[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[goldenlove27]

I'm sorry but I still don't believe in an explosion is the real cause of death. I ran over the game I don't know how many times and I don't see how an explosion is the cause of death. In other words : Knox's 8th. It is forbidden for the case to be resolved with clues that are not present. and Knox's 4th. It is forbidden for unknown drugs or hard to understand scientific devices to be used. I think it was on the TIP to "trap" you. If anyone can bring up a point where a bomb can be present then that will be great.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by goldenlove27

I think it was on the TIP to "trap" you. If anyone can bring up a point where a bomb can be present then that will be great.

Game-ending disaster that occurs exactly at 24:00 has been proposed since Ep2, wherein it's the only practical explanation of what the scene of Rosa running away with Maria depicts. It is also the only logically possible way someone animate and subsequently dead can nevertheless kill Battler who is completely alone on the island in Ep4.

The TIP just reinforced what has already been the only option, but you are correct that the manner of the disaster remains a speculation, since no clues pointing to it have so far been identified clearly.

[Xeles]

Originally Posted by goldenlove27

I'm sorry but I still don't believe in an explosion is the real cause of death. I ran over the game I don't know how many times and I don't see how an explosion is the cause of death. In other words : Knox's 8th. It is forbidden for the case to be resolved with clues that are not present. and Knox's 4th. It is forbidden for unknown drugs or hard to understand scientific devices to be used. I think it was on the TIP to "trap" you. If anyone can bring up a point where a bomb can be present then that will be great.

I agree with you that an explosion seems a little abnormal, but whatever occurs at the end of the game looks devastating.

• Eva was somehow forewarned, found the second entrance tunnel/stairway to Kuwadorian that Krauss and Nanjo spoke of during the prison break in EP4 (if the well was really inaccessible), and took refuge there. It's two kilometers away from the main mansion, but for whatever reason (other than her emotional state) she wasn't able to remain there or at the guest house until the storm passed.
• Eva is unable to collect her family's insurance even after half a year had passed. Sixteen full grown adults, including Kinzo's corpse, were not found and declared missing. And yet, all they managed to find was Maria's jawbone. Eva was still able to get to the gold's location though.
• If you take Rosa Musou at face value, Rosa and Maria were unable to escape the 'accident' despite running towards the beach.

Ange couldn't see or get to the mansion on foot after reaching Rokkenjima either. There is a slope there, but it isn't clear if it was a natural disaster or something triggered it..

[Jan-Poo]

I can't see how the TIP can be interpreted in any other way, and Ryukishi should know better than writing that thing and then pretending he never did.

Anyway what the word says is: "explosion". It never mentioned any bomb.

Obviously the first thing you think of when someone says explosion is "bomb" however there are other things that can cause an explosion.

The boiler room theory for example is another explanation, and personally I think it's more probable than a bomb because I find very difficult that it would be called an "accident" if it happened because of explosives.

And then there is also the fact that the japanese word "爆発 " is often used in conjunction with "火山" to form the expression "火山の爆発" which means: "volcanic eruption".

So don't make the mistake to think "bomb" is set in stone.


@goldenglove

In EP4 it is said that the books that were auctioned survived the accident because they were found in Kuwadorian.
I claim this is a hint as bright as the sun that the accident is not a simple mass murder, but something that would affect the whole Mansion at the very least.

[goldenlove27]

Were the books found at Kuwadorian? Hmmm I always thought it was at the Main House.... I must of read wrong. I was thinking that if the books were there that would defend my theory... However I never doubted Rosa an Maria escaping something, just the explosion. I had made an alternative theory on how the survivors of the twilight die:
In the end the culprit had shoot and killed them and cut up the bodies. Then discarded them in the "Golden land" or where the gold is as know one has known the location of the gold.

[ryuusei]

Does anyone else get the feeling that explosion is as important as what happens after explosion. Would it be possible that an explosion caused a fire that burned everything down? From the VN i was pretty sure that conditions were pretty windy, what if fire spread from the main mansion to rose garden to guest house? although from the map we got from the anime show by someone else here before (sorry it was atleast 10 pages ago or so) the distance made it kinda makes the theory stupid. But then in ep2 there were golden butterflies at the chapel before 0:00 on the last night, so maybe the fire took time to spread before it reached something potentially explosive?

To the dude who came up with that large theory before (that 20 minutes may not have been useful, but it was an interesting read : D ) Regarding the "only shannon knows i like the fall" you can easily replicate that trick by placing the 4 cards with all the seasons in different places and telling her to go to the respective places, from memory i believe the caller had natsuhi confirm she liked the fall before telling her to go to the fall card.

Lastly, in ep4 when Ange met Kumasawa's son she found notes regarding the epitaph has it ever been discussed how she might have actually created the epitaph rather than just trying to solve it? i have always wondered about that although that doesn't bring me any close to solving the epitaph.

EDIT: Also regarding Maria being given the umbrella by Kinzo, does anyone actually know if Maria actually knew him? I mean, he died 2 years prior to the 1986 story, and the latest she would have met him would be when she was ...5 ? This kinda sounds very round about haha

[Jan-Poo]

I quote from the game

A major city antique shop obtained a large quantity of ancient documents that were thought to have a high historical value.
They came into possession of them after Ushiromiya Eva had had them sold at auction.
At the time, it was thought that Eva would succeed the Ushiromiya family and have all the wealth to herself as the only survivor.
However, at that point, not even half a year had passed since the accident, and despite the extraordinary circumstances, it was not established that the others had been missing long enough to be presumed dead.
Because of that, it was thought that Eva had been in a very tight spot financially, unable even to collect from her family's life insurance.
It seems that she tried to sell everything of value, and even the books kept in the place where she had escaped harm in, Kuwadorian, became a target of this.

BTW there is another interesting thing in this part. Apparently Eva was in a tight spot financially.

It looks like she was unable to collect the gold, or perhaps the gold or the access to it was sealed due to the accident.

But even considering this I don't get why Eva would have financial problems.
Hideyoshi's situation wasn't tragic. The only thing he risked was losing his position as the head of his company, but he'd still retain a big portion of stocks.

Supposing he owned 30% of his company's stock, until that day he was the president collecting the profits, distributing 70% to the various associates and keeping for himself the 30%.
Even in the case someone else became the major stock holder of the company, he'd still get 30% of the profits.

Economically speaking it wouldn't change a damn thing.

To the dude who came up with that large theory before (that 20 minutes may not have been useful, but it was an interesting read : D ) Regarding the "only shannon knows i like the fall" you can easily replicate that trick by placing the 4 cards with all the seasons in different places and telling her to go to the respective places, from memory i believe the caller had natsuhi confirm she liked the fall before telling her to go to the fall card.

Yeah Natsuhi was very stupid not to noticing that it could have been a trick. But what bothers me is not the fact that the mysterious man was able to guess Natsuhi's favorite season, but rather the fact he knew it was something no one would know.

Now let's say it was common knowledge that Natsuhi's favorite season is autumn, then that trick wouldn't really be impressive. The mysterious man somehow knew that Natsuhi never told anyone except Shannon. That's a pretty hard thing to be sure about unless you live close by Natsuhi and her family members.

[rogerpepitone]

Originally Posted by ryuusei

Lastly, in ep4 when Ange met Kumasawa's son she found notes regarding the epitaph has it ever been discussed how she might have actually created the epitaph rather than just trying to solve it? i have always wondered about that although that doesn't bring me any close to solving the epitaph.

Yes, I've suggested that repeatedly.

[goldenlove27]

Most likely due to the shock of losing her family and the rush to escape after shooting Battler caused her to forget. She was unstable to begin with after the first twilight so it is understandable. And thanks for the quote.

Originally Posted by Oliver

To the dude who came up with that large theory before (that 20 minutes may not have been useful, but it was an interesting read : D ) Regarding the "only shannon knows i like the fall" you can easily replicate that trick by placing the 4 cards with all the seasons in different places and telling her to go to the respective places, from memory i believe the caller had natsuhi confirm she liked the fall before telling her to go to the fall card.

You mean me? ...well I did say it was a crazy idea. But I though of this Idea too but I wanted to link up what was the purpose of the red. It may be a clue but if it were a random clue base off of a lowly trick like that, then you would begin to question its reliability as it would be irrelevant to the occurring event.

[ryuusei]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Yeah Natsuhi was very stupid not to noticing that it could have been a trick. But what bothers me is not the fact that the mysterious man was able to guess Natsuhi's favorite season, but rather the fact he knew it was something no one would know.

Now let's say it was common knowledge that Natsuhi's favorite season is autumn, then that trick wouldn't really be impressive. The mysterious man somehow knew that Natsuhi never told anyone except Shannon. That's a pretty hard thing to be sure about unless you live close by Natsuhi and her family members.

ah, forgot about this trick within a trick. Would it be too far fetched to say that the caller has observed Natsuhi long to realise she's never spoken about her favorite season? From memory, the caller asked her about the season to get her attention. The red that states only Shannon knows is just a distraction to this trick. If the caller really knew Natsuhi's favorite season wouldn't you just state it over the phone ? Why go to the trouble of rigging her room if he already knew what it was? this part doesn't make sense.

[Jan-Poo]

I've found something interesting while looking at the EP6's game code.

The characters' portraits files are always named using the first 3 letters of their names followed by an underscore and then a description of their expression.

for example "JES_defA1.bmp" is the default portrait of Jessica.

There are many different parts in the code where the portraits are defined, given a specific number, and so on. And then there are also the descriptors in the right click menu. Including character buttons, text and and full body portrait.

Now what I have found out is that EP6 not only added ZEP (zepar) FUR (Furfur) and FEA (Featherinne) but also a mysterious "LIG".

This LIG appears multiple times in every spot where you usually find other character's portraits related codes. At first I thought this "LIG" was probably a "dummy" necessary to the new code created for EP6. However looking at the various instances where you can find it, it appears it occupies a pretty well defined position.

Here are the string that define the "paths" where you should find the graphic files related to "LIG".

bmp\r_click\cha_tati\ep6_2\LIG_1.bmp - doesn't exist
bmp\r_click\cha_tati\ep6_2\LIG_2.bmp - doesn't exist
bmp\r_click\text\cha\ep6_2\LIG_1.bmp - doesn't exist
bmp\r_click\text\cha\ep6_2\lig_21.bmp - exists: Jessica's description
bmp\r_click\text\cha\ep6_2\lig_22.bmp - exists: Shannon's description
bmp2\TATI\LIG\1\LIG_DefA1.bmp - doesn't exist
bmp\r_click\cha_btn\ep6_2\LIG_l.bmp - doesn't exist
bmp\r_click\cha_btn\ep6_2\LIG2_l.bmp - doesn't exist


So as you can see for the most part all these strings point to files that do not exist at all. There are only two exceptions, found in the directory where the description of magical side characters are stored . Zepar, Furfur and the two Beatrice are there.

I can't really translate japanese without a dictionary so I don't know for sure what are Jessica and Shannon doing there, but I guess they are temporary files copy and pasted there waiting to be replaced with the true ones.

This "LIG" anyway appears to be a magical character, since it's character button, text descriptor and full body portrait are only supposed to appear in directory storing magical beings.

Who is "LIG"? Was it a character originally supposed to appear in EP6 but then was removed? And what can LIG possibly stand for? It doesn't appear to be one of the demons of the lesser key.

PS: It's not Light Yagami, is it..?

[chronotrig]

Ah, someone else finally found Light. I've been wondering about that ever since I got my copy of the game.


Here's the lines you're looking for:

numalias LIG_start_number,%0 ;ライトの表情の番号の開始
numalias LIG_DefA1,%0 :inc %0 ;
numalias LIG_last_number,%0 :inc %0 ;ライトの表情の番号の終端

"The first facial expression number for Light"
"The last facial expression number for Light"

No clue what it's all about though.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by goldenlove27

I'm sorry but I still don't believe in an explosion is the real cause of death. I ran over the game I don't know how many times and I don't see how an explosion is the cause of death. In other words : Knox's 8th. It is forbidden for the case to be resolved with clues that are not present. and Knox's 4th. It is forbidden for unknown drugs or hard to understand scientific devices to be used. I think it was on the TIP to "trap" you. If anyone can bring up a point where a bomb can be present then that will be great.

There are tons of hints for a bomb or explosion and it's not really a complicated device. Even a middle school girl was able to make a bomb out of Kitchen timer in Higurashi. I'll list the hints for you

• Maria's jaw and the accident: It's mentioned at least twice in the end roll for episode 1 and the 1998 part of episode 4 that Maria's jaw was the only part found to confirm her body. As an exact quote they said "it was one of the rare cases of identifying a body with dental records", which suggests some kind of fire or explosion. Furthermore in 1998 the Rokkenjima event is seen as an "accident" not a murder mystery for quite a few years. And it's not like an island hasn't been sealed of because of a volcanic eruption or explosion before. Just look at Miyake island (an island in the Izu archipelago) was sealed off from the public for 5 years before anyone was allowed back on it at one point after a volcanic eruption.
  
• Problems in the Boiler Room: The boiler room has been known to act up and give a rotten egg type smell. Rotten eggs can be attributed to volcanic or sulfuric gasses and one could suspect that Kinzo's corpse was used to cover up the true reason for the smell. Not to mention that a boiler explosion has been known to burn down an entire building.
  
• Krauss and Kinzo's Construction: It's been suggested by some (mainly Oliver) that to build the foundation for the buildings on Rokkenjima you may legitimately need explosives to make the foundation and begin construction because of the tough volcanic rock on the island. Krauss also wanted to build a resort and there is a possibility of tunnels on the island so explosives being left over from making these things is not out of the ordinary. Since it's on a volcanic island it might even be expected that there are explosives left over from digging and construction projects.
  
• The red text and disaster stories: The final red by Beatrice in episode 4 suggests an inhuman cause of death at 24;00. It'd be a copout to use poison or radiation as a reason for Battler to be killed by Beatrice. And frankly Ryukishi loves big disasters. One his favorite stories was And then there were none and it shows in his stories. Generally his stories involve final events that if the murders don't kill you the event will.

[SeagullCrazy]

Originally Posted by chronotrig

Ah, someone else finally found Light. I've been wondering about that ever since I got my copy of the game.

Here's the lines you're looking for:

"The first facial expression number for Light"
"The last facial expression number for Light"

No clue what it's all about though.

That's really interesting, I didn't know about that before. I've been messing around with Onscripter lately, so this got my interest. I searched in the text file for every instance of LIG and made some notes:

(also, if any interpretations of the code are wrong, please tell me, because I've only used trial and error to figure out what they do)

Spoiler for LIG:

;mov $?r[6][ma5_LIG][1],":c/2,0,3;bmp\r_click\cha_btn\ep6_2\LIG_l.bmp"
;mov $?r[6][ma5_LIG][2],":c/2,0,3;bmp\r_click\cha_btn\ep6_2\LIG2_l.bmp"

-LIG_l = LIG_living = there is no LIG_d = LIG doesn't die?
-LIG_2 = LIG has 2 different forms (like featherine)?

if %cha_text_page = 1 mov $r_txt_path,":a;bmp\r_click\text\cha\ep6_2\lig_21. bmp"
if %cha_text_page = 2 mov $r_txt_path,":a;bmp\r_click\text\cha\ep6_2\lig_22. bmp"

-LIG has 2 pages of text
-appears to be on fantasy TIPS screen

mov $?r[6][Lig][1],":c/2,0,3;bmp\r_click\cha_btn\ep5\eri_l.bmp"

-Lig uses Erika's character button from EP5
-appears to be on the human TIPS screen

mov ?r_cha_text[6][ma5_ger][1],2
mov ?r_cha_text[6][ma5_dla][1],2
mov ?r_cha_text[6][ma5_cor][1],2
mov ?r_cha_text[6][ma5_lig][2],2

-LIG is in the same group with Dlanor, Gertrude, and Cornelia = was LIG another of Dlanor's troops?

for %Free1 = KIN_Isyou to LIG_Isyou ;EP6時点の人数
mov %%Free1,1

-I think this finds the images for all characters from Kinzo to LIG = he planned on using LIG?

notif %ld_pass_number >= LIG_start_number jumpf
notif %ld_pass_number <= LIG_last_number jumpf
if %LIG_Isyou = 1 gosub *LIG_Isyou1 : return
if %LIG_Isyou = 2 gosub *LIG_Isyou2 : return

-Referring to what chrono posted?

*LIG_Isyou1
if %ld_pass_number = LIG_DefA1 mov $ld_pass,":a;bmp2\TATI\LIG\1\LIG_DefA1.bmp": return ;

-specifies a file for the LIG_defa1 sprite

-there is no LIG_Isyou2, even though a previous command calls for it

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by chronotrig

"The first facial expression number for Light"
"The last facial expression number for Light"

No clue what it's all about though.

It being this guy would neatly explain absolutely everything!

Spoiler for Light:

Doctor Who, 7th Doctor serial "Ghost Light".

Light, extraterrestrial research AI stranded on Earth and very annoyed that life evolved faster than he could study it. Has a taste for killing and dismembering people to see how they work.

Incidentally, found in a Victorian mansion built over his spaceship.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by chronotrig

Ah, someone else finally found Light. I've been wondering about that ever since I got my copy of the game.


Here's the lines you're looking for:


"The first facial expression number for Light"
"The last facial expression number for Light"

No clue what it's all about though.

Ah so it's official, it's "Light" XD

I didn't notice that before...

but is your translation correct? I think it's more like:

starting number of Light's facial expressions
and
ending number of Light's facial expressions

(at least it makes more sense that way from a programming standpoint...)

Every character has those two lines at the start and the end of the list of their various portraits. This was added in EP6's code, probably they are variables that are necessary for the new code, so they shouldn't mean anything in particular.

This looks like a preparatory code... they put in LIG_defA1 because obviously all the characters have that one, but there was no actual graphic file so that's all that they could insert.

Maybe they were just getting ahead with the work preparing the code for EP7...

[Judoh]

If I remember right there was character representing Van Dine mentioned in the wiki or the tips somewhere, but I can't remember what his name was. It wasn't "Light" though.

[LyricalAura]

A friend of mine just proposed a sort of terrifying theory to me.

If it's fair for personalities to "die" with the red text, then we have to suspect not only Shkannon, but also the possibility that Kinzo's death was faked. Suppose that Beatrice is an alternate personality of Kinzo that he created as furniture. After he faked his death, the "Kinzo" personality died, leaving this Beatrice to roam freely. Then she could carry out the murders as a means of resurrecting herself. There are only seventeen people on the island after welcoming Erika, but if Ghost Erika and Shkanon are both true, then there's no contradiction.

There's got to be some way of disproving this, but I just keep running into red that supports it everywhere. Help?

[rogerpepitone]

Originally Posted by Judoh

If I remember right there was character representing Van Dine mentioned in the wiki or the tips somewhere, but I can't remember what his name was. It wasn't "Light" though.

Wizard Hunting Wright (for Willard Huntington Wright).

[Jan-Poo]

HA! Why not? At this point you can't be sure about anything. I must say... if Kinzo is alive there are a few things that can be explained better than if he's not.