[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Leafsnail]

Originally Posted by Renall

Are you asking me to admit that a scene in which two characters believed to be the same person are directly portrayed as different people in front of every other character existing (or not) is clear evidence of exactly the opposite of that?

Because no, I don't admit that.

Battler has a fully objective viewpoint. He never sees them together.

He loses his fully objective viewpoint, then suddenly he starts seeing them together rather a lot.

Interesting...?

[Klashikari]

Involving the new detective in the lot at that given scene. Things wouldn't have been that complicated if Erika wasn't in the same room.
I believe both sides plenty discussed about this issue previously.

[chronotrig]

Originally Posted by Leafsnail

Battler has a fully objective viewpoint. He never sees them together.

He loses his fully objective viewpoint, then suddenly he starts seeing them together rather a lot.

Interesting...?

At the very least, I'll guarantee that it was intentional. He was either using that scene to make us falsely believe in Shkanon or to help us find the right answer. There can be no doubt of that.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by JamesEdwards

O Wise Ones, please help me renew my faith in this series. Right now, I just really don't know what I supposed to have "Gotten" from Episode 6. Yes, there's a couple things that resonated with me, namely: the deepening conspiracy surrounding Ange, and we got another look Mystery Person X who could be "Origin" behind the present Beatrice. Other than that, all this business about "Love" and "Furniture" went right off the deep end!

There isn't really much I can help you with there. I can give you advice on what to look for on a reread, but in any fandom faith is something you have to cultivate on your own. I don't really feel like convincing you to keep reading.

Ryukishi said that episode 6 gives an almost definite answer on Battler's sin and that quick readers will figure it out in episode 4. So that's one of the major points of this episode I suppose. The other important thing is connecting the backstory in this episode with the statements of characters in past episodes.

[Renall]

A thought someone put before me recently:

Many people considered ep2 to be one of the weaker episodes.

ep2 focused on the Shannon/George Kanon/Jessica stuff.

ep2 focused a lot on overt magical battles.

And now we have ep6, with a lot of overt magical battles and a focus on Shannon/George and Kanon/Jessica. And a lot of people consider it one of the worst episodes.

So inasmuch as ep5 was sort of an ep1 parallel (with the emphasis on Natsuhi and being more "real"), ep6 is an ep2 parallel. So it might just be that he's emulating one of the least popular episodes, which will necessarily cause people to like it less.

If people liked ep3 and ep4 more, it follows that ep7 and ep8 may also impress them.

Of course that assumes ep7 will in fact parallel ep3 in some manner.

[Leafsnail]

Although the killer in ep5 seems to match the killer in ep2 more (throat slitting and backstabbing).

[Sniesk]

Originally Posted by chronotrig

Actually, there's a really good reason for why he'd fake his perspective. I think Battler found out about the Shkanon secret in EP5, though he didn't know about it at the time of this first scene (remember, lies can be made based on future information). As has been discussed here at length before, it seems very likely that either Shannon or Kanon gave Battler the ring of the head sometime around midnight. If they did that, it would then be a question of how they got it, and several of their secrets would undoubtedly get out. In that situation, and considering that Battler is now the family head, it would be no surprise if he figured out the Shkanon secret and helped to protect it. Since we already know that Battler is a part in an even greater illusion (we know he lied about seeing the corpses), this should come as no great surprise.

What do you mean with "lies can be made based on future information"? I don't even think this has any meaning in the metaworld. But we are in the gameboard that should at least vaguely resemble a "real world". So Battler choosing to lie (or to ignore them) in that scene, must have a meaning in that scene itself. Cmon, a person is introduced to you as 2 different people, then after some hour you see them as being... one, and it is all right becouse the next day you will be told about them?

People assume that since we're shown a scene with everyone in the same room, then Erika must have been shown the same thing from her perspective and heard the same red text. However, it's impossible for that scene to have played out the same way both times. In the replay, Battler was there, and Bern and Lambda needed to explain how the detective piece worked to him. Since the scene is shown from Battler's perspective in the replay (meaning that the replay was an unreliable viewpoint), Shkanon only hits a snag if nearly the same scene was also shown during the first play-through. Since we know for a fact that some aspects of the scene changed during the replay, there's absolutely no proof that the "counting everyone up to see who's here" part also happened in the first playthrough. And if that scene did happen the exact same way both times, it would have been through Battler's perspective.

In other words, it's fine to make a theory that Erika saw that scene through piece Erika's eyes, but to say it must have been so is dubious to say the least.

It is not a matter of what we saw. Even if, as you say, the replay is different from the first play-through, what is important is what Erika saw. You also provided another point. Even if the replay is based on Battler perspective (and i still think Erika has it's own) we really know nothing about the first time it was showed. But even leavening the metaworld aside, how come the piece-Erika didn't notice anything wrong?

Also, on a side note, it may seems that i just want to deny that theory. It is not like that. Since ep6 points on Shkanon without doubt i just want to verify that this theory is at least acceptable since i've always doubted it before ep6.

[JamesEdwards]

@Judoh:

Battler's Sin, is it now, manno? I admit I'm closer to those so-called idiot readers Featherine so despises, but it's mostly because I don't have much confidence in my theory on the subject. I imagine it has something to do with a broken promise, "Love", Mysterious Person X that Battler met long ago, and that kinda jazz. The import of which I understand, aesthetically, is an imperative to the tale, and forms the basis for many events that will or have occurred.

But, still, I felt Episode 6's conclusion was really anticlimactic, after all these expectations I had built up from Episode 5 and previous episodes. Battler's still not getting off the island. Everyone still goes to the golden land (read: everyone dies). It's nuts. His motivation to get off the island way back when was Ange and those dear to him, but thanks to the answer he reached in Ep. 5, he doesn't seem to care about those goals anymore. In fact, he seemed content to spend the remainder of eternity in that crazy loop world of 1986, which totally bummed me out.

Isn't the point to breakthrough the mystery of Rokkenjima in the year of October 1986?

...Wait, connecting the backstory in this episode with the statements of characters in past episodes? Hnnn, what other mysteries should I be focused on here?

If it's Battler's birth, and I'll be real here, I think, we, the readers got trolled again. I'm convinced Ryukishi's not going to let us in the story until Episode 7 or the grand finale in 8.

The identity of Mystery Baby X didn't get touched at all.

Ange's conspiracy situation got a whole lot worse after this episode. The Universe must really hate her or something.

Can't think of anything else Episode 6 could have helped with...

@Renall:

Wow, I never made that correlation. Great insight there on the fella who brought it up, man. Verily, I find myself agreeing that Episode 5 has quite a lot in common with Episode 1, although I don't recall Episode 2 having any overt magic battles, compared to the spectacular display in Episode 3 with the Virgilia versus Beatrice event.

[Kylon99]

Originally Posted by JamesEdwards

Isn't the point to breakthrough the mystery of Rokkenjima in the year of October 1986?

My suspicion is there are two things we need to solve. One is your traditional detective novel mystery stuff. How was this person killed, with what and how was this closed room constructed, etc. Actually, I think we're closing in on this stuff already with all the Fake First Twilight theories we've been hammering out here.

However as stated in the episodes they've also been searching for 'The Culprit.' Rather than a traditional Detective Novel, Ryukishi has purposely flown in the face of the Dine rules and made 'Love' the central theme to this story. So I think this central 'Truth' that the message bottle writer wanted us to reach cannot be reached by the normal Detective Novel methods. It must be viewed from an understanding of why the people do the things they do on the island.


Well, the thing is we can probably reach the other side if we've gotten one of them. I'm just guessing that Bernkastel can only solve the mysteries and cannot truly reach the 'Truth' in EP7 because she lacks love. 8)

[chronotrig]

Okay, slightly different direction this time, but I think this is just as significant.

Just some thoughts on how the detective authority works:

Spoiler for size:

It seems that the detective authority gives two different benefits.

First off, we have what Erika (in particular, meta-Erika) gets. She can't use any red to pick up details of the crime scene, but she is allowed to move her piece on the gameboard in specific ways. Among these are conducting perfect examinations of corpses, perfect searches of rooms, and controlling the situation.

For this last one, what she is essentially doing is eliminating any chance that her orders are not carried out. As EP6 makes clear, eliminating all alternatives is exactly what the red text does. So, you could say that her controlling the situation is the same as saying "at time X, everyone at this location will do what Erika says". She can similarly call up a perfect crime scene search or a perfect corpse examination, which the authority guarantees will go unhindered. Erika can't use the red text in a battle, since she "isn't a witch" and cannot prove anything absolutely by herself, but she can use the authority to control what the pieces are doing at certain times.


Second, we have what Dlanor gets from the detective's authority. Dlanor is in charge of the red text for the group, and can take advantage of Erika's movements by using them to prove certain things. For example, if meta-Erika wants to do a perfect search of the room, she can instruct her piece to do that, and the detective's authority guarantees that it goes unhindered. Then, Dlanor can use that 'perfect search' as evidence to create a red truth, stating that nothing was missed. So, as Battler said, they work best as a team, with Erika controlling the piece world and Dlanor controlling the meta-battles.

It may sound obvious, but if this is how the detective's authority is used, it raises some interesting questions.

[Leafsnail]

Although, as shown in episode 6, like all "magic", Erika can control people perfectly well without the detective's authority.

DIanor has two abilities, as far as I can tell:

Invoking Knox's decalogue... she needs a proclamation for this, as otherwise there's no guarentee it's in the mystery genre at all. Now, THIS is what allows Erika to make a perfect search - the decalogue states that the detective is not allowed to miss any vital clues or "hidden passages" or the like.

Defending any red text that has already been stated, and applying old red texts (such as "Erika's seals are perfect") to new situations. This includes both witch red text and elevated Erika red text.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Metaler

That's a nice theory. It explains why Erika is the 18th person when it was already stated in red that there are no more than 17 people. But now I wonder if more than one person plays the role of Erika. I mean, is it possible that people change roles from one scene to the next?

I've been approaching the situation as a kind of live-action RP, so it feels like it would be hard to justify that kind of role-switching between scenes, at least for characters with a physical presence. Different role assignments between games could be possible for characters who don't directly correspond to a real person, like Erika and Gaap, but the "furniture" characters (Shannon, Kanon, and Genji) would of course always be played by their human counterparts.

Now I'm remembering all the times a furniture character claimed to have become human... Maybe that was a signal that they'd abandoned their role for whatever reason.

[Metaler]

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

I've been approaching the situation as a kind of live-action RP, so it feels like it would be hard to justify that kind of role-switching between scenes, at least for characters with a physical presence. Different role assignments between games could be possible for characters who don't directly correspond to a real person, like Erika and Gaap, but the "furniture" characters (Shannon, Kanon, and Genji) would of course always be played by their human counterparts.

Now I'm remembering all the times a furniture character claimed to have become human... Maybe that was a signal that they'd abandoned their role for whatever reason.

Indeed, this might be an indication that they were once helping out with the murders, then at some point said "fuck this shit" and abandoned their role, then the Mastermind behind everything decided to kill them because of that.

But still, I believe that some of the servants who claim to be furniture have characters in the Meta-world and fantasy scenes which represent them. Like how Ronove might represent Genji.

[Pika_power]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Spoiler for Episode 5:

Frankly I don't know how to give a completely logic explanation. You forgot the most important scene however. The one where everyone is in the exact same room which is even confirmed in red.

chronotrig has his own theory to explain it, but personally I still see a lot of holes in it.

Basically chronotrig believes that the whole EP5 is seen through the eyes of Battler, and Meta-Erika herself for the most part sees it throught the eyes of Battler. Which means she only sees Shannon and Kanon together when it's Battler that actually sees them.

As I said I don't think this explains everything. However have you really thought it through?

If Erika really has an absolute perspective, as she should, then how is it possible that she sees herself as being treated as an uninvited guest that drifted to Rokkenjima after falling from a pleasure boat, if she doesn't exist?

Any logic based on the fact that Erika can't possibly see fake things would deny both shkanon and ghosterika, and then... we can't possibly explain the mysteries of EP6...

Spoiler for Presumably EP6:

I don't recall anything about Erika not existing in EP5. I should probably get around to reading EP6 before even more EP6 spoilers are filed under EP5.

[Jan-Poo]

... My bad... I'm sorry... the question was tricky... I know it's too late but I fixed, again sorry....

[CainSonozaki]

Originally Posted by JamesEdwards

But, still, I felt Episode 6's conclusion was really anticlimactic, after all these expectations I had built up from Episode 5 and previous episodes. Battler's still not getting off the island. Everyone still goes to the golden land (read: everyone dies). It's nuts. His motivation to get off the island way back when was Ange and those dear to him, but thanks to the answer he reached in Ep. 5, he doesn't seem to care about those goals anymore. In fact, he seemed content to spend the remainder of eternity in that crazy loop world of 1986, which totally bummed me out.

Actually i dont think its ever even implied that Battler winning will save everyone (or anyone). til Ep 4. though i could be wrong seeing as i still havent read all of episodes 1 and 2.

A couple of things ive noticed in 6

Spoiler for size:

theres almost as much reference to plays as there is to love. I mean we have Featherine the witch of theater going/drama, Zepar and Furfur always described as having overly exaggerated but graceful gestures like actors in a play (at least 3 or 4 times in the same conversation about them when theyre introduced). Erikas boyfriend/lover was an Actor and Dlanor acting the part of a human in a theoretical "witchs game" around erikas belief her boyfriend was cheating on her (which at the end of that scene i just couldnt help but feel that Dlanor had a red truth that would deny all of erikas beliefs about it, but since she was "human" she could not use it)

Also in the Jessica vs Kyrie figt. Was it implying that Jessica couldnt strike the door cuz Kyries envy outmatched her own, or Beatrices definition of a closed room kept her from breaking the door to kill kyrie? In either case Kyrie seems to have a lil too much knowledge as far as the witches definition of a closed room murder.... well til the end at least

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by chronotrig

Okay, slightly different direction this time, but I think this is just as significant.

Just some thoughts on how the detective authority works:

Spoiler for size:

It seems that the detective authority gives two different benefits.

First off, we have what Erika (in particular, meta-Erika) gets. She can't use any red to pick up details of the crime scene, but she is allowed to move her piece on the gameboard in specific ways. Among these are conducting perfect examinations of corpses, perfect searches of rooms, and controlling the situation.

For this last one, what she is essentially doing is eliminating any chance that her orders are not carried out. As EP6 makes clear, eliminating all alternatives is exactly what the red text does. So, you could say that her controlling the situation is the same as saying "at time X, everyone at this location will do what Erika says". She can similarly call up a perfect crime scene search or a perfect corpse examination, which the authority guarantees will go unhindered. Erika can't use the red text in a battle, since she "isn't a witch" and cannot prove anything absolutely by herself, but she can use the authority to control what the pieces are doing at certain times.


Second, we have what Dlanor gets from the detective's authority. Dlanor is in charge of the red text for the group, and can take advantage of Erika's movements by using them to prove certain things. For example, if meta-Erika wants to do a perfect search of the room, she can instruct her piece to do that, and the detective's authority guarantees that it goes unhindered. Then, Dlanor can use that 'perfect search' as evidence to create a red truth, stating that nothing was missed. So, as Battler said, they work best as a team, with Erika controlling the piece world and Dlanor controlling the meta-battles.

It may sound obvious, but if this is how the detective's authority is used, it raises some interesting questions.

This is an interesting thought, but let me give my insight on this.

Pairing this concept with the author theory and the things we have learned from EP6, I think I can reach a definitive on conclusion on what happened on EP5.


The biggest wtf of that EP was Bern's ability to state reds, which brought us to believe that she was told them by Lambda.
Now I don't think that's the case anymore.

The reason Bern was able to make those red statements, was not because she knew the truth behind the gameboard. There is no absolute truth on a gameboard! As long as something isn't stated in red, the Game Master can change what happened there.
Bern used the red not to state something that she was sure was in the gameboard, but to limit the Game Master options.

Since the game is supposed to be a mystery novel, Bern took advantage of the Knox rules to eliminate by default certain options. She created her own character, a detective, in order to take full advantage from that.
I think in particular the existence of "Knox 8" explains very well how Bern could use red even if there were reasonable doubts. Because Knox 8 destroys most of devil's proof logic: If there is no clue, it doesn't exist.

To make an example. Let's say an inexperienced Game Master creates a closed room scenario. He moves the pieces on the gameboard and makes it so the culprit escaped from a secret passage. Then He writes over a story of how a witch killed the victim and then vaporized in thin air.

The human side doesn't know which move the witch made, but it doesn't matter. The human side states in red that there is no secret passage in the room. And this not because the human side has any knowledge of the board, but simply because that's a rule of the mystery novels.
At that point a logic error is created. The inexperienced Game Master must quickly change the setup of the Gameboard, he must find another human explanation for that murder that doesn't deny any other red.
If he can't find any, he will be trapped forever in a logic error.

So I think I've finally understood what kind of game the human side played on EP5.


This would bring interesting developments should Wright enter in the picture. Wright would limit the Game Master options even further.

[Renall]

Kanon and Kyrie both exhibit a strange knowledge of closed rooms in ep6. Kyrie's has precedent going back to ep4, as well. Both of them are quite suspicious, as they don't normally exhibit this sort of information in the presence of others.

[June 1983]

Also, this is my attempt at making a cosmology for Umineko. I wrote it out yesterday in my journal, before reading the Author Theory, which I've just read right now. It's pretty similar to it, but maybe breaks the realities down a little more than is needed, eheh. XD The big difference (?) is that personally, I do not think any of the 1998 stories we've seen have been "real" (as the Author Theory points out though, whether something is "real" doesn't necessarily mean there isn't truth to it). Ange's actions in Episode 4 were part of the Episode 4 message bottle story, obviously. When Ep 6 Ange sat down and read the story with Hachijo, she also read the scenes of Featherine and Miko!Ange. Personally, I think that outer story, of her and Ange and Amakusa and Hachijo, are also part of the message bottle, too, they just weren't in the version she was reading -- perhaps because her act of reading it is what put her in the story. XD Does that make any sense at all?

I also think when we reaching Rokkenjima-Prime in the final episode, it won't just be that we'll finally see reality, but that reality will be "revised" over the previous versions, just like the Game Master revising the scenario of the mysteries in Ep 6.

Spoiler:

REALITY - We haven't seen it yet

1998 - Episode 6 - Ange, Amakausa, Hachijo

1998 - Episode 6 - Meta World - Ange-Beatrice, Featherine, visitors to Featherine's world

1998 - Episode 4 - Meta World/Hachijo's story - Ange

1986 - The Golden Land - Sorcerer Battler, Witch Beatrice (those who have reached the Truth)

1986 - Meta World - Meta Beatrice, Meta Battler, Meta Erika, Lambdadelta, Bernkastel

1998 - Episode 4 - Hachijo's fictional story - Ange and Amakusa

1986 - Episode 6 - Meta World/Game Board - Furfur, Zepar, Jessica, George, Kanon, Shannon, the two Beatrices

1986 - The Game Board, All Versions - The Pieces (including the different Piece Beatrices)

The placement of the Golden Land really bothers me, because it's clear that Battler + Beatrice know what is going on in. They've reached the "Core Truth" as the Author Theory puts it. But they're still part of the story. So they exist both within the story and above it.

[Renall]

It's quite easy to exist above the story yet also be part of it, actually. A bit odd, but hardly impossible. Stephen King appears as a character within The Dark Tower, for example, and Grant Morrison has conversations with characters in his own comic in his run of Animal Man.

The writer can write themselves into the story easily. This is what Hachijou/Featherine appears to be presenting to us... but I'm not actually convinced in her case.

It's easy to exist on any fictional layer lower than one's own, since that essentially grants authorial power over lower layers. The question then becomes which layer the person exists on at the highest level. With a real-life author, that's somewhat easier... sometimes (Lemony Snicket being both a character in his books and a real-life "character" created and portrayed by the guy who actually wrote them).