[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by Smeckledorf

Slightly off-topic, are there any good theories to how that could have worked out without one of five people being Kanon?

Assuming your referring to the rescuer thing I can list some answers

• Kanon escaped location check for the cousins room at about the same time Erika did (which is never explained). Thus this allows him to be the rescuer without name games. Since he was never sealed inside in the first place.
• Kanon = Kinzo of course
• Someone in the neighboring room = Kanon and/or Erika
• Kanon's real name is the same as one of the 5 people (Erika's theory just different)

[Jan-Poo]

Of course: Kinzo can refer to Kanon, therefore since "Kinzo" was excluded from "everyone else" then Kanon could have been in any kind of place.

Kanon's real name is the same as one of the 5 people (Erika's theory just different)

Different? Isn't it exactly Erika's theory?

Kanon escaped location check for the cousins room at about the same time Erika did (which is never explained). Thus this allows him to be the rescuer without name games. Since he was never sealed inside in the first place.

This can't work. Erika was excluded from the "everyone else" the same way Kinzo did. Only those two where excluded, there's no one else.

[chronotrig]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

BTW do you think that in the last duel between Erika and Beatrice, the latter had to answer any repetition request provided she could do it?

Because if she didn't, then it would have been a tremendously unfair duel. Beatrice could simply refuse everything, or decide to refuse on purpose just one thing to lead Erika to believe she hit the nail.

It's a little vague in the explanation, but the rules of the duel are actually completely different than the rules for a normal game. In that duel, it's one strike, you're out.

In other words, if Erika makes a blue truth that's logical and Beato doesn't respond, Beato dies (almost) instantly.
On the other hand, if Erika doesn't guess the truth right on her first try, by "loading her gun" with all the blue truth she thinks she needs, she dies (almost) instantly as well.

This is why Erika couldn't then, for example, check the closet for Kanon's corpse or even see who it was in there, if anyone. The instant Beato's red truth of "Kanon isn't in the guest room" took effect, the game was already over since Erika didn't have any blue prepared for that.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Different? Isn't it exactly Erika's theory?

Her theory was that his real name was George right? In this case we're theorizing he's a girl and that his real name is Rosa, Maria, or Eva or something like that.

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

This can't work. Erika was excluded from the "everyone else" the same way Kinzo did. Only those two where excluded, there's no one else.

Well I only see Kinzo's being referred to there, but whatever. I was thinking she escaped the check by just leaving before it was sealed.

[Renall]

Nothing prohibits Kanon from escaping the location check by being named Rosa, Maria, Kyrie, Natsuhi, or Eva, but it does prohibit him from being the rescuer. Since we know he is the rescuer, that can't work. Also, to escape the location check as anyone but Kinzo, Kanon has to be in the same room as the person being so named.

So it's unlikely he's one of the FT victims in name. Maybe Battler. But really, the Kinzo or one-of-the-five theories are the most viable ones.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by chronotrig

It's a little vague in the explanation, but the rules of the duel are actually completely different than the rules for a normal game. In that duel, it's one strike, you're out.

In other words, if Erika makes a blue truth that's logical and Beato doesn't respond, Beato dies (almost) instantly.
On the other hand, if Erika doesn't guess the truth right on her first try, by "loading her gun" with all the blue truth she thinks she needs, she dies (almost) instantly as well.

This is why Erika couldn't then, for example, check the closet for Kanon's corpse or even see who it was in there, if anyone. The instant Beato's red truth of "Kanon isn't in the guest room" took effect, the game was already over since Erika didn't have any blue prepared for that.

yes I understand that, and that's precisely why it would be incredibly unfair if Beatrice wasn't required to answer every repetition request. She never refused anything except requests that asked her to deny her own magical thesis.

Her theory was that his real name was George right? In this case we're theorizing he's a girl and that his real name is Rosa, Maria, or Eva or something like that.

That was her thought process, but since she had only one shot she couldn't say something as specific as "Kanon's true name is George". She simply stated that Kanon was in the neighboring room and he escaped from the window, without explaining how.

PS: Ah you meant the 5 of the first twilight? Even those in the neighboring room are five! Well as Renall... ha... Erika didn't spot a possibility...

I'll use Natsuhi as an example:

Natsuhi was killed by Erika, but later she was transported inside the cousin's room. no need to explain why. At the same time Kanon whose real name is Natsuhi (no comment!) hid inside the room where Natsuhi was murdered (I said no comment!). In that way when Natsuhi's position was stated it was actually Kanon/Natsuhi's position, and Ushiromiya Natsuhi was among the everyone else in the cousins's room.

[Almazluverdis3]

Originally Posted by Smeckledorf

Seconded, LONG LIVE KINZO.

I got some.
The cake is a lie.
The number of people on the island refer to the number of living, human bodies on the island at the start of the game and never changes.
The culprit's motive for killing is Battler's sin.
The portrait and epitaph were put up after Kinzo had died.
Dr. Nanjo refers to that person and never an impersonator.
The culprit did not set any sort of explosive device on the island.

NOOOOOO

That means Kanon is the lie. Because Kanon is the cake.

[m0h]

I'd like to point that Shannon was in the neighboring room too, and only the seal of the door was checked for that room. She could have escaped from the window and with a kanon mask ( not simply necessarly, if the kanon+shannon theory it's true, there's no red that denies Shannon having multiple names ( Kanon, for instance ). When she checks for Kanon, she could not find him because she would check for the person she belive is Kanon, not Shannon ( who could have been in the closet instead )

As support of my theory, the only 2 red truth Battler used.

# The neighboring room was certainly sealed, but at the time of the logic error, only the seal on the door was confirmed to be intact.
# The people who were in the neighboring room at the time it was sealed were Hideyoshi, George, Kumasawa, Shannon, and Nanjo. And, there were exactly five people in the neighboring room. No one other than the people corresponding to those five names existed! All names refer only to the actual people!


if this theory fails, RED me!

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by m0h

I'd like to point that Shannon was in the neighboor room too, and only the seal of the door was checked for that room. She could have escaped from the window and with a kanon mask ( not simply necessarly, if the kanon+shannon theory it's true, there's no red that denies Shannon having multiple names ( Kanon, for instance ). When she checks for Kanon, she could not find him because she would check for the person she belive is Kanon, not Shannon ( who could have been in the closet instead )

As support of my theory, the only 2 red truth Battler used.

# The neighboring room was certainly sealed, but at the time of the logic error, only the seal on the door was confirmed to be intact.
# The people who were in the neighboring room at the time it was sealed were Hideyoshi, George, Kumasawa, Shannon, and Nanjo. And, there were exactly five people in the neighboring room. No one other than the people corresponding to those five names existed! All names refer only to the actual people!


if this theory fails, RED me!

Well duh. That's why people think it has to be Shkanon. The thing is the red has only started supporting it now. The problem is there is a blue truth seal on the window. And for that to be true you have to ignore the blue truth seal or say it was removed later.

Honestly people don't think it's denied they just think it's too obvious and convoluted, and lame. I've read some text in the duel that suggests Erika ghost too.

and your wrong there is this red The only one who can claim Kanon's name is the person himself! and you have to twist it to either say "Shannon had his name the whole time" or "claiming names is not the same as inheriting them" for shkanon to work.

[m0h]

Originally Posted by Judoh

Well duh. That's why people think it has to be Shkanon. The thing is the red has only started supporting it now. The problem is there is a blue truth seal on the window. And for that to be true you have to ignore the blue truth seal or say it was removed later.

Honestly people don't think it's denied they just think it's too obvious. I've read some text in the duel that suggests Erika ghost too.

Erika NEVER had the time to deny that the blue seal of the windows has been broken.
Her existance was denied just after Battler broke out of the logic error.

More than a ghost she simply did not exist inside of Rokkenjima. Her actions never changed anything just because even if they welcome her, the actual number of people is seventeen. You cannot deny her existance out of the island, but you can deny it INSIDE.

[m0h]

Originally Posted by Judoh

and your wrong there is this red The only one who can claim Kanon's name is the person himself! and you have to twist it to either say "Shannon had his name the whole time" or "claiming names is not the same as inheriting them" for shkanon to work.

If Kanon is actually a disguise, Shannon has been STAGING Kanon for the very beginning. So she can clam the name since she is both Shannon that Kanon

EDIT: can i also theorize that Knox 3rd ( It is forbidden for hidden passages to exist. ) may have been forced to restrict the game master actions. We know that Kuwadorian exist, and from ep (4?) we know that an hidden passage exists that leads to kuwadorian. I'm talking about the dungeon where Krauss and the other have been held when Crazy Goldsmith appeared. The original knox rule 3 said " no more than one" so we can theorize that at least one hidden passage exists

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by m0h

Erika NEVER had the time to deny that the blue seal of the windows has been broken.
Her existance was denied just after Battler broke out of the logic error.

Dlanor was the one who made the seal and it's a problem for Erika specifically since she can't use the blue because of it. She doesn't have to deny it because she never made it.

[Judoh]

Originally Posted by m0h

If Kanon is actually a disguise, Shannon has been STAGING Kanon for the very beginning. So she can clam the name since she is both Shannon that Kanon

And duh again, That's the conclusion everybody comes to. But you have to acknowledge that until this episode you have had to twist the red this way for it to work, which this episodes emphasizes with it's peculiar reds that we shouldn't do. That's all I'm saying.

[Renall]

Honestly, I want there to be a solution not dependent on either Shkanon or Erika not existing. More than anything, that would be fantastic. However, as yet, I've not heard any theory that even comes close to that prospect. Even if you give Kanon another way out, you still have the number issue to deal with.

[Judoh]

I have proposed it once before. If we take the actual person reds literally. Since the names Genji and Jessica are not referred to in EP6 it is possible they are not actual people or they're names are not exclusive.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by Judoh

Dlanor was the one who made the seal and it's a problem for Erika specifically since she can't use the blue because of it. She doesn't have to deny it because she never made it.

Let's clarify this. Dlanor sealed the use of any blue truth regarding the window seal being broken. How the hell Dlanor can have such power is beyond me, however

This doesn't mean at all that the Game Master was disallowed from constructing a story where the window seal was broken.

Considering this fact, ironically, the seal on the blue truth was more of a bother for the human side than for the witch side. In fact Erika find herself unable to formulate her theory and had to tell Dlanor to remove the seal.

have proposed it once before. If we take the actual person reds literally. Since the names Genji and Jessica are not referred to in EP6 it is possible they are not actual people or they're names are not exclusive.

and how does this explain the problem? Their names weren't mentioned at all...

[Smeckledorf]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Of course: Kinzo can refer to Kanon, therefore since "Kinzo" was excluded from "everyone else" then Kanon could have been in any kind of place.

By that, do you mean that Kanon inherited Kinzo's name?

[Oliver]

Let me formulate that mess with Kanon's name a bit more strictly.

The red "The only one who can claim Kanon's name is the person himself!" seems to explicitly deny the possibility of anyone posing as Kanon, and various Shkanon variants tend to assume a third person to which both names "Shannon" and "Kanon" legitimately belong, however, the way it is worded is patently weird. Just what is "claiming name"?

Common language would hold that saying "I am Kanon" or doing anything to that effect is claiming Kanon's name. Responding to being addressed as Kanon is not necessarily "claiming his name", it is instead "claiming his place".

If someone tells me, "Mr. X, please do so and so," when my name is actually Y, I may actually do that out of courtesy or for numerous other reasons without bothering to disillusion the person, and I can still be said not to be claiming the name X, just acting in X's place. I didn't say my name was X, I just let you think that I am. Now, if someone explicitly asked me to confirm my name is X, I would be claiming it if I responded, but nobody did that.

Curiously, such behavior matches Kanon's usual style. Let me count the scenes where he does clearly claim the name "Kanon":

• Ep1 -- Kanon's introduction scene. "...I'm pleased to meet you. I am the servant... Kanon."
• Ep2 -- Kanon tells Kinzo "...It is Kanon, Master." and later, to Jessica, he says "...the only truth now is that here, I am Kanon.`"
• Ep5 -- During the court introductions: "I'm Kanon. I'm also alive."

All of these cases except the very first are not presented in a reliable perspective, and even in the scene in Ep3 where ghost Kanon saves Jessica, he does not introduce himself at all.

In fact, Kanon avoids saying his own name as if he hates it with a passion, which honestly, would not surprise me at all. While characters generally recognise each other and avoid introductions, for most of them, a moment comes up when someone asks "Who is it?" and they introduce themselves, or a different case where they affirm these names are actually that -- except for Kanon, who essentially only does it once in the entire series.

As such, it is still possible for anyone to be presumed to be Kanon by responding to Kanon's name, if that interpretation of the red is accepted.

The problem with that interpretation is that it renders the red about claiming the name simply meaningless.

My guess would be that it is actually a clue instead, and something much more interesting had to require that particular phrasing.

[m0h]

Originally Posted by Renall

Honestly, I want there to be a solution not dependent on either Shkanon or Erika not existing. More than anything, that would be fantastic. However, as yet, I've not heard any theory that even comes close to that prospect. Even if you give Kanon another way out, you still have the number issue to deal with.

Unless someone discovers the truth about Shannon+Kanon, wouldn't the number of people be 17, since every person in the game aknowledge it? It's like the Kinzo matter: the number decreased when the detective knows that Kinzo doesn't exist.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by Smeckledorf

By that, do you mean that Kanon inherited Kinzo's name?

Or that his real name is Kinzo. It's not like I believe this, I'm simply reporting the most popular theory to explain Kanon's escape from the cousin room after Shkanon.

Unless someone discovers the truth about Shannon+Kanon, wouldn't the number of people be 17, since every person in the game aknowledge it? It's like the Kinzo matter: the number decreased when the detective knows that Kinzo doesn't exist.

What exactly are you suggesting? In the case of Kinzo we never had a precise number of the people on the island.