[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations

[DokEnkephalin]

Krauss is so arrogant and stubborn. Even if he was holding a billion liquid, he wouldn't give it up to help his siblings until he got them as deep in debt to him as possible. Especially after they tried to extort him, he's so stubborn that he would keep driving the harder bargain after they're already as squeezed against the wall as they possibly could be, and he's so arrogant that he wouldn't hear the train coming until it hits him.

This observation isn't apropos of nothing.

[ALPHA-Beatrice]

Perhaps a solution for Eva would have been to give out hints to Ange, to allow her to eventually discover the truth. That way, even if Eva can't say anything directly, Ange'll know without any trauma or stuff.

[DokEnkephalin]

Gaaah, I can't figure out ep3 1st twilight. The most likely culprit would be Krauss, after listening to his siblings he started taking seriously the idea that the people conspiring to cover his father's death were also conspiring to take the succession away from him. But he couldn't kill the whole servant staff this way without Shannon/Kanon's consent and participation, and if he were to kill for that reason, why would he trust them enough for that? And if he did, why would he leave Nanjo alive? And why would Nanjo continue to support him? Would he even take the chance if he couldn't make a clean sweep of it?

That's the same problem with the other siblings; would they take that chance to murder the servants if they couldn't get all of them? None of them have solved the mystery, so they don't have the gold, the bomb, or Beatrice's support. So I could see why any of them might eliminate the servants, but I don't see why they'd eliminate the servants but not Shannon/Kanon.

Or maybe I'm wrong about the timing. Maybe Eva had solved the epitaph long before she was shown to. Maybe she had the key to the vault and went back to set the bomb at the time Rosa tagged along. This makes even less sense out of why she would kill the servants. Gaaaah!

[PsychoShion]

I watched Mariaholic right before i saw the Umineko anime back in 99' and the main voice actress a girl was playing a boy character dressed as a girl, and as soon as i heard kanon talk i was like shit.... but i payed it no mind because i had no interest in that character or shannon at all.....and never bothered considering them as culprits.

I still believe Yasu is a lie, Yasu is a trap. Yasu is just a bunch of stuff r07 came up with after his friend BT died, it was then around after Arc 5 all that gender idenity love stuff appears..... LOL Say whatever you will......

[GoldenLand]

Originally Posted by PsychoShion

I still believe Yasu is a lie, Yasu is a trap. Yasu is just a bunch of stuff r07 came up with after his friend BT died, it was then around after Arc 5 all that gender idenity love stuff appears..... LOL Say whatever you will......

No, I don't think that Yasu was somebody who was only introduced about ep 5. Remember, Chiru is the answers arc of Umineko, whereas the first four eps were the questions arc.

In any case, there are actually a lot of hints in the previous episodes which show that Yasu was Ryukishi's plan from the very start. Even if we were just looking at the murders, there are some which are constructed in line with Ryukishi's plan. And Ryukishi has talked about things said in the early episodes in light of Yasu: for example, talking about the pain Shannon felt when George was talking to her about his dreams for having many children with her.

K And it’s definitely a fact that Shannon has some conflicts within herself.

R And I think it is plenty possible to arrive at the solution, that George’s idea of their life after marriage pained her quite much.

K To have many children in a happy home…

R "I want to spend my future surrounded by many grandchildren!", said George recklessly, already cementing a future with children. But it’s his desire to have children, right?! And I think you can guess that this put a lot of pressure on her.

K Yasu said in EP7 that she has "a body that is unable to love".

R If you take this expression as a basis, you can imagine her sad fate of a having some kind of imperfection on a sexual level. I think it’s possible to get to that point.

K At first I was thinking that it was maybe a terrible wound that chained Yasu to the bed. But that does not seem to be the case at all.

R It is a pretty adult topic, so I had to obscure it’s depiction.

On a second read of the first few episodes, there are a huge amount of hints there in plain sight. I don't doubt that BT's death could have affected the way that Ryukishi took the story, but it wasn't by shoehorning Yasu in at the last moment.

If you're inclined to re-read, I think a good place for you to start would be the excellent Stupid Goats Seacats Reread Session. I don't agree with all of their conclusions, but they manage to point out a lot of meaningful hints from early in the story. Someone on the forums here pointed out a consolidated Google document with all their ep 1 reread included on it: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...ilebasic?pli=1

There's one for ep 2 as well: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...=sharing&pli=1

[Kealym]

I guess I'm kind of ... impressed(?) that people are still trying to find a solution besides Shkanontrice, even though they end up in the land of baseless conjecture that's overtly contrary to the text itself. I mean, it's one thing to find physically plausible solutions that don't violate the red, for fun and for shiggles (shoot, doesn't AuraTwilight have one for a 6-year-old-Ange culprit?), but trying to argue that it's actually supposed to be the "true" solution for the gameboards?

I dunno. It's laughable, but also kind of impressive, in it's way, the tenacity.

On the Eva note, sometimes I wonder, would Ange's life have been ... better if Eva had also died in the incident? In that case, she wouldn't have an obvious suspect for the incident outside of what the message bottles implied, the Sumadera's wouldn't have been over eager to get her money because there almost was no money in 1986, and, well, I like to think Kasumi and Ange's relationship would've been better if she had actually been raised in the Sumadera house. I mean, maybe not, since Kasumi's beef was with Kyrie, who was too dead to get revenge on, but maybe she'd have had more sympathy for a crying 6 year old, than a mouthy 18 year old?

[AuraTwilight]

Yea, I'd like to think Kasumi isn't such a monster that she'd abuse a six year old, but it's Ryukishi so who knows. Maybe she'd of been worse.

[jjblue1]

Originally Posted by Kealym

I guess I'm kind of ... impressed(?) that people are still trying to find a solution besides Shkanontrice, even though they end up in the land of baseless conjecture that's overtly contrary to the text itself. I mean, it's one thing to find physically plausible solutions that don't violate the red, for fun and for shiggles (shoot, doesn't AuraTwilight have one for a 6-year-old-Ange culprit?), but trying to argue that it's actually supposed to be the "true" solution for the gameboards?

I dunno. It's laughable, but also kind of impressive, in it's way, the tenacity.

On the Eva note, sometimes I wonder, would Ange's life have been ... better if Eva had also died in the incident? In that case, she wouldn't have an obvious suspect for the incident outside of what the message bottles implied, the Sumadera's wouldn't have been over eager to get her money because there almost was no money in 1986, and, well, I like to think Kasumi and Ange's relationship would've been better if she had actually been raised in the Sumadera house. I mean, maybe not, since Kasumi's beef was with Kyrie, who was too dead to get revenge on, but maybe she'd have had more sympathy for a crying 6 year old, than a mouthy 18 year old?

Well, technically Ryukishi created a situation in which neither of Ange's aunts seemed the best candidate to raise Ange.

There's to say if Eva had died probably the Sumadera, whose business are pretty shady or so it seems, would have been suspected of orchestrating the blow up from afar to get Ange to inherit and through controlling Ange getting the money.

If you want to go for a 19th person scenario the Sumadera are the best candidates. They could have had connections to discover about Kinzo's bomb and Kuwadoria, they could have had the means to get 1 or more of their men on the island in secret through Kuwadorian and then retrieve them before the police were to come. They could have even made a deal with Okonogi or whoever had Okonogi's job of handling Kinzo's business at the time Kinzo was around.

But, of course, there's no 19th person so... bye Sumadera... unless we assume Gohda was their secret agent in disguise... Just joking of course...

[DokEnkephalin]

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

On a second read of the first few episodes, there are a huge amount of hints there in plain sight.

On re-readings, I don't see where Yasu asserts herself above her other personalities except in that one interview with Battler in Ep4. Other than that, she's abandoned herself to fate, she's so cast to drift that she defies any detection. There's no way you could've seen this if you weren't already told, and even after learning it it's still obscured.

Originally Posted by Kealym

I guess I'm kind of ... impressed(?) that people are still trying to find a solution besides Shkanontrice, even though they end up in the land of baseless conjecture that's overtly contrary to the text itself.

It could be because I already got the easy answer by stumbling across spoilers before I was ready to fully analyze and conclude. It can't be that easy. It shouldn't be that easy. There's got to be something else, a deeper and less obvious mystery to unravel, otherwise I got fully fucking cheated!

The text has enough holes to fill in ways that won't contradict the text. But the solutions so dearly and universally held are already so counter to canon that I wonder if we're reading the same text. The evidence that can and can't be discarded is made clear; deduction would not be possible otherwise.

I mean, it's one thing to find physically plausible solutions that don't violate the red, for fun and for shiggles

Well, what else is there? Let's string those guts out. You know, nobody has established any alibis for 3rd ep 1st twilight, so for fun and shiggles, let's speculate on who could've done that and why. If that's not fun to you, then you don't need to do it.

On the Eva note, sometimes I wonder, would Ange's life have been ... better if Eva had also died in the incident?
[..]
I mean, maybe not, since Kasumi's beef was with Kyrie, who was too dead to get revenge on, but maybe she'd have had more sympathy for a crying 6 year old, than a mouthy 18 year old?

I think Ange was too preconditioned to distrust and blame, and regardless of the environment or who she had to bring her up in it, it's going to be bitter for her until she deals with that. If Kyrie had brought her up, she would've made her the villain, and perhaps Battler was the only one who could've challenged her to look at people more fairly and honestly.

[GoldenLand]

Originally Posted by DokEnkephalin

On re-readings, I don't see where Yasu asserts herself above her other personalities except in that one interview with Battler in Ep4. Other than that, she's abandoned herself to fate, she's so cast to drift that she defies any detection. There's no way you could've seen this if you weren't already told, and even after learning it it's still obscured.

If what you're looking for is something where Yasu calls out "It's me, Yasu! And Shannon and Kanon are personalities I created and like to act out!" then of course you'll be disappointed. This doesn't mean there aren't serious hints in the early episodes about her existence, even if you might not notice them until you know about her. Off the top of my head, I can mention: the speculation from the characters that Kinzo had an illegitimate child who's come for the inheritance, the scene in ep 1 where Kanon mysteriously died in a situation where nobody could have killed him, all the talk about Kanon and Shannon being furniture and the strong implication that Beatrice is or was also furniture, Beatrice's strange reaction to Shannon where she went OTT about how all men want is one's body, Kanon-zombie's reappearance after he was killed in a specific room, and Jessica and Kanon's discussion about creating a different self within oneself with a different personality who can do the things you want to do.

I'm a bit confused about what your quote above is talking about in regard to what I was saying, but anyway, moving on to address it. If you're saying that Yasu/Beatrice never had conflict with Shannon and Kanon in the question arcs, I can't understand how you think that view is supported by the text.

[DokEnkephalin]

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

If what you're looking for is something where Yasu calls out "It's me, Yasu! And Shannon and Kanon are personalities I created and like to act out!" then of course you'll be disappointed.

I was actually looking for her to behave in some way that distinguishes her as a personality discrete from the others she manifests. That no such character emerges couldn't disappoint me since it supports my hypothesis that she doesn't emerge, she takes no proactive role, she's wholly despondent, she's cast to fate, holy fuck how many ways do I have to phrase that she doesn't and won't express herself. You will not see Yasu in the question arcs unless you know what you're looking for, and you certainly won't see her until you know to look for her.

Yasu wants to be noticed, but she's cloaked herself so well that no one could be blamed for not seeing her.

EDIT: My point is aside from how often Shannon, Kanon and Beatrice change hats. My point is this: when does Yasu manifest as a character? When can you identify her? Has Yasu as a distinct character been involved in the story enough not to violate Knox's 1st by being a culprit?

[GoldenLand]

Originally Posted by DokEnkephalin

I was actually looking for her to behave in some way that distinguishes her as a personality discrete from the others she manifests.

...


EDIT: My point is aside from how often Shannon, Kanon and Beatrice change hats. My point is this: when does Yasu manifest as a character? When can you identify her? Has Yasu as a distinct character been involved in the story enough not to violate Knox's 1st by being a culprit?

Ah, I get it.

That's an interesting topic. There are a number of ways to argue it. Some people have argued that Yasu has a personality disorder where she can only express herself through the three personalities she's selected. That's interesting, but I think I prefer the other ideas. Another is that Yasu = Beatrice directly; there is some support for that in that ep 7 shows Yasu, well, deciding that she was sick of being Yasu and was going off to be Beato now while "Shannon", the former perfect imaginary friend, got promoted to being the day to day person.

I'm of the opinion that Yasu manifests as a character every time we see one of Shannon, Kanon or Beatrice, because she's only ever one person acting out a role, not somebody with multiple personalities. There's no violation of Knox there.

[Kealym]

Originally Posted by DokEnkephalin

It could be because I already got the easy answer by stumbling across spoilers before I was ready to fully analyze and conclude. It can't be that easy. It shouldn't be that easy. There's got to be something else, a deeper and less obvious mystery to unravel, otherwise I got fully fucking cheated!

This is definitely how you seem, from my perspective ; you unfortunately had spoilers, decided the solution was stupid sounding and a waste of time, and decided to squeeze through the red to find some physically plausible culprit, recurring themes, narrative balance, and established character traits be damned.

Like, it sounds (again, to me) like we read Romeo and Juliet, and you're trying to convince me that because the actions of those two characters was so foolish, clearly the whole thing was a plot by Benvolio to become the Montague heir, as he's the only survivor, and Romeo went along with it because he thought making out with Juliet would totally get back at that hussy, Rosalind, and didn't think he would die for realsies. And, I'm like, well, the text doesn't explicitly say that's NOT what's happening, but ... ... it's a strange reading.

I also think it's entirely fair to not feel satisfied with Umineko's canon solution ; I think almost everyone here, self included, has several problems with it, and with the story as a whole, because of it. Personally, I think Ryukishi tried to make a solution "you couldn't just copy and paste" (already a very romantic and naive notion), by just taking refuge in being vague and obscure, to the detriment of his mystery plot, hiding every questionable element behind some "YOU LACK LOVE" self-righteousness. Granted, Umineko is a bit more than a standard whodunnit (pretty marvelously so), but especially if you read all the interviews, and Our Confessions, it's a very simple mystery, that he at least seems to acknowledge is very amateurish,, probably worth laughing at to readers with a strong sense of reasoning going into it. Like, this is the same writer who wasn't going to expose Kinzo's death until EP5, but decided to do it earlier because so many people had figured it out already by EP3.

Originally Posted by DokEnkephalin

Well, what else is there? Let's string those guts out. You know, nobody has established any alibis for 3rd ep 1st twilight, so for fun and shiggles, let's speculate on who could've done that and why. If that's not fun to you, then you don't need to do it.

Well, it IS fun for me, and I also enjoy speculating on the more uncertain details (like ... I suddenly thought today about whether Kyrie was disinherited in 1968, when she got pregnant, or in 1980, when she got married?), but, it's one thing to make theories for fun, and another to seriously argue that it's the truth the story, as it stands, is asking us to accept.

Originally Posted by DokEnkephalin

I think Ange was too preconditioned to distrust and blame, and regardless of the environment or who she had to bring her up in it, it's going to be bitter for her until she deals with that. If Kyrie had brought her up, she would've made her the villain, and perhaps Battler was the only one who could've challenged her to look at people more fairly and honestly.

I dunno ... to a six year old, someone like Eva, who she probably only saw a few times in her life, probably felt like a pretty distant relative, even though they're just aunt/niece, but would a very young Ange have actually voiced the accusation "You killed everyone!" at her mother, like she did to Eva? Well, it's kind of strange to me that she fixates on Battler so much more than her parents in the first place, but, whatever, I suppose. Come to think of it, neither Natsuhi or Rosa probably would've handled it very well, either. Kyrie would have at least told a better lie, I'd think.

Originally Posted by DokEnkephalin

EDIT: My point is aside from how often Shannon, Kanon and Beatrice change hats. My point is this: when does Yasu manifest as a character? When can you identify her? Has Yasu as a distinct character been involved in the story enough not to violate Knox's 1st by being a culprit?

Well, I didn't think it would happen, but this is something I actually agree with you, on. That is, if you asked me who the culprit of Umineko was, or I was trying to explain it to someone else, I'd say "Shannon", and in my head, I usually think of this person as just a "Shannon without all the tomfoolery". When I say "Yasu", I'm referring to the whole messy mess of everything, and to make communication on this forum easier. I also don't think Yasu has any real presence in EP1-4 (I'd say it's suggested that there's just more to Shannon than she tells), but if I had to make the argument, it'd be similar to Battler's in EP5, about how the MF19YAO was just himself, all along. We can introduce elements later, like Yasu, but really it was just "Shannon and Kanon all along".

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

I'm of the opinion that Yasu manifests as a character every time we see one of Shannon, Kanon or Beatrice, because she's only ever one person acting out a role, not somebody with multiple personalities. There's no violation of Knox there.

I would agree with this.
Isn't it basically boiling down to the basic idea of having several "social faces" depending on situation, place, and people, simply taken to a very high extreme?
In Jessica's case, she is Jessica the timid daughter at home (with occasional outbursts) but the free spirited Jessie at school. None of these two is the complete Ushiromiya Jessica on its own, but only in combination do they become a whole.
In Yasu's fictional world all the different parts that make up the whole are split into separate characters who are not whole in themselves, which is even highlighted by the "not having a complete soul" thing. Shannon is her diligence and her believe in love, Kanon is the anger she has to vent during the day and her desperation about love, Beatrice is the freedom she has during the night from work and her desire to live independent from love. All these together make up Yasu.

In the end it's one of these typical TV-soap "I'm more than meets the eye" plots.

[Sauzer]

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

I'm of the opinion that Yasu manifests as a character every time we see one of Shannon, Kanon or Beatrice, because she's only ever one person acting out a role, not somebody with multiple personalities. There's no violation of Knox there.

Except for all the times that we see either two of them together in conflict with each other.

[GoldenLand]

Originally Posted by Sauzer

Except for all the times that we see either two of them together in conflict with each other.

That's true in a way, but the times we see them in conflict are all fantasy scenes, and fantasy scenes are fantasy scenes for a reason. They're showing one person's internal conflict. We're shown that locked room murder where, in fantasy, Shannon and Beatrice fought each other and Beatrice won in the end, but in "reality" Shannon murdered everybody in the room.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

That's true in a way, but the times we see them in conflict are all fantasy scenes, and fantasy scenes are fantasy scenes for a reason. They're showing one person's internal conflict. We're shown that locked room murder where, in fantasy, Shannon and Beatrice fought each other and Beatrice won in the end, but in "reality" Shannon murdered everybody in the room.

I wouldn't even make it that easy. In reality "Yasu", if it's their true name then Yasuda Sayo, killed the people in that room. Those conflicts show how internally torn she was about where to go, each person showing an option of a future path, the other having to "die" in order for that path to be pursued.
Shannon being ready to die as soon as she got the ring showed her insecurity whether her relationship with George could ever advance beyond this moment. Kanon refusing to die as soon as he admitted his growing feelings for Jessica shows that there is still an urge to continue beyond this one moment. Beatrice wanting to kill them all shows her disgust and readiness to just give up on people.

Every choice that "Yasu" makes forms her into a different person, and her worldview is taking this to the extreme of actually transforming her.
I never found this exceptionally hard to get, sometimes I myself feel like this.

[GoldenLand]

Yep, well said.

[Renall]

Originally Posted by Kealym

Like, it sounds (again, to me) like we read Romeo and Juliet, and you're trying to convince me that because the actions of those two characters was so foolish, clearly the whole thing was a plot by Benvolio to become the Montague heir, as he's the only survivor, and Romeo went along with it because he thought making out with Juliet would totally get back at that hussy, Rosalind, and didn't think he would die for realsies. And, I'm like, well, the text doesn't explicitly say that's NOT what's happening, but ... ... it's a strange reading.

Idea for a mystery: Hamlet. Fortinbras arrives at Elsinore. Horatio explains what just happened. Fortinbras declares that Horatio is lying, and has actually murdered everyone in an incredibly convoluted plot... and he can prove it! I mean come on... all those mysterious "suicides" and "accidents?" A ghost? Hamlet just happens to escape en route to England without a man on the outside? You'll have to try harder, Horatio. Beatrice could do a lot better than that.

Anyway I wouldn't read too much into the multi-character nature of the stories because they are, in the end, stories. Not only can multiple characters in a story represent internal conflict in a character, but they could also merely give voice to internal conflict of the author. After all, the killer of the message bottle stories and subsequent Forgeries seems pretty committed to her task (and OC etc. don't suggest her planning can be stopped), but maybe the writer of the stories lacks the same level of resolve and gives voice to it through the characters of Shannon and Kanon. Remember, Shannon and Kanon pretty much always lose, and generally always were going to. It's more what they're saying than that they're saying it.

[haguruma]

Originally Posted by Renall

Remember, Shannon and Kanon pretty much always lose, and generally always were going to. It's more what they're saying than that they're saying it.

When you said that I remembered especially Shannon's and Kanon's dialogues and monologues from EP1 and 2, the two which are supposedly written by the original owner of those personae. Especially Kanon's stand in the boiler room during Legend undermines the thing you said about the quality of winning or losing quite heavy.
Kanon says that Beatrice apparently forgot the rules of a roulette herself, making clear that he is intimate with the function of the game. There is not only rouge and noir, but he wants to become the zero in her game. There are many rules for roulette, but zero almost always means loss for the player, the best chance in some rules is to bet on all or nothing and play again or lose half of his bet. When looking closer at what this implies for the game is though that by him not playing a certain part there is a chance of Beatrice's game failing.