[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Keriaku]

Originally Posted by Judoh

Even if the meta universe was not directly connected though Bernkastel could equally have been fleshed out in the same way with how Umineko was written. Because the Bernkastel character in Higurashi had no personality really. It was a blank slate and any character could have come from it.

I pet theory of mine has been that there are an infinite amount incarnations of Rikas and Bernkastels in separate Whentheycry universes. That allow for completely new stories to exist, but don't connect except through inference. I think that allows for a bit more creativity than canonicity allows.

Even I want there to be some kind of connection. I read Higurashi's Sound novel at about the same time I read Umineko and to be honest a direct canon connection would ruin Umineko's characters for me. Because they're just very different. I like the characters in Higurashi much more than in Umineko despite Higurashi's plot. But I think that has more to do with there being so many characters in Umineko and less for how Ryukishi wrote them.

This is why I believe the series are connected almost solely through the meta-world.

And it is true that Bernkastel does go through her own development throughout Umineko, but I find something immensely satisfying viewing Bernkastel as a continuous entity throughout When They Cry. For me, I felt very deeply for Rika's plight by the time it's revealed what she's been going through. This is compounded with the development in Rei, where Rika needed to separate herself from Bernkastel so that she can live as a normal little girl, without the hundred years of baggage. Then seeing Bernkastel later in Umineko, with an indeterminate amount of time to have festered and grown hateful, it really gives weight to what could have happened to Rika if she hadn't made the effort to divorce herself from her ordeal. Not only how she probably couldn't have actually realized the happiness that she physically got, but also how she said if she didn't get out of it soon, her mind probably would have broken. I think all of this together turns Bernkastel into a tragic character, rather than a psychopathic one.

I'm really hoping EP8 allows Bern to realize love and happiness again, or atleast gives her an end worthy of her rise and fall. And I believe Ryuu will do it too.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by Keriaku

This is why I believe the series are connected almost solely through the meta-world.

And it is true that Bernkastel does go through her own development throughout Umineko, but I find something immensely satisfying viewing Bernkastel as a continuous entity throughout When They Cry. For me, I felt very deeply for Rika's plight by the time it's revealed what she's been going through. This is compounded with the development in Rei, where Rika needed to separate herself from Bernkastel so that she can live as a normal little girl, without the hundred years of baggage. Then seeing Bernkastel later in Umineko, with an indeterminate amount of time to have festered and grown hateful, it really gives weight to what could have happened to Rika if she hadn't made the effort to divorce herself from her ordeal. Not only how she probably couldn't have actually realized the happiness that she physically got, but also how she said if she didn't get out of it soon, her mind probably would have broken. I think all of this together turns Bernkastel into a tragic character, rather than a psychopathic one.

I'm really hoping EP8 allows Bern to realize love and happiness again, or atleast gives her an end worthy of her rise and fall. And I believe Ryuu will do it too.

This is where our knowledge parts.

I haven't read Rei (though i've seen some of the OVA's).

And Rika does not = Bernkastel. Along with the poems Ryukishi had write some dialouge from her where she states that she wasn't Rika or Oyashiro sama. Because there were a lot of fans who believed she was. Ryukishi wouldn't add that in there if the theory wasn't baseless.

[Keriaku]

Originally Posted by Judoh

This is where our knowledge parts.

I haven't read Rei (though i've seen some of the OVA's).

And Rika does not = Bernkastel. Along with the poems Ryukishi had write some dialouge from her where she states that she wasn't Rika or Oyashiro sama. Because there were a lot of fans who believed she was. Ryukishi wouldn't add that in there if the theory wasn't baseless.

It's true that Bern isn't Rika, because Bern is really a collection of all the Rika's that formed her own consciousness. They are connected, but it's more that Bern is a product of Rika, not that she's Rika herself. But as the many lifetimes went by, Rika because inexplicably linked to Bernkastel. And the whole point of Rei was that she wouldn't be able to actually appreciate the happiness she finally achieved with her friends if she kept her cynical mindset, who drank to get through all the hard years.

I don't think it's a coincidence that Rika calls herself a witch when she is referring to Bernkastel. I also don't think it's a coincidence that EP1 of Umineko was written only 5-6 months after Rei.

[AuraTwilight]

Ryukishi writes something every six months. I don't see how that's indicative of anything.

[Jan-Poo]

I think I've finally found a plausible explanation for Beatrice's bank accounts and letters that do not necessarily implies that Beatrice was planning to kill anyone or was aware that everyone was going to die.
I don't mean to say this is the truth, but this is a plausible theory, whereas so far there really wasn't a solid alternative.

The assumption of this theory is that Beatrice didn't know everyone would die but she knew she herself would die.
Of course the easiest explanation for this is that she planned to kill herself after the family meeting, but it's not necessarily so.


Beatrice already arranged things in a way that a new heir would be elected in her place. However Beatrice wanted to make sure to give a second prize to everyone else. She managed it by setting up the bank accounts. Her complicated method was used to create a delay from the time she sent the letters to the time they would be actually received. And that's because they had to be received after the family meeting but at that time Beatrice knew she wasn't going to be alive.

Now since obviously the letters will inevitably be returned to the fake senders, we all assumed that those are meant to be the actual recipients. But this is because we assumed already that the letters were sent with the knowledge that the family members would be dead at that point.
Now let's do the opposite. Let's assume that Beatrice sent the letter with the idea that all the apparent recipients would be still alive, what would you expect to happen?
To me the answer is obvious, no decent person would open a letter that is addressed to someone else, not even if they appear as the sender. They'd think it is a prank of some sort but they'd still give the letters to the intended recipient, and since they are all close relatives they could do it with ease.

So basically under this perspective Beatrice's plan was to give a parting gift to all those that failed to win the roulette. And she arranged it in a way that their closed relatives would give them the letters. Probably she also planned to provide them the knowledge to understand the meaning of those letters, something that the close relatives themselves unfortunately lack.

[UsagiTenpura]

I've been thinking for a while that Red Text shouldn't be bothered with, like at all.

Arc 7 explained pretty clearly that basically as long as Yasu imagines something in her head spontaneously she can say it in red after. It means that she could say something like Kanon is really spiderman and it'd work with the logic that's presented to us.

Taking that into account, I've began to rethink of the entire story without even caring about the red and I found it a much more enjoyable mystery. Things like Shkanon's faking death becomes suddenly obvious I mean:

In arc 1 Battler only saw a "dying" Kanon in the darkness for a really short time. In arc 2 he only saw a Shannon corpse face down, in arc 3 he saw neither of them and fantasy scenes points out both are still alive, and even the adults talk about a prank by Kinzo. In arc 4 Kanon is again never found and Shannon is again face down.

By that alone, if it wasn't of the red, we should've understood something was fishy. I'm wondering if anything will appear to me now that I see the serie that way. It's back to be a mystery, if anything, and it's not a twisted riddle anymore.

Edit : Forgot to mention that we've been told pretty early on that Shannon and Kanon (and Genji I guess) are all nothing but furniture. Arc 4 then showed us how furniture is handled. It also even mentioned that a way for furniture to "die" would be for Maria to grow up from it (Sakutarou's case) and that didn't prevent it from not being a permanent death. Guess I just wanted to say there's plenty of hints that furniture death doesn't mean anything at all. Of course I still feel like Ryukishi outright trampled on the idea of trust he himself created, and I'm going to forever take his words very lightly from now on. Hell I'm going to make a bet. When they said "this story will never have a good ending" they'll dodge it by saying "Well maybe but I just decided to change the story into a new one with a good ending, so it doesn't count as the same story anymore, so it can work". In other words we'll even get a happy ending, is my bet.



@ Aura : Was busy so didn't have time to answer and now it's a few pages back, but my idea about the chapel is that... well inherently the golden land is a land of all convenience. As shown to us in arc 6, even the parents accept love that normally they wouldn't accept. It's a place where everyone and everything is convenient for you, as you want them to be. Usually Kanon and Shannon are really seperate people there and Kinzo is still alive.

But the conveniences of Bernkastel wouldn't be the same as the ones of Beatrice. Like everyone said, it's so convenient that Lion can be where Shkanon is but Shannon and Kanon can't be there at once. But that's exactly it. It's of convenience to Bernkastel. Having Kinzo alive also is. Everyone's behavior in general is also surrealistic and overly convenient. I mean for starters not a single person wonders how Will got on Rokkenjima without a boat, and everyone just accepts his headache line easily. It's also very convenient that every events that has meaning to the actual situation, such as Rosa telling openly her story (and suddenly talking about it tormenting her every day ever since, while in arc 3 we were told she had outright forgotten about it and wasn't even sure it really happened).

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

The assumption of this theory is that Beatrice didn't know everyone would die but she knew she herself would die.
Of course the easiest explanation for this is that she planned to kill herself after the family meeting, but it's not necessarily so.

Hm, what about some kind of terminal illness or problem related to her original injury? Is there any evidence that can be used to establish that?

Originally Posted by UsagiTenpura

I've been thinking for a while that Red Text shouldn't be bothered with, like at all.

Arc 7 explained pretty clearly that basically as long as Yasu imagines something in her head spontaneously she can say it in red after. It means that she could say something like Kanon is really spiderman and it'd work with the logic that's presented to us.

Taking that into account, I've began to rethink of the entire story without even caring about the red and I found it a much more enjoyable mystery. Things like Shkanon's faking death becomes suddenly obvious I mean:

I think this approach is a little correct and a little incorrect. What I've been trying lately is to split our information into three pieces:

• Battler's reality - what Battler sees with his own eyes
• Beato's mystery - what Beato confirms with the red truth
• Beato's fantasy - what Beato presents in her narrative

I'm proceeding on the assumption that Beato's goal was to have him solve her mystery and not the overarching mystery. So for example, let's say her mystery calls for Jessica and Kanon to be killed by the culprit. She arranges for them to fake their deaths with makeup, and then confirms to Battler that "yes, you can eliminate them as the culprits of my mystery because they really were killed (in my story)."

So long as Battler finds them and the makeup and acting is sufficiently good, he can't distinguish this from his own reality. But what if, say, Kanon decides to kill Jessica for real and then run away somewhere before Battler shows up? Now there's a disjoin between Beato's story and the evidence Battler finds. In order to keep her story going, Beato has to patch it with a fantasy scene to explain the error. Whoops, Kanon's corpse got dropped into a portal.

If you follow this method, then the red truth and fantasy scenes, combined with Battler's observations, should become a way to determine what people were supposed to be doing versus what they were actually doing, outside the range of Battler's ability to observe the game board directly. Also, if you figure out who Beato intended to present as the culprit of her stories, it should theoretically be possible to eliminate them as the real culprit.

[UsagiTenpura]

Well first I want to say I have the habbit of exagerating examples when saying things, my example was such a thing.

I like the perspective you put it as a lot tho, it's worth rereading arc 1-2-3-4 seeing things that way.

A bit more I ended up thinking. Ryukishi's use of the red text is actually more genius then I'm willing to give it credit for. When it was introduced Battler kept whining he didn't have enough information, so she created the red text. If he hadn't been lazy he wouldn't have required it in the first place to "do his job" so seeing it that way, there's no way she'd be entirely fair with it.

Atop of it around the release of arc 3 the letter Anti Fantasy vs Anti Mystery came out. In it Ryukishi made directly fun of the idea of absolute truth. We should've probably guessed that meant even the red wasn't that. Generally speaking the red wasn't used in ways too cheap. For instance to go back to First Twilight of arc 3.

Battler didn't even bother to check the corpses, he just asked in red their state. Overall most of the mysteries of arc 3 exists only because of the red. In other words the real faillure there is Battler as a detective. Later on Knox tells us we shouldn't rely on red, basically, to figure out the truth. I guess the message has been clear for a while in the end.

[Used Can]

I'd agree that, perhaps, that was Beatrice's original plan, before she knew Battler would show up. In addition, I don't think she planned to die, but to just get rid of the gold and anything that tied her to her Yasu/Lion identity, and move on with either George or Jessica.

I think the fact that the murders also took place in Lion's world (if we can take some of EP7's Tea Party as true) is an indication that Yasu is unrelated to the murders. Basically, you could say: If the Epitaph is released and if it is solved (by the adults during the 1986 conference) then the murders happen.

The question here, I think, is "why?". Was it mere greed? Did the adults need more money than we think? Was their relationship so bad that they have grudges against each other? Is the gold the apple of discord alone? Or could it be that someone, other than Yasu, planned all of this?

If someone other than Yasu planned all of this, what has Battler got to do with this person? We were told that, had Battler not shown up, a minor even would have taken place, but nothing particularly serious. So, how is this person and Battler related? But that aside, as I pointed out before, the murders happened as well in Lion's world, but Battler wasn't there. So, if the murders can happen without Battler showing up at the family meeting, then what has Battler got to do with the murders in Yasu's world?

In Lion's world, the murders happened after the Epitaph was released and solved. But, before that, the Epitaph was released because the adults were complaining about Lion being to young to be the next family head. This took place in 1986. However, in Yasu's world, the Epitaph was released in 1984. Battler had yet to return at that point. So, at the very least, I think we can say that the Epitaph being released and Battler are unrelated - this could be a different deal if we assume Kanon is not Yasu, but the other Battler. However, Kanon, as far as we know, was set to be in the 1986 conference from the very beginning, unlike Battler who was the unknown factor, and the alleged trigger of this tragedy.

Now, if Yasu didn't intend to have anyone killed, why write the stories in the bottles? Had the Rokkenjima tragedy not taken place, I think I can safely say this bottler stories would probably have received no special attention. So, if we'd go by some theory like she planned to kill no one, but wrote these stories so that Battler would read them and find the truth about her, then that plan would have most likely failed, as I think no one would have cared about these stories - at least, not enough for them to have the same impact if the Rokkenjima tragedy did happen. If we know that the tragedy takes place in Lion's world as well - in which Yasu/Lion planned nothing - then, what was Yasu's real purpose with these stories? Did she really plan to kill anyone? Did she know something would happen?

There are other things that are rather suspicious, in my opinion.

1. Why is Battler absent in Lion's world? Could it be that he didn't really return in Yasu's world? (I think we can discard this one, because his appearance in the conference is the alleged reason for this tragedy.) Was there any particular motivation for him in Yasu's world that he didn't have in Lion's? Could it be that the Battler we know in Yasu's world and the one we heard about in Lion's world are different people? (The story about him running away from the family remains the same, though.)
2. The ones to carry the murders (during EP7's Tea Party) in both Yasu's and Lion's worlds were Rudolph and Kyrie. Of course, the first time it could have been to troll Ange, but then, the same thing was shown to Lion by the time Ange was no longer there.
3. Why was Kinzo still alive in 1986 in Lion's world? This could possibly be explained by saying that the apparent death of his child (for the second time) put even more pressure to him, whereas this pressure was non-existent in Lion's world, and, furthermore, Lion's existence gave him some additional happiness which made him, perhaps, a bit healthier and his habits weren't as bad.
4. Why did Rudolph and Kyrie decide to take Ange to the 1986 conference in Lion's world? What happened to her chronic diarrhoea?

[rogerpepitone]

Originally Posted by UsagiTenpura

In arc 1 Battler only saw a "dying" Kanon in the darkness for a really short time. In arc 2 he only saw a Shannon corpse face down, in arc 3 he saw neither of them and fantasy scenes points out both are still alive, and even the adults talk about a prank by Kinzo. In arc 4 Kanon is again never found and Shannon is again face down.

Actually, he sees Shannon at the end of Episode 3, when they find George's body, but he is able to get a good look at Shannon's corpse in episodes 2 and 4.

Note that after Battler sees Shannon's corpse in Episodes 2, 3, and 4, there are very few murders. No murders occur after Battler sees Shannon's corpse in Episode 2 (although Battler does meet Beatrice in Kinzo's study); in Episode 3, only Battler's and Nanjo's (and Battler was killed by Eva); in Episode 4, only Battler's (and that was apparently done by time bomb).

[Cao Ni Ma]

I distinctly remember Battler saying he saw trough her head in EP2 and that he saw her insides. But I dont know if he was a reliable witness at that time, he had already given up by that scene so he might as well be lying or just plain wrong.

[UsagiTenpura]

About arc 2, she was face down.
He tilted her head to see but then got disgusted by the hole in her forehead and dropped it again. You can read the part over if you want, he never saw her face. It's been actually talked about before but I have no idea how far back on the forums lol... Someone had posted a transcript of the whole scene.

In arc 4 she's facing the ground and Battler doesn't move her.

In arc 3 tho it's true that he did see her at the end, only at the end tho, and fantasy scenes suggest she at the very least was still alive until soon before.

[Cao Ni Ma]

Originally Posted by UsagiTenpura

About arc 2, she was face down.
He tilted her head to see but then got disgusted by the hole in her forehead and dropped it again. You can read the part over if you want, he never saw her face. It's been actually talked about before but I have no idea how far back on the forums lol... Someone had posted a transcript of the whole scene.

In arc 4 she's facing the ground and Battler doesn't move her.

In arc 3 tho it's true that he did see her at the end, only at the end tho, and fantasy scenes suggest she at the very least was still alive until soon before.

Dont get me wrong, I do believe that Shkanon are 9/10 times alive trough out the series. I dont like bodies moving about like they do in EP2 and the most convenient answer involve them being alive. This includes the Shanon scene in Natsuhi's room, Shanon was allive and locked the door.

The problem is Battler's testimony as he saw right trough her, he saw her insides dripping. So the only thing I can come up with is that Battler surrendered the position of detective at the time shortly after being mocked by Beatrice. Thus the craziness we see from him later.

[UsagiTenpura]

Oh the idea is that the corpse seen by Battler wouldn't be Shanon's corpse, sorry guess I should've said that.

For instance someone could've gone to get Jessica's body and made her wear the usual outfit + wig that Shkanon has.

[Pikumin]

Originally Posted by Used Can

if Yasu didn't intend to have anyone killed, why write the stories in the bottles? Had the Rokkenjima tragedy not taken place, I think I can safely say this bottler stories would probably have received no special attention. So, if we'd go by some theory like she planned to kill no one, but wrote these stories so that Battler would read them and find the truth about her, then that plan would have most likely failed, as I think no one would have cared about these stories - at least, not enough for them to have the same impact if the Rokkenjima tragedy did happen. If we know that the tragedy takes place in Lion's world as well - in which Yasu/Lion planned nothing - then, what was Yasu's real purpose with these stories? Did she really plan to kill anyone? Did she know something would happen?

We don't know how long ago Yasu actually wrote those stories. One of my theories is that Yasu wrote them a while back, long before the two days, perhaps simply for fun(after all, she must have held some contempt for the Ushiromiya family, so she decided to write how she would get revenge on them if she were a witch) and she wrote Battler into them because she at least wanted to be with him in fiction(or maybe to try to hypothesize whether or not Battler would be able to discover her true identity under those circumstances).

As for why she cast them out to sea, and signed them with Maria's name, I don't know. Maybe she did it for the lulz(we've been told the witch is fickle, after all).

And about Kyrie and Rudolf, the reason they kill in a world where Yasu/Lion planned nothing is because they are acting completely independently of Yasu or anyone else. They probably intend to massacre the family in the earlier games too, but are roped into Yasu's plan before they get the chance to take action).

[Cao Ni Ma]

Originally Posted by UsagiTenpura

Oh the idea is that the corpse seen by Battler wouldn't be Shanon's corpse, sorry guess I should've said that.

For instance someone could've gone to get Jessica's body and made her wear the usual outfit + wig that Shkanon has.

After the master keys came into Rosa's control, never did any of them leave her hands! Except for the time when she lent it to Battler to unlock Natsuhi's room.

Its pretty hard for someone to lock the door with all the known keys in someone's possession or inside the room . Also although it might not apply in this particular episode, the author has been pretty insistent that all unidentified corpses are identified. The only way I can see that happening is if someone was alive inside the room in the first place and locked it before the people reached the door.

[AuraTwilight]

I've been thinking about Kanon's personality and his general oddballness to Yasu's personality couple, and I've noticed a pretty consistent trend.

While Shannon only resists Beatrice by being firm and refusing to entertain her, she still condones her actions over all. It is always Kanon that ACTIVELY TRIES to spoil Beatrice's plans and act as a stereotypical "protector alter" for Shannon (a roll he pretty much fills even if he's only a persona or an actual separate physical person).

Regardless of the nature of Kanon's existence, he is pretty much this, and it applies even if Beatrice isn't a murderer.

Shannon's and Beatrice's goals are antithetical even if neither of them are killers. This is just a fact. Beatrice wants Battler, and Shannon has made herself want George. Kanon, then, can be seem as a sword and shield for Shannon, wanting to stop Beatrice's concept so that Shannon can be free to pursue her dreams, or that alternatively she drops the George thing and goes for Battler again. Either way.

Why bother with dressing up as a man and doing this double life? Because Yasu feels a need to establish Kanon's existence as an entity so he can actually influence things; he has the alternative purposes, perhaps, of being an established male identity she can use incase she needs to act as the head, or something. It doesn't really matter.

This is the reason why Kanon is resistant to Jessica's advances; he exists to make sure the Yasu entity invests all of it's love in one single person and then quietly vanish. Jessica just makes his job harder, and in the end makes him decide to effectively rebel and take love for himself. If Battler had shown up a year later or earlier, this would've never been a problem, and all the love could've just gone to Shannon.

There, Shkanon justified.

[Pikumin]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

This is the reason why Kanon is resistant to Jessica's advances; he exists to make sure the Yasu entity invests all of it's love in one single person and then quietly vanish. Jessica just makes his job harder, and in the end makes him decide to effectively rebel and take love for himself. If Battler had shown up a year later or earlier, this would've never been a problem, and all the love could've just gone to Shannon.

There, Shkanon justified.

That's cool. At first I thought Kanon existed for Jessica, who couldn't get a boyfriend, but my line of reasoning hits a dead end when you consider that Kanon turned her down.

It is always Beatrice that ACTIVELY TRIES to spoil Beatrice's plans and act as a stereotypical "protector alter" for Shannon (a roll he pretty much fills even if he's only a persona or an actual separate physical person).

but here shouldn't it be "it is always Kanon" that tries to spoil breatrice's plans?

[Kylon99]

Originally Posted by Cao Ni Ma

After the master keys came into Rosa's control, never did any of them leave her hands! Except for the time when she lent it to Battler to unlock Natsuhi's room.

Its pretty hard for someone to lock the door with all the known keys in someone's possession or inside the room . Also although it might not apply in this particular episode, the author has been pretty insistent that all unidentified corpses are identified. The only way I can see that happening is if someone was alive inside the room in the first place and locked it before the people reached the door.

Didn't Will's solution suggest that this particular instance wasn't an illusion and the way Battler and Rosa saw it it definitely was a real death? I'm not sure if he meant that all the deaths were real... but...

I gotta hunt for that part in the story again, I saved it somewhere.

[AuraTwilight]

but here shouldn't it be "it is always Kanon" that tries to spoil breatrice's plans?

You're right, typo. Fixing.