[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Sniesk]

So if you can say "There are 17 people" without the meaning of"exactly 17 people" this means the final red of ep6 doesn't mean anything? Becouse in this case they could also have said "Even if we welcome you there are 4 people".
I don't like the idea of this word play, Erika was pratically dead, what's the point in telling her a "fake" red?

[Burkie]

I like the idea of the river being time. It's often said to have a flow so it seems quite logical. I don't know about the whole II thing though.
I think if you were to continue with this you'd follow the flow of time downstream so to speak and find the village. You'd know when you were at it by the presence of the two, as in, the two hands. I'm not sure about this (I don't speak Japanese), but at 10:20 the two hands point to 10 and 4 which I think can be said as too and shi. And according to the ever reliable internet dictionaries, toshi is a word for town.

Edit: Oh god. 10 4 October 4th anyone?

[Renall]

Originally Posted by LaplaceNoMa

I don't really like the idea of playing with the word 'exactly'. I'm not convinced that you can say 'There is one egg'.

But there is one egg. I can clearly see one egg in the carton. The fact that there are eleven other eggs has no bearing on whether there is one.

The point of the example is to question just how "contradictory" any of these potential reds are, with each other or with particular views. It entirely depends upon construction and whether there exists any implicit "exactly" or "at least."

A good example in that list of a contradictory pair of reds that really aren't is "there have been 13 eggs in the carton" vs. "there have never been more than 12 eggs in the carton." Both statements are entirely true (and in fact neither depends on an implicit assumption). They appear contradictory, but I wonder.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by Sniesk

I don't like the idea of this word play, Erika was pratically dead, what's the point in telling her a "fake" red?

So she can become a doll like corpse allowing the author to try and make us sympathize with her in the next episode.

And I don't think Renall's saying it's fake. He's just showing how the reds can look contradictory at face value I think.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by Kylon99

We've already have the established idea that Kinzo is dead before the game starts and so we also played with the idea that Kanon or someone could also have died before the game starts.

You mean you played with that.

I don't think it works even if he is dead at the start in a lot of ways. It'd make more sense if he was simply not on the island that day because a conspiracy to keep Kanon alive requires ridiculous levels of assumptions. Almost on the same level as Shkanon.

Kinzo is different because if he's revealed to be dead they have to distribute the inheritance and on top of that they get taxed 70%.

Keeping Kanon alive has no benefits for anyone whatsoever.

EDIT: Except for the person who murdered him possibly.

[Sniesk]

Originally Posted by Judoh

So she can become a doll like corpse allowing the author to try and make us sympathize with her in the next episode.

And I don't think Renall's saying it's fake. He's just showing how the reds can look contradictory at face value I think.

I know, but i think you're just overthinking it. Of course we can argue about the ambiguity of every signle red that has been shown, but i don't think we can found many answers in word plays. I mean, it is difficult to explain something (the red truth) without leaving possibilities of different interpretations. The names issue is the biggest example, when a red says "Rudolf is dead" we could even doubt if it is talking about the Rudolf that we know of someone else. But i don't think this will lead anywere...

[Leafsnail]

Originally Posted by Kylon99

This *sorta* goes to the idea that I've been playing with.

We've already have the established idea that Kinzo is dead before the game starts and so we also played with the idea that Kanon or someone could also have died before the game starts.

However, what if like Battler, who's survival is actively ensured by most of the people in the game, there are people who's death is actively ensured? I.e. this a conspiracy to kill specifically one or two people and they nearly always succeed. In other words this isn't a conspiracy to kill everyone or kill people that were randomly chosen (by someone else.) There is a direct need to kill.

The only ones I can think of is the death of the bomber who we sorta suspect is Krauss. If he is purposely killed (for a reason separate than the bombing) then the chance to disarm the bomb goes way down.

The other one is Kanon who seems to die in all episodes except for 5.

But I can't think of why their deaths would be necessary. I've just observed that these two have very, very low survival rates. 8)

Rosa has a horrible survival rate too - she's in 4/6 first twilights, and the second twilight for another. It's only in ep2 she survives. Could be due to her being "Gaap" and thus the organizer of the FFT, making her a prime target.

[Renall]

Yes, but that's the point; the red has always used implicit assumptions. We aren't always told what they are, or what the rules for them are. Unless we are certain of them, are we certain they say what we've come to think they say?

[Judoh]

Why do you need an atlas to solve it then if the river is time and not something geographic?

[Burkie]

Was it confirmed that an atlas is needed? It seemed that Rosa may have solved it without one anyway.

[chronotrig]

Originally Posted by Renall

Yes, but that's the point; the red has always used implicit assumptions. We aren't always told what they are, or what the rules for them are. Unless we are certain of them, are we certain they say what we've come to think they say?

I agree with this. We can't be certain of the assumptions the red is based on, which means that red isn't the best way to create a theory. It also means that my attempts to minimize ghost-Erika with red text arguments can never be fully successful.

Still, if the red is going to have an unconventional meaning, there had better be some clue to tell us what it actually does mean.

[Kylon99]

Originally Posted by Judoh

You mean you played with that.

I don't think it works even if he is dead at the start in a lot of ways. It'd make more sense if he was simply not on the island that day because a conspiracy to keep Kanon alive requires ridiculous levels of assumptions. Almost on the same level as Shkanon.

Kinzo is different because if he's revealed to be dead they have to distribute the inheritance and on top of that they get taxed 70%.

Keeping Kanon alive has no benefits for anyone whatsoever.

EDIT: Except for the person who murdered him possibly.

It wasn't just me. There were some suggestions around that he may have been dead; that's what gave me the idea before. But like you said, it's pretty difficult.

Now I'm pondering the idea of a guaranteed kill for certain people. I mean, besides the 10th Twilight, which kills (almost) everyone anyways.

If you think about it there has to be at least one person, the culprit, who has an intention to always kill at least one other person. This would reflect Lambdadelta's powers, or follow Takano's story in Higurashi. A very strong will to kill ... Kanon? and Krauss?

Of course that 'culprit' could just be intending to kill *everyone* and then trying to detect him this way won't work... hm. (I don't mean the Midnight Bomber, of course.)

[Raiza Sunozaki]

Originally Posted by Renall

Yes, but that's the point; the red has always used implicit assumptions. We aren't always told what they are, or what the rules for them are. Unless we are certain of them, are we certain they say what we've come to think they say?

We've never been told the rules of the red. We've only ever been told one rule: that everything said in the red is the absolute truth.
I've never liked this concept of saying in red that there is less of something when in reality, the exact number is more. Sure, you can only see that there is X number of something, but that doesn't mean the other Y-X thing(s) don't exist. The way I see it, you can say "I counted seven eggs in the carton," when there are really eleven eggs in the carton, but you can't say "there are seven eggs."

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by Burkie

Was it confirmed that an atlas is needed? It seemed that Rosa may have solved it without one anyway.

I'm pretty sure Both Battler and Erika had to look at an atlas to confirm their theories. Since they bump into each other when one of them is looking at one.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Raiza Sunozaki

We've never been told the rules of the red. We've only ever been told one rule: that everything said in the red is the absolute truth.
I've never liked this concept of saying in red that there is less of something when in reality, the exact number is more. Sure, you can only see that there is X number of something, but that doesn't mean the other Y-X thing(s) don't exist. The way I see it, you can say "I counted seven eggs in the carton," when there are really eleven eggs in the carton, but you can't say "there are seven eggs."

Yes, but as far as we know, you can make an implicit assumption of "there are seven eggs [that I counted]" and it is equally as valid as "there are [only] seven eggs" if we lack any guidelines to determine otherwise.

[zRyuu]

If we could trust the red just like that then we'd have only 5 suspicious persons
EP2: It was said in red in EP4 that the 6 people found in the chapel were dead at the time they were discovered.
EP3: It was said in red that the 5 servants + Kinzo were dead. This was right at the moment the relatives found them very early in the game. And we know people still keep dying.
Should we trust this red texts?

[Raiza Sunozaki]

Originally Posted by Renall

Yes, but as far as we know, you can make an implicit assumption of "there are seven eggs [that I counted]" and it is equally as valid as "there are [only] seven eggs" if we lack any guidelines to determine otherwise.

So you are saying, since there is no proof available to prove it wrong, that theory can't be denied? Then there isn't much for me to argue, is there?

[Raiza Sunozaki]

Originally Posted by zRyuu

If we could trust the red just like that then we'd have only 5 suspicious persons
EP2: It was said in red in EP4 that the 6 people found in the chapel were dead at the time they were discovered.
EP3: It was said in red that the 5 servants + Kinzo were dead. This was right at the moment the relatives found them very early in the game. And we know people still keep dying.
Should we trust this red texts?

You have to trust the red. The red is the truth. So these people are certainly dead when they are pronounced dead in the red. However, that still leaves ten people capable of killing.
As well, if I remember correctly, Battler narrates how the adults went around finding the corpses, then Beato proclaims them dead. This leaves time for people discovered earlier to move around before dying. However, I'm still not sure to what means.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Raiza Sunozaki

So you are saying, since there is no proof available to prove it wrong, that theory can't be denied? Then there isn't much for me to argue, is there?

I'm saying, in circumstances where the red is obviously open to interpretation (the end of ep6), we can't be sure of a certain interpretation. A pattern might give us some idea, but otherwise we need rules of construction.

[zRyuu]

Originally Posted by Raiza Sunozaki

You have to trust the red. The red is the truth. So these people are certainly dead when they are pronounced dead in the red. However, that still leaves ten people capable of killing.
As well, if I remember correctly, Battler narrates how the adults went around finding the corpses, then Beato proclaims them dead. This leaves time for people discovered earlier to move around before dying. However, I'm still not sure to what means.

I didnt mean to say that the red is a lie. However, there are things that can be used with the red to confuse us. For example, omitting a word in red, or a different definition for a word in red, or some kind of trick like that.
Anyways, you are right eleven (not counting Battler) people are capable of killing those five and leaving Kinzo in the boiler room, or one of those five could have killed the other four (not counting Kinzo) and then die due to an accident. My point is that people still die after that.
-If one of the five is the culprit (not counting Kinzo), then the culprit died early in the game after killing the other four servants and leaving Kinzo in the boiler room. However people keep dying later on, does this mean there is more than 1 culprit? I dont like this idea.
-If one of the eleven is the culprit, and killed the servants in EP3 while they were faking death, it works fine. However, six of them died early in EP2, the red says so. And people still keep dying. This leaves us with five suspects George, Jessica, Maria, Nanjo, and Rosa. Of course, this is only if there is no trick in one of the reds that claim in both EP2 and EP3 that the six people in the first twilight are truly dead and if there is only one person that is killing people. What do you guys think? Is there someone else that took the role of culprit in one of this episodes? Two culprits or anyone can be the culprit depending on certain things that happen? Or is there a trick in this reds? Or is the culprit one of the five I mentioned?