IN CASE YOU CAN’T READ TITLES THIS IS AN EXTRA LAYER OF SPOILER ALERT
Kanokusa.
Let’s go.
I hope all of you are ready for me and @Aurora’s absolutely insane creation.
This is a question arc tier theory that accounts for the who, how and whydunnits of Umineko from the standpoint of making Kanon and Amakusa be the same person. It was spawned from a one-off joke and it’s really dumb.
Overview
Basically Kanon is a hitman trained by Genji, who has since retired from the business. Kanon was hired by Sumadera Kasumi to kill her sister along with everyone else on the island while securing a portion of the Ushiromiya gold. He chose to conduct this operation with the help of Genji on the day of the Ushiromiya family conference.
The plan was to reveal the letter of challenge (as Genji was still following Kinzo’s wishes to not reveal where the gold was) and set up the arbitrary deadline of the next day in order to encourage thought about it. Once the group discovers the gold Kanon then planned to kill them all along with the boatman and escape the island after spending a significant amount of time loading the gold onto his own boat parked at the Kuwadorian harbor. The plan was then for him to take up a new identity after handing over the agreed amount of gold to his employer.
However Genji betrayed Kanon as seeing Battler’s face again after so many years (who is noted to resemble Kinzo a lot) rekindled his pain towards Kinzo’s death causing him to activate some kind of device that would trigger an explosion that could destroy the mansion, setting it to midnight of the second day to match the deadline in Kanon’s letters.
Shannon
Shannon is still in a relationship with George under this theory and is a separate person from Kanon. She still knew Kanon very well, and would of noticed the signs of his plan and been able to report him were it not for her heartache in regards to Battler not remembering her. Therefore Battler’s sin is largely unchanged in this version (being that he forgot Shannon’s love for him).
Ange’s Future
For a quick recap:
The common explanation for this and one that is confirmed in Chiru (not that that matters within the confines of this theory) is that an explosive device completely destroyed the main mansion with it being unclear as to whether it was a gas leak or not.
Also two “message bottles” were found in Ange’s future, ones that apparently match up with Episode 1 and Episode 2. In addition a “forgery” was written that matches up with Episode 3.
The handwriting of these “message bottles” matches the handwriting that was written by “Beatrice” in Maria’s diary. The message bottles also contain details that only someone who has been on the island would know.
The message bottles were written by a surviving Kanon who during his time on Rokkenjima was feminine looking enough to play the part of Beatrice for Maria at Kinzo’s instruction.
They were written and given to people as a celebration of the crime he committed, the request to find the truth at the end of the first bottle was a challenge.
On Rokkenjima Prime the epitaph was solved according to Kanon’s plans. Tasking Genji with Battler’s killing after the epitaph was solved led to him overhearing Genji instructing Battler to flee the island due to the bomb Genji had set. In his fury Kanon murdered his mentor and Battler before thinking to ask where the device was set.
Due to additional complications Kanon was disarmed by a surviving Eva and opted to flee the island with only the small amount of the gold he had moved to a different location earlier. Knowing he had failed to secure the required portion of the gold Kanon changed his name to Amakusa and vanished, never giving his employer the share he had secured.
Amakusa’s knowledge of the nature and reach of Sumadera Kasumi’s underground connections made him the ideal fit for Okonogi’s scheme which is basically the same as it was in the Trick ending (to kill Ange along with Kasumi’s goons by sniper fire) with the added extra of using his knowledge to simultaneously ruin the Sumadera family.
Problematic Scenes
This theory honestly doesn’t need too much adjustments from the official explanation because it still pins Kanon and Genji as significant actors within the crimes.
The biggest hurdles for this theory to climb over in the real world of 1986 throughout the various episodes are:
- Episode 2 Twilight 1
- Episode 2 Twilight 456
- The Episode 4 Balcony Scene
And so, in sequence!
Thanks to later figuring out the location of Kuwadorian and it’s hidden passage to the gold room Rosa had already located the gold long before the events of the massacre and had been embezzling some of it in secret.
Episode 2 was written after further research by Kanon revealed this fact and so he decided to write a scenario based around him having that knowledge when he conducted the massacre where he recruited Rosa as an accomplice early on. As a result the gold was available for the decoration of the crime scene along with Rosa having a reason to lie about the locked chapel door.
As far as the killing explained by the gun on string in the official explanation: Kanon did not kill George instantly but believed he had. George underestimated his wounds and locked the door so Kanon couldn’t return to finish him off. He then died from his wounds some time later.
Episode 4 depicts one of Kanon’s more creative ideas he had for how he could have conducted the killings. “The fake murder mystery segue into massacre” explanation for 4 is the one I’m going for in this theory.
In his writings for Episode 4 Kanon decided to give Shannon who he killed so quickly in reality one extra chance to talk to the man she loved while wearing the Beatrice outfit. She was then killed shortly after the confrontation, like she expected.
The Metaworld
The Metaworld of Umineko is a realm centered around the writings of Kanon that he made after his crimes. Beatrice is the entity representing the constant image of magical murder that Kanon inserted into the stories and as such is one of the most powerful entities within the world being the front and center narrative.
However she is still bound by the writings themselves, having to act according to the crimes that occurred, and having to create an opponent who can challenge her thanks to the way Kanon finished off the first bottle. No matter what his intentions were he still asked the readers to find the truth.
The Metaworld exists outside our normal understanding of time and as such details from the later writings could be used for the metaworld surrounding the earlier ones. As such Beatrice took on the personality of Shannon, and grew attached to the opponent of Battler that she summoned to do battle with her.
The ascension from Witch to Voyager is typically marked by one being able to break free from their writings and step outside to new stories’ worlds. Indeed Beatrice asking to die instead of continuing her fight with Battler in Episode 4 is a sign that she was likely on the cusp of becoming a Voyager before she gave up completely.
The magical scenes are mostly of Beatrice’s writing as she tried to create something to motivate and appeal to Battler despite her constraints.
Just as Beatrice is the embodiment of the primary narrative in the bottles of “a witch did it”, as the “time” of the metaworld passes from Episode 2 to 3 the theories put forward in the time-frame between those episodes by various tabloids and talk shows created EVA-Beatrice, the embodiment of the alternate explanation of “that survivor did it”.
Whether Beatrice was actually in any danger as a result of EVA’s actions in Episode 3 I will leave up to the reader’s interpretation.
