Huh. I admit: I was partially too distracted by how attractive she was to notice anything, but I assumed both portraits were blonde; I just attributed the different looks to different shading and coloring in the artwork, given how dark the first one was compared to how light the second one was.
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I didn’t even think about this, but now that you mention it, doing something like that without just making a mess out of it isn’t easy. The human body is complicated, and just cutting everywhere until you run out of stuff to cut isn’t really an option - some of this stuff is tough.
He’s not necessarily the only one who could have done it though; any biology student could probably have pulled it off, though Nanjo is the only one confirmed to have such an education.
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I have an objection to nobody knowing what Beatrice looked like. All of the servants, Krauss, Natsuhi and Jessica would have seen the portrait every day. Particularly the servants since they would have had to clean the portrait fairly often as Shannon herself says in the opening parts of the episode. They, at least, would certainly notice if the portrait was switched. The picture had only been up for about 2 and a half years (according to episode 1) but I think that’s enough time for people to remember what it looks like. It may be possible that the painting was painted to look like the imposter Beatrice (assuming that she is an imposter) in the first place though. While I guess only Kinzo knew what she ‘truly’ looked like all of the servants would have known what the painting looked like. The blond hair was a really good pick up though.
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I always assumed the “new” Portrait wasn’t real, though.
If it was ever changed it would of been done right in front of Kyrie when they show it change for the first time “magically”, and the background of the entrance hall continues to show the original portrait.
Is the new portrait of Beatrice not just something for the Player’s perspective?
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I agree with Rabla on this one. Unlike last episode, I dont believe that the new one ever gets shown during a “the characters walked up and looked at the portrait” scene. And I think the old portrait even gets shown a couple time later, so I dont think this represents a physical change.
The portrait, in Ep1, was really the entire representation of Beatrice’s ‘existence’. So now that the way the reader sees Beatrice’s existence in a different light (with her supposedly showing up in the house and all), the portrait change represents that switch.
Besides, even if you claim that no one else knew the portrait well enough or was paying attention, I am convinced that Maria would have said something if this had happened. Thats just her personality.
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An opening move. Typically your initial opening moves would not be to flaunt the queen’s presence… Unless, of course, it is believed the opponent will be unable to take control of the board. Maybe the opponent is just pitied, even.
In this episode, the 19th person’s presence is confirmed by several of the board’s pieces, but not by the challenger, Battler, himself. (Aside: A game of chess where some pieces are “invisible” would be interesting… Battle-chess? Hmm…) Despite that confirmation several of the pieces, including Rosa who has seen this 19th person herself, doubt each other rather than this newcomer who should be more suspicious to them. Indeed, after Jessica leaving to pick a fight with the witch, we next find her dead. Wouldn’t you immediately suspect “the 19th person did it?” So why wasn’t that the immediate conclusion?
What I’m getting at, is that it seems odd for someone to be so uncharacteristically suspicious of those close to them, rather than someone already established as being suspicious. The narrative points this general theme out at several points even. Especially with Battler bringing a particular level of attention and focus to that near, I think, the end of this episode.
My opinion is that something happened between when Rosa was visiting with Kinzo, Shannon, and Genji, and when she returned. The narrative makes a point of telling us a golden butterfly happened to touch her shoulder right before then. That happening is vague, and so the conclusions you can draw from it are broad, leaving little room for specifics without great insight. Giving a conclusion would likely be the same as revealing your own biases.
Personally, as I stated previously for episode one, I think that magic exists but that its existence does not affect the core of the mysteries. Given that disposition, you could relax wary neurons by just throwing your hands up in the air, jumping to the conclusion “Magic!” However, that feels not much different than saying “I don’t know!” After all, it’s an excuse to stop thinking. (That’s not to say that ascertaining one theory to be more probable than alternatives is the same as giving up, though.) Since that feels like a rather apathetic solution for a problem with undetermined value, it seems prudent not to suspend thought on it just yet.
To reiterate: While I have reason to believe that magic does exist to some degree within the gameboard, I am uncertain as to whether it would be an acceptable solution to the problem of the sudden strangeness which Rosa exhibits. Further, it seems uncertain as to whether this strangeness is just an error in my own perception of her or not. There are cheap reasons to justify my belief that this isn’t merely an erratic impression. Alas, none of them would work from within the gameboard.
So, based on the vaguely baseless assumption that Rosa’s seemingly strange personality shift upon visiting Kinzo’s study has reasonable utility for “solving” at least a few events later in the episode, it seems prudent not to jump to any conclusion just yet. (Incidentally, it would have also been prudent not to have such a long run-on sentence, or any run-on sentence for that matter. Adjectives and verbosity are fun though.)
Without committing to this line of thought specifically, perhaps Rosa saw or heard something regarding Beatrice’s nature which caused her to doubt the authenticity of there being a 19th person. There are some lines and actions later on which would likely contradict this, but I have not yet looked thoroughly at that.
Considering how many ambiguities there are, and how many possibilities exist due to that alone, the introduction of The Red Truth is extraordinarily helpful. However, the person who speaks the red truth is still our adversary in this match. It would likely be best to consider it as a tool for speaking half-truths. What reason is there to believe that the whole-truth for any aspect would ever be spoken by an opponent?
Keeping that in mind, I think that it is critical to look at what isn’t stated in a red truth rather than just looking at what was stated. It is like a magician waving their hand, saying “Look here!” to distract their audience from the trick.
Twilight 1: Chapel
Krauss, Natsuhi, Rudolf, Kyrie, Hideyoshi, and Eva are dead. Their identities are easily verified within reason.
Compared to the first twilight in episode one, the location and some victims/survivors are different.
The following victims here were also victims in episode one: Rudolf, Kyrie, Krauss.
The following are victims of this twilight taken from both episodes, so far: Rudolf, Kyrie, Krauss, Natsuhi, Hideyoshi, Eva, Gohda, Shannon.
A quick summary of red-truths and what I’ll refered to as “refused-truths,” here:
RED: "Regardless of whether they were alive or dead, the six definitely entered through the door."
RED: "Only one key to the chapel exists."
RED: "It is impossible to unlock the lock to the chapel with any thing but the chapel’s key."
RED: "When the door to the chapel is locked, it prevents any and all methods of entry or exit."
RED: "The six definitely entered through ‘this front door’."
RED: "This morning, Rosa definitely took an envelope out of Maria’s handbag…and from that obtained the genuine key to the chapel."
RED: "The key to the chapel truly was the object inside the envelope I gave Maria."
refused: "That envelope was completely under Maria’s supervision until Aunt Rosa opened it."
refused: "No one was able to touch Maria’s handbag until Aunt Rosa took out the envelope."
RED: “The envelope I handed over to Maria and the one Rosa opened are the same thing.”
Twilight 2: Jessica’s room
This is a “bit different” from episode one… Instead of Eva and Hideyoshi, who have so far never made it past this twilight anyway, the victim is Jessica. As far as Battler is aware, Kanon isn’t dead yet. (Though this is later cleared up with a red truth that Kanon was killed in that room.) Also, we’re shown how they were killed!?
Well, at this point I feel like we’re just seeing “how they would have been killed if it were done with magic” with Ryukishi subtly saying “your goal is still to try to figure out an alternative plain-old humans-only explanation.” Though that’s just how I’m viewing it, and that could be entirely wrong. I don’t trust perspectives in 07th works.
(Speaking of perspectives, there were so many perspective changes in this episode! I swear there was one scene where the perspective changed three times in one page. Well, that’s an exaggeration, but there were at least two scenes where the perspective changed twice on a single page. Evens out, right? H-hey, I’m credible, I swear!)
Anyway. Let’s have a quick look at the red- and refused-truths for this round:
RED: “The only master keys are the ones held by the servants, one key each.”
(However, there are two more servants not on this island, at least.)
refused(?): "Kanon-kun had a master key on him."
RED: "There are absolutely no types of hidden doors. This door is the only way in or out. The only way to lock this door is with Jessica’s single key or the master keys, only one of which is held by each servant. The window is locked from the inside."
RED: "Kanon was killed in this room."
refused: "Kanon-kun’s corpse is in this room."
refused: "The last time it was locked was due to a master key."
RED: "When locked, it does not permit any form of entry. No trick could have the effect of locking the door from the outside without using a key."
RED-later: "When Jessica’s corpse was discovered, only Battler, George, Maria, Rosa, Genji, Gohda, Shannon, Kumasawa, and Nanjo were in Jessica’s room. The corpse of Jessica is also included."
RED-later: “Therefore, both in the case involving Jessica’s room and the one involving this servant room, no humans exist that you were not aware of. No one is hiding.”
Note that I added in “later” truths here.
NITPICKING:
- “Kanon was killed in this room.” When? Keep in mind that I don’t trust the magical narratives.
- “The only way to lock this door is with Jessica’s single key or the master keys, only one of which is held by each servant.” Nothing is said about how one might lock the window.
TANGENT: Of wolf and sheep
I never tried to actually solve the wolf and sheep puzzle before. So I paused right after the rules were explained. My solution differed from the one presented, but I don’t believe it violates the rules. (… Did I? …)
(my solution)
wwss xx xxxx -- two wolves, two sheep on first bank
1
wsxx ws xxxx -- move one wolf and one sheep to the second bank,
wsxx sx wxxx -- then send one sheep back
2
wxxx ss wxxx -- move those two sheep over to the second bank,
wxxx wx ssxx -- then send the wolf back
3
xxxx ww ssxx -- move the remaining wolves to the second bank,
xxxx xx ssww -- to join with the sheep.
(their solution)
wwss xx xxxx -- two wolves, two sheep on first bank
1
ssxx ww xxxx -- move both wolves to the second bank
ssxx wx wxxx -- then send one wolf back
2
wxxx ss wxxx -- move both sheep to the second bank
wxxx wx ssxx -- then send the earlier wolf back
3
xxxx ww ssxx -- move both wolves to the second bank
xxxx xx ssww -- to join with the sheep.
(Tangential digression: Incidentally, I get the feeling Discord automatically treated that as Lua script…)
Well, now that this post is thoroughly scattered – did anybody notice what I (vaguely) did there? – maybe now would be a good time to move on.
But first, let’s do some more notes.
Three gold bars
So, the gold does exist, maybe? It’s always possible this is forged; not like anybody there is into appraisals. This seems like it doesn’t really matter.
About the Chapel
- “The Sealed Chapel”
- Kinzo strictly ordered Rosa, and presumably his other children, never to enter the Chapel
- Gohda states he is not aware of Kinzo having ever gone to the chapel
- Servants were ordered to give it a major cleaning several times a year
- According to Nanjo, Kinzo supposedly stated “Someday, perhaps I too will be able to receive a blessing there. But unless a miracle occurs, that day will never come.”
- “<This door is…opened…only at…probability of>??” :: English: even harder than the kanjis
- George: “…Umm, I think it went ‘m’, ‘b’, ‘t’, ‘q’, so, …umm, umm…how many did that mean, I think…umm…hmmm…”
` “…Anyway, this is incredible. Adding up all the fingers on both hands doesn’t even get you close. It really would be impossible unless a miracle occurred.” - Nanjo : “…Certainly. It’s quite reminiscent of the old Kinzo-san, who loved using gambling as a metaphor whenever he got the chance.”
- George: “…Umm, I think it went ‘m’, ‘b’, ‘t’, ‘q’, so, …umm, umm…how many did that mean, I think…umm…hmmm…”
I’d love to know what that English inscription read, and what those letters (variables? Is this a formula?) represent or are a part of. Sure, we can just gloss over the details and have another side mystery… Why not, right? (W-we do find out, right?)
Subsequent twilights: Servant’s room; Natsuhi’s room
Nanjo and Kumasawa getrekt become victims for the next twilights in the servant’s room. Not much else to describe here; maybe just “there was a magical perspective for what had happened.”
Here’s a listing of the red-truths:
RED: (What about the ‘servant room keys’?) Those are “kept in the key box in the center of the servant room.” There are several servant room keys, but "all of those are inside the key box."
RED: "Entry and exit are impossible except for the single door and the single window. And those were both locked. The door and the window do not permit any kind of entry or exit when they are locked."
RED: "It is impossible to unlock the door without a servant room key or the master key."
RED: "No one exists in this room except your group. ‘Your group’ refers to Battler, George, Maria, Rosa, Genji, Gohda, and Shannon."
RED: "Therefore, both in the case involving Jessica’s room and the one involving this servant room, no humans exist that you were not aware of. No one is hiding."
RED: "No method exists by which the door can be locked from the outside without using a key. Regarding the window, no method exists by which it could somehow be locked from the outside."
RED: “You are incompetent.” (kek.)
NITPICKING:
- “It is impossible to unlock the door without a key to the servant room or the master key.” But what about the window? So far no red truth specifically states that the window cannot be unlocked from outside in general, just that it can’t be locked from outside.
- “No one exists in this room except your group.” Technically, Beatrice just stated she doesn’t exist since in the meta, they were in the room. Though, since that statement started with “Technically” it can automatically be ignored in its entirety. That said, this statement is basically useless, unless I’m overlooking something practically and reasonably important. It only refers to the current state of the room.
- “No human exists that you were not aware of.” Cue Frasier’s deduction that the culprit was a trained circus monkey.
Then we get to Natsuhi’s room. Gohda, George, and Shannon are the victims this round.
RED: “Natsuhi’s room was exactly the same, just like usual! The door and windows were locked from the inside. There were no frauds or tricks, no means of secret passage nor places in which to hide! Natsuhi’s own key was in George’s pocket, and the inside of the room was sealed off. Only the five master keys were left, and ‘Rosa’ was holding all of them! And let me say this: the parlor’s the same. The key to the parlor itself is sealed away in the servant room. So unlocking it without a master key is impossible! The definition of a closed room remains the same as always!”
NITPICKING: Time trick?
The hunters, the mothers: Rosa and Natsuhi
I’m not really trying to accuse them of anything in particular. However, the narrative has set up the case of there being one person with a gun, and in both cases both of these people stated they would become demons for their children.
So. Can we conclude that they are the “keys” in their respective episodes? That they are somehow responsible for selecting the sacrifices, possibly against their will, which someone else then executes?
I’m not sure, but the pattern has been weakly established. If something like this happens again in episode three, I don’t think I can reasonably say this is just a coincidence, but I’ll also have to look even harder to make sure there’s not some rule. (As a vague example for what I mean, consider someone who has received an organ through a transplant. There have been instances where they take on personalities “like the donor’s,” which have many explanations. One explanation could also be that there’s a physical common factor that could have caused those personalities emerge in both people. I’ll side with Occam’s razor for these sorts of things.) What I’m failing trying to say is that there could be a simpler explanation with less assumptions than the one I’m coming up with here.
Oh, as an aside, my previous idea that the gun possibly backfired in episode one doesn’t seem to hold here. It could have still been the case in episode one, but I doubt that.
Nitpicking other things
Definition for hidden doors: “A hidden door refers to an entrance or exit that cannot be recognized as such by those who don’t know of it beforehand, of course.” (Emphasis on “or” was my own. Not “entrance and exit,” but “entrance or exit.”)
Speculation
I don’t really have a cohesive theory I’m happy with for this one at the moment. Kinzo x Genji could easily be the culprits here as per my previous idea, but several things make that idea even more unlikely than before. In other words, my murderer duo shipping has (potentially) been wrecked.
Something that does keep popping up is that the witch needs everybody to submit to her. Also, maybe I’m just misinterpreting or forgetting something, but it seems that only people who submit to her can see the goat servants before she revives.
Bernkastel best girl.
Philosophy
There were a number of things I really particularly liked in this episode regarding some of the themes expressed.
I was writing this over the course of several days. That’s why everything here is so scattered. I plan on organizing this more and updating it over several more days. ^^;
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Since Aspi forced it out in the podcast anyway. The full inscription appears in a later episode; Alliance of the Golden Witch to be precise.
‘This door is opened only at a probability of a quadrillion to one. You will be blessed only at a probability of a quadrillion to one.’ This is the old fan translation though because I’m lazy.
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Just finished recording the podcast. Had some problems with scheduling, but I managed to sacrifice a few hours sleep to finally get it done last night.
Amazing podcast once again! I feel like maybe I was a little bit pushy on some points, but I’m really proud of you guys for standing up against Beatrice’s mystery. @Seraphitic da MVP.
Lots of very interesting ideas and theories were raised, some of which may prove to be very significant later on, and others which may be completely off. I’d really appreciate if you guys took a moment to share the ideas and theories that came up in the podcast here for future reference, as I’m sure we’ll be coming back to some of them in the future!
Time for some supplementary homework. I want you guys to start looking at the twilights presented here and, instead of tackling them as individual problems, start linking them together. It’s not essential that there be a single culprit for all the murders, but it’s highly unlikely that every murder was committed by someone different as well. So I want you to start beginning to connect those dots, and generate consistent theories of what might be going on behind the scenes in these gameboards. Looking at the common patterns between the gameboards is a good start to get a picture of the macro mystery of Rokkenjima, but even just connecting the dots between the individual twilights in a given gameboard is a very worthwhile activity.
Seraphitic’s ‘Kanon hired a doppelganger’ theory is a good start to this, but does such a theory explain every single murder? Are there any mysteries that can’t be explained by this framework? And on top of that, why would Kanon do what he did? What could the motive be? One must never ignore the heart of the mystery. We are reading an elaborate story, not a 100 word logic puzzle. Analysis of the whydunnit is important too!
I’m also very excited to see if people can construct alternative unifying theories of who the culprit or culprits may be, and how they dunnit. Come, let’s hear your theories!
Also, give me a couple of days to get to editing and publishing the podcast, Uni is hectic right now 
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Hooo boy was that podcast a ride. Thank you for all the people who listened in and attended. Thank so much @Aspirety for organizing, moderating and sacrificing sleep for the podcast.
Since Aspirety asked for a recap of some of the theories I thought I would try and do my best to post up the things that I remember. We didn’t really discuss alternate theories for the first night. We sort of just accepted Battler’s solution as the actual solution. I’d be interested in seeing an alternative if someone would care to share one but none was presented in the podcast.
For the second twilight the theory that Rosa was the culprit was again put up. This theory runs along the lines of “Rosa left the main party, killed Kanon and Jessica and hid Kanon’s body. She also takes Jessica’s key. She then goes and gets Shannon and Genji and brings them back to the main party. Somewhere in there she also obtains the gun. The main party goes to check on Kanon and Jessica to find Jessica dead and Kanon missing. Rosa pretends like she found Jessica’s key in the room and tries to pin the murder on Kanon. Battler shows that Kanon couldn’t have done it.” We also mentioned that Gohda or Kumasawa could have done it but that wasn’t a main theory that was discussed.
The servant’s room was probably the hardest for us. I don’t think that we came up with any really theories to explain the servant’s room adequately. I batted around the idea that ‘Rosa’ and Kanon were in on the murders together and that Kanon killed Nanjo and Kumasawa and then Rosa made it seem like the keys and letter had been in the room the whole time, much like in Jessica’s room. We also thought about the idea that, perhaps, nobody had died and that Nanjo and Kumasawa were hiding or something while everybody else acted like they were dead. There was also the fairly obvious choice that the three servants who were in the room were co-conspirators and killed Nanjo and Kumasawa. I don’t think we ever really came to any kind of solution that was particularly satisfying though.
Natsuhi’s room turned out better than expected. One of the ideas that was put forward was that the red truth that
The door and windows were locked from the inside
was misleading and that what it actually referred to was that the door and window were locked from the inside before the people inside were murdered. In which case the door was relocked from the outside but Beatrice could still technically state, in red, that the door was locked from the inside. Another theory that was put forward was that the room was truly closed and that a murder suicide had occurred. It was suggested that the murderer might be one of the two lovers who ends up killing the other and then killing themselves right afterwards. It may also (come to think of it) be both lovers who were the killers and they killed themselves in a rather Romeo and Juliet fashion, though that seems less likely to me. It doesn’t seem like George could have been involved with any murder but the first.
Since Aspirety mentioned it and because it happens towards the end of the podcast I thought I would explain my ‘Rosa’-Kanon explanation a little further. This theory rests on a few things that are a little shaky so keep that in mind. This theory basically says that the Beatrice we see in the beginning and the Rosa we see who gets the gun are one and the same person. That person is an actor who was brought to the island by Kanon for, as of right now, unexplained reasons. She arrives on the island and dazzles Maria and Rosa with a flashy magic trick, is seen by Kyrie, Genji, Kanon, and finally Shannon. The whole time she is in costume and character, both provided by Kanon so that she can play a convincing part. Kanon and her pull off the first night in the manner described by Battler, taking the envelope from Maria’s bag and then returning it after the deed is done. Then, when Rosa goes away from the party by herself, she is ambushed and either killed or held captive. The actor then assumes Rosa’s identity and Kanon and ‘Rosa’ kill Jessica. The second night then follows the ‘Rosa did it theory’. Kanon is not killed however and goes into hiding. He reappears for the servants room, kills Kumasawa and Nanjo and runs away. He returns after the servants leave and drags away the bodies. He leaves the master keys from Nanjo and Kumasawa for ‘Rosa’ to find. She fakes finding the envelope as she did finding Jessica’s key and we are baffled. Natsuhi’s room follows the same idea as the red truth cheat that I mentioned above. Basically Kanon has another key to Natsuhi’s room and commits the murder, locking the room back up. He also puts the letter in the parlor. ‘Rosa’ pretends not to know it was there. This theory rests on a few different pieces of evidence that I realize are very shaky. One is that Beatrice once calls her ‘Rosa’. Another is that Rosa seems to undergo a pretty significant personality change after leaving the parlor the first time. Another is that ‘Beatrice’s’ disappearance and Rosa leaving the main party occur at roughly the same time, or at least could be at about the same time. Kanon also seems to appear in way more murders than he should. It is also fairly suspicious how his is the only body to disappear. This whole theory could be modified to a ‘Rosa’-Rosa theory, wherein there are two Rosa’s walking around. For that matter you could probably put several people into that second slot alongside an actor that they brought along.
One finally theory worth mentioning is that we came to the conclusion that the magic that was going on in the story was probably mostly the witch’s magic explanation of how the murders where done. There may be some tricks going on in some parts but we thought that it was probably mostly an untrustworthy narrator that was to blame for all the goats and girl-stakes and such.
I hope this proved to be an ok wrap up. Please listen to the podcast though when it comes out since I’ve probably forgotten something important and certainly didn’t cover a lot of really cool stuff.
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Thanks for that!
I would really like to hear if you have any idea on what kind of motives ‘Rosa’ and Kanon could have for this murder to be completed.
For future reference I motion to refer to this culprit theory as Seraphitic’s ‘Rozatrice’ theory. Spelling Rosa with a z to emphasize she may not be the real Rosa 
And again, I would be overjoyed if anyone can think of an alternative culprit or culprits to explain all these murders with. I want to see two theories clash 
Trying to start a war are we @Aspirety? Trying to cause some infighting? Are you working with the witches?
Hmmmmm, in terms of motive it might be that Kanon has really bought into that whole ‘furniture’ deal. He wants to stop being furniture but thinks that it won’t happen until the ceremony that Kinzo keeps talking about is performed (perhaps he thinks that Kinzo would either be dead or would release him of service at that point, either way making him free). He therefore decides to speed up the process by pulling in this actor to do these murders. I feel like it’s not a great motive but Kanon is something of an enigma anyway. A theory involving him is going to be a little spotty on details I think. This may be a good reason to look for other explanations, since mine is kind of slap-dash.
Tying together the twilight incidents in a given game-board, huh? Well, let’s see what we can do for that.
Okay! Before we get to that, I’m going to list a few assumptions I’m making for Umineko.
- First, it mostly follows fair mystery rules, like Knox’s decalogue. So, the culprit was introduced in the first episode, and magic is
bullshitruled out from the main mystery. - Second, the main perpetrator is the same in most episodes. I would expect an accomplice to be the same between episodes as well, but I’ll allow that to waver with sufficient doubt.
- Third, some magic does exist, but does not factor into the mystery. (Yes, I already implied this as part of Knox’s Decalogue, but it’s an important assumption of mine.)
- Fourth, everything after the first episode is part of the meta-world’s game-board, not part of what actually happened. I don’t expect a happy ending at the end of all this; just answers (hopefully).
- Fifth, perspective tricks are to be heavily expected. Any time a narrative is given from the perspective of a “game piece character” its validity is dubious. Something I believe @Aspirety once said about dealing with perspective tricks, is to combine multiple character perspectives to see if you can find a common thread to infer reality.
Twilight incidents
Well, let me try something that’s probably not wise to do (yet): rule out who wouldn’t/couldn’t have done it based on this episode and the last. In my prior post, I listed victims or survivors from both episodes. Here they are again, for convenience, but with additional thoughts and notes added:
Twilight 1 (Culling 1)
On the first twilight, offer the six chosen by the key as sacrifices.
Episode 1 victims: Krauss, Rosa, Rudolf(?), Kyrie(?), Gohda(?), Shannon
Episode 2 victims: Krauss, Natsuhi, Rudolf, Kyrie, Hideyoshi, Eva
Victims of both episodes: Krauss, Rudolf, Kyrie.
Additional note, brought up by @Seraphitic: Three of Kinzo’s children are victims on the first twilight. In episode 1, they were Krauss, Rosa, and Rudolf. In episode 2, they were Krauss, Rudolf, and Eva. Nobody else among the deaths were directly tied to his blood.
Who had opportunity?
To do…
Twilight 2 (Culling 2)
On the second twilight, those who remain shall tear apart the two who are close.
Episode 1 victims: Hideyoshi, Eva.
Episode 2 victims: Kanon, Jessica.
Victims of both episodes: None in common. However, Hideyoshi and Eva are dead by this twilight in both episodes.
In both episodes, the incident apparently takes place in a closed room in the mansion (as opposed to the guesthouse, or anywhere else). This is in contrast to the first twilight, where each incident apparently takes place “outside the mansion” (rose garden storage shed, chapel), rather than “inside the mansion.” (Though traces of blood were found inside the mansion’s dining hall during the first episode.)
Something that was stated in episode 1 during this twilight, by Battler I believe, was that “now everybody had the same amount of sadness” (or something along those lines). That is, each of the remaining children had their parents taken away from them. Alternatively phrased, all of Kinzo’s children were dead by this time. (Though, that’s not the case in episode 2, supposedly.)
Who had opportunity?
To do…
Twilight 3
On the third twilight, those who remain shall praise my noble name.
No victims on this twilight?
Perhaps this twilight marks the start of a “tag team” for doppelganger theories.
Twilight 4 & 5 (Culling 3)
On the fourth twilight, gouge the head and kill.
On the fifth twilight, gouge the chest and kill.
Episode 1 victims: Kanon, Kinzo(?)
Episode 2 victims: Nanjo, Kumasawa
In episode 1, this incident took place in the basement.
In episode 2, this incident took place in the servant’s room.
Who had opportunity?
To do…
Twilight 6, 7, & 8 (Culling 4)
On the sixth twilight, gouge the stomach and kill.
On the seventh twilight, gouge the knee and kill.
On the eighth twilight, gouge the leg and kill.
Episode 1 victims: Genji, Kumasawa, Nanjo
Episode 2 victims: Gohda, George, Shannon
In episode 1, this incident took place in the parlor.
In episode 2, this incident took place in Natsuhi’s room.
Who had opportunity?
To do…
Twilight 9
On the ninth twilight, the witch shall revive, and none shall be left alive.
the seagulls did it
Here’s a list of those who were left alive prior to the witch’s revival:
Episode 1 survivors: Battler, Maria, Natsuhi, George, Jessica
Episode 2 survivors: Battler, Maria, Rosa, Kinzo, Genji
My theory for episode 1 was simply that Kinzo faked his death. If we hold that to be true of episode 1, then Kinzo could be considered to be alive for both episodes. We also know from episode 1 that Kinzo did leave his room, because of a trick that Eva set up. Since Eva died before she could say as much here, we don’t know if that’s the case or not in this episode as well.
Reminiscence
Some quotes from episode 1 that might be relevant for theory-crafting here:
When people do the rounds a second time to check doors, windows and locks that were supposedly closed, they’d find some of them left open. Lights that were supposed to be off were turned on, and lights that were supposed to be on went out. Things left lying around would disappear, and things would appear when no one had any memory of putting them there. When any of these things happened, the old servants would say that the witch had visited the mansion, invisible, and was playing pranks.
This is a pretty common trope in mysteries where a fantastical monster is explained by a culprit preparing or practicing for something devious at night while most other people are asleep.
So, given this quote, wouldn’t it make sense for the culprit to be someone who is on the island often enough to practice this?
That means that whatever motivated them to do this is also likely to be something that took place several years ago.
Let’s also think back to how Maria mentions, in this episode, that she’s been meeting with ‘Beatrice’ for at least three years. I’m inferring that whenever Maria is on the island, Beatrice is also on the island. Keep in mind that the opposite isn’t necessarily true. We should not affirm the consequent.
In addition, some servants have also seen will-o’-the-wisps and glittering butterflies dancing around. …Kanon-kun also saw something like that when he went patrolling one night. And recently, you often hear servants talking about strange footsteps heard inside the mansion near midnight. […] It happened a while ago, but even I have heard footsteps while patrolling at night that resemble these stories.
What would cause servants to see will-o’-the-wisps? Is this basically just the servants playing along with the story, as Genji implies to be the case in episode 1? (Higurashi ep.7: Is this basically going to be the same thing as “the extra step?” IIRC that gets explained as Oyashiro-sama just capriciously following some people around, who happen to be able to hear it due to heightened paranoia or whatever.)
Generating theory…
…
I really have nothing yet unless I suspect the old Kinzo x Genji shipping, or allow magic into my theory.
I don’t want to say something like “the goat people / furniture / servants are actually shape-shifters(, but only in special circumstances)!” or “There was a 19th person on the island in episode 1 as well who is also the main culprit or an accomplice to the main culprit here in episode 2.” That vaguely violates a Knox rule, which just seems like it would leave a bad, horrible, unpleasant, generally moldy aftertaste. “You know how we challenged you to try to come up with an answer? Remember how we mentioned a couple of mystery rules pretty early on? Yeah, it was just a prank bro. It was actually magic all along. Entirely.”
This post took hours, so I’ll leave it at this for now.
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http://www.polljunkie.com/poll/aedqkb/umineko-episode-2-character-poll
Let’s do a character poll! Specifically based on Episodes 1 and 2 (the story so far), how does everyone rank these characters? I’d love to see the results change over time!
One of those Character sorters might be more clean than something like this, but I don’t know how to go about making them
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It is time for us all to proclaim our love for Genji. Please vote for Genji as the undisputed best knife-throwing badass of the series.
I guess now I’ll really have to get on with reading Episode 3.
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Picking between Krauss and Eva as the worst character is the hardest thing~ >.>
First place is no contest, though. Hail Beatrice~! 
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Here’s a playlist containing all of Episode 2’s music! Please always be mindful of potential spoilers in related videos though!
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Krauss is the worst overall I would say. Not that Eva gives you much reason to like her, but Krauss out does her.
Okay guys, I feel like it’s time we had a nice chat about a bit of an awkward subject when it comes to Umineko’s mystery, something we need to nip pretty early before it starts festering and causing a lot of problems later on. That is, the nature of ‘magic’, and knowing how to distinguish between truth and illusions.
We kinda assaulted the idea of magic in the podcast, but I don’t believe our assault was conclusive. I’d like to recap where we’re at since the podcast. How do you guys reconcile with the depictions of magic while attempting to solve the mystery of Umineko?
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Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. I guess the biggest thing about how I attack the sections that explicitly show magic is with a great degree of distrust. One of the major things that we discussed in the podcast is that those sections seem to come from an outside narrator whose motives are dubious at best and malicious at worst. I feel like the narrator is on the side of the witch and so is just telling us that all this stuff is done with magic. It seems a lot like how we see Beatrice at the end of the first tea party killing Eva and Hideyoshi with the stakes through the small crack in the door. It is merely a magical explanation to an event. At least that is the way that we thought about it in the podcast anyway.
Having said that, it would seem to me that these sections are not without their own clues. These sections do have to explain all of the evidence that we see (such as Kanon’s body disappearing) and so we can get some idea, by cross-referencing the two perspectives, as to some details that we might want to focus on. There also seem to be some events in the magical explanations that would seem to have some significance outside of merely fact. One example that I’m wrestling with is the bit at the end of Kanon and Jessica’s death where he tries to tell her his name (incidentally I think this is the third twilight that we were having so many problems with in the podcast). While I’m not sure if Kanon died there and I’m sure not buying all the goat butler junk, I think that in whatever actually happened there was something about Kanon’s name that came up. We may not know exactly what but I feel like there is a kernel of truth in all of these magical explanations. As another example, Kanon’s presence in the other two major magical scenes involving all the other murders. I feel like there is some truth to all of these scenes. In some way I think that Kanon was involved. The tricky part is sorting out what is the tiny bit of truth that is buried under the lie. It seems like I’m just cherry picking (and in some ways I am) but I a sure that there is something (or several somethings) hidden in each of these magical scenes. In short, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Magic is bullshit but we have to pay attention to what the magical explanations tell us because Beatrice makes mistakes and might put us on the right track with just a little bit of the explanations we are given.
So some of this is my own musings and some of this is from the podcast. Go look for the truth buried in the mess of my writing if you want to figure out what is what Kihihihihihihihihi cackle cackle cackle
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Does that mean all narration is unreliable? Or is there a distinction to be made between narration we can and can’t trust?