[Game] Umineko no Naku Koro ni - Ep. 1 Legend of the golden witch

[Vangrim]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

I'm more of the idea that it isn't blood.

Me too. Also doesn't the text read "something that looked like blood"?

[Jan-Poo]

yes. even after the various murders they never say: it's blood. And at the same time when they really find blood (like in the dining room) they instantly recognize it as blood.

Also it is said that the rain caused that dark red substance to drip in the shed, but if it was blood it would have been completely washed away.

It appears that this substance is more sticky than normal blood.

[Alair]

I finally finished the first chapter... maybe it's just me but I'm with Battler in that I really don't like the "A witch did it" answer, if mostly just because it seems to render the whole mystery pointless. How did the witch do it? Magic! How did she escape? Magic! The whole thing kind of felt like it was drifting into self-parody by the end with the witch reveal which kind of makes it feel like it didn't really happen. Besides, there's just some part of me that simply doesn't accept an otherwise ethereal witch who has to make her escape out through a boiler room.

There are only two parts that really feel like they require a special explanation: Eva and Hideyoshi's murder in their room and how Beatrice's letter turned up in the middle of the study near the end. For the first... well, I've got nothing. On the other hand, they didn't really examine the room very closely so I'm not *too* put off by that, there may have been a trick to the room or the killer may have even still been inside of it hiding. For the second it seems to me there's two probable suspects, either Maria or Natsuhi put it there...

The part about the first twilight that particularly struck me was why would you go to the trouble of smashing in someone's face and to which I could only see two likely reasons - either the intimidation factor (which seems like way overkill, half a dozen corpses and a weird magical symbol cover that area quite well by themselves) or to make identification impossible. How do you identify a bloody pulp? By looking at their clothes, personel effects - all of which are easily transferable. I'm almost certain the real killer must be one of the supposed first twilight victims who dressed up someone of approximately their own height and build as theirself and then proceeded to play whack-a-face until nobody could tell the difference. By the same token this would mean that the real killer is one of those who had their faces totally destroyed (the last three victims also fit the pattern but I'm ruling them out since at this late point there wouldn't be any real advantage to being "dead").

But that theory brings up its own problems, how did the body double get to the island? How were they moved around without anyone noticing them? They couldn't have been killed much earlier than the others or the rigor mortis test would have stood out to even to an amateur...

I also considered the possibility that one of the first twilight victims might have just been pretending to be dead along with the real victims but the difficulty of pulling it off aside (the doctor would pretty much have to be in on it) you'd have to be a complete and utter psychopath to lock yourself in and pretend to be dead in a shed with a half dozen corpses - if someone's that far up the crazy river they should be far past rational planning.

So, who was it? I was delighted to find that the "hint" screen included representations of the state of death, a bit of beyond-the-fourth-wall nudging that This Was Important (and you've really got to love the disquieting comments that some of the victims get attached to them).

The most likely murder suspect seems to be the Rudolph, mostly because of his "I think I'm going to be killed" that so rubs me the wrong way premonition. It requires him to have killed his wife unless she was actually still alive too, she also had her face thoroughly bashed in so maybe she was "Beatrice"... But if she was the one who Maria saw why'd she spend an evening poking holes in the credibility of the letter... I wanted it to be Krauss because of the Natsuhi link but sadly he was one of those whose faces were at least somewhat recognizable. I'm not happy about picking Rudolph because I can't attatch a motive to him but hell, I can't attatch a motive for anybody. Even if a survivor of the 17-person massacre miraculously showed up they aren't just going to be handed over the family fortune, they're going to have a hell of a hard time convincing the outside world that a witch killed everyone between them and the money. And if they can't get the money, what's the goal?

So... in short, not really happy with anyone I can point out as a suspect but methodically at least it doesn't feel unworkable. Trying to find a motive for any of it really seems blank though.

Oh, and why is it that when you pick the "execute" option in the post-game tips screen everyone dies *except* the grandfather? It smells like red herring but there is an interesting little seemingly ooc note about him liking to secretly leave his hideyhole and take walks around the mansion on occasion.

I still don't think it was a witch so nyah nyah Beatrice I guess.

[Jan-Poo]

The theory of the killer being one of the six people in the shed is pretty popular, but not many people have thoroughly though about this.

The shed was closed with an external lock, not only that. It was then closed again with another lock. And the only key to that new lock was taken by Natsuhi.

So if one of the six was the culprit you must explain how he managed to close the shed and how he managed to get out.

An easy explanation is that there is a secret passage in the shed.

If not, you need to think that there is an accomplice, who closed the culprit inside and then opened the door for him. However opening the door was no easy task. Unless the accomplice is Natsuhi herself. If she isn't then the culprit must have used a tool to cut the lock.

[Alair]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

The theory of the killer being one of the six people in the shed is pretty popular, but not many people have thoroughly though about this.

The shed was closed with an external lock, not only that. It was then closed again with another lock. And the only key to that new lock was taken by Natsuhi.

So if one of the six was the culprit you must explain how he managed to close the shed and how he managed to get out.

An easy explanation is that there is a secret passage in the shed.

If not, you need to think that there is an accomplice, who closed the culprit inside and then opened the door for him. However opening the door was no easy task. Unless the accomplice is Natsuhi herself. If she isn't then the culprit must have used a tool to cut the lock.

All parts of the reason why I shied away from that idea pretty early on. I was leaning towards the body double notion, not that the actual killer was there pretending to be a corpse.

More than anything though it just seems to me that if you murder a bunch of people, drag them into a shed, proceed to mutilate the bodies to the point of being unrecognizeable, and *then* close the door in on yourself, lie down, and pretend to be dead too you've got to be so far up on the crazy train that there's no way you won't constantly be going "Toot toot!".

[Jan-Poo]

In the case of the body double theory, you'd have to explain who was the second body.

[Counter Arts]

I was watching the anime and it made me think again about "who did it"

This is purely from what I remember in episode 1 the game.

Spoiler for Theory:

I think Natsuhi did it while manipulating Maria.

Natsuhi pretended she was Beatrice to Maria.

The blood on her door was made by her after she killed them.

Eva got close to suspecting it was Natsuhi, so Eva was next. Hideyoshi was there so it was easy to make that epitaph work although if George was there he would have died if he was close.

Natsuhi planned to chase Maria out with the other servants. The servants died from paranoia and tried to kill each other or there was a way that Maria could cleanly kill them

Natsuhi got shot from someone who was dying.

[Jan-Poo]

Your theory doesn't explain who killed (or attacked) Kanon. And the explanation of the last three murders is kinda farfetched.

[Vangrim]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

So if one of the six was the culprit you must explain how he managed to close the shed and how he managed to get out.

I'm guessing the culprit could sneak out of the storehouse before they changed the lock, with the help of an accomplice that managed to both close and open the shed.

[Alair]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

In the case of the body double theory, you'd have to explain who was the second body.

Only thing I've been able to think of was maybe one of the other -on servants who were thought to be off duty at the time. If Krauss believed in the gold and that the servents were privy to some secret information from Kinzo maybe he decided to kidnap one for interrogation... Smuggling a live person in on the boat along with everyone else not noticing seems undoable and most of the family's only at the island once per year.

It's probably not as if anyone ever went back to check on the garden shed though. Polydactylity was mentioned as being a relatively common trait in the Ushiromiya family, could any of the first harvest victims also have possessed it? If so you can get double use out of a corpse, everyone sees them the first time then you drag it back down to the boiler room, burn it, and voila - a second body. That would put Kinzo back on the list of suspects and explain the otherwise MO-breaking charnel process.

[Demoned Away]

I just finished watching Episode 1, the Tea Party, and the ????. ... What the hell?

Spoiler for Spoilerish thoughts:

So there are more Witches? Hmm, that's pretty intense. I had a bit of Deja Vu when I was watching the ????, though. When I downloaded episode 2 for the anime I swear to God the fansub group was named Lambadelta. Hmm, maybe the fansub group wasn't called that but the file name had [Lambadelta] in it. *shrug*

I have lots of questions that I hope are answered as I continue to read the visual novels. I still need to scrounge up the money to buy episode 4 so it might be awhile. In my opinion one of the most annoying characters in the series, for me, is Battler. Maybe it's because I tend to lead towards the magical side of things, so I do believe that Beatrice exists and she was the reason for the deaths on Rokkenjima. The way he tried to explain his thinking seemed to be pretty weak; just saying that a human was in charge of it even though he had no real proof.

Although he did make a good point saying that automatically believing a Witch was the cause because they didn't want to think a human did it was also absurd, as a new viewer I can't think of any other logical explanation of how those deaths occured. Also, if I hear the phrase "Turning the chessboard around..." one more time, I'm going to be cracking some skulls.

So far the series has me very interested. I might stop watching the anime and just stick with the visual novels. Even though the visual novel had lots of boring parts, like the discussion of how the money will be split up... that seemed to take an hour or two, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Haha... sorry if this post is sorta pointless. I was just trying to gather my thoughts on what I just watched.

[sento]

Originally Posted by Demoned Away

I have lots of questions that I hope are answered as I continue to read the visual novels. I still need to scrounge up the money to buy episode 4 so it might be awhile. In my opinion one of the most annoying characters in the series, for me, is Battler. Maybe it's because I tend to lead towards the magical side of things, so I do believe that Beatrice exists and she was the reason for the deaths on Rokkenjima. The way he tried to explain his thinking seemed to be pretty weak; just saying that a human was in charge of it even though he had no real proof.

Although he did make a good point saying that automatically believing a Witch was the cause because they didn't want to think a human did it was also absurd, as a new viewer I can't think of any other logical explanation of how those deaths occured. Also, if I hear the phrase "Turning the chessboard around..." one more time, I'm going to be cracking some skulls.

Well, the whole point of the series is if you can face against the folklore and delusions of the witch or you surrender to it. If you're surrendering right now, without any real evidence that it was indeed a witch... You talk about how Battler reasoning was pretty weak, but Beatrice reasoning was equally weak. Nor Battler nor Beatrice have real proof at this moment. Now, this will be a battle of mystery vs. fantasy. This is only the setting of their duel.

Even so, think of it this way. If Beatrice is the real source of the deaths, and magic is the answer to everthing... then the story and premise of Umineko don't make any sense for the beginning, right? "A witch did it", after all.

[Demoned Away]

Ah I see. That didn't really click with me until now. Still, I'm not too sure what to think after just watching Episode 1, especially after they somewhat introduced

Spoiler for people?:

Bernkastel and Lambadelta. (sp? :S)

About the Battler vs Beatrice thing, sorry I didn't word it right (I really need to get some sleep haha). I agree with you that as of right now both of their points are pretty weak.

When you talk about the beginning do you mean Kinzo's reason for bringing everyone to Rokkenjima on that certain day, or...? I'm not quite following you.

[rogerpepitone]

What evidence is there that there was a letter in the parlor at the end? Maria says she saw it, and it's mentioned in a golden butterfly scene, but Battler never saw it.

[Tyabann]

Originally Posted by sento

Well, the whole point of the series is if you can face against the folklore and delusions of the witch or you surrender to it.

Isn't more the point that Battler is facing the folklore and delusions of the witch?

Originally Posted by sento

Even so, think of it this way. If Beatrice is the real source of the deaths, and magic is the answer to everthing... then the story and premise of Umineko don't make any sense for the beginning, right? "A witch did it", after all.

If you ignore all of the magical events you're also ignoring 90% of the plot and character development.

Just saying.

[sento]

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

Isn't more the point that Battler is facing the folklore and delusions of the witch?

No, you.

Ryuukishi wrote a clear challenge to the players. It's translated on Witch Hunt webpage.

And in the last interview he clearly said that he want to us to keep theorizing and that he is really suprised on how resilient players turned to be.

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

If you ignore all of the magical events you're also ignoring 90% of the plot and character development.

You didn't get what I was implying with that line. I only wanted to give him a push into the theorization party.

[Vangrim]

Originally Posted by rogerpepitone

What evidence is there that there was a letter in the parlor at the end? Maria says she saw it, and it's mentioned in a golden butterfly scene, but Battler never saw it.

Albeit the mysteries surrounding it, it's likely that the last letter is real: a bait to separate Natsuhi from the rest and kill her alone in front of the portrait.

[Fernando Hernandez]

Okay I have to say I was a Higurashi fan for a while, and I didn't think I'd like this series when I found out about it last year based on the summaries I'd heard...but when the Anime started, I thought I'd give it a chance. I read the first 10 chapters of the Manga first, and I wasn't happy with all the Anime cut once I saw that version...so I thought until the rest of the chapters are scanslated I will definitely play this game (I always wanted to play the Higurashi games as well but I just never got around to it, and I had access to the whole Anime and multiple Mangas to satisfy myself so I got lazy). I just finished episode one and read all of this thread so I thought I shall share my thoughts.

Spoiler for various thoughts:

Originally Posted by rogerpepitone

Spoiler for Other methods for the second twilight:

- Kanon & Genji were killer or accomplices to the killer and the door wasn't chained. After cutting the chain, Kanon replaced it.
- Kanon was an accomplice. Killer was still in the room when Kanon & Genji arrived and left after they did. Kanon replaced the chain after cutting it.
- Killer left through the window. Kanon, Battler, or George was the killer or an accomplice, and locked the window from inside.

I have to say I don't think Kanon is the killer an accomplice in this. Clearly he believes in the witch somewhat, and even if the theory is 'the servants are in on it' I don't think Kanon is. I recall the scene in the kitchen before Battler showed himself (what he overheard) and when Kanon was talking to Genji he was upset for 'why did Shannon have to die?'. Genji said if it wasn't Shannon it could have been him or Kanon instead, and while I won't call this 'proof' (it's entirely possible obviously that believing in the witch the servants are carrying out their 'duty' to kill the sacrifices, even if it's someone they don't want to kill), somehow I got the feeling from it that Kanon has nothing to do with it, or at least the first 6. I think even with his furniture complex that he would have had more qualms about killing Shannon...though I guess maybe that could explain only smashing half the face for her, feeling too guilty to destroy it completely? I don't know but for some reason I just don't find this theory likely.

But I also have to wonder about the very popular 'one of the original 6 victims faked their death' theory. Obviously everyone who died on the first twilight was confirmed to be absent from the group of the remaining 12, so if someone did fake their death, whose body did they use as a replacement? If there are 18 people, and only 5 die, that's 13 remaining. If the 13th faked their own death and is hiding in the shadows, they would still have needed to kill another person to use their body as the fake, and if they did, someone would have noticed they were missing. And if the island was really so impenetrable, and it's a human corpse (as in, there was a 19th person, non-magical), how did they get there? My only thoughts were that if someone did use a stand-in corpse to fake their own death, it had to be either the ship captain (most likely) or one of the other servants mentioned who isn't on duty, but again...if they weren't on duty, they would still probably live on Rokkenjima right? Who would commute to a private island if their job was servant? So this means other servants were probably present in the mansion somewhere, or there were servant houses elsewhere on the island? Whoever faked their death then would likely know there were other servants somewhere and killed one of them, knowing the remaining 12 wouldn't find anyone mysteriously missing from their group.

Just a thought. I'm not saying the 'faked death' theory doesn't work, in fact I think it's the only way to explain a lot of what happened from the anti-fantasy perspective, but I was just wondering why no one had yet mentioned that there would need to be a 19th person to be killed in order for one of the first 6 to fake their death, otherwise, there would only be 5 corpses.

As for why not all the faces were smashed...well I can't say for the subsequent victims, but I think that for the first 6, if only the face of the stand-in corpse was smashed, someone skilled at mystery solving would definitely notice that as suspicious - why is this one the only one whose face is gone? The 'faked death' theory would likely occur to one of the 12, right? So smash in all of the faces and it won't seem suspicious. Or better yet, leave two half-smashed so they can be confirmed as the people themselves. If it's inconsistent, it makes it more of a baffling, terrifying crime scene than one that points to an obvious faked death...like if only one face was smashed, or its corpse was missing, it'd be too obvious. Whoever the killer is clearly knows what they're doing and is smart enough to plan these things quickly and efficiently. But they are definitely a human, clearly with some knowledge of the occult (not necessarily a lot, and I also don't believe in the accomplice theory or that someone is killing and someone else is capitalizing on it to draw magic circles...it's definitely the same person or possibly people doing both).

I believe Beatrice exists, but can't carry these acts out herself, just she resides in that dimension with the other witches like in the tea party. Otherwise the epitaph wouldn't be talking about a ritual to revive the witch, if she was already 'alive' and could kill herself, or even possess people. I think neither is likely. In Higurashi, things were hard to explain as not being Oyashiro's curse for a long time, but eventually the human culprit revealed themself and the explanations for how they did it came to light...so I think it's too soon to say a witch did it all. I believe some magic is present, and the witch is real, but she's not responsible for these deaths (except maybe Natsuhi, because the time of her death would have been after the witch 'revived' like the epitaph said, and also, didn't it say that she was 'foolish to challenge the witch with a gun' or something, and that she could bounce bullets like a mirror?).

I think everyone so far has said my thoughts on the closed room theory, though, whoever did it was either inside the room already when Eva and Hideyoshi arrived, or they were invited in/got in after knocking and the door was opened, and then hid when the room was examined. Really, they didn't examine the room thoroughly...which is stupid but understandable, everyone was obviously high-tension and panicking a bit, trying to keep a calm head, but the mystery was so initially baffling they probably didn't consider 'the killer is still in the room' theory. Battler and his reasoning is good but this isn't like your typical mystery novel where a professional policeman or detective just happens to be present on the scene. I can understand them not taking the careful consideration to consider every theory, and I think the criminal accounted for this - "hey, if I make it look like a closed room mystery, they'll be so taken aback by the puzzle they might fail to consider the more obvious choice that I didn't get away at all". Possibly same with the face smashing? "They will be so shocked by the gruesome scene and the magical circle that the possibility I faked my death probably won't come to them, or at least if they consider it later, it'll be too late". I know personally I'm like that a lot, when I get so focused on trying to see a hidden trick to a puzzle or situation that I miss out on something so obvious and right in front of my nose (especially in video games). Then when it hits you, you're like "man, it was so obvious, why didn't I see it before I did all that running around and wasting time to do these other things?". So maybe the killer intentionally made these things look 'impossible' or really shocking specifically to divert attention from more obvious methods, to buy some time to finish the job of killing everyone before they were able to figure it out.

Those are just some of my thoughts, sorry if it's disorganized, I just read this whole thread before making my post so I wouldn't repeat stuff that's been said a million times...so my thoughts have been building up for 22 pages wanting to get them out, lol.

Edit: Wow, now I see that on page 22 people are pointing out the 'who is the fake body' fact...I hadn't finished the last page before I write this, I was so eager to get my thoughts off my chest, sorry eheh ^^;

[rogerpepitone]

Spoiler for re Kanon:

I don't think Kanon would have killed Eva or Hideyoshi. But I do think that he might have covered up for Jessica if she had.

[Arachanox]

Spoiler for don't know if I should put this here, so I will anyway:

Hi, I was curious to know if the "Tea Parties" actually happened or not. I don't doubt that the Witch's Tea Party happened because they are magic and such (I'm pro-magic in the arguments), but the human Tea Party made much less sense. Sure, everyone died and Umineko is from the same people as Higurashi so it's likely that the next game will involve looping arcs, but the Tea Party isn't an arc in itself. It is a bonus in between the first and second arcs, and it makes me wonder if it really happened. Battler talks saying something along the lines of 'finishing the game', but is he breaking the fourth wall and really talking about the game, or meaning "this terrible set of events revolving around the witch"?

Also, why didn't Battler come to the realization that, "Oh, there *must* be magic involved because otherwise Shannon and Kanon would be dead and humans can't resurrect people? He could then argue that Shannon and Kanon were in on the conspiracy and they had double bodies or something and that explains why they are alive (because during the tea party no adults were seen), but it just doesn't make sense. They were dead, now alive, is Battler really that stubborn or is the Tea Party just a bonus that didn't really happen?