[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Remon]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Symbolism. Also, we've already been told a billion times that Battler is basically the spitting image of a young Kinzo in both looks and personality.



Look, man, if Yasu is going to confess everything to Battler she's going to show him the Golden Land as part of the story. Also, Battler imagined seeing an image of Kinzo telling him where to go.

Okonogi and Krauss were voiced by the same voice actor in the anime. Symbolism~ (look what i'm saying is that it's ridiculous to use the voice actor as proof, there are no voice actors in the original novel after all)

Well she could have told that to him ON the day of the conference. But like I said, there's no proof that she told him anything BEFORE the conference. And the phonecall happened BEFORE the conference.
Come on, it's obvious Battler made up that alternative truth just so that he would not reveal the real truth behind Yasu to the witches. If he had then the game would have ended right there and we would have been given our answer.

EDIT
Oh and the man from 19 years ago probably sounded like a man. After all the first thing Natsuhi asked Genji when he told her that someone had arrived on the island by accident (Erika), was if that person was a man.
Also don't you think Natsuhi would have recognized Battler's voice on the phone? At least during the phone calls on the day of the conference.

[ndqanh_vn]

About the man from 19 years ago...Natsuhi probably knew the gender of the child right? So isn't it obvious that the child (Yasu) should be a male too. If not the conversation would feel weird. If the child is a girl, Natsuhi would have reason to doubt whether that guy is the girl he claimed to be or not, right? Sorry if I'm not very clear here.

And Natsuhi probably is not in the right state of mind either.

[battle22]

Originally Posted by ndqanh_vn

About the man from 19 years ago...Natsuhi probably knew the gender of the child right? So isn't it obvious that the child (Yasu) should be a male too. If not the conversation would feel weird. If the child is a girl, Natsuhi would have reason to doubt whether that guy is the girl he claimed to be or not, right? Sorry if I'm not very clear here.

And Natsuhi probably is not in the right state of mind either.

agh that is whats buging me. man of the 19 years ago just confirms that yasu is male. unless natsuhi didnt knew the childs gender , which is impossible... please . i dont want yasu to be a guy... somobody tell me a theory that is against this!!!

[jjblue1]

Spoiler for Replies to Toku cut due to lenght...:

Originally Posted by Toku

Well... In my mind, if I doubt Ryukishi's words, that's the same as outright saying "reasoning is impossible." It's just like Battler's flashback when he was still pierced with Dlanor's Red Key in EP5. The reader wants to know that there is a solution and that they can find it, before employing reasoning.

Yes, doubting Ryukishi is the same as giving up... though the lack of answers with which to check theories is somewhat uncomfortable... which is why I hope Ryukishi will release more stories along the line of Our Confession.

Originally Posted by Toku

Debating is fun, but to be honest, the reason I came here is only because I knew I would have too much trouble if I kept trying to reason Umineko out alone. While I was always sure that there is a solution, I think that at the rate I was going, it would have taken me more effort to reach it than I'm willing to give. I really like Umineko and all, but I'm lazy.

More or less is the same reason for me. Brainstorming helps me to get more ideas and to focus my attention on details I might have overlooked/forgotten/misunderstood.

Originally Posted by Toku

Personally, I think that, since Beatrice's game board only spans 2 days, then... The fact that Lion can be found in Bern's "bigger cat box" means that she actually increased it from 2 days to a full 19 years. In just 2 days, the possibilities were already mind-boggling, but in 19 years, there should be so many possibilities that it couldn't make sense for the incident to occur in more than, say, 1/3 of the alternate worlds.

Yes, I think the same, that's why I think the premise Bern used is that she expanded the catbox backward but always made sure the result was the same: the 'Rokkenjima incident happened'.
After all, if the Rokkenjima incident wouldn't happen I'm not even sure it could be called a closed catbox as people would be alive and able to tell what happened that day...

Originally Posted by Toku

However... Yasuda may be many things, but she's not an idiot. She should be able to see that possibilities like this could have happened, since she is quite intelligent. Even if Bern hides these possibilities. She's an expert at seeing possibilities that most others would never believe in, and which she has no objective evidence of. In fact, her status as the Endless Witch seems to mean that this is her specialty. So why in the world... Would she think that she has to be Lion to be able to find happiness?

Well, there are things that might hamper her reasoning.
The main one is that she sounds pretty hopeless so she's probably seeing everything in dark colours. She has lost faith in finding a way out of her sadness so she believes Bern merely because a side of her had already 'stopped reasoning a way out of her sad situation'.
After all she'd been pretty unlucky in her life and her game in which she hoped a miracle to happen basically was based on the possibility that Battler would help her out of her sad situation (solving the epitaph, remembering the promise, falling in love with her again, do your pick).
It's like saying there's no way out for her if Battler doesn't 'resque her'.
And the one to whom Bern told there was basically no hope is Clair, who's a Yasuda who apparently believes Battler didn't solve her mystery/solved it too late, in fact she entrusted the solution to Will.
It mirrors what happened to Lion a bit. Will comes to save him and does his best to give Lion the will to survive. The determination they showed pushed Lambda to resque them.
If Will hadn't come Lion would have died where Bern told him.

(It's also why I like the idea that Yasu might be Ikuko who originally was resigned to abandon herself to her fate and then ended up being pushed by Battler into going on... :P)

Originally Posted by Toku

About all I can come up with is that Bern went and found a different Yasuda, one that is so depressed that she doesn't dare to believe that there is any hope left for her, because if she believes there is and finds out that there isn't, it will be too painful.

Yes, that's probably the right explanation.

Originally Posted by Toku

Unless... I didn't want to think of this, but maybe the reason she believes that she can't find happiness is that injury, which gave her "a body that is incapable of love." It's true that the future George wanted included a bunch of grandchildren, which must have caused her a great deal of pain, but... Would that be enough to make her give up any hope of finding happiness? Otherwise, the injury would never be enough to justify it... Unless she's a huge pervert, but even if that was the Truth of Umineko and I could find no other explanation for her motive, I would still reject it without a second thought.

I'll say she had self worth issues and was afraid to be rejected.
She has not the huge breast Battler wanted nor can give George the children he wants. Her adoptive mother, according to her, tossed her off of a cliff, she was never adopted into a family but became a servant (likely rejecting her dreams of becoming a witch), apart from the Ushiromiya kids she had no real friends and was often told she was below them and treated as such. She's also afraid Battler forgot about her.
Plus probably even if she were to claim that she's Kinzo's illegittimate kid as Kinzo left no will and the relatives had no interest in having her as new head she wouldn't be accepted into the family or allowed to inherit the gold and the title.

Battler says a rather sad thing in EP 7, he says that Shannon smiled like a girl of her age only when she was playing with the cousins.
I think Shannon wasn't really happy with her life and things going wrong kept pinning up on her until she wasn't capable to see anymore the things that were going right and she was so afraid to be rejected she basically closed herself in a closed room (LOL, a parallel with Battler in Ep 6! ^_-).

Originally Posted by Toku

That's an interesting theory, if only because it requires a level of love for Natsuhi that I didn't expect very many people to possess.

Well, Natsuhi has a bad temper and she's too prideful but she doesn't really sound evil enough to kill a servant and a baby on purpose to me.
That day she was in a bad mood and didn't want the baby around and yet the servant kept following after her. Let's assume the servant slipped and fell against her. Angrily she pushed the servant away, causing her to stumble against the fence and fall. It happens in few seconds but in this sort of circumstances time might seem much longer.
Natsuhi technically had no time to help her but she'll felt as if she had all the time in the world and didnt.
She wanted the baby gone, she pushed the servant although she didn't plan to make her fall. The shock could have caused her to think she pushed the servant on purpose because she wanted to kill the baby...
Considering she was already under pressure it's possible things went that way.

Originally Posted by Toku

However, when it comes to humans, it's definitely possible to find happiness in love without the physical aspect of it being involved. Maybe I'm just being idealistic when I say that? Today's society seems to believe otherwise. Well, whatever.

I think Yasuda might have found love anyway. Ryukishi said if she had told the truth to George his answer might have surprised her and also I don't think Battler really forgot about her and would have accepted her just the same.
But I guess she was too scared of rejection to try it.

In Ep 5 Battler tells Beato if she writes love letters in a too rondabout way no one will understand a thing and Virgilia defines Beato and Battler as 2 shy kids that are too afraid to confess their feelings. I think that's a hint that she wanted to tell but... she was just too afraid. Virgilia also said something to her along the line before the trial started.

Originally Posted by Toku

I think that the reason she thinks that her love with Battler will fail, is that he forgot the promise and therefore, her love might be one-sided.

That's also one of the motives.

Originally Posted by Toku

This just doesn't seem logical. =/ Eva may be quite the schemer, but... Would she really do this? And there's no evidence to imply that such a scheme exists, as far as I know. Though, I must admit that if she had done this, I would give her points for making an interesting trap where pretty much all possible responses from Krauss and Natsuhi on the matter will screw them over.

Well, we've no idea what the siblings plotted, through probably they plotted something. Kirye's speech in... was it EP 4? could have been Kirye's plan but it's possible that Eva came up with her own.
Though I doubt she got a copy of the ring and think that the one Battler received was the original one.

Originally Posted by Toku

My idea was that Yasuda went along with it just because it coincided with her own interests. She loves Battler, but she doesn't like Natsuhi.

It's a possible explanation.

Originally Posted by Toku

It seems that many people believe that the victims of the 1st and 2nd twilights in EP5 didn't actually die yet. That does leave us the question of how they did die, huh. I'm interested to know just what happened in the part of EP5 that we didn't see now.

Same here. Unless nothing happened but the island blew up again due to reason X.

Originally Posted by Toku

Well, Ryukishi did say something in that interview, about having plans to eventually give the answer:

No idea when it might be though. Actually, it might even be that Our Confessions was it. Or maybe that was just another bit of the truth he planned on releasing over time.

Well, he said he would give hints in the manga too... so I'm rather anxious to see Clair's part.

Originally Posted by Toku

It's true that his dream of the future pained her, and that she wasn't able to admit the truth to him, but I don't know if it would really reach this point... Well, maybe. In one part of the interview, R07 seems to be saying that the closed room of Natsuhi's room in EP2 was a lover's suicide due to something like this.

Exactly. I don't really like much the idea of a lover suicide but, at least on the gameboard, it seems a legittimate motive for Yasuda to kill herself, George, Jessica and Battler. Maria, I guess, was a pity kill as she viewed her as a mistreated kid.

Originally Posted by Toku

It feels like R07 put a lot of effort into making her unique, and then painted her as a villain, and dared us to try and understand her. Some will decide not to even try because it's too difficult, and some will decide the same because they don't like the few details they've already got. Normally, making a character in this way doesn't seem to make sense, but I think it can all be explained if Ryukishi really loves this character.

I really want to read Our confession because I think it could depict better her feelings toward the people involved.

Originally Posted by Toku

Hm... Perhaps. It was said, in EP3 I think, that Beatrice would have been able to wait for any number of years if she knew how many years it would be. It's because she has no idea how much longer it will be, that she has trouble. It's understandable.

Exactly. When there's not a time set it's harder to wait patiently.

Originally Posted by Remon

Oh and the man from 19 years ago probably sounded like a man. After all the first thing Natsuhi asked Genji when he told her that someone had arrived on the island by accident (Erika), was if that person was a man.
Also don't you think Natsuhi would have recognized Battler's voice on the phone? At least during the phone calls on the day of the conference.

Actually, if the voice had been clearly recognizable Natsuhi should have recognized it no matter who was the speaker.
It was probably altered so as to make harder to pin it down.
In books often they merely place a tissue on the phone, no complicate devices involved.
Natsuhi heard the speaker talking in a way that's more common for males than for females and jumped to the conclusion the speaker was a male even though she couldn't be sure.

Originally Posted by ndqanh_vn

About the man from 19 years ago...Natsuhi probably knew the gender of the child right? So isn't it obvious that the child (Yasu) should be a male too. If not the conversation would feel weird. If the child is a girl, Natsuhi would have reason to doubt whether that guy is the girl he claimed to be or not, right? Sorry if I'm not very clear here.

And Natsuhi probably is not in the right state of mind either.

We're not sure Natsuhi knew the baby's sex.
The baby was around for 3 days but Natsuhi didn't really want to be around the baby so it's possible she never did something like... let's say, changing diapers.
Lion can either be a male or a female name and, if I'm not wrong, Japanese can be gender neuter enough she might not have figured out the sex of the baby by Kinzo's speech.

She might have assumed though the baby was male because Kinzo was asking her, the wife of his first son, to adopt one. This would make the baby Kinzo's heir and she might have thought since Kinzo is a male supremacist he would want a boy to be his heir.

Also, if Natsuhi knew the baby was a boy there was no point in changing Shannon's birth date. The mere fact she was a girl would have tricked her into thinking she wasn't the baby.

[Toku]

Originally Posted by battle22

agh that is whats buging me. man of the 19 years ago just confirms that yasu is male. unless natsuhi didnt knew the childs gender , which is impossible... please . i dont want yasu to be a guy... somobody tell me a theory that is against this!!!

Oh, I don't know, maybe the fact that just about everything else about Yasuda seems to imply that she's a girl? According to her story, she grew up as a girl, her first role (Shannon) was a girl, there wasn't a single male personality until Kanon, etc. And if you look up the kanji for Sayo and Yoshiya, you'll find that the meaning of Sayo isn't anything extraordinary at all (quite the contrary actually), in fact it reminds me of the meaning of Yasuda. I doubt she'd have named herself something like Sayo, so that and the fact that Shannon was the first role, makes me think that this was always her given name. On the other hand, Yoshiya pretty much means Happiness. And, she didn't create Kanon until she reached her breaking point 3 years after Battler left the family. At that time, she was lonely, and needed a companion, so looking at that, and the fact that he's a boy, and his name, it should be easy enough to figure out what his role is. It's just as she said, he's Shannon's little brother.

Also, Kanon is the one personality of the main 3 that isn't really all that developed, which leads us to believe that she really doesn't have that much experience playing the role of a guy. And, 2/3 main personalities went after guys, not girls. Not to mention, we don't really have any reason to believe that KanonxJessica happens in Prime. Quite the contrary, since actually, it really doesn't happen in any game other than EP6.

But, again, because Yasuda possesses "a body that is incapable of love" then it's easy to assume that she's essentially genderless, even though she plays the role of a girl most of the time.

[AuraTwilight]

Okonogi and Krauss were voiced by the same voice actor in the anime. Symbolism~ (look what i'm saying is that it's ridiculous to use the voice actor as proof, there are no voice actors in the original novel after all)

That's a really poor argument and you know it. Also, as already stated, TMF19YA's voice files are in Battler's folder. The same isn't true for Krauss and Okonogi, or Battler and Young Kinzo.

Well she could have told that to him ON the day of the conference. But like I said, there's no proof that she told him anything BEFORE the conference. And the phonecall happened BEFORE the conference.

If Yasu can tell him SOME time, she can tell him ANY time.

Come on, it's obvious Battler made up that alternative truth just so that he would not reveal the real truth behind Yasu to the witches. If he had then the game would have ended right there and we would have been given our answer.

Knowing the identity of the Man From 19 Years Ago doesn't mean anything if he hasn't solved the murders.

Also don't you think Natsuhi would have recognized Battler's voice on the phone? At least during the phone calls on the day of the conference.

Shkanontrice. Everyone is really stupid and can't see through the simplest of disguises unless it's Kinzo.

Oh, I don't know, maybe the fact that just about everything else about Yasuda seems to imply that she's a girl?

You know, there's people in real life who were born male, had incidents has infants that mangled their genitals, were sexually reassigned to be females, and grew up not knowing that they were a male but feeling 'wrong' most of their lives.

[Toku]

I just remembered a mystery I never found an answer to. Is there anyone here who has an explanation for why Rudolf is always sure he's gonna die on the night of Oct. 4?

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

You know, there's people in real life who were born male, had incidents has infants that mangled their genitals, were sexually reassigned to be females, and grew up not knowing that they were a male but feeling 'wrong' most of their lives.

I know it's a possibility, but even if that happens to be the case, what difference would it make? It also requires an additional assumption or three, so I kind of doubt it...

Originally Posted by jjblue1

Well, there are things that might hamper her reasoning.
The main one is that she sounds pretty hopeless so she's probably seeing everything in dark colours. She has lost faith in finding a way out of her sadness so she believes Bern merely because a side of her had already 'stopped reasoning a way out of her sad situation'.
After all she'd been pretty unlucky in her life and her game in which she hoped a miracle to happen basically was based on the possibility that Battler would help her out of her sad situation (solving the epitaph, remembering the promise, falling in love with her again, do your pick).
It's like saying there's no way out for her if Battler doesn't 'resque her'.
And the one to whom Bern told there was basically no hope is Clair, who's a Yasuda who apparently believes Battler didn't solve her mystery/solved it too late, in fact she entrusted the solution to Will.
It mirrors what happened to Lion a bit. Will comes to save him and does his best to give Lion the will to survive. The determination they showed pushed Lambda to resque them.
If Will hadn't come Lion would have died where Bern told him.

(It's also why I like the idea that Yasu might be Ikuko who originally was resigned to abandon herself to her fate and then ended up being pushed by Battler into going on... :P)

I guess that the thing I wasn't taking into account is that this is a Yasuda who never knew that Battler solved her game, so she would be basically thinking "it's too late at this point." With that, all of the pieces start to fit right into place. I like to think that this is something that actually happened in Prime, too. The main thing that I don't understand about Prime, is exactly what her plans were in that world. R07 said that once you understand the motive for Piece!Yasuda on the game board, you should be able to reason out what she did in Prime. So once I figure that out, I think all the other pieces will start to fall into place as well.

I'll say she had self worth issues and was afraid to be rejected.
She has not the huge breast Battler wanted nor can give George the children he wants. Her adoptive mother, according to her, tossed her off of a cliff, she was never adopted into a family but became a servant (likely rejecting her dreams of becoming a witch), apart from the Ushiromiya kids she had no real friends and was often told she was below them and treated as such. She's also afraid Battler forgot about her.
Plus probably even if she were to claim that she's Kinzo's illegittimate kid as Kinzo left no will and the relatives had no interest in having her as new head she wouldn't be accepted into the family or allowed to inherit the gold and the title.

Battler says a rather sad thing in EP 7, he says that Shannon smiled like a girl of her age only when she was playing with the cousins.
I think Shannon wasn't really happy with her life and things going wrong kept pinning up on her until she wasn't capable to see anymore the things that were going right and she was so afraid to be rejected she basically closed herself in a closed room (LOL, a parallel with Battler in Ep 6! ^_-).

I think that this is all largely right. Except that, I don't believe she had lost all hope before the 1986 incident occurred. Perhaps afterward, but certainly not before. However, it did seem that she had given up on going against fate. The analogy of "locking herself in a closed room and hoping Battler will save her from it" is interesting, but it depends on exactly what the closed room is a metaphor for.

Well, Natsuhi has a bad temper and she's too prideful but she doesn't really sound evil enough to kill a servant and a baby on purpose to me.
That day she was in a bad mood and didn't want the baby around and yet the servant kept following after her. Let's assume the servant slipped and fell against her. Angrily she pushed the servant away, causing her to stumble against the fence and fall. It happens in few seconds but in this sort of circumstances time might seem much longer.
Natsuhi technically had no time to help her but she'll felt as if she had all the time in the world and didnt.
She wanted the baby gone, she pushed the servant although she didn't plan to make her fall. The shock could have caused her to think she pushed the servant on purpose because she wanted to kill the baby...
Considering she was already under pressure it's possible things went that way.

Come to think of it, I had been under the impression, when reading EP7, that it was a bit out of character for Natsuhi. Then again, since I don't understand the pressure she was under to have a child herself, I don't think I can say for sure that it is out of character. When people are forced into a corner with no acceptable way out, they might desperately try to throw the problem away and cover it up. I wouldn't be able to consider something like that "evil." There's no malicious intent in that case, just desperation. Everyone gets cornered at least once in their life, so I think most people can probably understand.

Of course, it's also possible that it's exactly as you say. I don't have any evidence against it, other than the fact that it makes an unnecessary assumption or two.

Exactly. I don't really like much the idea of a lover suicide but, at least on the gameboard, it seems a legittimate motive for Yasuda to kill herself, George, Jessica and Battler. Maria, I guess, was a pity kill as she viewed her as a mistreated kid.

I think Maria's death might have a different motive. If Rosa dies in 1986 (and we have every reason to believe that she does), then Maria is probably thinking something along the lines of "hurry up and take me to the Golden Land." Because, in that case, Maria's dreams can't be realized outside of the Golden Land.

It's kind of a sad story.

I really want to read Our confession because I think it could depict better her feelings toward the people involved.

Yep. I wonder when it will be translated... Does anyone know if translation is in progress?

[battle22]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

That's a really poor argument and you know it. Also, as already stated, TMF19YA's voice files are in Battler's folder. The same isn't true for Krauss and Okonogi, or Battler and Young Kinzo.

Yup . I liked Your theory Aura . Battler is also part of the scheme to blame everything on natsuhi , so the parents ask him to play the role of 19 years ago , of course everyone knows Yasu's story and yasu is also getting her revenge with this , the motive in EP5 is diferent and it is without love
There i like this theory, cant see it in any other way.
Even in the end Battler Feel's guilty doing this to his aunt , that's why he has the red Natsuhi is not the culprit , When he reveals the truth Island Explodes and Everyone dies

[Toku]

Originally Posted by battle22

Yup . I liked Your theory Aura . Battler is also part of the scheme to blame everything on natsuhi , so the parents ask him to play the role of 19 years ago , of course everyone knows Yasu's story and yasu is also getting her revenge with this , the motive in EP5 is diferent and it is without love
There i like this theory, cant see it in any other way.
Even in the end Battler Feel's guilty doing this to his aunt , that's why he has the red Natsuhi is not the culprit , When he reveals the truth Island Explodes and Everyone dies

Meta!Battler is the only one that seems to feel bad about it.

However, I don't like that theory, because Yasuda has no motivation to tell everyone her story and, in fact, we have no reason to believe she did, outside of TMF19YA, who may in fact be Yasuda herself. Even if Battler's seiyuu voices TMF19YA and the files are in the same folder, that does not imply Ryukishi went over and told them that Battler is TMF19YA. Especially because of this:

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Not true. Natsuhi specifically says that his voice is hard to distinguish as feminine or masculine. Japanese doesn't have gender-neutral pronouns, so 'man' was used for convenience sake.

There should be no assumption that a 19-year old male will have a deep voice, so why would we believe that Yasuda, who is heavily implied to have skill at changing her voice, wouldn't be able to pull it off?

Also, I don't like the theory that Natsuhi knew the child's gender, because we have no reason to believe that she did. Keep in mind that they live in a rich family, where there are plenty of servants to order around. We were never shown a scene where Natsuhi was caring for it herself. Instead, it was always a servant. And we know that she has absolutely no reason to want to care for it herself. She didn't even have the baby for very long, wasn't it only a few days or so before she pushed the servant carrying it off the cliff? Therefore, why would we assume that she changed its diaper herself even a single time? She also has no reason to want to discuss anything related to the child with anyone, since she abhors the idea that it has been forced on her, and bringing it up will probably only put her in a bad mood. It's well known that the servants take the brunt of it when Natsuhi gets in a bad mood, so I think they would want to keep it as far away from her as possible.

[Jaden]

Rudolf has no idea that he's really going to die. Rudolf's just been instructed to fool Battler so that he'll take the fake murders seriously. If he really knew about the bomb and that a full-blown tragedy would happen...why's he on Rokkenjima? There's any number of excuses he could make to not show up.

[battle22]

Originally Posted by Jaden

Rudolf has no idea that he's really going to die. Rudolf's just been instructed to fool Battler so that he'll take the fake murders seriously. If he really knew about the bomb and that a full-blown tragedy would happen...why's he on Rokkenjima? There's any number of excuses he could make to not show up.

Orrr he just said randomly that Battler will kill him if he found out that he was not Asumus child

[battle22]

Originally Posted by Toku

Meta!Battler is the only one that seems to feel bad about it.

However, I don't like that theory, because Yasuda has no motivation to tell everyone her story and, in fact, we have no reason to believe she did, outside of TMF19YA, who may in fact be Yasuda herself. Even if Battler's seiyuu voices TMF19YA and the files are in the same folder, that does not imply Ryukishi went over and told them that Battler is TMF19YA. Especially because of this:

There should be no assumption that a 19-year old male will have a deep voice, so why would we believe that Yasuda, who is heavily implied to have skill at changing her voice, wouldn't be able to pull it off?

Also, I don't like the theory that Natsuhi knew the child's gender, because we have no reason to believe that she did. Keep in mind that they live in a rich family, where there are plenty of servants to order around. We were never shown a scene where Natsuhi was caring for it herself. Instead, it was always a servant. And we know that she has absolutely no reason to want to care for it herself. She didn't even have the baby for very long, wasn't it only a few days or so before she pushed the servant carrying it off the cliff? Therefore, why would we assume that she changed its diaper herself even a single time? She also has no reason to want to discuss anything related to the child with anyone, since she abhors the idea that it has been forced on her, and bringing it up will probably only put her in a bad mood. It's well known that the servants take the brunt of it when Natsuhi gets in a bad mood, so I think they would want to keep it as far away from her as possible.

NO there is a motive for YASU. She wanted revenge on natshi . She promised Money for the relatives so they agreed . That's how yasu gets acomplices . duhh

[Toku]

Originally Posted by battle22

NO there is a motive for YASU. She wanted revenge on natshi . She promised Money for the relatives so they agreed . That's how yasu gets acomplices . duhh

She didn't need to bribe anyone to get revenge on Natsuhi. They were already planning on trying to get money out of Krauss, and if Yasuda gives them bribes, they'll lose their motive to go against Krauss. Yasuda may not have anything against Krauss, but the two are married, so if she was to get revenge on Natsuhi, it would definitely affect Krauss too. The only question is whether she knows about the siblings' plot or not. Hideyoshi isn't usually the type of person to realize something like "Kinzo might not actually be alive" before anyone else, so he might have gotten that info from someone else (and there's not too many possibilities on where he could have gotten it from), which means that she may have found out about the siblings' need for money from Hideyoshi when she gave him that info.

However, despite all of this, there is no reason for her to start telling anyone that she was dropped off a cliff 19 years ago. She's actually ashamed of this and the injury it caused her, and as far as we know, she's never told anyone about it. For example, she never even told George, so he still thinks he can be a happy grandfather surrounded with children in the future. Furthermore, if she did tell them the story, there's a chance that they'll figure out that she's actually Kinzo's illegitimate kid.

[Kealym]

Originally Posted by Toku

I just remembered a mystery I never found an answer to. Is there anyone here who has an explanation for why Rudolf is always sure he's gonna die on the night of Oct. 4?

I believe the most common thoughts are
A.) He planned to tell Kyrie the whole "baby thing", and was exaggerating (hopefully) her reaction
B.) Yasu strung him into thinking he'd be in a fake murder game, and he was just playing his part being all cryptic to Battler

Originally Posted by Toku

Meta!Battler is the only one that seems to feel bad about it.

Piece!Battler is shown to be displeased several times with Natsuhi's treatment. He defends her in Kinzo's Study, tried to come between Eva's assault, and it's heavily implied at the end of EP5 he came to her defense against Erika's reasoning. This is fitting with his character, who's pretty sympathetic to everybody, abhors seeing the adults nasty side, and definitely, definitely knows that Natsuhi is being falsely accused, and severely emotionally harassed for it.

[Remon]

Originally Posted by Kealym

Piece!Battler is shown to be displeased several times with Natsuhi's treatment. He defends her in Kinzo's Study, tried to come between Eva's assault, and it's heavily implied at the end of EP5 he came to her defense against Erika's reasoning. This is fitting with his character, who's pretty sympathetic to everybody, abhors seeing the adults nasty side, and definitely, definitely knows that Natsuhi is being falsely accused, and severely emotionally harassed for it.

And that should automatically make him not responsible for the phone calls. It's just not something Battler would do. But I guess the voice actor thing is such an important hint that it makes people completely disregard the character's personality.

[Toku]

Originally Posted by Kealym

I believe the most common thoughts are
A.) He planned to tell Kyrie the whole "baby thing", and was exaggerating (hopefully) her reaction
B.) Yasu strung him into thinking he'd be in a fake murder game, and he was just playing his part being all cryptic to Battler

I always thought it would be the first one, but I wonder why he'd decide to tell her on that specific day? It didn't really have to be then... The second seems iffy to me, but it's a possibility.

Piece!Battler is shown to be displeased several times with Natsuhi's treatment. He defends her in Kinzo's Study, tried to come between Eva's assault, and it's heavily implied at the end of EP5 he came to her defense against Erika's reasoning. This is fitting with his character, who's pretty sympathetic to everybody, abhors seeing the adults nasty side, and definitely, definitely knows that Natsuhi is being falsely accused, and severely emotionally harassed for it.

Right. This slipped my mind, thanks.

But I think that his displeasure was about her being framed as the culprit of the incident that day. The matter of the kid from 19 years ago is something else entirely.

This is one of the reasons why I somewhat wonder if he learned about Yasuda's story or not. If he didn't learn about it, he'd have no reason to join in on the plan to frame Natsuhi in the first place, since he doesn't care about money troubles or whether Kinzo's dead or whatever. But if he did learn about it, well, why did Yasuda tell him? She already seems like she's too afraid to hear what Battler's or George's reaction might be to the fact that she can't have children.

My first thought was that, since she gave up on love and decided to simply take revenge on Natsuhi (in EP5 alone, but then again, even in EP5 this is not necessarily true), she decided to tell him just to get him to help her with her plot.

That conflicts with what I said in a previous post, of course. That's because I have no idea what theory to use for this at the moment.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by Toku

I just remembered a mystery I never found an answer to. Is there anyone here who has an explanation for why Rudolf is always sure he's gonna die on the night of Oct. 4?

The most popular theory is that he feared which reaction would Battler and Kirye have once he were to tell them they were mother and son.

Originally Posted by Toku

I guess that the thing I wasn't taking into account is that this is a Yasuda who never knew that Battler solved her game, so she would be basically thinking "it's too late at this point." With that, all of the pieces start to fit right into place.

Yes, poor Yasuda-Clair seems unaware in the end Battler managed to understand her riddles.

Originally Posted by Toku

I like to think that this is something that actually happened in Prime, too. The main thing that I don't understand about Prime, is exactly what her plans were in that world. R07 said that once you understand the motive for Piece!Yasuda on the game board, you should be able to reason out what she did in Prime. So once I figure that out, I think all the other pieces will start to fall into place as well.

Well, I tend to think she planned for a mystery game. However I don't think she actually murdered someone on purpose.

Ryukishi said:

A regretable incident happened because of certain actions that those people took.

So it was an incident and there were more than 1 person involved.

Yasuda might have considered actually committing the murders but I think the games give plenty of hints about her not doing it in the end... sort of like Kirye who said she was ready to kill Asumu but, ops, Asumu went and died by herself so she didn't become a killer.

Though in Yasuda's case is also possible she merely didn't kill anyone because she came back to her senses, not because people died by themselves.

However we know she sent an envelope with the key to a bank account to Rudolf.
In Our Confession is hinted she planned to do this for her accomplices so she definitely bribed him for something.

So I think while creating the setting for her game she inadvertitely created a setting in which the siblings, who were in need of money and were squabbling among them, could have done something foolish that lead to people dying.

Due to Rudolf having been bribed he probably did something, which might or might have not been totally innocent but that caused Eva to consider him or Kirye a culprit of some sort so in her book of the single truth she wrote what happened in such a way it would lead to this interpretation.

The interesting part of EP 7 though is that George told Shannon that Battler, as a kid, was really taken by her, he wasn't just making fun of her.
If this happened in Prime too Yasuda might have felt a bit of relief from her fears.
Battler was serious but, due to all that happened, he couldn't keep his promise and either forgot it or pretended to have it forgotten.

It's a way better perspective than: he made fun of me right from day 1 and might have helped her to cool down a little.

Originally Posted by Toku

I think that this is all largely right. Except that, I don't believe she had lost all hope before the 1986 incident occurred. Perhaps afterward, but certainly not before. However, it did seem that she had given up on going against fate. The analogy of "locking herself in a closed room and hoping Battler will save her from it" is interesting, but it depends on exactly what the closed room is a metaphor for.

Basically she was trying to put herself in a situation where apparently her only way out was to have Battler solve the mystery game or something like this. Sort of like how Battler let Erika close him in a closed room he created and waited for Beato to save him. He likely knew that trick was available but let her do the job in hope for a miracle to happen.
In the same way Yasuda could have stopped the mystery game but likely in her mind didn't want to, she wanted Battler to solve it. However I don't know if in the end she waited for Battler to resque her or something persuaded her to change her plans.

Originally Posted by Toku

Come to think of it, I had been under the impression, when reading EP7, that it was a bit out of character for Natsuhi. Then again, since I don't understand the pressure she was under to have a child herself, I don't think I can say for sure that it is out of character. When people are forced into a corner with no acceptable way out, they might desperately try to throw the problem away and cover it up. I wouldn't be able to consider something like that "evil." There's no malicious intent in that case, just desperation. Everyone gets cornered at least once in their life, so I think most people can probably understand.

I really don't see Natsuhi as someone who's willing to kill a baby and a maid, though I think she might cover up their death with no hesitations.

Natsuhi is the one who would be willing to kill to 'protect' her family and the only time she tried to do so is against Beato in Ep 1... if that scene is telling us the truth... though it can be fantasy as well.
Compared to Kirye, who's willing to kill a love rival, to Eva who's willing to kill for revenge or to Rosa who can trust only in herself and is willing to protect only herself and, at best, Maria, she's the one who looks as the less bloodthirsty.

Though yes, in desperate moments people can do desperate things.

Originally Posted by Toku

I think Maria's death might have a different motive. If Rosa dies in 1986 (and we have every reason to believe that she does), then Maria is probably thinking something along the lines of "hurry up and take me to the Golden Land." Because, in that case, Maria's dreams can't be realized outside of the Golden Land.

Well, yes, Maria was likely willing to be killed but I think that's also due to how Yasuda described the golden land. Which doesn't really exist so Maria was tricked.
Yasuda can't really assure her that afterlife will be like she described and she probably knows. ... personally I really don't like how she involved Maria in this so I prefer to think she believed there was no way out of her sad destiny of not being loved by her mother for Maria and that Yasuda persuaded her that in the golden land she would be happy because she pitied her.

Originally Posted by Toku

Yep. I wonder when it will be translated... Does anyone know if translation is in progress?

I'm not sure. I know Witch Hunt considered the possibility but first they wanted a break from Umineko.

[GreyZone]

In EP5, Yasuda told Battler ALMOST EVERYTHING about herself and about Natsuhi. While Yasuda wanted to forgive Natsuhi, Battler couldn't accept what Natsuhi did.

So using Yasuda's knowledge, he pretended to be the "child from 19 years ago", but not with the intent to mentally torture her, but instead to make her confess her crime from the past.

It is impossible for Battler to have predicted Erika's appearance, so the murder mystery game was something that happened spontanously. And Battler used it to lead Erika into framing Natsuhi.

HOWEVER he didn't want anyone to find out about kinzo, because that would be very harmful to Krauss and Jessica, who are not even involved and regarding Natsuhi he may have viewed it as something seperate (like Battler's "I only fight the existence of magic on october 4th/5th, but magic can still exist outside these 2 days")

And then, when Natsuhi confessed everything at the end, Battler was satisfied and told everyone the truth. (and possibly playing Erika for a fool, if we say "trial=metaphicalReality")

[Misuzu]

Originally Posted by Cao Ni Ma

I just dont see a character thats hellbent on getting revenge against a person or family having gender issues. Usually the person is portrayed as being consumed by their desire to have revenge on the person. Every waking moment spent on an elaborate plan to make that person suffer, where their deaths would be more of a relief, so he/she tortures them physically and mentally.

Kanon was created before Yasu even knew what had happened to her though, wasn't he? I'd have to double check. It'd be whatever Kanon and Shannon are that existed before she had a reason to seek revenge against Natsuhi. It does make things more difficult, but that's true for every game board.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Fun fact, the Man From 19 Years Ago is voiced by DAISUKE ONO in the PS3 version.

So...yea, my money's on "Battler did it for Yasu's sake regardless of whether or not she wanted it."

I haven't played the voiced games, that's a pretty clear hint. I can definitely see Natsuhi not recognizing Battler's voice if he disguised it a little, since she would've have barely spoken to him in years. It fits with Battler's reaction at the end too.

Originally Posted by Toku

Actually, why does everyone put such significance on Ronove's line about it being a game without love? This was only said once, and by him alone. Sure, it may very well mean that the motive isn't about love anymore (or it may mean something else), but it doesn't necessarily mean that there is no love to be found anywhere in EP5.

Doesn't Virgilia say it too? Or agree with it?

There's clearly something very different about 5, even without Erica, and that seems to be the best explanation. I took "without love" to mean that love isn't effecting what happens on the gameboard in the manner it has been in the other games, which matches up pretty clearly with what we see. I just wish we could know more about what went on behind the scenes.

Originally Posted by Toku

In an interview, Ryukishi says that while he didn't want to give the answers away so easily, he guarantees that those who don't stop thinking will eventually arrive at one, single answer. So, really, these holes are not bottomless at all.

I just don't feel like that's true. I think we can construct theories and make guesses that match up with the information that we have, but I think there are a lot of mysteries that won't have definitive answers unless Ryukishi gives us more answers.

Like the closed room reveal from episode 2- I thought it was pretty neat, and it made sense once he revealed it, but no one had even guessed at it, and I don't think there was anywhere near enough evidence for people to decide that was definitely what happened.

I'm actually pretty okay not having closed room reveals and trying to work them out myself, but when it comes to stuff where we have to figure out what a character was thinking, I'm really frustrated that we don't have clearer answers.

[jjblue1]

The phone calls are rather cruel and later will be used to trick Natsuhi into being framed as culprit.
Being cruel doesn't really look like Battler's style.

He might have joined the plan of the siblings because they told him Natsuhi was hiding Kinzo's death. When they entered in Kinzo's room it was commented how he found Natsuhi's lies about Kinzo's despicable though I don't think he thought they would torture Natsuhi like that.

When he agreed he probably thought that Natsuhi would confess sooner and when this didn't happen he tried to smooth things over defending Natsuhi against Erika and no one went against him because they were afraid he would confess the truth.

In fact all the siblings knew how he escaped from the closed room but no one told Erika.

I guess he was also disturbed by how Natsuhi insisted in her lie even when she believed her daughter was dead and her husband might have been killed as well.

I think in EP 5 Battler is seriously disgusted by all the adults and that's why piece!Battler doesn't take a clear stance.