[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[AuraTwilight]

Come on, now THAT is conjecture. It goes against anything we learned in EP4 and just because something appears kind of farfetched doesn't make it false. If you refuse to believe anything that appears in a story you're really starting to make up your own Umineko...
It was heavily implied that both the letters and the message bottles were both written and dispatched before the incident. Just give me one good reason to doubt that...and I don't mean your "I don't like the story the way I think the author wants me to think he thought about his story".

You realize I'm being half-satirical at this point, right? Get the stick out your ass and breath.

Your free to do that, but then do it without trying to discard evidence given within the story only because it doesn't suit your taste of a proper mystery. In that case your no better than Bernkastel or the similarly unpleasent Will...
"I don't like the way mysteries are done today...so I'm just gonna call them all shit and prove to everybody that I know better"

Fine, but I haven't discarded any evidence in the actual text of Umineko that wasn't already heavily suspect.

Again. What reason was there to lie about it? Why would this information be false if it is one of the elements that hints towards the explosion incident in the first place?

It's Bern. She's presenting the narrative that is most painful, cruel, and heartless to Ange. This isn't deniable, she even comes clean with it later saying that if Ange can't accept the worst case scenario, she should just give up and stay ignorant.

And what we've gone over is that you don't trust the EP7 Tea Party because it does not fit into your idea of the solution that Umineko should have. You're imposing a truth on a story while disregarding evidence that was clearly there from the start.

See above. Bernkastel is not. Fucking. Trustworthy.

Would you rather believe in a magical lighting bolt that struck the shrine and magically made it vanish including Torî and everything?!

It doesn't have to be magic. Lightning bolts have caused concussive landslides before; it forms a lot of Japanese mythological history due to such naturally occuring omens striking fear into the hearts of ignorant feudal Japan.

Am I the only one who loved the EP7 tea party? While deep down I hope it is fake, I am willing to accept it if that is indeed the solution, I also loved how the narrative was when Rudolph killed George, however I like to think that even when met with a stack of gold, everyone would have been smart enough to come to the same conclusion Kyrie did.(yeah just because we see millions of dollars worth of gold means we can exchange it for that much! Even moreso if one of us is dead!), I just can't buy that greed would make them THAT stupid.

I loved it, I just don't think it's true. It's a deliciously wonderful execution of Ryukishi's intention of making the reader feel disgusted and uncomfortable just like Ange.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Fine, but I haven't discarded any evidence in the actual text of Umineko that wasn't already heavily suspect.

Though you have to admit that at least 50% of your definition of suspect enough to discard is based on what you want your solution to be like.
Your way of reasoning is pretty similar to Erika, only that you know what you don't want it to be and you do anything in your power to reach a conclusion that is to your liking.
Everything and everybody in Umineko is heavily suspect. That's the core of the whole story and I always think that the most elegant solution is one that combines all and does not discard.

I could make up a theory which frames Kyrie as the most obvious of all culprits, because she is actually the only person beside Krauss with the necessary connections (Yakuza) to turn the gold into money. And given the fact how mentally unstable her sister is, it wouldn't be farfetched to assume that Kyrie isn't any better. Considering the fact that Kyrie was a sort of X-factor to Yasu and her not knowing enough about her (which might be why she disposed of her in both Legend and Turn) it is not impossible to reason that she was in fact the one who took the items Yasu prepared and killed everybody.
It was also Kyrie who gave the necessary spark to the pact between the siblings in order to make them conspire against Krauss. It was Kyrie who made Ange stay home. It was Kyrie who, despite being a proud woman, chose to stay with a womanizer of a husband.

It's Bern. She's presenting the narrative that is most painful, cruel, and heartless to Ange. This isn't deniable, she even comes clean with it later saying that if Ange can't accept the worst case scenario, she should just give up and stay ignorant.

Yet she never proves it right or wrong. But it's still probably something close to the truth, because what else would have the power to hurt Ange that much? Do you actually think that George culprit would make her even blink for a second, when she was ready to silently watch her aunt die? Maybe she'd be sad, maybe it would hurt her, but it wouldn't drive her maniacly insane for even a moment.

You can call Bernkastel what you want. A bitch? Yes. Conniving? Yes. Devilish? Yes. Devoid of compassion? Probably. But she never did anything to actually make her a liar.
She turned sentences upside down in order to make them appear better than they were or even make a horrible sentence into something good...but she never lied. Even her most evil, if you even smile at your aunt Eva once in your life your whole family is forever dead and gone, is no lie. Once Ange would have decided to move on she would have accepted her familys death...Bern just made that act sound much more heavy than it actually was.

It doesn't have to be magic. Lightning bolts have caused concussive landslides before; it forms a lot of Japanese mythological history due to such naturally occuring omens striking fear into the hearts of ignorant feudal Japan.

But why exactly in 1985? And why was it incorporated into the story as Shannon forming a pact with Beatrice in which she has to break a magic mirror to remove a magical seal that keeps her powers locked up, so that Beatrice can send down a lightning bolt as a sign of her returning magical powers? Why was it that Maria commented it as being an "evil omen" in EP1 when she saw the shrine had vanished?
Of course lightning is an important part of Japanese myths and folklore, that is why people in the story believed it in the first place. But you are implying that the whole story, about Shannon causing that event in order to gain enough power to have the resolve to approach George, is completely discardable.

[AuraTwilight]

Though you have to admit that at least 50% of your definition of suspect enough to discard is based on what you want your solution to be like.

Go fuck yourself. My only criteria for things being suspect is that it'd being delivered unreliably or it contradicts the more trustworthy parts of the story. If you're going to compare me to Erika then you can go to hell.

I'm not even going to read the rest of your post.

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by haguruma

It was heavily implied that both the letters and the message bottles were both written and dispatched before the incident. Just give me one good reason to doubt that...and I don't mean your "I don't like the story the way I think the author wants me to think he thought about his story".

I'll give several problems with the stories being written before the event:
They predict a disaster at Rokkenjima before it happens. Possible only if the crime is premeditated and written by the culprit (or someone who knows what this culprit is up to), or because the writer has intimate knowledge of the current family dynamic to strongly suspect that there will be a disasterous crime of some sort (and the story is actually just a kind of guess). Or someone wrote these stories beforehand, and someone else read them and made them true.
They predict the weather at Rokkenjima through Oct. 6. Possible only with an accurate weather report, which is within what? A week or two at best?
They predict Battler's return. Possible only after Battler's return was decided (remind me when that was exactly), unless the writer was Battler himself, or Battler's return was somehow caused by the writer or otherwise ensured to the writer by a third party.
They predict Ange's absence. Possible only after Oct. 3, unless the writer was six-year-old Ange herself, or her absence was somehow caused by the writer or otherwise ensured to the writer by a third party.

Or any of these could possibly be an unlikely coincidence as well.
Or some or all of these events do not completely match up with Rokkenjima-prime's known history (for example, the weather was actually sunny on Oct.5, 1986 (and for some reason, 1998 readers don't bring this up)).

All this isn't to say that there aren't problems with the writings being post-event; namely that one of them was supposedly discovered by the police right after the event.

And there is the unlikely possibility that the bottle stories were written during or just before the event, but that would take an exceptionally fast writer (who was probably also really busy killing/not being killed/playing double- maido/whatever)

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

It doesn't have to be magic. Lightning bolts have caused concussive landslides before; it forms a lot of Japanese mythological history due to such naturally occuring omens striking fear into the hearts of ignorant feudal Japan.

As for the shrine, it was almost certainly somehow destroyed by Shannon/Yasu-Beatrice. Explosives seem to be the most likely method. Else maybe it was destroyed naturally (or by other people for some reason) and the writer opportunistically incorporated the event into their narrative.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

I loved it, I just don't think it's true. It's a deliciously wonderful execution of Ryukishi's intention of making the reader feel disgusted and uncomfortable just like Ange.

I'm still out on whether it's true or not (haven't played the untranslated part of ep8 yet), but I thought it was fucking awesome.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Ange did it. Don't be stupid.

I was going through this thread's older posts today and I finally read your Ange theory. Fun stuff. What's really funny is that at the end of ep4, I seriously considered this theory. Why? So much focus on Ange at ep4, how emo she was, how Ange was also a witch (ANGE-Beatrice), and of course the sin 6 years ago (according to the narrative by then, who seemed to care so much about Battler in the first place? Only Ange).

And you ask how I could imagine a six-year old killing over a dozen people? The answer: I wouldn't put it past Kinzo Ryukishi.

[AuraTwilight]

And you ask how I could imagine a six-year old killing over a dozen people? The answer: I wouldn't put it past Kinzo Ryukishi.

Hey, look at how many people thought Maria seriously killed some people.

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by haguruma

Everything and everybody in Umineko is heavily suspect. That's the core of the whole story and I always think that the most elegant solution is one that combines all and does not discard.

Ryukishi puts contradictory information in his stories. And he doesn't want to commit completely to anything (there's a reason that Wright's dismantling of Claire's mysteries was in plain white text). But, in order to get anywhere at all, you have to dismiss some things and trust others. For example, Author Theory tells us all everything we've seen on Rokkenjima is fiction of some kind or another, which means it may or may not have meaning; in other words, a hint may or may not be something to dismiss, and it is up to you to figure out what you should and should not dismiss.

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Hey, look at how many people thought Maria seriously killed some people.

It seems possible to me. She certainly was depicted as not understanding death, and if Beatrice told her to do it... "Kill the bad witch possessing mama."

But, I don't think this actually happened in any of the fictions. And especially not in R-Prime.

[Renall]

A couple things to point out in sequence:

Firstly, remember that the police did not respond immediately. The first person who would have noticed anything untoward had happened was Captain Kawabata when he came back on the 6th and found the island blown the fuck up. He was supposed to come around noonish, though he may have come earlier since it was a Monday and he knew everyone would need to get back to their respective companies or schools. It's gonna take him like a half hour to get out there, and then he's got to radio somebody at Nijima, and only then will the police be able to dispatch some people to the island. And then they're probably gonna be poking around a while before they find the bottle because they're gonna be focused on the giant crater where the houses used to be and not the ocean, which brings me to...

Second, there is no earthly way the message bottle would've survived as ejected debris. Not even. Regardless of when it was written and regardless of when it was released, someone almost certainly had to have manually released it into the water. Wanderer has already discussed the implications of what it means if the bottle was released before or after the incident.

Finally, Battler culprit is acceptable as a theory on the basis that it is totally awesome and means Battler was such an amazing culprit he even managed to dupe himself. It's literally the perfect crime. Only Kinzotrice approaches it for sheer trollish delight, and Battler culprit is actually kind of plausible and textually supported. Also, "the reason Battler didn't come back in Lion's world is he felt no need to murder his entire family in that universe" is just kind of badass.

EDIT: Note that the logic has a sort of twisted amazement to it:

• Beatrice was created to love Battler.
• Battler kills everyone.
• Beatrice, out of love for Battler, takes the blame for Battler.
• Beatrice torments herself over doing this.
• Battler vows that he and Beatrice will torment each other forever.
• Battler realizes Beatrice was tormenting herself by covering for him and he made it worse by attacking her for leading him away from the conclusion that he did it.
• Battler torments himself over doing this.

Come on, that's the most metal thing ever.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

I'll give several problems with the stories being written before the event:
They predict a disaster at Rokkenjima before it happens. Possible only if the crime is premeditated and written by the culprit (or someone who knows what this culprit is up to), or because the writer has intimate knowledge of the current family dynamic to strongly suspect that there will be a disasterous crime of some sort (and the story is actually just a kind of guess). Or someone wrote these stories beforehand, and someone else read them and made them true.

Beatrice's message bottle stories don't describe an explosion at the end, only a serial murder. The explosion was mistakenly added by future observers who conflated the stories with the real event.

They predict the weather at Rokkenjima through Oct. 6. Possible only with an accurate weather report, which is within what? A week or two at best?

They predict Battler's return. Possible only after Battler's return was decided (remind me when that was exactly), unless the writer was Battler himself, or Battler's return was somehow caused by the writer or otherwise ensured to the writer by a third party.

They predict Ange's absence. Possible only after Oct. 3, unless the writer was six-year-old Ange herself, or her absence was somehow caused by the writer or otherwise ensured to the writer by a third party.

Or any of these possibly be an unlikely coincidence as well.

Is this really so unreasonable? The story actively acknowledges that the Witch's Illusion would not have come into popular existence except for an unlikely confluence of events -- the message bottles were miraculously found, and Eva auctioned off the Ushiromiya occult library.

In Ange's case, she only sporadically attended to begin with because of her stomach problems, so getting her real attendance correct by accident would be something like a 50/50 chance, right?

As for the shrine, it was almost certainly somehow destroyed by Shannon/Yasu-Beatrice. Explosives seem to be the most likely method. Else maybe it was destroyed naturally (or by other people for some reason) and the writer opportunistically incorporated the event into their narrative.

Question. Why is "a maid with no demolitions experience blew it up with old WW2 explosives" somehow more plausible than "a storm caused it to slide into the sea and there was some lightning"? In the first place, what's the reason for testing explosives on the shrine (during a violent rainstorm with the explosives exposed to the rain!?) instead of doing it on the other end of the island?

[cronnoponno]

Originally Posted by haguruma

You can call Bernkastel what you want. A bitch? Yes. Conniving? Yes. Devilish? Yes. Devoid of compassion? Probably. But she never did anything to actually make her a liar.
She turned sentences upside down in order to make them appear better than they were or even make a horrible sentence into something good...but she never lied. Even her most evil, if you even smile at your aunt Eva once in your life your whole family is forever dead and gone, is no lie. Once Ange would have decided to move on she would have accepted her familys death...Bern just made that act sound much more heavy than it actually was.

I'd like to say that I agree with this.

By the way, the main point of my argument a few posts ago was more of ''Erika pulled bitch move X when I expected her to make Superior Bitch Move Y'', it was mainly just a complaint on my end, I over-estimated her and then her image was entirely ruined for me after that.

Maybe it'd make more sense if I say I expected her to be a Kotomine Kirei , and then she revealed herself to be a Yagami Light. Well, she didn't really reveal herself to be that, I just wasn't paying attention until your post made me think ''Wait you're right, can't believe I overlooked that much...''

My complaint is ''She is a third-rate villain''.

@Renall

My thoughts exactly.

[Renall]

Bern never lied, but she also wasn't usually being honest. It's a fairly well-known trope to have the villain who never lies, but who uses half-truths and insinuations to make people draw the wrong conclusions. It was old when Shakespeare wrote Othello. It's just important to note that a character who does not or cannot lie isn't actually trustworthy.

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

Beatrice's message bottle stories don't describe an explosion at the end, only a serial murder. The explosion was mistakenly added by future observers who conflated the stories with the real event.

I did not say explosion. I used the word "disaster" because it is ambiguous. I consider a two-day serial murder to qualify as a disaster. So your blue does not address the problem I put forth. Whether the stories ended with an explosion or not, they still predicted a serial murder, which somehow coincided with an explosion on Rokkenjima-Prime. It's a very strange coincidence.

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

Is this really so unreasonable? The story actively acknowledges that the Witch's Illusion would not have come into popular existence except for an unlikely confluence of events -- the message bottles were miraculously found, and Eva auctioned off the Ushiromiya occult library.

In Ange's case, she only sporadically attended to begin with because of her stomach problems, so getting her real attendance correct by accident would be something like a 50/50 chance, right?

It's very unreasonable. The witch's illusion is not a coincidence. It was created by someone who has an agenda for which the illusion has purpose. And I don't want to think that Ryukishi relies on convenient coincidence to explain how his story works. However, the alternatives (post-event authorship, as-the-event-happened authorship) are also very unreasonable. This is why I raised this discussion in the first place, to see if people can help me sort this out.

Originally Posted by LyricalAura

Question. Why is "a maid with no demolitions experience blew it up with old WW2 explosives" somehow more plausible than "a storm caused it to slide into the sea and there was some lightning"? In the first place, what's the reason for testing explosives on the shrine (during a violent rainstorm with the explosives exposed to the rain!?) instead of doing it on the other end of the island?

Of course it wasn't a weapons test. That's retarded.
Yasu-Beatrice had already been doing inexplicable acts on Rokkenjima for years in order to convince people that Beatrice existed. Her destruction of the shrine was role-fulfillment for Beatrice; in other words, to strengthen the legend of Beatrice. The how part of your argument is effective though. Then again, GENSAWAJO could help with that.

Originally Posted by Renall

Finally, Battler culprit is acceptable as a theory on the basis that it is totally awesome and means Battler was such an amazing culprit he even managed to dupe himself. It's literally the perfect crime. Only Kinzotrice approaches it for sheer trollish delight, and Battler culprit is actually kind of plausible and textually supported. Also, "the reason Battler didn't come back in Lion's world is he felt no need to murder his entire family in that universe" is just kind of badass.

EDIT: Note that the logic has a sort of twisted amazement to it:

• Beatrice was created to love Battler.
• Battler kills everyone.
• Beatrice, out of love for Battler, takes the blame for Battler.
• Beatrice torments herself over doing this.
• Battler vows that he and Beatrice will torment each other forever.
• Battler realizes Beatrice was tormenting herself by covering for him and he made it worse by attacking her for leading him away from the conclusion that he did it.
• Battler torments himself over doing this.

Come on, that's the most metal thing ever.

This is awesome, and makes a lot of sense in many ways. The main problem is that the stories being written pre-event indicate premeditation. If Battler premeditated the murders, it doesn't make so much sense for him to have PTSD amnesia.

[Bluemail]

I also don't see Bernkastel as a liar. She is an ugly person in several ways, but not a liar. Which means I believe her saying she isn't the Gamemaster of EP7 tea party. As we hear Eva's voice in the beginning, it is probably Eva's interpretation of the events.

Originally Posted by Renall

Finally, Battler culprit is acceptable as a theory on the basis that it is totally awesome and means Battler was such an amazing culprit he even managed to dupe himself. It's literally the perfect crime. Only Kinzotrice approaches it for sheer trollish delight, and Battler culprit is actually kind of plausible and textually supported. Also, "the reason Battler didn't come back in Lion's world is he felt no need to murder his entire family in that universe" is just kind of badass.

EDIT: Note that the logic has a sort of twisted amazement to it:

• Beatrice was created to love Battler.
• Battler kills everyone.
• Beatrice, out of love for Battler, takes the blame for Battler.
• Beatrice torments herself over doing this.
• Battler vows that he and Beatrice will torment each other forever.
• Battler realizes Beatrice was tormenting herself by covering for him and he made it worse by attacking her for leading him away from the conclusion that he did it.
• Battler torments himself over doing this.

Come on, that's the most metal thing ever.

Well we have the forgery XXX TIP and Ougon Musou Kyoku 2, but Ryukishi seems to present evil Battler as really really evil, so it probably isn't the solution. Though how more evil can a culprit like that get, so maybe it really fits the Battler culprit image. Well what could be the motive, except making an impossible crime in And Then There Were None -fashion for the heck of it?
I agree it would be totally awesome and badass, though it might deprive some lyrics from Ricordando il passato of it's meaning, mainly "Quel giorno, quanti misteri avrei dovuto risolvere per poterti portare via?" = "Should I have needed to solve many mysteries that day to save you?". Well if Battler did learn the truth on Rokkenjima-Prime as speculated, and she wasn't saved anyway, then what gives?

I'd also like to see some visualisation of George culprit. Martial arts VS hatstand-wielding Battler in the rainy rose garden? A fight between men as Ronove described in EP3! It is a supportable theory, though it may not explain Ange's breakdown.

Or maybe Ange freaked out not because the truth was unpleasant, but because the contents were the same as EP7 Tea Party, making her think there's a conspiracy against her to hide the truth. Poor Ange being trolled by everyone.
Though Eva's diary containing the truth was confirmed in red, right? So Ange shouldn't doubt, at least in Meta-perspective. Not the whole truth, but Eva's truth at least.

Originally Posted by Wanderer

I did not say explosion. I used the word "disaster" because it is ambiguous. I consider a two-day serial murder to qualify as a disaster. So your blue does not address the problem I put forth. Whether the stories ended with an explosion or not, they still predicted a serial murder, which somehow coincided with an explosion on Rokkenjima-Prime. It's a very strange coincidence.

Well you can write a murder mystery story about murders happening in a real location, even if nothing happens there in reality. She didn't exactly predict it. The thing about Ange not being there is the weirdest part I think as it narrows the timeframe of the writing to a minimum. I think someone suggested that Ange was in the story originally but not doing anything important, and was edited out when it became known that she wouldn't be present. It would probably require writing the thing again (not rewriting, just writing again and removing the "linespaces" left by Ange's removal). It was never hinted that there were lines missing/removed in the message bottle stories, right?

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

I'll give several problems with the stories being written before the event:
They predict a disaster at Rokkenjima before it happens.
They predict the weather at Rokkenjima through Oct. 6
They predict Battler's return.
They predict Ange's absence.

I want to bring up again that it was implied that the message bottles were written in diary form and it was genuinly believed that they could have been written during the incident. It doesn't really take an exceptionally fast writer, especially if she already planned the basic setup in her head.
She learned of Battler's return some days before through Jessica. She learned of Ange not returning from the servants on the 3rd because they had to prepare rooms. Yes, I think a typhoon is usually announced about a week in advance and by the 3rd it should have been pretty clear that it was coming with a 90/10 chance.
And wasn't it also insinuated by Natsuhi and Gohda that Shannon wasn't doing her work properly and was unsually unattentive during her shift? Maybe she was busy with other things during the rest of the day.

The only thing that made the officials dismiss the theory proposed by the letters were:
The fact that the handwriting was not Marias.
The fact that it describes a serial murder, occult events and only alludes to the fact that their "might or might not be a corpse". (Like LyricalAura said, it doesn't describe an explosion)
And most importantly, the fact that Eva is described as brutally murdered in both messages, which clearly did not happen.
Because of this the officials treated it as probable fiction and further claimed that this was actually an incident caused by a landslide. It is quite usual for the police in mystery fiction to be portrayed as 'not interested in the truth as long as a case is closed', so while this might be not 100% convincing it is a genre-trope that can be accepted if one wants to.

Alternatively we could assume that Eva used some of her wealth (which she already should have gotten back around the early 90's) to covince the police not to research the events any further. She very probably knew about the source of the explosion and as we know from EP8 she doesn't want the truth to be revealed either.

Originally Posted by Wanderer

Ryukishi puts contradictory information in his stories. [...]But, in order to get anywhere at all, you have to dismiss some things and trust others. [...]in other words, a hint may or may not be something to dismiss, and it is up to you to figure out what you should and should not dismiss.

It is something different to dismiss contradictory information (like Eva was killed and Eva is alive in 1998) but it is a whole other thing to dismiss information that, while it is as suspect as anything in the story, is not attacked by an alternate idea in the narrative.
I'd say, there is actually nothing that has to be totally dismissed especially because these are stories. Even events like Eva-Beatrice have their reason to be in the story, because it shows what even Eva started to believe at a certain point.

Originally Posted by Renall

Finally, Battler culprit is acceptable as a theory on the basis that it is totally awesome and means Battler was such an amazing culprit he even managed to dupe himself. It's literally the perfect crime.

Yes, the Forgery No.xxx TIP pretty much showed how awesome the theory actually is and it's not like it can't be proven in the context of Chiru. We still have to question why he came back in the first place. Yes, seen with love he came back because he cared, but you can also see it without love and say he came back because of the money. His grandparents died, Kasumi as new head of the clan will surely not support him and he's basically out on the streets, so he would be in need of money as well.
It's a possible theory and it would be awesome on some scale.

Originally Posted by Bluemail

Well you can write a murder mystery story about murders happening in a real location, even if nothing happens there in reality. She didn't exactly predict it. [...]It was never hinted that there were lines missing/removed in the message bottle stories, right?

No there wasn't, but as I said, it's not that hard to write down a story in diary form in 2 or 3 days if you already have the basic structure. It's also implied that the story didn't feel the need to follow the truth 100%. There is, as already mentioned, the aspect that Eva survived Rokkenjima (which proves both messages wrong) and at the end it also says that "there might or might not be a corpse".

It's also quite funny how many people here want to believe that there was an occult mystery murder case on the island, just like the Witch Hunters. Ôtsuki said that the idea of an occult serial murder didn't even exist in public prior to the message bottles being found. Rokkenjima was known as an "occult island" after Eva sold Kinzôs collection, but that was it at first.
There is even the fact that the stake of Mamon was retrieved from the site of the incident, which more or less proves that it was never used in any crime that might have happened on the island. Unless we want to believe that it is made from a material strong enough to withstand an explosion.

It's quite probable that there was a hideous crime, because there's no other way to explain why only Battler and Eva escaped (unless you want to believe that everybody suffered amnesia except Eva ). But it is also quite probable that it was not the elegant night of murder, magic and mystery that Yasu imagined when she planned those 2 days.

[Cao Ni Ma]

Well, the government officials might not be as trust worthy as you'd think. If there where explosives left on the island and they knew about it they'd do everything they could to cover up the incident, no need to bribe them at all.

Theres plenty of circumstantial evidence that could be interpreted as them hiding the truth. From the stonewalling of the resort, because imagine the public nightmare of having a large group of tourist get blown up in an island getaway. To their incessant attempts to try an buy back the island before Kinzo developed it. It could tie up with what Okonogi mentions as well.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by Cao Ni Ma

Well, the government officials might not be as trust worthy as you'd think. If there where explosives left on the island and they knew about it they'd do everything they could to cover up the incident, no need to bribe them at all.

Theres plenty of circumstantial evidence that could be interpreted as them hiding the truth. From the stonewalling of the resort, because imagine the public nightmare of having a large group of tourist get blown up in an island getaway. To their incessant attempts to try an buy back the island before Kinzo developed it. It could tie up with what Okonogi mentions as well.

But these things are not tied to the story of the murders on Rokkenjima at all.
This would immediatly catapult us into a genre called Shakai-ha, which uses the setting of a murder mystery but is more a political thriller. And Ryûkishi himself made it clear at several points that while these elements are there, they have no influence on the central events.

I would also say that you could easily write a story that incorporates political intrigue, yakuza connections, corporations plotting against the family...but the question is if we want that.

[Cao Ni Ma]

It wouldn't have anything to do with the actual events that happen in rokkenjima, just what happens afterward. Whoever committed the crimes still did it for whichever reasons they had.

Its only used to explain the ineptitude the government would have had of selling an island with a cove full of explosives and not doing anything to try and resolve the issue because they forgot about it or whatever.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Bluemail

Well we have the forgery XXX TIP and Ougon Musou Kyoku 2, but Ryukishi seems to present evil Battler as really really evil, so it probably isn't the solution. Though how more evil can a culprit like that get, so maybe it really fits the Battler culprit image. Well what could be the motive, except making an impossible crime in And Then There Were None -fashion for the heck of it?
I agree it would be totally awesome and badass, though it might deprive some lyrics from Ricordando il passato of it's meaning, mainly "Quel giorno, quanti misteri avrei dovuto risolvere per poterti portare via?" = "Should I have needed to solve many mysteries that day to save you?". Well if Battler did learn the truth on Rokkenjima-Prime as speculated, and she wasn't saved anyway, then what gives?

Well, we have to consider that there are three real people known to be Ushiromiya Battler, speaking generally:

• The 12-year-old Battler Yasu met and supposedly fell for the last time she ever saw him prior to 1986.
• The Battler who was actually on the island in 1986.
• The Battler who became Hachijou after somehow surviving the incident with amnesia (it's never any less stupid the more I type it).

People knew the one from 1980 reasonably well. Nobody knows the post-1986 one very well other than Ikuko. More critically, neither the past nor the future Battler know the 1986 Battler at all. Baffling? Yes, but think about it:

• For "past Battler," he hasn't experienced and done whatever he did between '80 and '86 yet, so obviously he doesn't know what he will become.
• For "future Battler," he doesn't remember what he did, so he doesn't know what he was.

"Forgery Battler" is a fictional construct. He is modeled not on the Battler that actually was (so far as we know), but on the Battler that was remembered. Much like Yasu's two missing years, we have no idea what the real Battler was like or how he would have behaved on Rokkenjima.

Does that mean he was a psycho killer, like that Talking Heads song "Road to Nowhere," or that he burned down the house like that other Talking Heads song, "Once In A Lifetime?" Probably not. But it's critical that no one still alive has extensive information about the kind of person Battler actually was in 1986. At least, no person who actually appears in the story.

There are, in fact, only two snippets I can remember of semi-reliable memories on that time period:

• Ange remembers that Battler was considerate about showing up for her during birthdays and whatnot. This only really indicates that he may have cared about her more than he cared for his parents, or at least that he wanted it to appear that way.
• Yasu remembers not getting a letter from him. Viewed without love for George or Kyrie you could say one of them hid the letter. But what if you view it with love for both, and assume they didn't hide anything because there was nothing to hide?

Of course I read the TIPs to suggest Battler culprit is meant to be a troll theory, but that's strange because other than one time in ep5 Battler never once was willing to throw himself out there as a possible suspect and every instance in the stories where someone thinks Battler might be culpable is portrayed as a moment of irrationality. Obviously if the stories are covering for him they'd do that, but it'd be odd to address in a TIP someting that was never apparently seriously considered.

Did Battler-culprit ever get traction in Japan's fanbase or something?

[Xenon_gun]

This latest discussion reminded me of something from the interview:

K The scene at the beach was especially harsh. And during EP7, during the scene with the letters I also thought, „Damn Battler, you’re bad!“.

R There are many ways to think about this scene though, maybe there was no bad intent and they just forgot, maybe George decided not to hand the letter over. I won’t say what’s the truth, but I want you to think of different possibilities.

K So it’s about whether we want Battler or George to be the bad guy, right?!

R There’s more. Maybe Kyrie told him „Write to all of your cousins“, so he just wrote to his cousins, there are many ways to think about it. A riddle like that is a way of, if I had to say it with Bernkastel’s words, my way of trying to make you enjoy parallel worlds. At the core it is about whether the player wants to believe in Battler or George. Maybe it’s just about for whom of them you have love. This is what Ange was told about during EP7 and 8, no matter what truths exist, in the end there is only the one in the heart of the person approaching it.

This passage seems to be referring specifically to the beach scene... but what if the emphasised part was a hidden clue by Ryukishi?
Working from the translation, I wouldn't put it past him to pull something like this off.

There is also Bern's game in EP8 which, if I remember correctly, had both a George and a Battler solution.

[Wanderer]

Basically, we get to pick our own endings.

...

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

[AuraTwilight]

Did Battler-culprit ever get traction in Japan's fanbase or something?

Yea, a lot of Japanese readers clung to Battler-culprit theory almost the entirety of Chiru. Forgery No.XXX is apparently in reference to them.

At the core it is about whether the player wants to believe in Battler or George.

Well George is fucked.