The participants in the question arcs Tea Parties went through similar trains of thought, but my counter to that would be that that only applies to the definition of ‘death’. I don’t think you can ‘kill’ somebody if they’re still able to walk around, to kill implies that the “piece has been removed from the board” so to speak.
Although I guess Shiro Emiya would argue otherwise…
Basically Umineko is actually just a big semantics study.
It really depends on how one defines death at this point, and since “kill” hasn’t been defined, the theory is valid.
That said all of this moot, since apparently the Kanon they met in the servant room wasn’t Kanon so the red truth still applies regardless.
@Antra AT LAST
@TsukiyoAlex yea I don’t know how we managed to miss that one; it must have just slipped my mind because I latched on to the keychain description. One commenter did note that the theory could still be valid if Rosa was lying, which would make sense considering I was taking a Rosa-culrpit theory at the time, but my current theory doesn’t really have any necessity for this key thing to be a problem anyway 
@farispie yea I mean the point I was making with that statement was that it was such a stretch of logic to have him possibly still be alive that I didn’t trust it. We’ll have to see how that holds up as we go forwards 
@Aspirety I think the thing for me is that I near-instantly clued in to some loose rules on how the display of magic works via the unreliable narrator so I never had any trouble with what we’ve been shown, the trouble comes in trying to figure out what amongst the magic is valid evidence. That being said, you’ll have to wait and see how I tackled the rest of the episode, I’m excited to get the rest of Ep2 out there to show you 
Gee whiz Battler’s getting really good at this whole ‘detective’ thing.
Beatrice you really should quit playing with your food 
I said it in the comments of the video as well, but it’s really interesting to go back and watch and see how unwilling I was to throw the servants under the bus on this despite how easy it would have been to explain the crimes with them. I don’t think I was taking the same humanitarian angle that Battler was, rather I was struggling to comprehend that so many people could be in on the crimes. Who knows, though? I guess only time will tell
Also once again, we’ll be recording a post-Ep2 edit recap some time soon; if you have anything you want us to address, or questions you want us to answer in that video, now’s your chance to let us know!
I think I had that same mindset with the servants on my first read of Umineko- though in part it was me not helping but getting string alonged by Battler’s point of view- despite his silly arguments, he’s a good kid. Secondly, I felt that “THE BUTLER did it” was too obvious a solution in my mind lol.
Next video is here!
Magic just goes nuts in this video, I don’t know what more to say about that.
The thing that really interests me about this one is Maria attempting to explain that Beatrice will keep her promise and stop killing once the Epitaph is solved. As we say in the video, one of the toughest things for me about ep1 was trying to figure out why (if it were a witch), the culprit is playing along, and here’s our answer. The other question for me then, was why a human culprit would do it this way; would it just be to make it seem like there was a witch? Would it be because the culprit is deluded and thinks they actually do need to follow the rules of magic?
The other thing for me about this (Ep3 Spoilers) is that I believe I forgot about this “promise” in ep3; so it didn’t occur to me that the red truth “I keep my promises” was broken once the murders continued after Eva solved the epitaph.
(Ep4 Spoilers) And then when we consider the bank vaults from ep4, I think perhaps, looking at this now, it seems like a hunch that I had about the numbers from the end of ep3 was correct; perhaps they were left behind in guilt since she had broken her promise.
Anyhow; @MagusVerborum and I should be finishing Ep4 tomorrow so I’m fully expecting to have everything I know blown out of the water
Also another fresh reminder that we will be recording our post-edit-recap for Ep2 soon so let us know if you have any questions or things you want us to address in that video.
Ughhh Worldend_dominator is so fucking goood. One of the reason’s why this is my favorite chapter of EP2.
R.I.P, Gohda. You were awesome this Episode. See you next game.
(Full Series Spoilers)Fuck man, that conversation between Battler and Maria. Talk about a hint goldmine. 
Ugh, that scene when Beato screams at Shannon… Easily one of the most important fantasy scenes in Umineko. The way Beato yells at Shannon about how love is filthy filth breaks mah hart. It break mah hart 
. If EP3 goes a long way towards showing Yasu’s more sympathetic side, I’d argue EP2 goes toward showing how much of a broken mess Yasu really is. I understand why people will say that EP2 can be more messy than EP3, but the things I like about EP2 are things I really like.
I’ll be honest i much more strongly associate Worldend_Dominator with a certain scene later on in the episode, but I think we can both agree it’s an amazing piece of music.
(similar full series spoilers) All that talk about how Beato hates love, hates Shannon, and it all happens right before they kill themselves and create the locked room… It’s pretty fucked up. I find it very interesting that as Shannon is supposed to be representative of an ‘ideal’ Yasu she writes about how much she hates everything Shannon represents here. I think most people speculate that Beatrice is closer to Yasu’s ‘true’ feelings but they seem to hate both of these representations equally, Yasu has no ‘love’ for either of them.
This is straight up my favorite section of Episode 2. Shannon and Beatrice’s fight is so incredible.
The presentation and atmosphere of Episode 2 is incredible. It starts getting really creepy and unsettling for any who oppose her. The multiple Beatrice’s appearing, the loud distorted cackling that keeps looping, it’s as if the game itself is breaking. I love when games pull this kind of thing.
But also, there’s this scene in the middle here with the quiet and melancholic piano melody (forget the name sorry) where Beatrice tells Battler she doesn’t break any promises. All the aggressive energy Beatrice threw at Battler to make him resign is gone, it feels very solemn and detached, like Beatrice’s mood has really changed. It’s a very unique scene compared to all the fighting Beatrice and Battler are usually doing.
And then she fucking loses her shit on Shannon at the end of the chapter, with the screen flashing red and loud cackling looping, really bringing us back to the feeling of insanity. It’s as if the music and presentation of the visual novel is a representation of Beatrice’s mindset at any given time.
And so we reach the end of Episode 2! Tea parties and recaps up next. I hope you’re all as excited as I am.
Genji really does a terrible job of establishing himself an alibi in this episode, it’s pretty odd considering how hard each of the other crimes have been to pin down. It almost makes me think he had nothing to do with it, otherwise he wouldn’t have been so obvious about it.
And those endings, what an adventure. 47:53 might just be one of my favourite reactions from the series thus far. (Next video absolutely minor spoilers)I’m also really sorry though because it murdered my voice for a certain Tea Party character 
This week is your last chance to send us any questions or similar for our post-edit recap video. I’ve already received a couple so let me know!
I wonder if I should save some bones for my future children to play with…?
(Full Series Spoilers) The fantasy scenes are pretty kind to Rosa in hindsight. Instead of being killed by Yasu’s bomb and just dying, Rosa gets to fight goats, go out like a badass, and even get in some last-minute bonding with her daughter.
I might have enjoyed this episode just a bit too much, to the point that my Beatrice voice kinda sorta bled into the narration.
I remember feeling just as devastated when the credits hit back in my first playthrough. Don’t worry, I still have some sympathy.
Here it is; the Episode 2 Tea Party.
This one messed with me hard at first; I was completely shocked by Rosa being the main subject of this Tea Party. I know we’d had characters appear in Purgatorio at the end of ep1 but I’d confidently locked in that those were illusions. As we went further through Ep2’s tea party I think I came to a similar conclusion with Rosa, but the question still remained as to why she was there.
And then there was ???. What is with these witches? We’re currently about to start recording Episode 5 and I’m still not entirely sure what they actually represent. I’m very excited to see how their story progresses as we go through, particularly in editing, because I feel like I’ve missed something.
All in all I don’t think Episode 2 was that hard, despite what I was warned. There are certainly some things that were tricky, like the particular ‘how’ of each locked room, but I don’t feel as though my no-magic approach is being threatened yet. I didn’t know the means by which each room was done, but I didn’t feel like any of them were impossible, I just didn’t want to pin the huge quantity of culprits/accomplices that would be required. I guess we shall find out
I hope you guys enjoyed episode 2! We have 2 recap videos coming out next, then it’s straight on to episode 3.
Why don’t you post here your current theory regarding this episode? I’d love to see how you would solve these insane closed rooms.
Also, since you’re going to start Episode 5 I’d like to ask you something I asked myself when I first finished Episode 4: Do you think there is a single culprit behind all of the episodes or four different culprits, one in each episode? As dumb as this question may seem to many people I must admit I thought of the possiblity and I was interested on how you would justify your answer. Keep up the good work and have fun with End.
I’ll add this to the list of questions we’ll address in the post-episode recap, since that will fit in nicely with what I wanted to address in that video anyway, but I see no harm in also answering it here.
For the locked rooms in this episode I somewhat neglected to solve them; I still came up with theories to demonstrate how they could be possible, but I was very unhappy with the list of accomplices that it would require; essentially all of the servants. As much as I was open to the idea of having a large, orchestrated group moving about doing these things, I didn’t want that to be the case because it almost felt like too easy of an answer with too obscure of a requirement.
At the time of recording, I suspected Rosa for both Episode 1 and 2. One of the things I was very aware of at the end of Ep2 was that it was entirely possible that I was merely succumbing to confirmation bias and taking all evidence to my theory and ignoring other clues. I recall around the last two locked rooms I was even asking myself ‘how did Rosa orchestrate this’ rather than ‘how would this be possible’, since I knew that she would not have been able to carry out the crime herself. In particular the letter found on the table at the end of Ep2 really sold me on Rosa as a culprit for this episode. This made it seem like there was only one culprit for all the games, but I made very sure to scrap that opinion for the process of reading Episode 3, which I think worked out pretty well for me. I won’t say too much on that though, you’ll have to watch and find out.
As I say, you’ll have to watch and find out, but I feel like episode 3 gave away the game to me. The combination of “no more than 18 people”, EVERYONE being confirmed as dead or having an alibi, plus the ‘resurrection’ of Shannon and the ‘ghost’ of Kanon, I knew there was some hijinks at play. After spending weeks watching and re-watching footage I came to the conclusion of Shannon and Kanon being the same person, and I feel like assuming this person to be the culprit busted most of the closed rooms we had so far wide open. The only one that stumped me was Kinzo’s disappearance in episode 1, but once I assumed Kinzo to be dead at the start of the games, that became trivial too, and my 17 person count became 16.
Thus my episode 2 theory became this;
As for the question of multiple culprits, I think that both now and at the time of recording, I was confident multiple people were carrying out the murders, but there was only one person organising all of those crimes, the obvious exception being episode 3, thus far. This was not so much a hard theory I was sticking with as a solution, more that I was trying to resolve the crime with as few culprits and accomplices as possible, since I feel that it would be too easy to assume many culprits carrying out separate murders, plus it would be absurd to assume they were all doing this separately whilst following the epitaph ‘theme’. This is also the reason why I found resolving episode 2 so difficult at first.
I don’t think it’s that difficult at all, it was magic 
Here they are! Our two recap videos from episode 2. The first one is from just after we recorded the episode.
And our second one is from just a few days ago, after we finished episode 4. Spoilers abound.
I can’t summarise too much because that’s kind of the entire point of these videos, but I think episode 2 was a heap of fun to edit, and I’m really happy with how these recaps turned out.
Shoutout to my main man @SleepingPliskin for talking with me about detectives. Led to one of my personal favourite discussions of the playthrough!