My Umineko Epitaph Theory - From Mid-Ep3 (Potential Full Series Spoilers)

[Jokrono]

First of all - a warning.

I am confident in this theory. Very confident. I have no guarantee it is correct but the evidence stacks up. Read at your own risk and discretion, if you do not know the truth already. This theory contains definite Episode 3 Spoilers and potentially full series spoilers.

Always be skeptical of others ideas, though, this could all still be wrong.

Hey there! Have you been watching the YouTube series @MagusVerborum and I have been doing? Well you should be.

As a part of that, today I come to the fine people of Rokkenjima with a gift. To thank you all for the support you’ve shown us, we are releasing an early video of my theory on the Epitaph, which I made in the week between two recording sessions, having just seen the first appearance of EVA-Beatrice.

I’d been told before I made this that the epitaph was extremely difficult to solve for anyone without an understanding of the Japanese language. Fortunately for me, I have literally no understanding of Japanese, so I didn’t even understand the warning.

Here is a write-up of the theory, in PDF form. Spoiler warning of course. The document is linked internally so I recommend you download it for the best ease-of-use. It may be 21 pages long but much of that is my Discord chat with @MagusVerborum, simply for context, so don’t feel too intimidated.

We also made a video talking about the theory, which we are releasing early to you fine folk for the aforementioned support! I would recommend opening a copy of the PDF and reading along with the video, for your first time looking at it.

Summary of the Theory - EP3 Spoilers, Potential Full Series Spoilers - Click to Expand

The progression to the theory is shown in the document and video, which you should read, but the conclusion is this:

• The “sweetfish river” is the Tamsui train line in Taiwan, and thus the Key is the name ‘Qilian’, of a train station in Taiwan. Whilst I have no proof as of yet in my playthrough, evidence leads me to believe this is the ‘beloved hometown’ Kinzo wrote of.
• The Key is used to decode a puzzle on a sign above the Chapel, which reads ‘This door is opened only at probability of one in a quadrillion’, or something to this effect. We are vaguely shown this sign through character dialogue in EP2.
• Removing letters from the sign by some mechanism (buttons, pulling the letters off the sign) is how the “sacrifice” is undertaken, making ‘quadrillion’ in to ‘-u-dr–l-o-’
• Moving two of the remaining letters is how you “tear apart the two who are close”, making ‘-u-dr–l-o-’ in to ‘-u-d-r-l-o-’
• Rearranging the letters to form “Lord U(shiromiya)” is how the third twilight is undertaken. The mechanism to do so is also unclear
• The “gouge” twilights represent manipulating the remaining five letters in some fashion. Current theories are twisting them on the sign or pushing them in like buttons
• The ninth twilight means all the letters have been used, thus “none are left alive”. The witch reviving refers to the unveiling of the gold, since its unveiling would seem to confirm the truth of the legend
• The tenth twilight signifies that the puzzle portion of the epitaph is over, there is nothing left to solve; the following parts tell you what you should see to confirm you did it correctly
• The four gifts are what is found in the bunker below the island which we see Eva enter in Ep3
• The gold is the gold. Nothing more or less.
• The witch shall rest for all time means the truth of the legend will be revealed, and how it was done by humans
• The souls of the dead remains confusing though theories posed are corpses below the island in the bunker, left over from the war
• Lost love remains confusing though theories posed are it will reunite the family and those who have left it, eg. Battler, Rosa’s husband and potentially others
• This took a long time to do.

The reason we created this, on top of just thanking you all, was to demonstrate that it is possible (I believe), this early, to solve the main puzzle component of the epitaph with no understanding of Japanese. For those of you who are dissuaded in doing these things, this is your call to arms; it is possible!

My knowledge has expanded a bit since this; we just recorded Episode 4 Chapter 3, so I can talk about things up to there.

[Sapphire]

Wonderful theories, Jokrono, very interesting to read. May I ask, what made you think that the sweetfish river is a train line?

[Jokrono]

It was a matter of matching what needed to be filled in the epitaph. I’d thought from quite early on that “sweetfish river” might be something other than an actual river (since such is the nature of riddles), so I tried to match things up. When I was spitballing ideas for this theory I was trying to match the “flow” of a river to something, and by word association got to flow of traffic, which I then extrapolated to transport. The matching factors then were:

• Flow of traffic/trains for river
• ‘The two’ could be directions of traffic or the two lines on a railway
• Village for the city the transport passes through
• Shore for sidewalks regarding roads, stations regarding railway

As I stated in the video I thought sidewalks was just way too abstract so I cautiously shelved that and went from there. I go more in to the process in the document and the video, but that should answer that question

[VyseGolbez]

You know what is amazing about this? Having reread that part in ep 3 pretty recently, your first part (so up to third twilight) and even your second part fits with Eva saying that really, this was a boy toying around, instead of some grandous plot or something. And well, imagining some sort of secret mechanism really seems to be a childish idea if you ask me.
So I kinda want @Aspirety to make that badge, because this effort must be rewarded.

[Aspirety]

What badge…?

[VyseGolbez]

Referring to this from the document:

[4:30 PM] MagusVerborum: I’m gonna be honest I’ve been chatting with some of the other members
of the forum about your progress
[4:30 PM] MagusVerborum: And I’m currently trying to convince Aspi to make a SeaCat badge for
you on the forum

[MagusVerborum]

I stand by my statement

[Jokrono]

Haha, I’m impressed you’ve read so far as to see that part already

One of the things that I noticed in coming up with this theory was how the evidence seemed to cascade in to itself. All of the clues we got in episode 3 before Eva solved the epitaph were relevant, and whilst I don’t remember it explicitly, it’s probable that the ‘boy toying around’ comment actually led me to the mechanism idea, amongst other things.

[TsukiyoAlex]

I’m glad to see you’re doing your homework, I hope the witch rewards your efforts. If you manage to reach the Golden Land alive, that is. And thanks for the early access

[Jokrono]

Well it seems nobody is brave enough to step up and try debunk me yet

Does that mean I’m right? I guess I’ll just have to keep reading

[TsukiyoAlex]

Why would we? If we’re throwing you off from a cliff anyways it’s better if we let you climb a bit higher first.

[Jokrono]

Now this is a perfect response

[Sapphire]

We can neither confirm or deny it, like your friend loves to say.

[amenenee]

Very interesting read. Whether you’re wrong or right, I’m impressed at the thought put into this.

[farispie]

Well I’ll naturally attack the weakest part of your reasoning, which would be why Kinzo wrote the epitaph- this idea of returning the family and uniting them once more. Based on what we know of Kinzo, he sure as hell hasn’t shown much love for his family, and seems to be more interested in Beatrice. Do you really think that Kinzo would write an epitaph for his family’s sake?

I think the idea of resurrection would be something more tied closely to Kinzo’s .love for Beatrice than anything. Granted, by episode 3 we know not exactly what the extent of their relationship is, but there are some interesting tidbits Beatrice talks about in episode 3 by that point no? Something about hommulci, a human cage and how Kinzo played a role in all of this ?

As for the rest, while I cannot confirm or deny, I will say you kinda lucked it out in making that connection between a shore and a train station and happened to find the exact train station that fits your theory of the epitaph in that link :P. Are you sure you aren’t a demon with the luck befitting the devil?

[Jokrono]

I think definitely getting in to the third part of the Epitaph where I do suggest Kinzo’s motive for writing is weak. My thoughts have changed on it a bit since I wrote it up, largely because I’m beginning to question how much of Kinzo we see is real and not just unreliable narration (and at this point I’m fairly certain he’s just dead when the gameboard starts). I don’t know what I have left to go off, and this narration problem certainly doesn’t help.

My main thinking behind it is a parallel I theorised between Battler not accepting witches, whilst Kinzo cannot accept Beatrice’s death. To further reflect this, I think it would make sense that if Battler cannot accept one of the people he cares for is the culprit, (despite all evidence to suggest it must be the case), then it would make sense that Kinzo also reflect this in that he could not accept his family as his own, despite a natural familial bond; so maybe the epitaph does reflect what care he has left for his family.

Of course, if the epitaph is addressed to Beatrice, it seems, by the closing line, so my immediate thought to your suggestion about resurrection is this; perhaps Kinzo has projected the image of Beatrice on to another person who the epitaph is actually addressed to. This may explain the idea of homunculi and human cages, by reflecting that Kinzo has forced this personality on someone else. If I bundle this in with the idea of a multiple personality culprit, as I suggested here, it would also make sense that Beatrice is one of the personalities.

This actually gets me thinking, if Kinzo did know about this other personality of the culprit, perhaps he also knew what they intended to do? Maybe then the Epitaph was trying to show them how they could get what they wanted without killing everyone. I recall that there was a suggestion that the epitaph was intended to let an illegitimate heir claim the Ushiromiya headship. I’m currently looking through our footage to see where that was.

[farispie]

I think the latter half of this post makes more sense than the first, b/c while the novel does make a point of the similarities between Kinzo and Battler, I don’t think that means we can use that as evidence for what the purpose of the epitaph itself has. The only evidence we know is that it is addressed to Beatrice, and therefore maybe we should look into Kinzo-Beatrice connections.

I do find your ideas of Kinzo projecting Beatrice onto someone else very interesting, but the question then becomes why would Kinzo pick that specific person ? Or if this personality existed from the beginning, why would Kinzo be so readily willing to accept such a person imitating his apparent beloved? Curious isn’t it?

And Kinzo’s dead or alive status during the start of the game board is irrelevant because we know at the very least wrote the epitpah some time (ie: during the six years Battler was gone).

[Jokrono]

I don’t think Kinzo’s status at the beginning of the game is irrelevant; you were saying my reasoning was weak because of Kinzo’s personality, I was saying our understanding of Kinzo’s personality may be unreliable, thus motives are questionable when involving Kinzo’s personality. Nonetheless let’s not get in to that, the question was why Kinzo would pick this specific person.

I did mention in the video that a logical motive alone wouldn’t make sense for a massacre on such a scale; so it’s likely that if we are accepting this multiple personality culprit, some traumatic incident caused this divergence in personalities. Thus I wonder what could have caused this trauma?

Perhaps it was mistreatment by Kinzo and/or his public family? I believe it was Jessica that was first in the story to suggest that Kinzo had an illegitimate child. This to me shows that the main family was at least somehow aware of this child. It’s not as though such a child would be ancient legend, so perhaps the fact it has become rumour is that the family is covering up what they do know? If this is a cause for regret in the main family, perhaps it is evidence of mistreating this supposed illegitimate child.

Perhaps the showing of Beatrice falling off a cliff in Episode 3 alludes to the truth of it? To accept this theory I have to assume that the red truths in ep3; “Shannon is Dead” and “Kanon is Dead” do not necessarily mean that the person portraying those characters is dead. Thus it is not too far-fetched to suggest that “It’s definitely dead” and “In 1967, in a hidden mansion on Rokkenjima, Beatrice-sama existed as a human” are questionable, right? This whole time I’d been thinking that the Beatrice of 1967 represented an adult Beatrice, Kinzo’s concubine, but what if it was actually a child and this was the trauma that triggers having multiple personalities? This might also explain the odd wording of “It’s definitely dead”. Of course then it would seem that the culprit would be far older than Shannon or Kanon seem to be, which is odd but not impossible. Of course the other possibility could be that perhaps the Beatrice who died in 1967 was indeed the adult, and thus the child grew up motherless, though that alone would unlikely be enough to cause so much trauma as to induce having multiple personalities.

Of course neither of these ideas addresses why Kinzo would be so willing to accept this person as his heir, or that they were impersonating his beloved. My suggestion for that is that maybe he loved the child seeing as they were the child of his ‘true love’, and/or perhaps the delusion the child was his beloved was originally his, and the child grew to accept it. Regardless of the reason, the result is the same; the epitaph seems to be addressed to this person. Perhaps in this case, as I did propose, the “resurrection of lost love” might refer to some forgiveness of a member of the family; in this case for what was done to this child.

[MagusVerborum]

As you’ve mentioned, if Kinzo is deceased at the start of the game, then Kinzo’s personality as portrayed in the game is inherently unreliable. However, he distinctly has a poor attitude towards his entire family, even in flashbacks such as in Ep3’s opening with Eva, and generally doesn’t seem to like anyone except maybe Genji and Nanjo, though he lent support to Natsuhi in Ep1. The epitaph defines the “resurrection of the love that was lost” and as it was written by Kinzo would surely indicate that this is referring to Beatrice.

So I suppose I’m wondering… why does he love Beatrice so much? Why set up such an elaborate riddle that supposedly involves going to freaking Taiwan to solve? If the culprit that you’ve put forward is the person Kinzo is addressing the epitaph to, then they’ve been on the island for a good while. In early Ep4 Okonogi and Ange discuss a theory whereby Kinzo put forward the epitaph so that he could secretly tell Eva the answer and secure her place as the Family Head, so why not do this with this ‘Beatrice’ person to circumvent the rest of his family?

And if your answer is “Of course, that’s just what Kinzo would do” I won’t accept it.

[farispie]

Well, as an aside, on the multiple personalities thing, do you think if this person did have multiple personalities, they would be able to plan out such murders? They’d have to be quite self aware of each of their personalities to be able to carry out these murders? Or, perhaps all the personalities agree to commit the murders and they each have their own individual murders?

As for the rest of your line of thought, it is a bit odd to say that the main family would be aware of this supposed child, assuming that they are in fact the Beatrice of 1967- they’d be much older than either Jessica or George, so an hier dispute shouldn’t be a problem. And the fact they were not born from Kinzo’s wife shouldn’t be a problem considering how much Kinzo valued Beatrice over her wife- I’d imagine Kinzo would openly made them hier. Of course if the child is Beatrice’s (1967) child, they’d be ~21 years old by the family conference rolled around- again older than Jessica, and if Kinzo knew about this child, wouldn’t he have made an announcement about it proclaiming them to be heir? Of course I admit this thinking of mine is a bit weak since it is contingent on Kinzo valuing Beatrice’s “blood” as it were so much more over his family’s.