I did consider the idea of the blood being faked, and it being misdirection is a rather intuitive and easy interpretation, but the problem is, misdirection why? Why would Yasu put in that bit of misdirection, what would she accomplish with that? So far I haven’t been able to come up with a plausible reason. And as long as I don’t find one I’m not going to assume the blood is a fake just because it could be.
George is not a POV but he talks about the ‘ice picks’ in his parents’ skulls later on, and he definitely saw Eva’s body himself so that’s not second-hand information. And since I don’t believe George is in on it (his reactions are WAY too genuine to believably be from a script) I’ll take his word for it.
There’s a lot to doubt in Kanon’s story, hell that very scene has a lot of obvious fantasy in it, but even so I still question whether individual details are unreliably narrated, and if so there must be a reason for that.
In response to this part in particular:
A story is still told for a reason. There’s a lot of scenes in this episode basically told from Kanon’s perspective (albeit by a narrator) that contain a lot of very important bits of truth in them. Dismissing everything that’s seen from his perspective as ‘a story’ and not thinking deeper into it is pretty destructive.
My problem with your argument is that all of what you want me to support with evidence is incredibly obvious and apparent if you don’t assume it’s all fake. Like there being more than one gun; it’s unmistakably proven by Natsuhi being shot at the end. And because I don’t think it’s fake, that’s that! It’s direct textual evidence that the culprit possesses a gun! ONLY barring the interpretation that it’s all fake, which again, I don’t share. Why don’t I share it? For reasons from all over Umineko, which I’ll gladly elaborate on as we go through the Tea Party.
He’s not a suicidal robot but he’s more than aware of the fact that they’re all going to die at midnight anyways and feels incredibly indebted to both Kinzo and Yasu. He’s already been willing to help Yasu with murders, and he continues to do so in Turn.
All I can say is… no it wouldn’t be the limit. Like I thought of writing a lengthy argument, but that’s basically what it boils down to, so there.
It’s funny when comparing this to the previous quote exchanges we just had, because I find this to be a lot less reasonable than you make it out to be. The idea that Battler describes the bodies like that and fails to notice that it’s all fake is very hard, nay pretty much impossible for me to swallow. And neither of the following two episodes’ first twilights are faked so I fail to see how I’m in any obligation to explain why “this one in particular is not”.
I apologize if I dodged a question without realizing, it wasn’t my intention. Basically the reason I believe that this wording comes up repeatedly is because that’s the narration style Battler uses to describe something unbelievable. Like he can’t believe this is actually happening so he narrates it as something not real. Consequentially, when he actually stops calling it makeup like one or two lines later he essentially acknowledges it as being real which is a much bigger deal to me.
As for the evidence thing, I went into this earlier. A lot of the evidence is implicitly present if you accept that the murders are real.
I’m a bit at a loss what you actually want me to explain here. The meta plot hasn’t even really started at this point in Umineko yet - at least there’s nothing for us to observe - but I’ll just say that I think that from the perspective of the meta plane the change in authorship from Yasu to Tohya is, in fact, trivial and unimportant. What’s much, much more important in the meta plane is the change in game master from Beato to Lambda to Battler (which didn’t come with a change in authorship for the forgeries). But again I feel like later episodes provide a better opportunity to discuss this, partly too because I want to reread the episodes before I end up constructing a flimsy argument based on possibly wrong memories that makes our discussion lead to nowhere.
Except that Natsuhi trying to hide Kinzo’s death is a prevalent issue both on October 4th and 5th, and I see no reason to doubt the legitimacy of any of it. She reacts exactly the way she would if it’s not staged, even to the point of getting defensive about her own magical coping mechanisms. Not to mention we actually get a scene narrated from her perspective where she “tries to convince Kinzo” which goes entirely against the idea of it all being a script, unless you reject literally everything about that scene.
This quote in particular indicates to me a fundamental difference in our understandings of how Yasu’s mind works. First off, I think neither of the two claims you paraphrase are bullshit. Secondly, what does she want to be “stopped” from, exactly? Or better yet, what was her most basic goal in the first place? Thirdly, does the motivation of (Meta)-Beatrice align with Yasu’s game board motivation in your interpretation? There’s a lot more in your interpretation I can’t quite wrap my head around just yet.
Because… it’s a game (under this theory)? You should probably always assume large quantities of blood are fake unless you have some plausible reason to think otherwise, because that’s not really how bleeding works. And again, your notion would disclaim the possibility of bleeding in the dining room, so by your own theory that blood shouldn’t be there.
Also, as I’ve noted, there is direct textual evidence for the existence of a substance which is hard to distinguish from blood.
You shouldn’t. He and Jessica are among the most suspicious characters in the episode, especially when their “genuine” emotions switch on and off or they’re more knowledgeable than they should be. Also I’m sorry are you using his second-hand claims as direct evidence? You can’t do that. George could say whatever he wants. And that whole discussion is more evidence of the ludicrousness of it than evidence for it:
[quote]GEORGE: "...You know, I've been thinking. It wouldn't be impossible to stick one of those 'icepicks' into someone's chest, like in Kanon-kun's case. ...But splitting the skull and sticking them into the forehead, like in my parents' case, wouldn't be that easy." BATTLER: "You think the culprit had that kind of animal strength...?!" GEORGE: "...They probably had some kind of weapon, a device that can shoot or pound in those 'icepicks'. That handle was too short to be driven in that deeply by a human's strength alone."[/quote]
So let’s just catalog everything wrong with this conversation:
George speaks authoritatively on his father’s wound which he never saw.
George openly speculates that Kanon’s wound (which did not occur) is possible, but that it would be impossible for his parents’ wounds to be the result of simple thrusting. So now he’s casting doubt on that, which seems like a curious thing to say but OK maybe his follow-up to this will sound sincere and rational.
Battler speculates, wrongly but perhaps reasonably, that the killer might be very strong.
George dismisses this speculation and instead suggests an insane device, some kind of stake-launcher or stake-pounder, in apparent complete seriousness. I’m sorry… what? So to be clear George does not accept the argument that the killer was really strong but is OK with making up some thing that probably doesn’t exist. There’s even a gun in the room with them and the idea of a gun isn’t suggested!
Battler immediately becomes distracted by this thought and starts wondering if it was used to kill the FT victims, and from this extrapolates that the nonexistent device could kill the four people he’s with even though there has been no rational explanation provided as to why such a device, if it did exist, would be capable of killing that many people so quickly. Beyond his jumps to conclusions, which are ridiculous.
You seem to be bad at understanding my point. More on this below.
That’s not what “direct textual evidence” is. Direct textual evidence is there’s a passage that shows the gun that the culprit used, or a gun that could be the one the culprit used. That doesn’t exist in Legend; we see one gun and it’s in Natsuhi’s possession and we know she didn’t use it for those twilights. Your argument is by inference, as apparent wounds without a source are not direct evidence to walk backward toward the idea that those wounds were caused in a particular manner. I’m not saying that inference is invalid, but it isn’t as strong as you think that it is.
He himself is not a murderer (and guess what, holding down Nanjo so another person can kill him is, in fact, murder, so that argument for that twilight’s a no-go). He does not seem to be terribly put-out about being spared in Turn. By the way I’m not sure you’ll be able to back up the claim that he helps Shannon/Kanon/Beatrice (I wish people would stop saying Yasu, Yasu is the author) with any actual murders in Turn.
So you concede the point. I admit at this point it’s more “She’d consider this too far” vs. “No she wouldn’t,” but plain common sense is on my side. Of course such a brutal scene would affect someone. The alternative is that things were quieter and cleaner, either because there was no murder or the murder was more subtle in some fashion, either of which makes more sense.
Battler convinces himself of plenty of things that take him away from an initial correct impression, and advocates for things that turn out to be wrong. Dramatic irony dogs his narration constantly. This is exactly the sort of thing the author would slip in to provide that.
But table that for a second: A better point is how the hell does Hideyoshi not know at a glance what is and isn’t real given his position. His behavior in the FT/ST makes no goddamn sense if he was that close to real corpses, especially if he was told they weren’t going to be real. Remember, if Hideyoshi is some sort of accomplice at this point (whatever form you think that takes), he has expectations for what he will see in there; Battler doesn’t, because Battler is unaware of what’s supposed to be there. And basically every possible scenario for Hideyoshi is dubious:
If the deaths are fake and Hideyoshi knows they’re fake, then he has no reason to think anything is going to be wrong and it will probably be obvious to him that things are fine.
If the deaths are fake but Hideyoshi thinks they’re real, surely something would give that away; but even if it doesn’t, he could be fooled just as Battler was. But it seems unlikely he’d be made aware of brutal murders and left out of the loop about the fact it’s not real.
If the deaths are real and Hideyoshi thinks they’re fake, he’d have to be incredibly dense not to notice this from where he is and what he’s doing. And if he thinks they’re real when he was told they’re not, the worst imaginable idea is to wander off with Eva without telling everyone.
If the deaths are real and Hideyoshi knows they’re real, Hideyoshi is a casual accomplice to brutal murder and able to retain his composure while lying to people. Quite an actor, and also apparently a complete monster. Which seems… highly out of character… for Hideyoshi.
[quote=“Karifean, post:29, topic:26”]And neither of the following two episodes’ first twilights are faked so I fail to see how I’m in any obligation to explain why “this one in particular is not”.
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Sure they are. Not even you could possibly deny that Banquet’s is, at the absolute worst, 1/3 fake and intentionally staged for a particular purpose. But they are obviously fake in construction whether you believe this was used as a prelude to actual murder or not. It probably wasn’t in Legend and Turn. It definitely wasn’t in End. It only was in Dawn because of Erika. The thornier questions arise from Banquet and Alliance, but that’s way ahead of ourselves.
Also, once again, every FT in Chiru is obviously fake and every FT is much more theatrical than the deaths that follow them. This is a hint. You cannot just ignore this, nor can you ignore the rather obvious conclusion that follows from it (which you can disagree with, but I won’t allow you to without a supportable reason).
Eva then goes right back to calling it makeup, the third-person narration uses it for Kanon’s death (which even you believe is fake), it is used again for Natsuhi. Every character in the narrative sure falls back on a single exact metaphor every time in Legend and doesn’t do so later!
Supposing that I told you that, after Legend, “makeup” appears a good 20+ times and never once is used to refer to murders? It’s not like it disappears from Battler or Eva’s or the narrator’s vocabulary, but it’s never again employed in the context used in Legend. And it’s not like smashed heads disappear.
It’s. A. Theme.
You might have a point in isolation but your argument is inadequate when all evidence is considered. And unlike an episode-to-episode comparison, we can be reasonably certain that intra-episode information used in a consistent fashion probably hints at something.
I don’t think you get to make that claim as though it’s simply a premise. Why do you accept that these ridiculous, absurd, straight-out-of-a-mystery-novel murders are real? Because you want them to be real? Why do you insist on shutting out wholly plausible interpretations? Even Battler and Knox doubted whether Beatrice intended everything to be a mystery, and Knox is the embodiment of a set of rules that govern that genre!
Try seeing things from my perspective. Just try it. Choose for the sake of argument not to accept that they’re real and convince yourself that my position is not possible with the evidence provided. I don’t believe you’ll get that far. Not saying you’ll believe it, but I didn’t reach this position by just wanting it to be true and I have looked for arguments that completely demolish it. There are none, just a lot of things that make it seem that way, and I believe this is by authorial design. Again, I’m not denying that the “solutions” to the “game” are as the mystery layer answers suggest, but some of the logistical improbabilities can be resolved if we take some of what is happening as fiat rather than actually happening.
Innocent until proven guilty. Before we look for the culprit, let’s prove the crime. One of the unique things about Legend is we cannot easily do even that.
I’m sorry… what? That doesn’t even make sense. I’m not letting that slide. That claim cannot be made without some kind of support as to why changing the authorship of in-universe fiction between two individuals with different backgrounds and knowledge bases is “trivial and unimportant” when such a thing is practically the definition of an important detail. Featherine straight-up says this on top of everything else.
This isn’t a matter of interpretation, you are simply wrong if you consider that detail inconsequential.
That really isn’t a problem, depending upon when everyone is brought into the fold. The most plausible time to do something like that is in the evening on the 4th. We have no way of knowing the exact point this happens, in exactly the same way we have no way of knowing the exact point any given accomplice is recruited in a true-murder theory, but it’s largely irrelevant until something has actually happened. And even then we have cases like Alliance where recruitment (or defection, but that’s another issue entirely) could potentially happen during events.
Plus, POV issues generally. It’s a bit hard to explain this without opening myself to inaccurate claims that I’m “dismissing” stories as irrelevant simply because I don’t believe them to be in the text because they’re literal truth, but it’s also not material to the argument. Like, I can doubt the George/Shannon arbor scene without saying that George and Shannon weren’t in some kind of relationship. Doubting one does not entail rejection of the other. Scenes can have all sorts of purposes and being part of the literal physical narrative need not always be one of them.
[quote=“Karifean, post:29, topic:26”]Not to mention we actually get a scene narrated from her perspective where she “tries to convince Kinzo” which goes entirely against the idea of it all being a script, unless you reject literally everything about that scene.
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Not true, one can accept the reason that scene exists in the story without in any way damaging the overall narrative. It does establish some degree of unreliability to Natsuhi’s POV, but the point is not to reject the scene but to understand why Natsuhi is adopting the role that she’s adopting.
[quote=“Karifean, post:29, topic:26”]This quote in particular indicates to me a fundamental difference in our understandings of how Yasu’s mind works.
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You don’t legitimately believe her – that is, “real”/Prime-Yasu, not any avatar of herself that might exist in her stories – to have been capable of really killing anyone, do you?
[quote=“Karifean, post:29, topic:26”]First off, I think neither of the two claims you paraphrase are bullshit. Secondly, what does she want to be “stopped” from, exactly?
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What is hard to understand about my rejection of those claims?
“She chooses her victims at random” is bullshit because we know that is factually untrue. The text has her say such several times and then later it’s very obviously not so, especially looking at things like the EP2 FT. Also what was the plan (if the murders are real) in the EP1 ST if Eva and Hideyoshi don’t leave? Who were the other two who were close that were the fallback, or was she just gonna be hosed? Setting that aside, Yasu-as-author wrote the stories, so obviously she picked who died on a higher level for the purpose of creating a particular narrative. It’s demonstrably not true on multiple levels.
“She didn’t care who stopped her” is bullshit because we know Battler is what matters most to her on this particular weekend of 1986. His return was a crucial factor. Beatrice’s game is with Battler alone. The Love Duel is about Battler, Jessica, and George, not “anybody.” All her pining is for Battler. Battler is consistently and constantly held up as the thematic core of her desire. Battler alone can (and does, sort of) free her from the cursed island.
[quote=“Karifean, post:29, topic:26”]Or better yet, what was her most basic goal in the first place?
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In “real life?” Almost certainly not to murder anybody in cold blood. There was something she wanted to see if Battler would do or could do. Something may have gone wrong with it, but that has no bearing on her goal.
Meta-Beatrice’s goal? To make Meta-Battler understand the big picture. I don’t think that’s terribly controversial considering just getting at answers didn’t satisfy her in EP4, and that what seemed to upset her most was Battler not even trying for a broader perspective.
[quote=“Karifean, post:29, topic:26”]Thirdly, does the motivation of (Meta)-Beatrice align with Yasu’s game board motivation in your interpretation?
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Is there a particular reason that it must or should? For that matter, how do you know what Piece-Shannon/Kanon/Beatrice’s gameboard motive was?
I still stand by experience in that the din of the guns going off would be very difficult to hear through a lot of walls, doors, and at least one flight of stairs. I would expect Rudolf or Kyrie to be more likely to identify a distant gun going off since they have more expertise with them than most of the people on the island, but they’re dead by this point.
And it’s laid out in Alliance, but Maria is completely looking forward to whatever death may come if she survives the eight twilights because she IS a zealot for Beatrice. Beatrice promised that in the Golden Land, good things would come to Maria and to get there, people had to die. She was barely bothered by the death of her mother in this arc, so not being bothered by the murders going on behind her back isn’t exactly surprising (especially when she’s imagined far crueler and more gruesome deaths in her mind).
Most likely, I believe that the culprit waited for the four to go to the room, used a servant key and closed the door, asked Maria to stand in the corner and ignore the bloodshed, shot the elderly accomplices, set the stakes/paperweights, made the call, left, and locked the door. Then Natsuhi’s gun wasn’t loaded but the killer’s was, and the killer switched Natsuhi’s gun with their gun so it seemed like she shot herself. (The manga for the final game explains all of the tricks, but I’m just offering explanations with the most logical explanation.) I sure can’t wait to eventually discuss EP2 because on a re-read, I noticed something cool about the end I missed the first time.
Looking back at Episode 1, there’s still one thing in particular that I’m having a lot of trouble rationalising…
The fifth Twilight, specifically, the hatchet. Why is there a hatchet? Why is Kanon wielding a hatchet? What is this scene meant to communicate to us? Why did nobody mention the hatchet after the fact?
It might be a Higurashi reference. The nata or hatchet/cleaver is Rena’s signature weapon. Although I don’t know the significance of Kanon wielding it specifically.
I get that, but I think there’s more to it than that. Why would the author bother including that Hatchet if it didn’t play into the mystery in any way? Even in fantastical scenes, everything is shown for a reason.
Is there something Kanon wanted to use the hatchet for? It can’t be for fighting beatrice; that makes no sense.
My guess is that having read just the manga should be fine, since I don’t think there’s any significant spoilers in the sound novel that weren’t revealed in the manga.
In fact…it’s kind of the other way around isn’t it? Should manga-exclusive stuff be spoiler-tagged in these threads?
There aren’t any real VN-only spoilers, but the manga probably wasn’t built to be “solvable” in the same way the VN was. Ryuukishi urged VN readers to re-read the whole series and polish their theories before starting the EP8 manga, but he told manga-only readers to read it right away without worrying too much about it. The manga seems to be almost completely solvable, but several puzzles/treasure chests exist in the VN only, and by following this thread, it’s possible someone will get spoiled on them before they’ve gotten a chance to read it.
Good point about the EP8 manga… That one’s almost like an extra 9th episode of the VNs, and it’s definitely worth reading before you hear people quoting everything that happened in it, even if you haven’t read the manga up to that point.
Hey, I’m not too familiar with this forum, but just dropping in to mention that I’ve been doing a thorough reread of Umineko and posting thoughts on my blog here. I’m just past EP1, but I’m intending to keep with this format of doing a rough stream-of-consciousness notes post and an overall review post for each episode. Figured it was worth posting here for anyone who may be interested.
I really enjoyed reading this! You pointed out a lot of things I hadn’t really thought about before. Always nice to see different people’s takes on Umineko episodes =P
I’ve been going back over this in my head again. I think we can explain the first twilight pretty easily as being death by poisoning as Karifean suggested. Shannon snuck some poison in the tea, Gohda served it to the siblings, and that’s that. It’s not hard for Gohda to be killed when he’s alone with Shannon either, maybe he had some of that tea too.
As for poison not being foreshadowed, I believe there is sufficient foreshadowing. Putting aside Eva’s paranoia about the tea being poisoned earlier, I can even explain where the poison came from.
Keep in mind that there is nobody here to serve this drink to. Maybe it just so happens that Genji has been preparing poisons in this room all along? Would explain a lot. One of the newcomers helped with this theory, sorry but I can’t remember who ^^;
So I’ve been trying to maintain that none of the murders except Natsuhi’s could’ve been done with a gun, as surely everyone else in the building would’ve heard the shot. But I keep running into dead ends with the Second Twilight. Renall claimed that the POV stating Eva and Hideyoshi’s skulls were gouged was unreliable, but Battler later reflects on this in his internal narration when reflecting on the design of Kanon’s stake.
Whether he saw it or not, Battler definitely knew that Eva and Hideyoshi’s heads were gouged. It leaves very little room for us to doubt that it really happened as depicted. But I can’t possibly hope to explain their heads being gouged without the use of guns. It’s said by both Nanjo and George that their skulls can’t be pierced with those stakes through stabbing alone, and I don’t see much reason to doubt the truth of that. But then, I can’t offer a satisfying explanation for how these two were killed. It’s got me stumped
I don’t wanna go as far as Renall and claim that there were no deaths but, I feel my moves have run out here.
EDIT: I feel like I’ve been restricting myself unnecessarily now, I feel like an idiot. One of the items mentioned to be in the garden storehouse was a hammer. It’s perfectly plausible that Yasu just, hammered those stakes into their heads after death. Man, it was so simple all along.
I’m also pretty convinced that Eva would let Yasu in to serve them tea, if we assume Will is correct about them being accomplices.
This here seems right after all the Green Fairy is Absinthe, which is concocted from wormwood. Extract of this plant can cause paralysis/coma/death at high dosages. A seasoned hand might even be able to specify the type of effect.
Hammering stakes is a valid arguement, afterall a paralyzed or comatose or dead victim cant resist.
EP4 Teaparty suggests that Natushi was shot with a gun. Which then can be conveniently exchanged with her empty gun, leaving only a single gunshot fired.
I’ve only noticed this on my 3rd read through, but did anyone else pick up on the fact that the people who wear red shirts and white suits, will eventually wear black capes and scream “OOoooOOOooo Beatrice”?
I was impressed by how many scenes like this there are, you can definitely see he had the whole story laid out from the very beginning, though there are also clues to dropped plot points. The scene between Natsuhi and Gohda during lunch is plain weird knowing what he originally intended for them and clearly hints at something more sinister that never came.
There are still waaaay too many repetitions though, the scene in which they talk about the gold just goes on foreveeeerr. The sibling’s political games are fun, but he also tends to over-explain those, ruining them a bit. Well, I guess this is a fault of VN writers in general.
Shannon and Kanon scenes are of course the scenes that most gain from re-reads. The meeting between Kanon and Battler is just plain awkward lol. Yeah, Kanon’s love interest is Jessica, but at the core he still Yasu, fully aware of her feelings for Battler.
I was really impressed with EP1 on re-read (especially cause I thought it was boring on the first read). All the clues are presented. Even Easter eggs clues for higurashi fans, as ShiON and MiON use the same ON as KanON and ShannON.
If you accept that that the personalities are distinct individuals then only Beatrice loves Battler, but the others do not.
It’s not that simple though. In the manga Confession of the Golden Witch, we get an insight into Sayo’s feelings once she learns that Battler is coming back and the scene depicts a struggle. Sayo claims that her current self only loves George, but Beatrice says that’s not really true and calls her a liar, and the dialogue implies that Sayo is secretly overjoyed that Battler is coming back, no matter how much she tries to separate herself from her feelings.
Kanon’s reaction is no surprise if we take that into account. It is essentially Sayo seeing Battler for the first time in years.
Yeah, plus that’s not how Dissociative Identity Disorder works anyway. It was one of the biggest criticisms when Ep. 6 came out. Personalities don’t talk to each other, plan murders, die at command and you can’t switch personalities at will.
Yasu basically creates personas to escape her loneliness/situation. It’s something the first part of Ep. 2 touches heavily (With Jessica and Kanon).
Not to mention that Sayo has complete control over each persona (and can essentially kill them whenever she wants). Also, lovely quote and such cool foreshadowing. Based Ryukishi.
