[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[haguruma]

Did any of us ever actually consider the implication behind Chiester 556 being damaged and dying?

How many Winchester rifles are actually in use during the Episodes where all of them are distributed and couldn't this not only refer to the bunny doll Rosa smashed, but also extend to one of the guns basically being meaningless or not fully functional? Would this even change anything?

[Leafsnail]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure one of the rifles is nonfunctioning. That's probably the one Yasu gives to Natsuhi in Legend and Rosa in Turn - that's how Yasu was able to win the duel with Natsuhi at the end of Legend. I can't really remember who has guns in episode 3, but they certainly aren't all fired.

Incidentally, I've been having another go at episode 4. My rough interpretation so far is:
- Goldsmith = Yasu revealed as heir
- The Chiesters could represent some of the parents working with Yasu (I'd say Kyrie, Rudolf, Krauss since they were probably recruited). Negotiations failed, so they instead threatened everyone with guns to go along with their plan.
- Things went horribly wrong in several ways. Rosa didn't react well to the original threat, and Krauss shot her when she jumped at him (Chiester 00/Rosa scene). George reacted badly to Yasu telling him the truth, and physically threatened her (Gaap/George scene). Jessica misinterpreted the situation and got into a fight with Genji (Ronove/Jessica scene). Yasu's own team (shown in the Kyrie/Krauss vs Virgilia/Goats scene) got into an argument and ended up coming to blows.
- I'm still not sure on who actually did the killing. If 410/45 are Rudolf/Kyrie then it'd be mostly them, perhaps trying to deal with the growing chaos all over the island. Yasu may have ended up shooting George in self-defense, which would have caused enough friction with Eva.
- At the end Yasu messed with the scene to make it look like a witch might have done it. She got Kyrie to help (willingly or not) by making the phonecall. She then shot herself, letting the gun fall down the well.

I'll probably come up with something better once I've reread it.

[passer_by]

Originally Posted by haguruma

Maybe you should try thinking outside of the frame of what is in for them in terms of actual palpable gains. What kind of relationship do the servants have to "Beatrice" and to the people who are Beatrice if she is not pretending to be a witch.

Maybe the plan started as wanting to stage a fake murder mystery, but what further gains could drive people not to unveil anything, even if they assume "Beatrice" has started killing people.
Genji and Kumasawa are servants to the house for decades and at least Genji never seems to have been in it for the money. Kumasawa is often described as motherly.
And Nanjo, he had a very interesting line during EP3, "No, don't...I have a sick grandchild...".
Remember how the final sentences of the main game of EP2 said that, besides Kinzo and Maria getting their wish, Genji was granted to finally rest in peace?

Money is a powerful incentive, but I agree with you that it is unlikely to be the one and only way to convince a person. There must be more, but if you look through the story you might understand why people might feel an indebtedness that compels them to ply along even if their consciousness screams against it.

Thank you for the leads. I will try to plow for clues through the first episodes again. I am totally blank on Genji's motives besides a survant/father figure. Kumasawa is indeed a mother figure (hello Virgilia). Gohda looks to be an outsider to a large extent but I am not sure. Nanjo is a puzzle anyway: instead of revealing the prank to Natsuhi and getting money from her he actually goes for covering up the murders. So much for a doctor. Regarding loyalty and parental love of the servants, none of it could be a reason good enough to help murdering innocent people (or at least people not guilty in a capital crime).

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by passer_by

Battler and Natsuhi are most likely targets of the "prank" and they take it as murders anyway. Hideyoshi is two steps away from the first corpse and the corpses are mutilated beyond any chance of imitation. Pictures of deformed jaws and missing flesh are quite convincing. This makes him a culprit in cahoots with Kanon (how on Earth was it possible??) or totally blind (but he “sees” Sannon’s corpse and the ring).
Nanjo is a problem. He must be involved into conspiracy at least with one group because they need his evaluation of the "bodies". But! Nanjo MUST know these are REAL dead bodies; he is a doctor after all. If he is a part of a team he should have started yelling right away that this is not a joke anymore. So, he must be a conspirator and he can't be at the same time. Am I missing something?

You've to remember the culprit might claim he used Kinzo's gold to buy realistic fake corpses so his accomplices won't really give them a good look and realize that no, they aren't made of plastic.
Nanjo likely knows it's no joke but he's likely seriously blackmailed so that he doesn't dare to voice out the truth.
Nanjo has plenty of things for which he can be blackmailed, starting for how he's covering up for Kinzo's death, which I think might cost him the profession (and there are other things but I won't spoiler you) and considering he has a sick grandaughter he might not afford the luxury. Probably he was promised he wouldn't be involved or something.
The servants also have some dark secrets in a way.
Alternatively you can assume he's really old, his sight is failing and considering that people missing half their head are surely dead, he didn't really have to knelt down and perform an examination, which might have lead him to assume they were dummies.

Originally Posted by haguruma

Did any of us ever actually consider the implication behind Chiester 556 being damaged and dying?

How many Winchester rifles are actually in use during the Episodes where all of them are distributed and couldn't this not only refer to the bunny doll Rosa smashed, but also extend to one of the guns basically being meaningless or not fully functional? Would this even change anything?

It's an interesting point and it can really be a hint to Natsuhi and Rosa's gun not working.

Originally Posted by Leafsnail

Yeah, I'm pretty sure one of the rifles is nonfunctioning. That's probably the one Yasu gives to Natsuhi in Legend and Rosa in Turn - that's how Yasu was able to win the duel with Natsuhi at the end of Legend. I can't really remember who has guns in episode 3, but they certainly aren't all fired.

Incidentally, I've been having another go at episode 4. My rough interpretation so far is:
- Goldsmith = Yasu revealed as heir
- The Chiesters could represent some of the parents working with Yasu (I'd say Kyrie, Rudolf, Krauss since they were probably recruited). Negotiations failed, so they instead threatened everyone with guns to go along with their plan.
- Things went horribly wrong in several ways. Rosa didn't react well to the original threat, and Krauss shot her when she jumped at him (Chiester 00/Rosa scene). George reacted badly to Yasu telling him the truth, and physically threatened her (Gaap/George scene). Jessica misinterpreted the situation and got into a fight with Genji (Ronove/Jessica scene). Yasu's own team (shown in the Kyrie/Krauss vs Virgilia/Goats scene) got into an argument and ended up coming to blows.
- I'm still not sure on who actually did the killing. If 410/45 are Rudolf/Kyrie then it'd be mostly them, perhaps trying to deal with the growing chaos all over the island. Yasu may have ended up shooting George in self-defense, which would have caused enough friction with Eva.
- At the end Yasu messed with the scene to make it look like a witch might have done it. She got Kyrie to help (willingly or not) by making the phonecall. She then shot herself, letting the gun fall down the well.

I'll probably come up with something better once I've reread it.

I think Ep 3 is probably the episode in which the accomplices didn't behave according to the plan.
We know from Our Confession that 'to divide the two who're close' it wasn't necessary to kill Maria and in the magic scene Maria begged Beatrice to revive her mama so I think Maria turned against Beato.

Eva seems in conflict with Eva Beatrice, which might represent a conflict with Yasu. She was probably promised the headship if she were to do something but all of sudden people are dying around her and she suspects the one who promised her such thing so that when Battler accuses her she answers she's the culprit.
Jessica jumped on Eva, ending up blinded, which probably wasn't part of the plan.
Kyrie and Rudolf might have been suspicious of Hideyoshi and dragged him out to question him so Yasu killed them and then him when he opposed to what she did.

Even Nanjo seems to have second thoughts here.

Considering Ep 3 was written by Tohya this can imply that really things took the wrong turn on the island.

[Leafsnail]

Episode 4 was also written by Tohya, wasn't it? While it's harder to tell due to how little Battler directly witnesses I think it's still clear that Yasu's plan went horribly wrong in that one too.

I guess episodes 3 and 4 are kindof telling us that not only did the plan go wrong, but also that the plan would inevitably go wrong and Yasu's stories were naive. In game 4 in particular we see all four servants (assuming Yasu = Gaap, Ronove = Genji, Virgilia = Kumasawa, Goats = Gohda) engaged in fights with members of the Ushiromiya family and an extremely messy crimescene.

[GreyZone]

Originally Posted by Leafsnail

Episode 4 was also written by Tohya, wasn't it? While it's harder to tell due to how little Battler directly witnesses I think it's still clear that Yasu's plan went horribly wrong in that one too.

I guess episodes 3 and 4 are kindof telling us that not only did the plan go wrong, but also that the plan would inevitably go wrong and Yasu's stories were naive. In game 4 in particular we see all four servants (assuming Yasu = Gaap, Ronove = Genji, Virgilia = Kumasawa, Goats = Gohda) engaged in fights with members of the Ushiromiya family and an extremely messy crimescene.

Taking this further, we could suppose the time where Kanon "died" is the exact same time where Jessica died and the moment Shannon (was shown) to die was the moment where George died, i.e. Jessica died first and immidietly after George died. The "fight scenes" of George and Jessica themselves were the intended murder mysteries with no real killings, but the "long range kills" from the Chiesters represent the real murderer(s) killing Jessica and shortly after George. As they were far away from each other, both died in a timeframe of 5-10 seconds, and because there were two Chiesters who shot (at least as far as I can remember), there were probably at least two people who did commited the real murders. This interpretation seems very similar to the events of the EP7 tea party.

Who knows? Maybe the "goat fight scene" was Kumasawa's and Gohda's attempt to bribe Krauss (in the name of the head of the family of course), but it failed The "Death Flags" were possibly Gohda's lack of diplomatic skills or something like that.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by Leafsnail

Episode 4 was also written by Tohya, wasn't it? While it's harder to tell due to how little Battler directly witnesses I think it's still clear that Yasu's plan went horribly wrong in that one too.

I guess episodes 3 and 4 are kindof telling us that not only did the plan go wrong, but also that the plan would inevitably go wrong and Yasu's stories were naive. In game 4 in particular we see all four servants (assuming Yasu = Gaap, Ronove = Genji, Virgilia = Kumasawa, Goats = Gohda) engaged in fights with members of the Ushiromiya family and an extremely messy crimescene.

Yes, that too.

Well, if we assume that Yasu in the beginning wrote them merely for fun we know that she might have felt that PieceYasu was protected by the plot itself. In short, in game 1 someone could have gone and check if Shannon was really there but Yasu was in charge of the plot so she knew no one would go there.
In real life though you aren't in charge of other people's decisions who can take an unpredictable turn even when you came to an agreement with them previously.

[ALPHA-Beatrice]

What this story's taught me, and Will pointed out that we normally go: Who dunnit, how dunnit and why dunnit?

But it's the opposite. We should first ask: Why dunnit, how dunnit and only then can we figure out the who dunnit.

I think I'll play the first Four Games again. I don't think the Fragments are completely fabricated.

As such I'll debunk my own theory above.

The Book of Single Truth was announced in Red. That book is Eva's Diary and contained information about Rokkenjima. So in the world of Umineko, Rokkenjima is a reality.

Of course we can't read it, but by Ryukishi stating that in Red, he reaffirmed there was meaning in playing the games.

[GreyZone]

If the Chiesters are really metaphorical representations of the Winchesters, why couldn't they kill Battler then? After all something like "Endless Nine" doesn't exist in reality. But why could Eva shoot Battler after that without any problems? Maybe because the body of Ushiromiya Battler cannot be destroyed?

[Leafsnail]

Battler has an objective viewpoint in Yasu's stories, so he can't be killed by a metaphor. He just gets shot with a gun.

[AuraTwilight]

Originally Posted by GreyZone

If the Chiesters are really metaphorical representations of the Winchesters, why couldn't they kill Battler then? After all something like "Endless Nine" doesn't exist in reality. But why could Eva shoot Battler after that without any problems? Maybe because the body of Ushiromiya Battler cannot be destroyed?

It was essentially the equivalent of a bunch of kids going "Pew pew pew, I got you" and he was an adult going "Screw off, I'm not playing."

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by GreyZone

If the Chiesters are really metaphorical representations of the Winchesters, why couldn't they kill Battler then? After all something like "Endless Nine" doesn't exist in reality. But why could Eva shoot Battler after that without any problems? Maybe because the body of Ushiromiya Battler cannot be destroyed?

Maybe because it's a red truth that on Rokkenjima Prime Battler was shot but not killed... or that on Rokkenjima Prime Battler someone tried to shot him but couldn't or even more simple Beatrice/Yasu would never be able to kill Battler with her bare hands... in fact the task is always left to the bomb.

Originally Posted by ALPHA-Beatrice

What this story's taught me, and Will pointed out that we normally go: Who dunnit, how dunnit and why dunnit?

But it's the opposite. We should first ask: Why dunnit, how dunnit and only then can we figure out the who dunnit.

I think I'll play the first Four Games again. I don't think the Fragments are completely fabricated.

As such I'll debunk my own theory above.

The Book of Single Truth was announced in Red. That book is Eva's Diary and contained information about Rokkenjima. So in the world of Umineko, Rokkenjima is a reality.

Of course we can't read it, but by Ryukishi stating that in Red, he reaffirmed there was meaning in playing the games.

I think that's more of a hint that the future we're seeing might be also a tale/fantasy. Which would make Ange's magic choice also a fantasy as she spoke of the Hachijo planning to show up Eva's diary but as in that reality Ikuko could talk using red truth, that reality was just a tale and not Prime...

That or there's a huge mess in what's Prime and what's not in Umineko... okay, probably the latter.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

It was essentially the equivalent of a bunch of kids going "Pew pew pew, I got you" and he was an adult going "Screw off, I'm not playing."

It'd be pretty ironic if Battler killed the first person in misguided self-defense.

[GreyZone]

Originally Posted by jjblue1

Maybe because it's a red truth that on Rokkenjima Prime Battler was shot but not killed...

This has always been on my mind. The "brain damage" could have been caused by a non-fatal gunshot.

Originally Posted by jjblue1

or that on Rokkenjima Prime Battler someone tried to shot him but couldn't

Well supposedly there is at least one Winchester full of blanks...

Originally Posted by jjblue1

or even more simple Beatrice/Yasu would never be able to kill Battler with her bare hands... in fact the task is always left to the bomb.

At least in the games that seems to be the intention, but does seemingly not always work out as intented, as seen in EP3 where Battler is shot by Eva, before the bomb explodes.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by GreyZone

This has always been on my mind. The "brain damage" could have been caused by a non-fatal gunshot.



Well supposedly there is at least one Winchester full of blanks...



At least in the games that seems to be the intention, but does seemingly not always work out as intented, as seen in EP3 where Battler is shot by Eva, before the bomb explodes.

Well, but that's Eva who shoot him. Not the 'culprit', which in game 3 hid behind Eva-Beatrice but wasn't Eva. In short my red truth didn't mean that Battler couldn't be shoot but that Yasu couldn't shoot him, a truth he might have learnt in Prime (and then forgotten or remembered) or in which he might believe or that he might have figured out by solving the messages in the bottles.
Everyone else that's not Yasu though can shoot at Battler as much as they want... :P
Okay, probably they wouldn't but I guess there's not a red truth that would stop them...

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by GreyZone

This has always been on my mind. The "brain damage" could have been caused by a non-fatal gunshot.

That would actually explain a little about why exactly they were split up when they escaped. Tohya said that he didn't remember why they were split up and anything that went down in the exact vicinity of that moment.
So it could technically be that it happened as shown at the end of EP3, that he "closed his ears" because he trusted "Beatrice" more than he would any of his relatives now, so he ended up misunderstanding something that lead to him believing that Eva was the culprit and since Eva didn't know any better either or felt cornered, she shot him in self-defense.
That's be kinda funny if the Book of Single Truth contained Eva confessing that she shot Battler, but never checked if he was actually dead.

It would also explain a little bit better why she wouldn't check if he survived, even if he got separated from her during their escape. Unless of course they were never told where their escape paths might be leading.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by haguruma

That would actually explain a little about why exactly they were split up when they escaped. Tohya said that he didn't remember why they were split up and anything that went down in the exact vicinity of that moment.
So it could technically be that it happened as shown at the end of EP3, that he "closed his ears" because he trusted "Beatrice" more than he would any of his relatives now, so he ended up misunderstanding something that lead to him believing that Eva was the culprit and since Eva didn't know any better either or felt cornered, she shot him in self-defense.
That's be kinda funny if the Book of Single Truth contained Eva confessing that she shot Battler, but never checked if he was actually dead.

It would also explain a little bit better why she wouldn't check if he survived, even if he got separated from her during their escape. Unless of course they were never told where their escape paths might be leading.

Another thing to wonder is if he really was escaping with Eva. Some like to assume it was Yasu but... it could be everyone, even Rudolf and/or Kyrie and, in the end, the person with whom he was escaping couldn't continue escaping with him for... unknown reasons.
After all Battler never said it was Eva. It was just Ange who assumed it.
If Battler was escaping with Kyrie under some false belief and then Kyrie tried to shoot him because she couldn't stand the idea Rudolf was dead and Asumu's son was not but managed only to injure him and he killed her in self defence it might make sense he removed the fact from his memory.

After all we don't know if Rudolf ever managed to tell her that Battler was her son. Personally I've the feeling he didn't as the only time he gets to say so is in Ep 8, when it's basically ways too late. But let's see how the manga will deal with this. Honeslty I'm really curious about which sort of ending we'll get.

[haguruma]

I just stumbled upon a collection of scenes with Black Battler from Ougon Musou Kyoku, and, while we might have to reconsider how canon this can actually be once the manga goes on, there were some interesting things being said.
For example in a match with EVA-Beatrice they say stuff like:
B-Battler: "Then kill me, if that is what satisfies you."
EVA: "I'm sorry, but I just cannot let you leave this island."
EVA: "I am Beatrice! It is my final duty to seal you away until you die!"
EVA: "To kill you is the duty of my current self. I will not let you reach Ange!"

Of course this also applies to Eva keeping the whole Rudolph-family culprit theory from Ange by not denying her guilt and not blaming them in front of her, but wouldn't it be delicious if the reason Eva shot Battler was exactly because she started doubting him. Even if it wasn't Kyrie or Rudolph doing the killing, it doesn't take much to find out that Battler has a certain connection to the person who set the whole crazy show up, so doubting him isn't that far away.

This would be a truth so horrible that Ange couldn't bear it, because it's a truth without a Whydunnit, without a reason, and finally without a heart. Battler has no reason to kill, so even if he just appeared to be the culprit to Eva and that was the reason she shot him, that would probably be enough to send Ange over the edge.

In this sense we could say that Battler-kun, the Battler that Ange revives at the end of EP8, the one who fought against Beatrice, and the one who joins the fantasy beings in the very end, is just as much a fantasy as the purely evil Black-Battler.

[Renall]

Obviously so; we have no idea if Battler ever had it as a motive to fight for Ange's sake at all. The Battler in her head certainly would, but that doesn't mean the "true" Battler even had his sister in the top list of his priorities.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by Renall

Obviously so; we have no idea if Battler ever had it as a motive to fight for Ange's sake at all. The Battler in her head certainly would, but that doesn't mean the "true" Battler even had his sister in the top list of his priorities.

It would also end up being a better explanation of why Tohya refused to meet with Ange if he even had a doubt about whether he had a culpability in the crime that happened. "The Battler you want to return might have never existed in the first place", is at least a better explanation than simply, "I'm not your Battler anymore."

Sure, Ange remembers her brother being nice to her and buying her cute things, but she also only met him on certain occasions, she was only 6 years old when he vanished, we even now that Kyrie was basically pretending around Battler a large deal as well.

It doesn't make Tohya any less of a weakling, because he could have at least tried, but in the end that's what all of Umineko is about, weak humans.