[Game] Umineko no Naku Koro ni Chiru - Ep. 5 End of the golden witch

[Sniesk]

I think there is a flashback told by Shannon in which she said she were in middle school. Anyway i don't think they live on the island. After all the other "-on" servants are not there in october 4-5. It is possible they still live in fukuin house, and they probably attended school there, while in their "free time" they work as servants in the Ushiromiya's mansion.

[Jan-Poo]

Which brings up a question.

Where the hell is the fukuin orphanage? It was never said it's on Niijima.


Oh anyway... if I interpreted correctly what has been said about the fukuin children, they don't become servants if not after they complete theirs studies. Actually it's been said that only the bests of them are given the "honor" of becoming "-non" servants.

Shannon is clearly a special case. She had no way to prove she was one of the bests at 6 years. She had no way to know how to be a perfect servant... unless she was some kind of genius.

[Leafsnail]

But then what would be the significance of Shannon leaving the island?

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Sniesk

I think there is a flashback told by Shannon in which she said she were in middle school. Anyway i don't think they live on the island. After all the other "-on" servants are not there in october 4-5. It is possible they still live in fukuin house, and they probably attended school there, while in their "free time" they work as servants in the Ushiromiya's mansion.

I don't think any kind of school can provide for a 3-day work schedule which can have abrupt changes. But assuming one does, there is nothing at all to stop the hypothetical Sayo-who-loves-Battler from stalking him on her days off, locating him is trivial, and this evidently happened to George. So why didn't it happen to Battler?

Also, the narration rather explicitly says that "graduates" of Fukuin house are hired. High school in Japan (that is, past 16) is not compulsory, by the way... One would assume that after graduation, no kind of orphanage would have anything to do with you.

[Sniesk]

Originally Posted by Leafsnail

But then what would be the significance of Shannon leaving the island?

Instead, what is the significance of her staying on the island from when she was six? I bet she was involved in some kind of "experiment" from Kinzo, this would give significance to the TIP that says she and Kanon are furniture he created.

@Jan-poo
I think the fact that they become servant after their studies means that they become free to leave Fukuin/Rokkenjima/Nijima and go work as servants in other families. The work in the Ushiromiya's mansion is probably a part of their "studies" granted to the best of them. It is actually said that after working on Rokkenjima there would be no problem in finding work elsewhere.

[Sniesk]

Originally Posted by Oliver

I don't think any kind of school can provide for a 3-day work schedule which can have abrupt changes. But assuming one does, there is nothing at all to stop the hypothetical Sayo-who-loves-Battler from stalking him on her days off, locating him is trivial, and this evidently happened to George. So why didn't it happen to Battler?

Also, the narration rather explicitly says that "graduates" of Fukuin house are hired. High school in Japan (that is, past 16) is not compulsory, by the way... One would assume that after graduation, no kind of orphanage would have anything to do with you.

I think Shannon was actually forced to not leave the island/fukuin by Kinzo. That may be the fate she was trying to broke in the spirit mirron scene.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Sniesk

I think Shannon was actually forced to not leave the island/fukuin by Kinzo. That may be the fate she was trying to broke in the spirit mirron scene.

Ok. So where does she sleep when off duty?

[Sniesk]

Originally Posted by Oliver

Ok. So where does she sleep when off duty?

Fukuin House. Or maybe in Kuwadorian. In the scenes where Maria, Virgilia, and Beatrice are talking, the background is ofter the Kuwadorian's garden

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Sniesk

Fukuin House. Or maybe in Kuwadorian. In the scenes where Maria, Virgilia, and Beatrice are talking, the background is ofter the Kuwadorian's garden

Ok, let's pull the thread now.

• Rosa would be very interested to know where Maria is. It would be very odd for her not to be aware where Kuwadorian is if Maria is in there. What exactly happens if Rosa gets worried for no particular reason and Maria is at the Kuwadorian?
• Actually living in Kuwadorian would require going there rather frequently. If Shannon actually lives there when off duty, how does she go there and who else knows about it?
• Fukuin house either acts independently, prohibiting Shannon from independent movement (and then she can't stalk George at all) or suddenly stops doing that once Kinzo expires (but then there's no reason for Shannon not to stalk Battler instead) -- how do they know? Which is it?

[Sniesk]

Originally Posted by Oliver

Ok, let's pull the thread now.

• Rosa would be very interested to know where Maria is. It would be very odd for her not to be aware where Kuwadorian is if Maria is in there. What exactly happens if Rosa gets worried for no particular reason and Maria is at the Kuwadorian?
• Actually living in Kuwadorian would require going there rather frequently. If Shannon actually lives there when off duty, how does she go there and who else knows about it?
• Fukuin house either acts independently, prohibiting Shannon from independent movement (and then she can't stalk George at all) or suddenly stops doing that once Kinzo expires (but then there's no reason for Shannon not to stalk Battler instead) -- how do they know? Which is it?

We know that Maria has met Beatrice when of Rokkenjima in the past years. Her Grimoire is the biggest proof of this. So i don't think they would just stay in the parlor under Rosa's sight writing strange magic circles.
Also we know that Rosa isn't exactly the best mom ever, actually in every episode she totally forgot about her when she's searching for her rose.
Regarding the way to reach Kuwadorian, Nanjo speak of an underground passage that would take half and hour of walking to get there. Well that probably is a fake scene, so we have no way to know if this is true or not.
I don't understand your third point. What's the problem if she just stays in Fukuin?

[Renall]

Is it not more plausible that, Shannon being the odd duck out of the Fukuin Servants in terms of when and how she begins working, that Shannon is not a Fukuin House orphan?

Also: Jessica mentions when talking about the storm that she occasionally has to stay over in Nijima when the weather is too bad to get back home. This makes me think Kinzo or Krauss owns some land in Nijima, and probably some apartments. Jessica probably has her own or borrows the "family" one, but I see no reason some of the servants couldn't have apartments there for off-duty days. If they don't work for the majority of the week (if Shannon has four days off per week, one assumes most of them have short rotations other than perhaps Genji and Gohda), they have to be somewhere, and most of them aren't on Rokkenjima during the Family Conference. So they gotta be someplace else.

But since we never see anyone but Genji (who probably lives on the island), Kanon, and Shannon (both of whom are quite suspect for various reasons), there's no real way to know what the -on servants actually do with their time.

[Oliver]

When I say "pull at the thread" I don't mean I am trying to disprove what you're saying or argue against it. I mean that I want to know what are the conclusions if what you're saying is true and what I am saying is also true.

Sure, that's called speculation, but sometimes we can find extra stepping stone hints to support the conclusions themselves even if we would not be able to arrive at these conclusions from those hints otherwise.

Originally Posted by Sniesk

Also we know that Rosa isn't exactly the best mom ever, actually in every episode she totally forgot about her when she's searching for her rose.

Eventually Rosa abruptly remembers about Maria. She definitely isn't the best mom ever, but I expect that her remembering about Maria and suddenly imagining she fell off a cliff or something is not an infrequent occurrence.

Originally Posted by Sniesk

I don't understand your third point. What's the problem if she just stays in Fukuin?

Well, the chain of thought is as follows:

1. Okinawa trip to the aquarium is an anniversary of sorts of George and Shannon's first chance meeting, which supposedly occurred in an aquarium as well. So the text says.
2. If Shannon can go to Okinawa or to an aquarium in the city to meet George, this means that Fukuin house is not restricting her movements at the time.
3. So the question is whether she was never restricted, or recently stopped being restricted.
   • If Fukuin house always restricted her movements but abruptly stops around the time of Kinzo's death, they have to be the only people aware of Kinzo's death off the island -- unless there's another reason for them to stop which is not related to Kinzo (and presumably reason for them to restrict her movements which is not related to Kinzo either). What would it be?
   • If Fukuin house never restricted her movements, what exactly is keeping Shannon glued to the island or Fukuin?
   • Assuming Shkanontrice, why exactly does Shannon go after George and not Battler? Battler is no harder to find than George, and probably easier to approach -- he doesn't have work, which can run him all over town in meetings, but has school, standing outside school gates is all it would take.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Renall

Is it not more plausible that, Shannon being the odd duck out of the Fukuin Servants in terms of when and how she begins working, that Shannon is not a Fukuin House orphan?

I think that's a more promising line of thought, though what she is really (and whether, say, Natsuhi is aware of it) becomes an even bigger problem.

Originally Posted by Renall

Also: Jessica mentions when talking about the storm that she occasionally has to stay over in Nijima when the weather is too bad to get back home. This makes me think Kinzo or Krauss owns some land in Nijima, and probably some apartments.

Bit unclear, though I would interpret it as school owned living space instead. Might need a translator clarification:

Battler: "Huh... So, by the way, what do you do when the weather's good in the morning, but then gets so bad on your way home that the boats are closed? Do you spend the night at school?"
Jessica: "That actually happens a lot. Because of that, they've built some lodgings there for people who can't get back to the island. I stay over there. Sometimes, when it gets really bad, I can't get back home for a few days at a time."

(Original line is: ;「そういうのはよくあることだぜ。だから帰島できない人用の宿泊所があってよ。そこに寝泊りするんだよ。 下手すりゃ数日間、家に帰れないこともあったりするぜ。」)

[Jan-Poo]

@Renall
It is actually specified where Jessica stays when she's unable to go back home

Because of that, they've built some lodgings there for people who can't get back to the island. I stay over there.

Jessica just stays on those lodgings.


P.S. Ninjaed by Oliver.

[Renall]

Who goes to that school who would need to stay there other than her? Does she go to school in Nijima or mainland Tokyo? If it's Nijima, are people boating out to Nijima? Are there other eccentric rich families with their own private islands around? Did Krauss bribe the school? Do they make Jessica sleep in the janitor's closet and call it "lodgings?"

[Jan-Poo]

There are many izu islands. I always assumed young people from smaller islands would need to go to Niijima to attend high school or something...

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Renall

Who goes to that school who would need to stay there other than her? Does she go to school in Nijima or mainland Tokyo? If it's Nijima, are people boating out to Nijima? Are there other eccentric rich families with their own private islands around? Did Krauss bribe the school? Do they make Jessica sleep in the janitor's closet and call it "lodgings?"

I'm pretty sure the school is on Niijima, though I can't find the quote right now. There very probably are people boating to school on Niijima beside Jessica:
George: "She has to follow the rules for people that travel to school by boat and get a good amount of studying done." (emphasis mine)

If there are rules for people like this, there are definitely quite a few of them. There are more small islands in Izu, and not every of them would have a high school, for many of them boating would be reasonably practical, or at least cheaper than sending the kids off to a live-in high school elsewhere. It is not necessary to be an eccentric rich family to boat to school if your line of work involves owning a boat in the first place, for example. It is also likely that there's a school bus-like arrangement, though it's obviously beneath the Ushiromiya to participate in it.

Krauss wouldn't have to bribe the school if Natsuhi is the head of PTA, which she supposedly is.

[Renall]

I want a spinoff where Natsuhi runs the PTA at Jessica's school. With witch battles.

[Judoh]

Like Jan-poo said there at least two servant waiting rooms. And we know there are beds in them from Kumasawa and Nanjo's murder/disappearances in episode 2. I don't think it's really strange for it to be assumed they have living arrangements at the mansion.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Renall

I want a spinoff where Natsuhi runs the PTA at Jessica's school. With witch battles.

...shame Rosa doesn't live on Niijima, Rosa vs. Natsuhi in Niijima High School PTA would be absolutely marvellous.