[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[Judoh]

Well lets try and think about this backwards. Say Yasu is the murderer. How is killing someone she cares about who did nothing wrong, like say Kumasawa, morally justified in the story?

[unsuspectingvisitor]

Originally Posted by Judoh

You're not reading the story hard enough mate. The golden land is umineko's version of afterlife (from a certain point of view). It's a metaphor that's emphasized over and over again by Maria and by piece Battler in his wordy mental dialogue.

Nah i don't buy that Golden land interpretation. That seems like believing to a fantasy that wasn't even true from the start. To me Its more likely that Maria was just influence by someone that the Golden land was the after life though.

The Golden land is the land of gold. I think it's the room where the gold was found. Also the tip in ep3 said this numbers O7151129 can open a small golden land and Ep4 told us what's the contents of that "small Golden Land". Anywho, I kinda look at umineko from reality point of view so this is the interpretation that i believe.

[Judoh]

Maybe I missed something. I was somehow under the impression we were discussing Yasu's interpretation of that line in the epitaph since we were also talking about her moral justifications. nevermind then.

[unsuspectingvisitor]

Originally Posted by Sherringford

That's...not the issue. The issue is that Yasu is portrayed as a sympathetic character who killed out of believing she did the right thing. Killing someone because he was a witness is selfish. There is no tragedy, there is no motivation, there is no justification, it's just pure cold-blooded murderer of an innocent being who just happened to witness her atrocities.

The issue is that there is basically no moral justification for Yasu murdering Gohda. I mean if all we want is a reason for a non-sympathetic murder to kill Gohda, then the answer can be "fuck it who cares he's Gohda."

Yeah about that. Gohda was killed in Natsuhi's room in Ep2 and it seems like he was murdered for no apparent reason.

I think there's another reason why he died. I remembered Kanon had a flashback in Ep6 where he said he hate gohda. Maybe kanon killed Gohda in that room in Ep2.

anyways, There's no such thing as "single culprit" in umineko so its possible that someone else murdered him.

Originally Posted by Judoh

Maybe I missed something. I was somehow under the impression we were discussing Yasu's interpretation of that line in the epitaph since we were also talking about her moral justifications. nevermind then.

Yep Aura said that. Im not even interested Yasu interpretation though

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Cao Ni Ma

Well, RK07 stated that he made Will voiced a lot of his opinions on the matter and the final answer was basically "Regardless of what the witch really wanted, the bomb explodes and seals everything up" It kinda made me feel like she wanted to be stopped but time ran out anyways.

But that's a timer (if she was the culprit, anyway) that she controlled. So all culpability still falls on her head. She started it, she had the power to stop it, to resign herself to "fate" is disclaiming her own responsibility for a situation she had full control over and which would not have happened if not for her own actions. It's despicable dodging of responsibility.

Originally Posted by Sherringford

I think the idea we were supposed to get is that Yasu assumed that Yasu and the others loved her as much as she loved them, and would rather die than to break their love. Remember, this is a girl who took reading murder mysteries together as a vow to spend their lives together forever after. If we assume that mindset, then we can kind of see how her logic went.

And of course, she never bothers to ask anyone else. Or discuss anything with anyone else. For someone who claims to love people, she makes no effort to find out how they feel about anything on more than a largely superficial level. George's psychological problems, for example, seem entirely beyond her and she appears to be happy merely with his dream of the perfect family, and not aware of or concerned with the insecurities and feelings of inadequacy and failure that drive George's ambitions.

And apparently she never discussed the philosophy of murder and its justifications with Battler, a person she used to read and talk about crime novels with. You know, the justification for a murderer being the core element of many such novels and an important philosophical question raised by more than a few (if nothing else, they've read Christie).

Originally Posted by Sherringford

That's...not the issue. The issue is that Yasu is portrayed as a sympathetic character who killed out of believing she did the right thing. Killing someone because he was a witness is selfish. There is no tragedy, there is no motivation, there is no justification, it's just pure cold-blooded murderer of an innocent being who just happened to witness her atrocities.

More important, nobody who doesn't need to be there when the bomb goes off has to be there. If Yasu has full control over this, she can dispatch Gohda on a fool's errand to go back to Nijima with Kawabata because they "forgot" something for the meal (conveniently stranding him in Nijima) or even sending him to Kuwadorian at the last second with someone or by himself for... one reason or another.

If she has the power ep7 claims she has, she can make sure Gohda is absent. There's no need for him to be in danger (notice none of the other servants are working that day), and the only reason he'd have to be killed beyond that point is because he was deliberately allowed to walk into a situation from which no one is supposed to escape.

And if Yasu just happens not to like Gohda very much, then killing him puts to lie the claim that her motive was good. In fact, it shows her hypocrisy: "Everyone I love will go to the Golden Land. Also I'll kill Gohda, that smug bastard."

[ErenselTheJester]

Then it only stands that someone else killed him.

[unsuspectingvisitor]

Originally Posted by Renall

And if Yasu just happens not to like Gohda very much, then killing him puts to lie the claim that her motive was good. In fact, it shows her hypocrisy: "Everyone I love will go to the Golden Land. Also I'll kill Gohda, that smug bastard."

But if you turn that around it also means that Yasu just allowed Gohda to go to the golden land with them.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

That's fine. There's a magnitude of difference between killing someone in a fictional story and actually doing it.

Well of course, but the point is that the subcharacter Yasu inside Yasu's story still actually did it inside Yasu's story, and that still needs a decent explanation inside Yasu's story. If it comes to "well that's just a fictional story" then Umineko itself is a fictional story.

Originally Posted by Renall

Also I'll kill Gohda, that smug bastard."

Shannon: So everyone agrees with the plan?
Beatrice: I like it!
Claire: It's a bit extreme, but I guess it can't be helped.
Yasu: I was just thinking... maybe we can work it out to get the unrelated people to stay home... for example... Gohda...
Kanon: That fucking douche?!
Yasu: Oh right... screw him.

[LyricalAura]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Well of course, but the point is that the subcharacter Yasu inside Yasu's story still actually did it inside Yasu's story, and that still needs a decent explanation inside Yasu's story. If it comes to "well that's just a fictional story" then Umineko itself is a fictional story.

Well... Not necessarily. I could write a puzzle story in which I commit a baffling serial murder as a thought exercise, without giving any particular thought to why character-me would actually do that kind of thing. I'd have a motive for writing the story and setting it up in particular ways, but not a motive for the murder.

[AuraTwilight]

Yep Aura said that. Im not even interested Yasu interpretation though

Then why did you ask?

Well of course, but the point is that the subcharacter Yasu inside Yasu's story still actually did it inside Yasu's story, and that still needs a decent explanation inside Yasu's story. If it comes to "well that's just a fictional story" then Umineko itself is a fictional story.

That doesn't actually follow, though, because in the story-within-stories, meta-logic has been consistently used as valid. Character do things because that's their script. If Shannon and Kanon are the murderers in the games and Yasu is not in R. Prime, the only motive THEY need to have is that they're playing their parts to take the blame for the real world culprit. This is perfectly valid logic in Yasu's fantasy world.

Characters magically know information because they need to know it, forget things because the knowledge hurts the story, and does things they wouldn't normally do so that the scene can play out the way the author wants to. Characterization is important for understanding what happened, but it's something Beatrice and Toya both feel like can be overriden by Meta-Logic.

[unsuspectingvisitor]

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

Then why did you ask?

Sorry i didn't made it cleary what i am asking about . It's the last part that i had in mind where Beatrice was put to sleep. But let's drop the discussion.

[jjblue1]

I guess the whole problem with Yasu is:

- we can be sympathetic if she only wrote about the murders/planned them as a game but never thought to really commit them and yet they happened due to external causes

- we find a lot harder to be sympathetic is she had actually planned to murder everyone as well as killing herself because it becomes murders committed in cold blood and because the reasons given for them aren't that satisfing to justify her actions.

In fact we would be still sympathetic if everyone she killed was threatening her or mistreating her but that's not the reason we're given. Among the possible motivations we have:

- Revenge which can apply to:
Natsuhi for the baby drop thing, Gohda because he sometimes put her in such situation that caused her to be blamed, Eva for trying to kill her apart from George, Kumasawa, Nanjo and Genji for saving her despite her conditions, Rosa for mistreating her friend Maria. Revenge however doesn't really get lot of sympathy because it either doesn't apply to everyone (what did Maria do wrong?) or feels too weak as a motivation (okay, she might have hated Natsuhi for ruining her life to the point she wanted to kill her but to wish to kill Gohda just because he would put her into tight spots... well, that's excessive and would point to insanity)

- love suicide which can apply to:
George, Jessica and Battler. Of course there's the problem of how this wouldn't involve the others and of how George, Jessica and Battler are presented as unwilling to die (though in EP2 it might be unsure as Jessica and George were depicted in the magic scenes as dying without regrets and while willing to support/protect Kanon & Shannon) and that if they had been killed while unwilling it would be a hint toward Yasu's insanity.

- apathy toward human life due to depression
This might push Yasu to be careless of the consequences her actions might have on others... but in this case it would be more likely she would merely turn the bomb on without caring it would kill also the other people on Rokkenjima, not organize a serial murder. It doesn't get much sympathy either.

- desperate request for help.
Some suicidal people, who're drawn to insanity, would try to commit what they view as group suicide and that's more a mass murder plus their suicide giving to someone else the time to stop them. It would fit with Umineko but the problem is they're generally temporally insane (because they had been driven into a corner and see no way out) or totally insane. It's pretty hard to give them some sympathy especially when they start killing people for real and not just threatening they'll do it.

- group suicide
Some feel that if they die their wife, kids, best friend, dog wahtever also must die because it wouldn't survive without them, they can't leave it back and so on. On a general line they result insane and they rarely get sympathy.

In addition I think that Yasu's whole drama wasn't portrayed well enough.

Battler forgot the promise he did to her?
Well, he was 12, had serious issues going on and previously they met only once in a while. Yasu didn't try to contact him either and George began to date her. Normal people would have moved over.

People was mean to her?
Well, not everyone was mean to her and there's lot of people that get bullied in worst ways. We don't see her mistreated to the point it would justify her to commit such a murder.

She was physically damaged so she couldn't give birth to kids or have a normal sex life?
We get this info only in the last part of Ep 7 and it's given to us in a pretty obscure way so we don't even exactly know what's the problem. Even though it could have won some sympathy it's introduced so late in the story and in such a vague way that doesn't give an impression strong enough to justify this.

She hold a grudge against Natsuhi for tossing her down of a cliff?
Then why kill everyone else?

All of the above?
Well, she would surely look like a troubled girl... but still to me it would look more like she's insane than that she's worth my pity.
Killing so many people in such a way, after planning everything is not something easy to swallow if the murderer didn't have a more than good reason.

So yes, I really hope we'll never find out she was behind the murders in Rokkenjima Prime or I would definitely pity more Shion than her. As for the tales... I think her motivation for killing the people and herself weak and imply she's insane.'

[Jan-Poo]

A very good analysis Jiblue, but let me expand this point:

People was mean to her?
Well, not everyone was mean to her and there's lot of people that get bullied in worst ways. We don't see her mistreated to the point it would justify her to commit such a murder

There were people that not only never did anything wrong to her, but who actually helped and supported her.

Kumasawa's only fault is that she kept silent on many bad things other people around her did. However she was in such a position of low power that it was probably the best decision she could make. Talking could have probably only led to her being fired and more covering up from Kinzo/Genji/Nanjo preventing her from staying close to Yasu and help her. Kumasawa has always been Yasu's ally and she supported her morally providing her ways to overcome her inadequacies and introducing her to fun hobbies. There are people who'd gladly trade their parents for Kumasawa, even a part-time Kumasawa.

Jessica for what we know has always been her friend. Despite her position as the future head of the family she never acted with any kind of "caste" mentality (unlike Eva, Krauss and Natsuhi). We have seen that Jessica befriended at least another fukuin servant, so she really never treated Shannon or anyone else with arrogance or superiority. Jessica might be a bit self-centered and superficial but that's hardly a sin considering she's just a high school girl.
If Jessica wasn't that open to her, Yasu's life would have been a lot worse, considering all other servants didn't like her. I think she should have been grateful for that.

Maria also never did anything wrong to her. Albeit it's probably not correct to call that a friendship due to the imbalance in their relationship, Maria's faithfulness to her is a rare gift.

So in the end it's very hard to find sympathy for Yasu when her life wasn't that bad. She sure had some very bad experiences, she sure had the misfortune of being victim of a few not so decent human beings (primarily Kinzo), but she also had a couple of very good people that supported her.

Tragically Yasu seems to ignore all the good things and only focus on the bad ones, and ironically she gets more traumatized by something minor like Battler's sin rather than way worse crimes that were inflicted upon her and her mother by Kinzo, Genji and Natsuhi.
Ironically the more things get better to her the worse she becomes.

People start to love her, she gets angst because she doesn't know how to make up her mind and tell them the truth.
Her trials and tribulations as a servant ends, she can finally live a life of wealth and power? she gets even more insane because she doesn't know how to deal with it.

Truly she was better off as a lowly servant hated by everyone.

That doesn't actually follow, though, because in the story-within-stories, meta-logic has been consistently used as valid. Character do things because that's their script. If Shannon and Kanon are the murderers in the games and Yasu is not in R. Prime, the only motive THEY need to have is that they're playing their parts to take the blame for the real world culprit. This is perfectly valid logic in Yasu's fantasy world.

I disagree. Will made a big point about how understanding the heart of the culprit is an important part of a msyery. Saying that Yasu's stories have no decent whydunit explanation is the same as saying that Yasu's stories have no heart. That's really NOT what the story so far has made us believe.

[J the Drafter]

I had this thought about Episode 7's explanation of Yasu's life. What if Yasu misremembered the letter incident and was mistaken when she thought that Battler had written detailed letters for everyone but her. Battler only wrote those letters because Kyrie forced him too, after all. It's possible that Battler tried to do as little writing as possible, such as sending a pair of brief notes to Rudolf and Kyrie. (All right, the more I write this the less likely this scenario feels.) Yasu could have come to believe in the story she gave us for any number of reasons. Maybe she asked if there was a letter for her and assumed that Battler had written to everyone. Maybe she was so upset about not getting a letter that she exagerated the reality of what happened in her mind.

[AuraTwilight]

I disagree. Will made a big point about how understanding the heart of the culprit is an important part of a msyery. Saying that Yasu's stories have no decent whydunit explanation is the same as saying that Yasu's stories have no heart. That's really NOT what the story so far has made us believe.

There is a significant difference between "There is no whydunnit" and "The whydunnit utilizes meta-logic."

And since in Umineko people can talk to their own authors and vice versa, well...herp a derp. Kanon and Shannon especially comment about the existence of other Games, and resign themselves to the course of events as inevitable circumstance they can't do anything about save for playing their parts.

I had this thought about Episode 7's explanation of Yasu's life. What if Yasu misremembered the letter incident and was mistaken when she thought that Battler had written detailed letters for everyone but her. Battler only wrote those letters because Kyrie forced him too, after all. It's possible that Battler tried to do as little writing as possible, such as sending a pair of brief notes to Rudolf and Kyrie. (All right, the more I write this the less likely this scenario feels.) Yasu could have come to believe in the story she gave us for any number of reasons. Maybe she asked if there was a letter for her and assumed that Battler had written to everyone. Maybe she was so upset about not getting a letter that she exagerated the reality of what happened in her mind.

Or George hid Shannon's letter. It makes more sense than Kyrie bending Battler's arm for some weird reason.

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by unsuspectingvisitor

Nah i don't buy that Golden land interpretation. That seems like believing to a fantasy that wasn't even true from the start. To me Its more likely that Maria was just influence by someone that the Golden land was the after life though.

The Golden land is the land of gold. I think it's the room where the gold was found. Also the tip in ep3 said this numbers O7151129 can open a small golden land and Ep4 told us what's the contents of that "small Golden Land". Anywho, I kinda look at umineko from reality point of view so this is the interpretation that i believe.

That's fine, but really it's used both ways. It's just a matter of whether the speaker's angle at the time is fantasy or reality.

Originally Posted by jjblue1

I guess the whole problem with Yasu is:

- we can be sympathetic if she only wrote about the murders/planned them as a game but never thought to really commit them and yet they happened due to external causes

- we find a lot harder to be sympathetic is she had actually planned to murder everyone as well as killing herself because it becomes murders committed in cold blood and because the reasons given for them aren't that satisfying to justify her actions.

Right. There's no serious moral dilemma with Yasu if you ascribe to the first choice, so why are people avoiding it?

Originally Posted by AuraTwilight

There is a significant difference between "There is no whydunnit" and "The whydunnit utilizes meta-logic."

And since in Umineko people can talk to their own authors and vice versa, well...herp a derp. Kanon and Shannon especially comment about the existence of other Games, and resign themselves to the course of events as inevitable circumstance they can't do anything about save for playing their parts.

Exactly. Fictional culprit-Yasu is fully aware that she's only killing fictional people; to her it's not even murder. So even within the context of the fictions it still comes down to: Why is she writing about killing her friends and even that guy Gohda?. And that's the "heart" of the murderer that Will was seeking.

[J the Drafter]

It was noted in-story that Battler only wrote those letters because Kyrie made him do it. I'm positing that Battler did the minimum amount of writing he thought he could get away with. A couple of sparse paragraphs to the adults and maybe something adressed to all the cousins together. I'm saying that the elaborate scene where everyone got individual, detailed letters might have been Yasu's distortion of events.

[AuraTwilight]

I'm not fully convinced Kyrie forced Battler to do anything. There's a world of difference between "Maybe you should write to everyone" and "Do it or you're grounded".

Also Asshole George is funnier.

[Renall]

It was all part of Battler's plan to make Yasu mentally unstable so she'd do something nutty on his return, giving him the perfect cover to murder his entire estranged family and pin the whole thing on her (knowing she'll take the rap).

[Cao Ni Ma]

Genius Evil Battler theory