible for George to commit.

That's a problem for any George Culprit class theory.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chounokoe

If Shannon is Beatrice in this theory and George is the culprit, how can he be found shot in the forehead in the arbour in Episode 4, before Battler meets with Beatrice? And why is Shannon then found with a wound that is highly improbable to inflict on her own, at least without the weapon being found nearby?!

The disappearing weapon can be a classic trick with a weight and a rope or a rubber band tied to the weapon, which has been suggested many times. Mind you, Shannon is Beatrice, but she doesn't have to be the Suit-Beatrice, she can talk Jessica into confronting Battler for her at least.

Now, who actually managed to shoot George (and when) is a good question, but it is related to a much more generally important question on who Gaap is supposed to be. If we can conclusively select who is Gaap's vessel, this can conclusively pin down a lot of other information.

Oliver · 2010-08-30, 19:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Renall

My big question for Oliver is how George logistically is capable of committing the murders. There are far too many times he's simply out of the loop in terms of opportunity, and by his theory, Beatrice won't do the killings for him because she doesn't want to.

Right now, no idea.

But if not Shkanon, Kanon can be his accomplice.

chounokoe · 2010-08-30, 19:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Renall

Well, I should back onto my legal education and say that it is, at best, circumstantial evidence only.

Yet I would like to remind you, that we are not dealing with a court scene meant to provide unshakable legal evidence of a certain circumstance, but with a mystery, which relies heavily on slightly implied clues, which often seem to pale in comparison to rather substantial red herrings at first.
Only when every clue is connected do the real ones form the truth, while red herrings tend create lapses. But only the confession of the culprit or an involved individual (in case the culprit is dead) does really confirm the truth of that matter.
This is not a court where we can only judge guilt with legally proven evidence or a confession, we can start to judge at everything that does not contradict, because this is a mystery, not a scene at court.

For example the often reffered to puddle of water in a locked room and a stabbed victim, can only form a legal connection of evidence if there is proof that this puddle ever existed. If no substantial, lasting proof for that existence (for example a photo) is found, it can not be used as ample evidence. Yet in a mystery, as soon that this is described we can conclude, that a murder weapon of frozen ice was used to create the illusion of a vanishing weapon.

To not let two people, who are supposed to be twi individual, turn up in front of the detective at the same time, in a story where it is possible to create cover up culprits, like witches, goat-men and demons out of the blue, is more than just the absence of evidence it is a clue and while in court we might rely on evidence, we base our ideas on clues in a mystery.

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It is possible you are still right, if ryukishi is cheating or Shkanon is true, but irrelevant. Otherwise, people are making up evidence that does not exist and leaning on non-evidence as evidence because they lack all else. If they are correct, it is not because they reasoned soundly to the answer. Quite the opposite; they were lucky because they are inclined to make irrational guesses. This is so counter to the notion of a fair mystery that were this the necessary thought process to "solve" Umineko, it could not be called such.

Yet many people reached the idea of Shkannon before the release of Chiru, which shows that the idea was not impossible to reach. You really have to let go of the idea that a fair mystery is the same as a fair case in court. Many solutions to the worlds greatest mysteries would not stand a second as evidence in court, as long as the culprit does not confess (which he mostly cannot do anymore as he is dead).
In a mystery the absence of evidence is as much a clue as the existence of evidence. The fact alone that we can be sure in a mystery that no other than the introduced characters can be found guilty in crime, makes it so different from a real case, or could you convict someone who has nothing to speak against him, yet because he is the only one without a perfect alibi has to be guilty?
In court the acussing party has to prove guilt, in a mystery the victims have to prove innocence.

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They are merely an interpretation. There are many ways to "leave" a room without needing to enter or leave it, and a Person X is most certainly not required to be the "other" solution.

Then please, provide me with a way for 'Kanon' to enter the room and be not in there anymore without having to leave it.

EDIT:

Quote:

So my answer to that is that message bottles are actually multiple drafts of a story, kept in bottles for appearance's sake, and there were possibly quite a lot of them.

Of course the two bottles are different ideas of the same events that have not yet happened, I think that is quite clear if we look at Episode 4 alone.
Both letters are written and signed by the same person who sent the letters containing the keys to the money and some entries into Maria's diary. In your theory that would also be Shannon.
But why would Shannon know of a crime happening on Rokkenjima, especially asking for people to solve that crime in the name of Ushiromiya Maria, if she did not know by that time, that a crime was going to happen in the first place. Your theory leaves that part of the story completely unaccounted for and for someone who is often calling for physical improbability the idea of the bottle being miraculously thrown into the ocean by the explosion and then one of them travelling 2 times their normal speed to reach their destination in time, is rather weak.

The author of those letters must have known that a crime was about to occur and that it was impossible for anybody to survive. That person also wanted for certain people to have a share in the wealth if nobody else could have it, so a theory of 'her and George running of together but abandoning all their money and having no place to run to' seems highly improbable.

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Sorry, I can't parse that sentence.

It is a comment that Will makes about the first game. He says that the game was played by a risk from the very start, because had he entered the shed, it would have all been discovered right away.
EDIT: To be exact it is this one,
Will: 始めから、危ういゲームだったな。・・・・・・もしもあいつが、それでも死に顔を見たいと言って踏み入っていたなら、どうしていた。(That was a risky game from the very beginning. ...had he by any chance stepped in, saying that he wanted to see your face in death despite everything, what would you have done?)
Clair: 運命に身を委ねる、ということなのです。(I gave over my whole self to destiny, is what I would have to say.)
Will: お前のルーレットというヤツだな。(So, the one you call your roulette.)

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Mind you, Shannon is Beatrice, but she doesn't have to be the Suit-Beatrice, she can talk Jessica into confronting Battler for her at least.

Yet that again would leave Shannon again to kill Jessica and in your theory you said that Shannon never wanted to kill.
And it canot have been Kanon either, because it was said that he was the first two die in Kyries group, in other words the 9th victim. Even if he did shoot Jessica after she shot George, that would leave Shannon to kill Kanon, Nanjo, Krauss, Kyrie and maybe or maybe not Maria.

Renall · 2010-08-30, 19:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by chounokoe

Yet I would like to remind you, that we are not dealing with a court scene meant to provide unshakable legal evidence of a certain circumstance, but with a mystery, which relies heavily on slightly implied clues, which often seem to pale in comparison to rather substantial red herrings at first.
Only when every clue is connected do the real ones form the truth, while red herrings tend create lapses. But only the confession of the culprit or an involved individual (in case the culprit is dead) does really confirm the truth of that matter.
This is not a court where we can only judge guilt with legally proven evidence or a confession, we can start to judge at everything that does not contradict, because this is a mystery, not a scene at court.

The only difference between a court and a mystery is that I could convict any of the 19 people on the island (including Kinzo) in a court of law based on the evidence provided. I don't think that's the idea though.

Quote:

For example the often reffered to puddle of water in a locked room and a stabbed victim, can only form a legal connection of evidence if there is proof that this puddle ever existed. If no substantial, lasting proof for that existence (for example a photo) is found, it can not be used as ample evidence. Yet in a mystery, as soon that this is described we can conclude, that a murder weapon of frozen ice was used to create the illusion of a vanishing weapon.

That clue is evidence because it was found. If it evaporated completely, there is no evidence. At that point you're in exactly the same position; you can speculate that there is no weapon because an ice weapon was used and it evaporated, but you only believe that could be possible because it happens in books.

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To not let two people, who are supposed to be twi individual, turn up in front of the detective at the same time, in a story where it is possible to create cover up culprits, like witches, goat-men and demons out of the blue, is more than just the absence of evidence it is a clue and while in court we might rely on evidence, we base our ideas on clues in a mystery.

Not really. It could just as easily be one of your aforementioned red herrings, and the lack of any additional supporting evidence seems to actually enforce that reading rather than yours.

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Yet many people reached the idea of Shkannon before the release of Chiru, which shows that the idea was not impossible to reach.

I never said it was impossible to reach. I said it requires an irrational thought process to reach. I should perhaps scale that back and say that it isn't inherently irrational, but rather, irrational if we approach the work of the appropriate mindset.

If we approach it with all our genre knowledge we will, in fact, always be looking for the secret twin, the lying doctor, the scheming mother, the mysterious stranger who is in fact not as guilty as he or she looks, the slighted heir. We will point to the least likely culprit because they are in fact the most likely culprit.

In short, exactly what we have been doing. That is a trap waiting to be sprung on a reader who thinks himself too clever for mysteries. I refuse to step into such a trap on the mere possibility that it exists to spring.

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You really have to let go of the idea that a fair mystery is the same as a fair case in court. Many solutions to the worlds greatest mysteries would not stand a second as evidence in court, as long as the culprit does not confess (which he mostly cannot do anymore as he is dead).

Quite the contrary. Most of the solutions to the world's greatest mysteries are completely unnecessary to obtaining a conviction in court. Give me a jury of divorced women and I will get Rudolf or George convicted with no physical evidence whatsoever.

The evidentiary burden is harder to reach, but evidence is not that necessary. They could convict because they liked my tie better than the defendant's. But that's irrelevant.

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In a mystery the absence of evidence is as much a clue as the existence of evidence. The fact alone that we can be sure in a mystery that no other than the introduced characters can be found guilty in crime, makes it so different from a real case, or could you convict someone who has nothing to speak against him, yet because he is the only one without a perfect alibi has to be guilty?

People can - and have - convicted people solely on the basis of their skin color or nationality. Juries ignore evidence all the time. One of the ideals of the mystery genre is that truth is an independent construct which, if known to no one else but the writer and reader, does in fact exist and will in fact prevail in the place where it matters most (the mind of the reader). Truth is held to a ludicrously high degree of admiration in mystery fiction. Truth is a matter of opinion in a court.

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In court the acussing party has to prove guilt, in a mystery the victims have to prove innocence.

Well, the victim is usually innocent... usually. However, I think you're wrong. If the detective comes up with a silly story that everyone accepts as true, then later he reveals that he fingered the wrong culprit on purpose, would you feel satisfied? Not without an explanation that mitigates the injustice (Murder on the Orient Express). The burden still remains on the detective to take a cast of apparent innocents and extract from one of them a murderous mind.

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Then please, provide me with a way for 'Kanon' to enter the room and be not in there anymore without having to leave it.

Death.

Oliver · 2010-08-30, 20:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by chounokoe

But why would Shannon know of a crime happening on Rokkenjima, especially asking for people to solve that crime in the name of Ushiromiya Maria, if she did not know by that time, that a crime was going to happen in the first place.

She didn't. Doesn't have to. I can write a story about how tomorrow I will get a phone call from a person whom I didn't talk to for ten years. If I keep writing those stories and saying "tomorrow" in them, it is very likely that I will one day seem to have been right in every single one of them, since people do occasionally make those phone calls, because I have kept the constant phone numbers for the last fifteen years and thousands of people have them. Sometimes people just turn up.

So, if I have written such stories, have I known this will happen or not?

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Originally Posted by chounokoe

Your theory leaves that part of the story completely unaccounted for and for someone who is often calling for physical improbability the idea of the bottle being miraculously thrown into the ocean by the explosion and then one of them travelling 2 times their normal speed to reach their destination in time, is rather weak.

Umm... What's the normal speed of a message bottle?

So far, the slowest the message ever got to the destination, if my memory serves me right, is 300 years. Landed fairly close to where it should have, too.

For example, though, she dumped them into the water near the mouth of the sub pen cave, discarded as failed drafts, and they got blown out by the pressure wave coming in through the tunnel with the water - but didn't break because the tunnels caved in soon after that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chounokoe

The author of those letters must have known that a crime was about to occur and that it was impossible for anybody to survive.

Impossible for anybody to survive - yes. Known that a crime was about to occur - not necessarily, as explained above.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chounokoe

That person also wanted for certain people to have a share in the wealth if nobody else could have it, so a theory of 'her and George running of together but abandoning all their money and having no place to run to' seems highly improbable.

You seem to have missed the bit about the 1 billion bank card. That's what it's really for.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chounokoe

It is a comment that Will makes about the first game. He says that the game was played by a risk from the very start, because had he entered the shed, it would have all been discovered right away.
Clair counters that by saying that this was one of the few times where she was fully playing roulette and hoped for a proper outcome of that situation.

Claire is a creation of Bern based on her interpretation, Will addresses that interpretation. It is in Bern's interest to paint Claire the culprit and then show that she's irrelevant anyway. It is in Claire's interest to keep George unaccused because she loves him, so she takes the blame.

Will just gets railroaded all the way and only realises it in the very end.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chounokoe

Yet that again would leave Shannon again to kill Jessica and in your theory you said that Shannon never wanted to kill.

I didn't say it was a complete theory.

Will Wright · 2010-08-30, 20:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Renall

I'm not comfortable with that, though. Maybe ryukishi is, but in my mind "Some disguise exists, therefore sufficient evidence exists to demonstrate that any disguise is possible" just isn't good enough.

No question there is evidence of a Beatrice disguise. Absolutely not disputing that because the "hint" was that somebody claims to have seen such a person, and no such person is expected to exist. The thing is, Kanon and Shannon are both expected to exist, so we shouldn't have any reason to believe either is a disguise.

Moreover, say we believe that Evidence Of Any Disguise = Evidence For Any Disguise. Which of the following can't I say?

Shannon is disguising as Kanon.
Genji is a wind-up tin robot with a record player in his chest cavity that makes it look like he's speaking.
Kumasawa is actually only 40 years old, but likes to wear old lady makeup for fun.
Gohda is three pekingese dogs in a man suit.

The truth is, these all have exactly the same amount of evidence to support them. If we just accept that any disguise is proof that there exists a disguiser, I see no reason to believe that implies one particular disguise is reasonable but any other disguise is not.

Going to take the "disguises are fair game" side here. The clues are given, just not in a traditional sense.

"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

That is one of the oldest detective rules to ever be created.

Your other possibilities solve none of the mysteries, while the disguise theory is supported by a simple fact.

"If it doesn't exist, murders cannot happen."

Therefore, however stupid improbable, it must be the truth.

Even Ellery Queen, the most fair among Golden Age writers used this rule.

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Again though, these aren't evidence, they're absences of contradictory facts. By the same logic I can state that since no one ever announces they need to go to the bathroom, the entire family never once actually uses the restroom for the entire 48 hours. That isn't unsupported by the evidence given, but it lacks a large amount of affirmative proof.

Two men enter a room. One of them is shot. No one else is inside of it. No one else entered it. There are no fingerprints.
But the police proceed to prosecute the surviving man anyway. It's a logical scenario, and it applies here.

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The difference there is clear. One is evidence, one is a conclusion reached through completely different evidence. But this is cheating on par with the no-servants rule evasion. It violates the letter of the law, and possibly the spirit of it as well. Evidence of a situation which can only work if a disguise is employed is not evidence that a disguise actually exists. The absence of evidence could just as easily be read to conclude that no disguise exists. That just isn't the answer everybody seems to want to hear.

But if we drive towards "this is the only possibility left" then it's a valid answer. Process of elimination is also a clue. I remember reading a scholar's essay about how in comparison to Van Dine's 20 rules and Knox's 10 rules, Doyle only had one rule, which was the process of elimination.

I'm all for accusing Ryuukishi of cheating. But only when it's right. This isn't one of those times.

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The logic error for example is nothing that would have happend, it is an excersize, to see if your theory can work around it without having to rely on the magic solution. At least that is how I understand Chiru.

I agree with that. Allow me to try to destroy the logic error without Shkanon:

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[Request: 'From the time I entered the room to the time of the logic error, Battler, Kanon, and I were the only ones who entered or exited the room.'] I acknowledge it. From the time you entered the room to the time of the logic error, you, Battler, and Kanon were the only ones who went in or out of the guest room.

This says nothing about person X already in the room before they entered, and saving Kanon after Kanon saved Battler. It was said in red that only 3 people entered/exited the room during the logic error, but nothing was said about someone being inside the room before that and never leaving.

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It is possible you are still right, if ryukishi is cheating or Shkanon is true, but irrelevant. Otherwise, people are making up evidence that does not exist and leaning on non-evidence as evidence because they lack all else. If they are correct, it is not because they reasoned soundly to the answer. Quite the opposite; they were lucky because they are inclined to make irrational guesses. This is so counter to the notion of a fair mystery that were this the necessary thought process to "solve" Umineko, it could not be called such.

I'm the first one to accuse Ryuukishi of cheating, but this is not one of these cases. Unless you consider following Doyle's 1st and only rule in detective fiction to be cheating.

Umineko isn't fair, that's for sure. But it's not impossible. I said before that mystery novels are an even duel between reader and writer, each with the same odds of winning. Umineko is more like 95-5 favoring the writer, but that small 5 still exists.

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Of course, that could be exactly what the author intended; fiction rewards irrational thought processes (this is the heart of genre-savviness). I would be disappointed, but clearly most people would not care.

Nah. I used to think the same a few days ago, but now that I began reading people's posts more often and seeing what the community is like, I think everyone here is a mystery fan who cares about the solution to one degree or the other.

I dropped my previous attitude because while my complaint was valid, it was nothing people weren't aware of before. The mystery is an unfair duel, but people want to win this fight and be the 1-to-1000 shot in every underdog movie ever.

It's not that the fans wouldn't care about an unfair solution. They want to see the meanest, most unfair trick in the history of mysteries, and figure out the hell out of it.

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This is not a court where we can only judge guilt with legally proven evidence or a confession, we can start to judge at everything that does not contradict, because this is a mystery, not a scene at court.

That's true. Even in the traditional Golden Age, the evidence was rarely enough to convince a jury.

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Quite the contrary. Most of the solutions to the world's greatest mysteries are completely unnecessary to obtaining a conviction in court. Give me a jury of divorced women and I will get Rudolf or George convicted with no physical evidence whatsoever.

Give me one case that had a jury made solely of divorced women.

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Death.

How would that happen? Dine's 18th forbids suicide.

chounokoe · 2010-08-30, 20:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Renall

In short, exactly what we have been doing. That is a trap waiting to be sprung on a reader who thinks himself too clever for mysteries. I refuse to step into such a trap on the mere possibility that it exists to spring.Quite the contrary.

So you want to say that you don't want to believe in Shkannon because it is likely to occur in a mystery?
I beg your pardon, but every character in Umineko is following a trope of some mystery novel or another, no matter who the culprit is, he would be following a certain convention, because the setting of Umineko in itself is so heavily inspired by tropes.
Krauss would be the older brother in financial conflict.
Natsuhi the wronged wife who only wanted to be perfect.
Jessica the misunderstood daughter who wanted to be free.
Eva the overzealous woman who was never respected.
Hideyoshi is the nice joking uncle who has a dark agenda.
And so on, and so on. I you were to name a culprit I could also construct an argument why nobody should believe it because it is trope, but this is not the point of discussion.

By your way of thinking, you are not only avoiding falling into a trap, you are avoiding to take any step at all.

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Then please, provide me with a way for 'Kanon' to enter the room and be not in there anymore without having to leave it.

Death.

So A) that would imply, that every character who has died so far does no longer exist in that manner, but we witnessed many times due to the red truth (in the original 4 games) that dead people do still count.
# 朱志香の死体発見時、朱志香の部屋にいたのは、戦人、譲治、真里亞、楼座、源次、郷田、紗音、熊沢、南條のみだった。
# 死体の朱志香ももちろん含む
And more important even B) if 'everybody else' is in the other room and a real substantial Kanon is not in the other room. How could he leave the other room with 'everybody' in it without breaking the seal and enter Battler's room in the first place? No...entering maybe, but how was he able to lock the door?!
I'm sorry, but death is impossible, unless he died of 'unknown reason X' the very moment he went into the closet.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oliver

She didn't. Doesn't have to. [...]Umm... What's the normal speed of a message bottle?

The problem is the exact other way around than you make it sound. One message bottle was found too early for it to be sent after the typhoon started.
And saying that she did not write the messages because she was suspecting something but out of boredom is a horrible sell-out. Then you could as well argue, that the whole stories are fiction anyway, Eva found the gold, told nobody, went to Kuwadorian and got everything for herself and she only cares for Ange, because she has nothing better to do. It would betray the whole concept of Umineko.[/quote]

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You seem to have missed the bit about the 1 billion bank card. That's what it's really for.

But if they planned on running away, why would they send those letters in the first place? Just because they were such nice people? Okay, I would buy that, but why exactly those people?! Especially when Rudolph and Kyrie would have no reason to get one of those cards anyway, because they would have been among the people solving the epitaph and finding the gold.

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Claire is a creation of Bern based on her interpretation, Will addresses that interpretation. It is in Bern's interest to paint Claire the culprit and then show that she's irrelevant anyway. It is in Claire's interest to keep George unaccused because she loves him, so she takes the blame.

Will just gets railroaded all the way and only realises it in the very end.

So you wiggle yourself out by saying EP7 was a lie.
Okay, then I say the relationship between George and Shannon is a lie, it never happened and was all part of the magic scenes.
Sounds cheap? Yeah, because it is.

EDIT:

Quote:

This says nothing about person X already being in the room before they entered, and saving Kanon after Kanon saved Battler. It was said in red that only 3 people entered/exited the room during the logic error, but nothing was said about someone being inside the room before that and never leaving.

While that is true, we know that nobody was in the locked room when it was openend and at least until they left, only Krauss, Rudolph, Hideyoshi and Gohda (apart from Erika) entered or left the room (“密室破壊後、部屋に入ったのは、私を除き、蔵臼、留弗夫、秀吉、郷田の４人のみである”。認める。). There is added by Battler that this does only count to the point at which the statement is made, but not later, but we run into a different problem then. After that everybody apart from Shannon, George, Hideyoshi, Kumasawa and Nanjo is locked in one room of the guesthouse and the afforementioned are locked in the other (with the ability to escape by the window).
Without having to resort to 18th person X it is very hard to imagine how that person hiding already in the room could be among the people in the guestrooms, but I would be delighted to hear a suggestion.

Oliver · 2010-08-30, 20:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by chounokoe

The problem is the exact other way around than you make it sound. One message bottle was found too early for it to be sent after the typhoon started.

And how exactly was that determined?

Quote:

Originally Posted by chounokoe

And saying that she did not write the messages because she was suspecting something but out of boredom is a horrible sell-out. Then you could as well argue, that the whole stories are fiction anyway, Eva found the gold, told nobody, went to Kuwadorian and got everything for herself and she only cares for Ange, because she has nothing better to do. It would betray the whole concept of Umineko.

No comments.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chounokoe

But if they planned on running away, why would they send those letters in the first place? Just because they were such nice people? Okay, I would buy that, but why exactly those people?! Especially when Rudolph and Kyrie would have no reason to get one of those cards anyway, because they would have been among the people solving the epitaph and finding the gold.

Is there any evidence that they did get one? Ange searches her memory and then convinces herself one might have existed, but somehow no trace remains. She picks the one solution that lets her assume the most sinister reason for the letters to exist.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chounokoe

So you wiggle yourself out by saying EP7 was a lie.
Okay, then I say the relationship between George and Shannon is a lie, it never happened and was all part of the magic scenes.
Sounds cheap? Yeah, because it is.

Sorry, but you're dissolving into "I can call your theory cheap but you can't call mine cheap because I won't ever accept it can be called cheap." Two can play that game, only it's not particularly interesting and doesn't get anyone closer to the truth.

Leafsnail · 2010-08-30, 20:59

I can definitely see Shkannon as a sortof trap. The fact that noone in the series has even seemed to consider the possibility (especially considering that "Kanon is Battler", "Beatrice is Battler", "Jessica has multiple personalities", "Kanon is George", "Eva has multiple personalities" and so on has been suggested) is definitely suspicious. The thing is, this would happen whether it's a trap or the real answer.

Personally, I feel that the theories presented on the actual gameboard are basically always wrong, but are meant to sortof get you thinking (this means I strongly distrust any vanilla Kanon-culprit theories, since episode 2 implies so strongly this isn't the case, for instance).

sacul097 · 2010-08-30, 21:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by chounokoe

Especially when Rudolph and Kyrie would have no reason to get one of those cards anyway, because they would have been among the people solving the epitaph and finding the gold.

Two words: For battler.

chounokoe · 2010-08-30, 21:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oliver

And how exactly was that determined?

It is an assumption by one of the witch hunters, I think it was the professor with whom Ange met in EP4. He commented on how unlikely it was for one of the bottles to reach the shore so quickly if it had been sent out after the typhoon has started.
Of course he only says unlikely, but what reason would there be to insert that bit of trivia if it did not serve a purpose. It's too unnoticable for a red herring.

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No comments.

Why no comment? No evidence exists after the explosion incident anyway, so we could all call it quits if it weren't for those letters. If they are just an incidental coverup with a truth that noone would ever have suspected to be there, I'd find that cheap.
That would be like the culprit confessing, thinking the detective has uncovered his tracks, when everybody was short of accusing another person.

Quote:

Sorry, but you're dissolving into "I can call your theory cheap but you can't call mine cheap because I won't ever accept it can be called cheap." Two can play that game, only it's not particularly interesting and doesn't get anyone closer to the truth.

Not in the slightest.
I was questioning your theory because it has holes you can immediatly point at. I pointed them out before another might pick up on them because of the ammount of half-knowledge still flaoting around about EP7.
But it's a whole other business if you are deliberatley changing the ground that people are battling on. And excluding a whole Episode from the canon of the truth, just because the pieces in it do not fit into the truth you created in your head leads the whole series ad absurdum.
If you say 'one GM' is able to create a whole game full of lies, you can as well say every game is a lie. Isn't it all more fun if we all accept the pieces to the puzzle we have and work with them as they are, instead of slicing the pieces together so they fit my idea of the final picture?!

Will Wright · 2010-08-30, 21:13

a theory must fit the facts, not the other way around. but even so, to make a theory that fits fradulent facts is also wrong. sorry for the grammar, using psp to post

Oliver · 2010-08-30, 21:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by chounokoe

It is an assumption by one of the witch hunters, I think it was the professor with whom Ange met in EP4. He commented on how unlikely it was for one of the bottles to reach the shore so quickly if it had been sent out after the typhoon has started.
Of course he only says unlikely, but what reason would there be to insert that bit of trivia if it did not serve a purpose. It's too unnoticable for a red herring.

For something too unnoticeable for a red herring, you seem to be placing quite a lot of weight on it. I actually thought it was too important and frankly, absurd, because it implied the stories cannot be the account of reality even more strongly than the fact that there's two of them.

The logic of the bottles being the coverup, or prediction, or plan, however, is irrational. If you don't want anyone to ever figure out what happened, you do everything except make them think about it. Everyone would settle on a wrong story about an accident and that would be it. So you would definitely never send out more than one bottle, if you would send one at all. You can only create a fantasy if no bottle exists. The only way bottles are useful is when they are misdirection from start to finish and have nothing to do with what happened at all.

Since we are assured so much that they do have something important to tell, I'd say they do... they tell of things she worried about happening and things she wanted to happen, in a form she felt comfortable with. Not intended for public consumption and getting released by accident.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chounokoe

That would be like the culprit confessing, thinking the detective has uncovered his tracks, when everybody was short of accusing another person.

I thought that was called 'irony'...

Quote:

Originally Posted by chounokoe

But it's a whole other business if you are deliberatley changing the ground that people are battling on. And excluding a whole Episode from the canon of the truth, just because the pieces in it do not fit into the truth you created in your head leads the whole series ad absurdum.
If you say 'one GM' is able to create a whole game full of lies, you can as well say every game is a lie. Isn't it all more fun if we all accept the pieces to the puzzle we have and work with them as they are, instead of slicing the pieces together so they fit my idea of the final picture?!

...your idea of the final picture?

I'm not excluding it. I am, however, doubting it a bloody lot, both in truth of many presented statements and their interpretations. You aren't accepting any single episode as truth from start to finish either, are you?

2010-08-30, 13:12	Link #16821
BLambda Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2009	Looks like a deepest analysis of rules XYZ so far http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/nm11865694 Anyone willing to spend some time and translate?

2010-08-30, 17:48	Link #16823
Leafsnail Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2010	In case anyone was in any doubt that George is involved in the fake murder ceremony, he has a secret conversation with Kumasawa at the start of ep1... for no apparent reason. I guess Natsuhi and Rosa both have little points at which they "talk to Kinzo", after which stuff begins to happen... so perhaps they're told their "role" in this ceremony? If some of them don't realise things have gone wrong and are still playing their roles, this means there could be dramatically different "noise" each time, even if the setup is the same. The point at which the penny drops is different in each episode: - In episode 1, Natsuhi realises things have gone wrong when Kinzo's body turns up in the boiler, and Kanon is "stabbed". The boiler thing wasn't planned, so she decides to take everyone up and try to defend them. - In episode 2, Rosa realises things have gone wrong when Battler pulls the stake out of Shannon's head. Thus she decides to make a run for it. - In episode 3, Eva realises things have gone wrong when Jessica pulls the stakes out of Natsuhi and Krauss. It's possible that she was actually helping to fake the ceremony (which is why an Eva culprit theory seems to fit so well for much of the episode). - In episode 4... it's basically impossible to say. As part of this theory, I would say that the guns wielded by the adults all fire blanks (hence Jessica's blinding). It's meant to be a sortof "Bang bang, you're dead" type game, and they don't want any fatalities caused by people not realising what's going on. Thus adults with guns can be attacked and killed without difficulty.

2010-08-30, 18:45	Link #16826
Leafsnail Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2010	There does actually seem to be positive proof of the restroom thing - Bernkastel suggests that Battler mashes himself up to go down the sink of the bathtub. Wouldn't it be significantly easier to go down the toilet instead...?

2010-08-30, 20:59	Link #16836
Leafsnail Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2010	I can definitely see Shkannon as a sortof trap. The fact that noone in the series has even seemed to consider the possibility (especially considering that "Kanon is Battler", "Beatrice is Battler", "Jessica has multiple personalities", "Kanon is George", "Eva has multiple personalities" and so on has been suggested) is definitely suspicious. The thing is, this would happen whether it's a trap or the real answer. Personally, I feel that the theories presented on the actual gameboard are basically always wrong, but are meant to sortof get you thinking (this means I strongly distrust any vanilla Kanon-culprit theories, since episode 2 implies so strongly this isn't the case, for instance).

2010-08-30, 21:13	Link #16839
Will Wright Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2010	a theory must fit the facts, not the other way around. but even so, to make a theory that fits fradulent facts is also wrong. sorry for the grammar, using psp to post