Not bad, not bad at all! You’ve even managed to provide evidence to support your theory. However, if I may make a bold assertion…
Only one individual in this story may use the name Kanon. That is, of course, the Kanon we all know.
Some may view this as overstepping my boundaries as an impartial host, but I need to make sure things stay interesting! Take this declaration however you like. And no, don’t expect me to respond to questioning, I will only step forward when I feel it most worthwhile.
Going back to an earlier point in your post, you make a point of looking for hints in the fight scenes. In many cases the condition of the body corresponds with how they were killed in the magical scenes. Maria with her neck bruise, Rosa impaled on the spike, Natsuhi and Krauss strangled as they were by the golden arrow. What about Kyrie, Rudolf and Hideyoshi? Is there anything we can glean from how they were killed in the fantasy scenes?
And let’s not forget about Pictoshark’s angle.
Not seeing Kanon’s corpse is a good start, but there’s surely many other things to be found if we follow this line of thinking.
Well… that is unfortunate. I kind of liked that theory. Ah well, no sense in getting attached to things. Let’s start anew. However, I would like to borrow something from my previous theory. That is, somebody (other than Beatrice from Rosa’s story) dying before the events of Rokkenjima.
A Brief Inkling of a Theory v.0.2
Thinking, again, about the red web at the end of episode 3 lets look at another possibility. Suppose that one of the characters was already dead before the events of Rokkenjima. Nowhere is it said that the 18 people we are told are on the island have to be the 18 people we think are on the island. Suppose that one of the people we think is on the island is actually not and is, in fact dead. The most likely person to not be on the island and have died is Kinzo. After all, Battler never sees him and I think that most of the scenes that he ‘appears’ in could be interpreted in a different way. If this was the case then might there be another person taking Kinzo’s place at the table, so to speak? It seems likely to me that there very well might be. This might give us an explanation as to whether or not there is a 19th person. As Battler puts it in episode 1, this person X is between the numbers. They both are and aren’t a 19th person.
Is there any evidence for this assumption? Well as I’ve mentioned before, Battler never sees Kinzo. In fact, almost no character gets to see Kinzo. Off the top of my head only some of the servants (specifically the servants who have the one-winged eagle), Nanjo (says that he plays chess with Kinzo in episode 2) and Natsuhi. There are also other people who are supposed to have heard his voice through the door. However, more often then not there is no response to people knocking on the door. Can we think of a reason why the servants might want to keep up the pretense of Kinzo being alive? Well, I can think of at least one reason: their jobs. We are told in the tips menu that the servants with the one winged crest are not trusted by Krauss and Natsuhi. However, because they are hired by Kinzo they can’t be fired. Therefore, as long as Kinzo is alive their jobs are secure. All bets are off, though, when Kinzo dies. If Kinzo died they would almost certainly want to make it seems like Kinzo had not. Another piece of evidence might be the first twilight in episode 3. The red truth certainly seems to indicate that Kanon, Shannon, Genji, Gohda, Kumasawa, and Kinzo died. It also says that nobody committed suicide. Beatrice seems to be on the verge of saying something like that nobody died by accident. I feel like there might be a little bit more to what she was going to say but we can only speculate on that. I’ve suggested before that someone might have died from natural causes such as Kinzo dying from his disease. If we go with the theory that Kinzo is already dead then this theory about the first twilight would flow pretty naturally out of it. There is another, kind of circumstantial thing that might also lend this theory some weight. Why do these events take place now? The epitaph had been up for a while before and the island had had more than 13 people on it before too. So why do all these people get murdered on the island in 1986? Before this theory all I could think of to answer this question is the arrival of Battler after his absence. However, now we can suggest that the real catalyst is the death of Kinzo prior to the events.
So, some implications and explanations are in order. First, if Kinzo is dead there are only about 4 people that necessarily know about it: Kanon, Shannon, Genji and Nanjo. One thing I might note is that all of these characters die in every episode (or at least seem to, I’ve still got my eye on you Kanon). If this is the case we might suggest that their death might be related, in some way, to Kinzo’s death and the cover-up. Now, I’ve also suggested that Kumasawa’s death is important seeing as it occurs along with Nanjo’s death twice and that it also appears to be the case that Kumasawa worked at Kuwadorian. It may be that this usurper knows quite a bit of the family history and wants Kumasawa dead for an older reason. Ok, what else? Well, as I said just a little bit ago, it seems like at least Krauss and Natsuhi don’t know since, if they did, Krauss would already be the head of the family. This would suggest that when Natsuhi ‘meets Kinzo’ in Kinzo’s office that she really does think that she is talking to Kinzo when, in fact, she is not. It even seems to hint this in the narrative since Kinzo seems to be talking in a very different manner than we would expect him to. Even Natsuhi seems to notice that he is acting very kindly, not at all like what she expected. He also seems to spend a majority of the time facing away from her. What do I suggest might be happening? Someone is pretending to be Kinzo, disguising themselves as him and fooling Natsuhi. This is all a trick to fool people about Kinzo’s time of death. However, when Eva and Natsuhi come back the person pretending to be Kinzo hid themselves. I might suggest here that they were looking for something in Kinzo’s room and that is why they did not try and leave the office for all that time. However, that is kind of a moot point at the moment.
Edit: Ok, this one I have to give credit to @pictoshark for pointing this out to me. It is possible that Krauss and Natsuhi either know or are involved in Kinzo’s death since Krauss may want to have some time to cover the paper trail that would have been left from his embezzling.
Now, inevitably someone is going to bring up the fact that Battler does see Kinzo at the end of episode 2. However, let us think about the scenario a little more carefully. I would like to propose a theory that some people might like to call a cop out. What if Battler dreamed the entire ending of episode 3? He had been drinking right before, right? Also I imagine that there is a fair amount of exhaustion with this whole event. Battler is unused to heavy drinking at his age so I feel like his passing out from alcohol and exhaustion is not out of the question. After having thought about witches and such all day I feel like a dream about all of the things that Battler sees happen would actually make a lot of sense. Does that mean he dreams the stuff with Rosa and Maria too? I’m not sure. But I would like to say, at least, that the part immediately involving Battler might have just been a dream about meeting the witch, Kinzo and Genji and having everything explained since he was so desperately looking for an answer.
So there is a little bit more of an expansion on my theory. Possibly I will work a little more on it before the tea party ends.
I have to admit, I thought the Kanon theory had a certain elegance to it, particularly when we consider that Kanon isn’t his real name – it’s his servant name, and his real name is a mystery. And with the ‘magical side’ showing that the name Beatrice can be passed on like a title … if we’re treating the magical story as metaphorical, I wonder if there’s some metaphor there. But unless there’s some way to wiggle around the bold truth, I suppose we must accept Kanon is the only Kanon.
I like the way you’re thinking now, though, @Seraphitic – and it can follow from @pictoshark’s line of thinking about what Battler can confirm of people’s characters, and what might be an elaboration. What can we confirm that way about Kinzo’s character, or Kanon’s for that matter? What can’t we?
Soon I’m going to replay chapter 3 for the tea party, I think, and keep an eye on those green questions. Watch this space.
So I was speaking with @soggysadboi and @Seraphitic earlier to help try to refresh my knowledge on Umineko episode 3. I haven’t really had a decent block of free time and focus to properly refresh my knowledge on it since I read it some number of weeks back… but thanks to these guys and the manga (which was @Aspirety’s suggestion – thanks!) I’ve managed to restore at least some of my memories.
As a result, we’ll now have this vaguely large and terribly incoherent text wall! (I’ve started writing this at 1AM, so we’ll see where this takes us.) Anyway, let’s start.
As is customary with my posts, I’ll note a “few” of the points of interest.
Definitions
These are all definitions that Beatrice gave.
Beatrice’s Closed Room Definition
Refers to a room where the inside and outside are completely separated such that it would be impossible for all types of direct or indirect intervention beyond that boundary, as well as an all-inclusive denial of the existence of hidden doors. Fishing wire, radio waves, and so on are included in this definition.
However, transmission of intent is specifically not ruled out by her definition, despite being a closed room.
Traps
Some mechanism that activates when a victim triggers it on their own, including things which activate remotely or by timer.
Red Truths
General
Rokkenjima
“Of all the doors that exist on Rokkenjima, none has a crack through which a key can slip.”
“A hidden mansion called Kuwadorian does exist in the forest of Rokkenjima.”
“There are no more than 18 humans on this Rokkenjima!” (Stated prior to any murders taking place.)
“There are no more than 18 humans on this Rokkenjima” -> this Rokenjima. Peculiar. Doesn’t that seem like a convenient way to word things? “This” implies that at least one other “Rokkenjima” exists. Perhaps it’s referring to the Rokkenjima of 1967, or perhaps it’s referring to the current state of Rokkenjima, or the state of Rokkenjima in a past gameboard… Or maybe it’s just a red herring. I’m not sure, but that’s definitely suspicious wording. (Then again, what isn’t here?)
The Beatrice of 1967 did exist as a human and had a conversation with Kinzo “like” the one Battler was shown.
Regarding Beatrice’s death in her memories “How does that look alive to you? It’s definitely dead!” (“It.”)
Refused:
Ronove was unable to answer whether Beatrice was born through something like a homunculus because it would cause a “stalemate.”
Incidents
Twilight 1
There are five master keys, one for each servant.
No doors or windows exist in those six rooms which can be locked without a key.
The six victims of this twilight, Kinzo, Genji, Shannon, Kanon, Gohda, and Kumasawa, are dead.
Nobody is hiding in any of those six rooms. “Only the victims are inside the rooms, and no other people exist inside the rooms.”
“The six died instantly! By ‘died instantly’, I mean the targets instantly became incapable of action after being attacked. […] it was completely impossible for them to take any actions of their own will.”
The six were not killed by traps, nor did any of them commit suicide.
Refused:
The six deaths are all homicides.
Twilight 2
Rosa and Maria died (homicides), just as Nanjo diagnosed. (Rosa was stabbed in the medula oblongata with the pointed gate of the fence, and Maria was strangled with bare hands.)
Refused:
Battler makes a claim that Eva and Hideyoshi worked together to create an alibi, placing Eva as the main attacker, forcing Ronove to resign.
Twilight 4
long series of red truths regarding Kyrie and food
Refused:
Battler: “Repeat it!! ‘At that time, Ushiromiya Eva did not take a step outside her room’!!” (This wasn’t specifically refused, but Evatrice didn’t answer either.)
Twilight n
After Jessica was injured, Eva was constantly under Battler’s supervision. Battler is neither the culprit nor an accomplice.
There are no more than 18 humans on this island.
No life forms other than humans have any connection to this game.
The following people are dead: Kinzo, Krauss, Natsuhi, Hideyoshi, George, Rudolf, Kyrie, Rosa, Maria, Genji, Shannon, Kanon, Gohda, Kumasawa, Nanjo.
The following people are alive: Battler, Eva, Jessica.
The culprit who killed Nanjo, who died was directly killed by a human standing with both feet on the ground as the two stared into each other’s faces, was neither Battler nor Eva nor Jessica. Committing a crime is impossible for Jessica at this point, nor was she involved, and Battler isn’t the culprit.
So at this point, if only Battler, Eva, and Jessica are alive, and the killer of Nanjo was “definitely a human,” but none of those three had done it then that only leaves dead humans and unaccounted for humans, right? Well, and correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t the only humans on the island those eighteen? In that case then was the culprit a living human? There was the issue of Kanon apparently dying in episode two, but then disappearing. Is it the same sort of problem here?
Incidents
Incident 1
Beatrice resigned this one.
These are six closed rooms all tied together.
Nanjo confirmed that each of the discovered corpses were dead. (A red truth also confirmed that each of them were killed instantly.)
It’s claimed (without counter) that the culprit got into an accident and died that way.
1-1. Shannon
Beatrice’s Closed Room; “unlocked” by breaking into it.
Parlor.
One master key (on Shannon; exact location unspecified).
One Western envelope with the family crest; rather than a letter there was a key to a guest room on the second floor inside.
It’s stated, but not in red, that “apart from the five master keys, there will be only one key that can unlock certain rooms.” Note that this definition isn’t exactly the same as “for each room, there will be only one key apart from the master key that can unlock it, but nothing else.” For example, let’s say a key is able to unlock a certain combination of rooms. e.g., key 1 can unlock room A, key 2 can unlock room B, and key 3 can unlock rooms A and B. “Certain rooms” could refer to a set of rooms, hence my distinction. However I highly doubt this to be the case, and it would certainly be disappointing if so.
1-2. Kumasawa.
Beatrice’s Closed Room; unlocked with the key from 1-1.
Second floor guest room.
One master key (on Kumasawa; exact location unspecified).
One Western envelope (with the family crest?); had a key to the third floor waiting room.
1-3. Gohda.
Beatrice’s Closed Room; unlocked with the key from 1-2.
Third floor waiting room.
One master key (on Gohda; exact location unspecified).
One Western envelope (with the family crest); had a key to the second floor VIP room.
1-4. Genji.
It is not directly stated that this is a closed room.
Second floor VIP room.
One master key (location completely unspecified).
One key to the underground boiler room was discovered. (Inside an envelope, or… ?)
1-5. Kinzo.
It is not directly stated that this is a closed room.
Underground boiler room.
The key to the chapel was discovered. (Supposedly inside an envelope, along with a letter, which urged the relatives to solve the riddle of the epitaph.)
No master key discovered. (As would be expected, since Kinzo is not a servant.)
1-6. Kanon.
Chapel.
One master key (location completely unspecified).
The key to the first floor parlor was discovered. (Inside an envelope, or… ?)
Incident 2
Rose garden.
(Later, after the reconstruction in twilight 4…6.)
Virgilia: “After Rosa and Maria’s deaths, the remaining survivors rechecked all of the doors and windows in the mansion. They constructed a barricade. They re-confirmed that their defenses were solid.”
Battler: “Dad carried a portable cigarette butt holder with him. I’m finally starting to see why Kyrie-san went out of her way to put a cigarette butt in her own pocket. It was because that cigarette butt meant something. That cigarette butt was itself a message left by Kyrie-san for us…!!”
Battler: "It’s this. This cigarette butt. This was set in the ashtray of the guest room that Uncle Hideyoshi was in."
Battler: “Aunt Eva hated smoking!! There’s no way there’d be a cigarette butt there while Aunt Eva was sick and sleeping!!! However, there was a cigarette butt in the ashtray. When she saw that, Kyrie-san noticed immediately. …Uncle Hideyoshi was lying. She realized that Aunt Eva hadn’t really been sleeping, …and that she’d snuck out of the room!!”
2-1. Rosa.
Stabbed in the medulla oblongata with the pointed gate of the fence.
2-2. Maria.
Strangled.
(As an aside, Maria’s death is shown first by the predecessor Beatrice, rather than Rosa’s. That said, Rosa was first in the whole chain of events so this probably means nothing.)
Incident 4…6
Hall of the mansion.
“Three people: Rudolf, Kyrie, and Hideyoshi, went to the mansion and were killed there.”
4. Rudolf.
Forehead.
5. Kyrie.
Stomach.
“The disorder of the clothing on all three suggests that they were fighting or running away. Since the three corpses were not found right next to each other, it is hypothesized that after coming into contact with the culprit, they attempted some form of resistance.”
(Later, during the reconstruction of the scene.)
Beato searched Kyrie’s corpse’s pockets, laying out whatever was inside on the floor. There were:
Handkerchief
Tissue
Key to her house
Stub of a boat ticket
Lighter
Cigarette butt
One-hundred yen coin
Kyrie doesn’t smoke, apparently.
6. Hideyoshi.
Chest.
Incident 7…8
Rose garden arbor.
Nanjo: “…St-Strangulation, I believe. …Come, take a look at this. On their necks, there are distinct markings that something thin was used to strangle them.” (Emphasis my own.)
7. Krauss.
Strangled; stake in thigh.
8. Natsuhi.
Strangled; stake in calf.
Incident 9
Parlor.
9. George.
Eva opened the door; she seemed to feel the resistance of the lock.
Digits written in red:
Dec: 07151129
Hex: 6D 1E19
Oct: 33 217 031
The leading zero indicates that this shouldn’t be treated as just a number. (And the narrative using the word “digits” rather than “number” implies this as well.)
Nanjo suggests that the number is a magic square. As a 3x3 square that’d be:
(This doesn’t look like a magic square by itself so far.)
Battler wonders if it might be a date. “It might be a coincidence, but my birthday is July 15th (0715)” (Nobody is aware of anybody whose birthday is November 29th.)
Reunited with Shannon, but dies.
I wonder if this is a Mondegreen of some sort… Another thought was that these numbers could somehow be directions. If it is a date, then maybe the 11/29 is the Kyrie’s baby was actually due, or perhaps miscarried? Maybe it’s the birthday of one of the servants or the day that “the human Beatrice died.” Either way it doesn’t necessarily need to be the case that the 07/15 intentionally matches Battler’s birthday, right?
In any case the most likely possibilities for this number relate to Kyrie being related somehow, but she should be dead at this point. Even in the case of one of my last-minute-thoughts below I’m not sure how and why she would factor in.
Maybe the number is supposed to be pronounced in two-digit chunks. e.g., “07” would be just “seven.” So it’d be 07, 15, 11, 29.
Battler: "When Dad’s group was attacked, their master key was definitely stolen.
…But the doors and windows to the guesthouse were built so that you couldn’t lock them from the outside, no matter how hard you tried.
So that master key should have had nothing to do with the guesthouse closed room…"
Cool quotes
“Watch what may be the final magic of a single butterfly who used to be called a witch…!” -Beato
“I wish I could get hired to assassinate you. All I’d have to do is relax at home for a month and the job would take care of itself.” -Ange (savage)
Things that irked me
During the game with “Evatrice” they bring up how Kyrie went to the mansion, stating in red that she couldn’t have gone there for food. It took several pages of dialogue just to reach the extremely obvious conclusion (and it’s extremely obvious without any hindsight mind you) that she went there with another goal in mind. The over-dramatization here is just terrible. When I was going through it I thought that I had missed something that made this obvious conclusion invalid, and yet it’s completely valid. I didn’t realize it was Keiichi who was playing against the witch.
That scene where Kyrie fights with the power of jealousy. Far too “chuunibyou” for me. It was neat and all, and I definitely got the vibe that I was reading something that was intended to be pretty cool, but it just killed my immersion personally. In contrast, I really liked the scene where Rudolf had that gun duel. That was clever and badass. But anyway.
Some last minute thoughts
Can we consider the possibility of a “witch” side and a “human” side? Let’s suppose you have a situation like in Maria’s puzzle book where there are n-wolves and m-sheep, but you don’t know who’s a wolf, and who’s a sheep. What then? It seems reasonable to me that something like that could be going on here. Something where we have two sides and everybody is figuring out which side they’re on. I’m not sure I’m really framing this well, but I had a very distinct realization and I’ve yet to figure out a reasonable way to express it…
Are “zombies” a thing? Let’s suppose that as a “witch” you could actually kill somebody for a short period of time, then if enough time is remaining, bring them back (either directly by manual intervention or automatically by natural occurrence). (Similarly, there’s the well-known account of Clairvius Narcisse. Not that there’s any supporting evidence for that though.) I’m sure there’s a better way to explain things than “they were dead but not really, haha,” so I’m not very fond of this particular notion…
Does Beatrice ever give a definition for “human,” or “person,” anyway? One would think that terms like those wouldn’t actually need a definition here… but considering her tendency toward tricks and mischief it seems like something that could have a “convenient meaning.” Though this is just the paranoia talking.
I’m thinking that it probably was the case that 1967’s Virgilia was Kumasawa or perhaps related to her in some way, but I’m not sure how either.
Ah that’s pretty neat. I was thinking something similar (Kyrie rather than Hideyoshi) might have been the case but dismissed it.
I’m still wondering who killed George though. Maybe Shannon “under the spell of furniture” (or something) killed him… or maybe Eva really did, or even Hideyoshi (somehow) for that matter. Alibis become a lot harder to track as the incidents increase…
That’s also something that I’ve wondered and considered. My view on this is that the challenger and primary culprit, in episode three anyway, differ.
To expand on this, I’ve taken these gameboards that we’ve been seeing as variations of the same plot that took place in episode one with different “configurations” so to speak (I feel that was established early on in episode two). In the case with this gameboard, we’re seeing the configuration/variation that resulted in the condition of “a new Beatrice being selected” and the results of that. I’m taking “Beatrice” to be more of a concept (like @Aspiretypostulated earlier), or a title of sorts, than a specific person. I see Beatrice as “what you would call a person, group, or phenomenon upon having reached some set of conditions” right now.
Oh wow, I didn’t notice that at all! Nice catch! Will definitely keep this in mind going forward into episode four.
I had a theory going that maybe Maria didn’t necessarily meet with Beatrice in the rose garden, since in episode one she never explicitly stated she had, just that Beatrice lent her the umbrella and letter. In episode two, the 19th person that we see could be explained (rather poorly) as either being a concept or as an example of “this is how I would have done it if a 19th person were there” (or more vaguely as “a special case of how episode two’s gameboard was configured”). However, if Maria did actually meet with Beatrice in the rose garden each time, around the time when everybody supposedly had an alibi, then… well, I guess this idea doesn’t really work after all.
It’s pretty excellent! I may or may not feel slightly betrayed by Beatrice’s shift from “nice kid that’s still learning and experiencing things that we take as givens” to “lol nope it was all an act, getrekt m8.” I do feel that there were real traces of some of her core personality in her act, but I’m not really sure what to make of it.
Overall this episode has definitely been my favorite so far, even with the few gripes I did have with it.
Ah that’s a good point, I hadn’t thought about it from the perspective of “innocent things” specifically. Maybe I had managed to accidentally touch on that with some loose thoughts on Rosa seeing “Beatrice” in the rose garden along with Maria in episode two… (I s’pose that’s one specific instance.)
One of the other defining scenes would be anything taking place in the study, since Battler is almost never there. More specifically, Kinzo is suspect. As @Seraphiticmentioned, we almost never see him from Battler’s perspective.
Regarding the events in Purgatorio / The Metarix or the tea parties, there are some really interesting developments that have taken place. So apparently Lambdadelta is some sort of mastermind(?) and controls Beatrice. I think I remember seeing Beatrice mentioning how she’s “stuck in a cage,” so that would make sense.
Beatrice also tears down Evatrice with red truths. That’s neat. I get the feeling that this will somehow be relevant later on, though I’ve not the slightest idea how.
There are a few things I’ve left out of this post simply because it’s taken too long to write. (It is now 5AM.) In particular, there are many things Seraphitic has posted that I’ve wanted to comment on. (It’s mostly agreement.) I’ll have to edit this post with some responses, or reply later!
Also, there were many things which I was prepared to post until I realized they didn’t actually work, or they were just vague ideas. For example, “Maybe Maria’s dad was Genji” (no…) or “Maybe there’s another Maria posing as this Maria” (why though?). Something Aspirety mentioned before has been stuck in my head still: Ange is the only surviving family member who was supposed to attend the family conference with them. (Though I might just not be remembering that correctly, and maybe it’s not even all that relevant.)
TL;DR: After reading episode three, I have some questions and feel like I might’ve been given the tools to answer them… but am still trying to figure out why I can’t hammer these rubber bands into the slot for screws. Everything’s suspicious. There are definitely things I’ve forgotten or glossed over in this post, though I’m not sure what they are.
Some Engrish from the 2nd opening movie in the game’s files that was strangely never used in any of the Episodes.
EDIT:
I forgot that I never thought to share these here.
These are a series called Umineko Motion Graphic, a series of animations set to music depicting the events of each of Umineko’s episodes as they were released. This one is episode 3. Make sure you have annotations turned on for translations!
I forgot that I never thought to share these here.
These are a series called Umineko Motion Graphic, a series of animations set to music depicting the events of each of Umineko’s episodes as they were released. This one is episode 2. Make sure you have annotations turned on for translations!
This episode was really great. It followed the foreshadowing we got from the 2nd Ura Tea Party, as in there were several new pieces on this gameboard, all supposed to corner Battler. I actually saw that this episode followed the Northwind and Sun approach somewhere in the middle and you can check that with my notes that’ll be at the end of this post as per usual. What I didn’t see was that this approach was done wittingly.
Sadly, I didn’t have many ideas for resolving things on my own this time, so I won’t really bring any new theories to the table. The only thing I have to offer is a possible beginning move to get out of the red web of truth, which admittedly was sparked by your theories regarding it. Of course, there’s @Seraphitic’s approach of saying one of the 18 was long dead and not even on the island. However, I looked again at the part that says who’s dead and who’s alive. Let’s put that here:
"Kinzo is dead.
Krauss is dead.
Natsuhi is dead.
Hideyoshi is dead.
George is dead.
Rudolf is dead.
Kyrie is dead.
Rosa is dead.
Maria is dead.
Genji is dead.
Kanon is dead.
Shannon is dead.
Gohda is dead.
Kumasawa is dead.
Nanjo is dead.
Those 15 are all dead.
Battler is alive.
Eva is alive.
Jessica is alive."
It is later confirmed that the three alive haven’t done it and that Nanjo didn’t kill himself either. This looks like a deadend, I’m not telling anything new here. However, one line here is weird and hints at this being a trick to mislead us. I’ll write that line again: Nanjo is dead.
You’re probably wondering how this is weird. Well, this clues us in that all these lines only tell us the state of each person after Nanjo has died. We automatically assume that before Nanjo dies the other 14 that are confirmed dead after Nanjo’s death are dead as well. However, this is not necessarily the case. Therefore, we can put theories out for each person that wasn’t confirmed dead at an earlier point. I think someone among you did so for George, and the same really could be done for Natsuhi and Krauss (would need a misdiagnosis by Nanjo), and Kyrie, Rudolf and Hideyoshi (were never inspected by Nanjo), although those five would need the extra work of finding a motive. So my move as Battler would be “Repeat it! Neither Hideyoshi, Kyrie, Rudolf, Krauss, Natsuhi nor George have killed Nanjo!” I’m not asking about the other eight because those were confirmed dead at an earlier point in red. Of course, whoever of those six did it, he or she would have to kill themselves afterwards for the red web of truth to be valid at the point it’s used.
Now that that’s over with, I want to take a step back and look at a few things that I usually talk about when looking at fictional works, but haven’t yet done here since I was preoccupied with all the mysteries. First off, there’s something I noticed about the music. And that is that the soundtrack uses certain instruments to represent different factions or themes in the plot. For one, we have the organ, which is used whenever something magical happens, and the type of organ even represents the strength of that magic. I’m not sure if the Cembalo is part of that group, it might be. Then there’s string instruments which come up during most scenes in the mansion, representing that western flair, which is a fitting choice, as string quartetts are one of the common ensembles used in chamber music back in the days.
Second: The inspiration for the seven sisters of purgatory is pretty obvious, and Ronove’s “real life background” is even stated (he is indeed the 27th demon categorized in the Lesser Key of Solomon), so I was wondering: what’s the background or inspiration for the chiester sisters? And honestly, I don’t really have a clue. They wear the flag of Iceland on their arms, but they mention “Pendragon-sama” which could refer to Uther Pendragon of the Arthur myth, but could also just refer to the name meaning, literally “Head-dragon”, so I really have no idea.
Hmm, how to end this post…
Ah, I know! Let’s put out a crazy theory! One which is almost certainly going to be crushed by the next episode! What if the meta is actually a depiction of Ange trying to figure out what happened? And I mean each time, I view each gameboard as being a parallel universe to be honest, which would mean that each version could have a different culprit. We saw this episode that Ange does have Battler’s catchphrase of “It’s useless!”, so it wouldn’t be that unreasonable to view Battler as her avatar in researching the events of 1986 in the year 1998. This would work with the approach of magic being a representation of the unknown. However, it’s most likely going to be crushed next episode, because I expect both Battler and Ange appearing in the meta, and then this theory would have to explain a whole lot more and would get pretty ugly. Still, I’ll keep it in the back of my mind.
Hello @VyseGolbez. Glad to see you keeping on with the Umineko reading. Sorry I haven’t posted anything to you before now. I didn’t want to get in the way of your theorizing since I want you to have as unbiased an opinion as possible. However, I wanted to ask you something, who do you think killed the people this time around? I’m genuinely curious because I still haven’t been able to fully make up my mind about what has gone on. On the one hand Eva definitely could have done the murders until Nanjo. However, did she actually? It seems like it might be possible for someone else to have committed at least some of them. What do you think? Also, I love all your other posts. Keep it up. At this rate I’ll see you in the episode 4 thread soon.
I find Eva to be unlikely for the first six murders, simply because I can’t think of a motive. For now my pick for those falls to Nanjo. While I can’t think of a motive either, he’s still unknown enough that this motive is as of yet to be revealed. I really only pick him here to have a motive for Nanjo’s eventual death. But let’s proceed in order. So second twilight: Rosa and Maria. This one is the easiest to attribute to Eva. We have possibility and motive for this one. Rosa found the gold as well and therefore was a threat to Eva. Maria was an unfortunate witness.Now it gets interesting. Fourth through sixth twilight: I am again suspecting Eva here. I think that Eva realized shortly after that her husband was leaving with Rudolf and Kyrie. Honestly, with Eva as one of the culprits, I assume that her illness was faked so that no one suspects her. So Eva followed the three, planning to kill only Kyrie and Rudolf. However, when she did, Hideyoshi confronted her why she had to kill those two as well. It is imaginable that he was willing to cover for Rosa’s death since she knew of the gold as well, but he didn’t understand why she had to kill two more people. So the two argued and Eva accidentally killed Hideyoshi. This might have been the point where she snapped a bit, and started to believe that she is indeed a witch and has to follow that epitaph. Here I would be guessing that she got the stakes from Kinzo’s study. It’s never really stated who of the adults had which keys afterwards, so it’s reasonable to assume that she had access to the key of the study. So now she was maybe thinking, 'I’m already killing so many people, might as well get revenge on Krauss and Natsuhi." So she killed those two next, and following procedure, used the stakes afterwards. Around here we have the second interesting point: George’s dissappearance, and eventually Nanjo’s death. My line of thinking here is that George might actually suspected his mother for the killings for one reason or another, but wanted to judge her actions through a ruse. Maybe he wanted to know if she’s still capable of loving him, whatever the reason, he decided to get Nanjo help him escape the guesthouse without anyone noticing (i.e. Nanjo closed the window again after George jumped out of it) and furthermore declare him dead as soon as they find him. What he didn’t expect was that accident regarding Jessica’s eyes. What he also didn’t expect was that he found some evidence X that allowed him to conclude that Nanjo killed the first six. The rest basically then plays out like the George theory mentioned before. George pretends to be Kanon for Jessica’s sake, kills Nanjo in revenge, and kills himself to be reunited with his love.
So yeah, that would be my theory on what happened in this game board.
For another thing that I realized is the same, or rather different, across these three game boards: Each game board, there is a new portrait of a Beatrice. We had the original in the first, the blonder Beatrice in the second, and now EVAtrice in the third. I wonder if this trend is going to continue.
edit: One thing I briefly (heh, as if) wanted to look at was the introduction of Hempel’s Raven and the concept of using the contrapositive. Because what annoyed me was Beatrice’s claim that she could prove that “all humans except me = foolish” by proving “me = wise”. There had to be a catch somewhere, because otherwise I could do the exact same thing, and common sense tells us it’s not that easy. It took me quite a while, but I think I found the “error” Beatrice made. Because to really prove that, we must first define what “foolish” and what “wise” means. And as far as I know, foolishness and wiseness is more or less on two opposite ends of a sliding scale. And here is where I think that this claim implicitly actually means that “me = the wisest”, as otherwise a contrahent to this claim could say “Compared to a possible person X, who is wiser than you, you are foolish. Therefore, your claim ‘me = wise’ is not correct”. And since we should now see that it’s actually a superlative that’s in force here, if I wanted to prove “me = wise”, which is equivalent to “me = the wisest”, I had no way around comparing myself to the rest of humanity, as this sliding scale of foolishness and wiseness is only possible by knowing different people’s degrees of wiseness or foolishness. So while the witch’s proof seems to be simple and short at a glance, it’s still no different to the more obvious almost impossible claim “all humans except me = foolish”
I like it, very good. I have another question to follow up then is, what is going on with some of these magical scenes? You’ve come up with a good working theory about what might be going on on this gameboard. I wondered if you had any thoughts about what the magical scenes are or represent or otherwise why they exist in the first place. Bear in mind this is coming from someone that is trying to come to an answer to the same question.
Also, since this chapter gives us a little more in terms of history what did you make of that? Beatrice really did seem to exist but she died 20 years ago or so. So why is this new person calling themselves Beatrice? Did they know the real Beatrice? Is this unrelated? I’d love to hear what you think about that as well.
Hmm, it’s a mixture of “How it would look like if everything were to be explained with magic” and “a metaphorical visualisation of motives, character backgrounds and the like”. And depending on the scene, I might get more out of the first option or I might get more from the second. What I’m trying to say is I tackle each magical scene from many different perspectives to see what I can gain from it. So I don’t really have an easy answer as to what the magic scenes mean or why they’re there.[quote=“Seraphitic, post:45, topic:29”]
Beatrice
[/quote]
This one is complicated. And honestly, it’s one I don’t really have an idea about. For my theory for the third game board, it’s almost more convenient to say that every murder except maybe the first twilight doesn’t have anything to do with Beatrice. Of course there’s the issue of the letters. Well, it might be possible that Eva realized she needs help solving the riddle, and saw it as a low enough risk to ask the others. As to how she got the head ring, that might have actually been luck. Eva strikes me as the type of person that is sly enough to refine or adjust plans they made before. But luck seems like a cop-out and is almost like saying “magic!”, so it might be possible that she managed to make a convincing duplicate of the head ring in the past.That the first twilight actually happened was then benefitial for her, since it meant she could write a second letter (the one that’s displayed in the tips menu) to really get her siblings into thinking about the epitaph.
But for the first and second game board, I feel there’s too few information to really go off of.
Ahaha, @Karifean is spot on here in my opinion. Episodes 1 and 2 were very interesting to me, but for the most part I just couldn’t get into them. That has all changed with Episode 3! I love what we are able to do with this story now that we all actually understand how it works in general.
I would like to say that I was expecting that ending the whole time… as soon as Virgilia said The North Wind and the Sun, I had an idea that Beatrice would try to pull something like this. But to be honest I had completely forgotten about it until Battler said something about Beatrice being a witch and they were transported to the Banquet. So I was basically fooled by her trick nonetheless.
I said something similar after reading Onikakushi, but Ive really got to hand it to Ryukushi and his ability to scare me even when Im expecting it. Like I said, at that point I knew the whole “sign the paper” thing was a ruse from the start, but that moment when Beatrice donned her signature grin which we had almost forgotten about, and especially Virgilia who we had never seen look evil before… it was still creepy as hell!
Personally, I was happy to see the old Beatrice return at the end. As I was reading, it saddened me to think that Beatrice, who’s villainy was so perfect, could possibly become an actual ally. As exciting as it was to fight EVA Beatrice, who I kinda hated, I much prefer Beatrice as an opponent than her.
What was more devastating to me was the betrayal of Virgilia. Not only had I actually thought of her as an ally, but she represented the hope that there really were good witches in this world. But all along, she had been playing us, and as I assume we may see in Episode 4, she contains the same evil as Beatrice.
On that note, I warn against putting faith Bernkastle just because she is in the same position as we the reader. She may also be trapped by Beatrice’s gameboard, but does that does not mean we should inherently trust her, and it certainly does not make her a “good” witch.
Related to, but not directly answering:
There are a few scenes that Battler does not witness, but also are not part of the gameboard, and I am wondering to what extent we can trust them. These are the opening scenes of each episode, which appear to be pure backstory. We know that these are not part of the gameboard, at least in Episode 3, because Battler does not recognize Virgilia when she appears in place of Kumasawa later. So that begs the question, what is their relevance. Are they simply there to narratively introduce elements that will pop up later in that episode? Episodes 2-3’s openings contain many appearances of witches and magic, so if we deny those then we obviously cannot take them at full face value… but can they be interpreted in meaningful ways that treat magic as the “unknown” and a metaphor? I think we can safely assume that George and Shannon’s trip, as well as Jessica and Kanon’s romantic interactions did indeed happen in the “real world”, as they are referenced again and again. But does the Episode 3 scene perhaps show us the fragment where Beatrice came from, as referenced by Lambda? Or does it show the Kuwadorian… saaaaaaaa
Side note: I don’t know if we knew this before, but Genji’s surname is Ronove!? And Ronove the demon comments that “You [Genji] are my greatest servant.” What? I thought Genji was Kinzo’s servant? Is this just a reference to how Kinzo modeled his furniture after Ronove, as is mentioned with Kanon later, or is there some deeper backstory here?
EDIT: Listening to the podcast, Im starting to wonder if, like Beatrice’s North Wind and the Sun, this whole Episode is made to trick you. It is so so easy to pin almost everything in this Episode on Eva. She disappears over and over again, has a gun, and seems perfectly capable of killing everyone. Then EVA Beatrice seems to lead us to believe that she’s the culprit, by refusing to repeat so many things in red surrounding her alibis. And of course it all ends with Eva admitting to being the culprit and killing Battler…
But doesn’t this seem too easy? We see so many things that point us to Eva, plus EVA Beatrice is the one doing the murders from the magic point of view. BUT, Battler was upstairs for the majority of the game! We cannot fully trust the majority of the scenes from this Episode. There is also a sneaky way of using the red truths that Battler does not seem to understand yet. Let me explain:
A witch can refuse to repeat something in red for any reason, and they do not have to state this reason. As such they can refuse to repeat something that is completely true in red. Beato seemingly did this early on, originally refusing to repeat that there were only 18 people on the island, only to reveal later that this was in fact true.
The question is, why would you refuse to repeat something in red? This is often essentially resigning, giving Battler a win. Ronove demonstrates a couple reasons: repeating something in red could give away valuable info, cause a stalemate, or even seal your own defeat. But there could be another reason. To trick Battler. Battler assumes that when a witch refuses to repeat something, it must not be true. But if a witch can convince Battler of one thing through this method… it could cause him to miss clues or become trapped later. This can be used as a sort of “lost the battle but won the war” situation. As EVA Beatrice pointed out, the witch side has a kinda large advantage in this game: Battler has to win every round, but the witch only has to win one. So if the witch uses an easy mystery to convince Battler of one thing, like “Eva is the killer”, then Battler (and the reader) is much more likely to stop thinking. Obviously the web of red truth has many more hang ups, but the original one that Eva did not kill Nanjo is honestly startling at first for this reason.
Clearly Eva did partake in some of the murders, or she wouldn’t have admitted it and shot Battler at the end… but my current theory is that she didn’t do all of them. Obviously not Nanjo, probably not the first twilight… possibly only Rosa and Maria.
Whew, I’m getting faster, episode 1 took me a year, episode 2 took 6 months, and now I’ve finished episode 3 in about 3 months. Before we start, a quick joke. Where does Battler from Umineko do his online clothes shopping?
explainedbyhumans!
So anyways, this episode really ramped things up to 11. It started fairly innocuously but holy cow it escalated quickly, episode 2 there was some magic and some demons and stuff but this episode dropped the pretense that it was a non-magical murder mystery entirely and went all in on it. The magic battle scene between Beatrice and predecessor Beatrice was when I knew shit was going to go down. To quote myself from when I was reading it,
"E1: a murder mystery on an island
E2: oh btw there are witches and demons
E3: now the witches use the weapons of the gods to fight each other"
which pretty succinctly summarizes my experience with the first part.
I also noted that (Higurashi spoilers regarding the differences in the meta elements between it and Umineko) I feel like this game was written with people like me, who had already played Higurashi, in mind. In Higurashi magic basically doesn’t affect the world, all the murder mysteries can be explained using logic in theory. Umineko on the other hand is completely the opposite of this. It’s making it fairly clear pretty early on that yes magic is definitely real and definitely is how all these murders are happening which I think is really interesting.
Then came the part where it seemed like Battler had Beatrice on the back foot for a bit which in light of the ending was incredibly brilliant. And then Eva showed up and that’s where things got really good. First of all, witch Eva is incredibly cute and she might be a deranged murderous witch but I love her so much, also her portrait is amazing and I want a copy to hang on my wall irl. Anyways, wow, holy shit that ending, it caught me completely off guard how they were all working together to get Battler but it totally makes sense in hindsight which is one of my favorite storytelling things. (things that are totally obvious in hindsight but you never see coming in before.) Also I like how Kyrie mentioned that Battler has a step sister when she’s fighting the stakes and I totally made a note of it at the time it happened and felt so smart when I immediately knew who she was when she showed up at the very end.
Then the tea parties, it’s interesting how they basically switched them around this time, starting with the discussion among the witches and concluding with the more real people, it was pretty basic, I don’t have a lot to say about them except something that’s Higurashi spoilery so I’ll do that in the next paragraph.
(Higurashi spoilers regarding the similarity of a character in it with one in Umineko) So I am getting some serious Mamoru vibes from Ange, I’m really curious what part she’s going to play from here on out and it’s pretty obvious based on her interaction with Bernkastel that she’s going to be the key to winning the game against Beatrice.
So yeah, wow, I’m definitely really getting into the story now, episode 1 I was a bit iffy about but I’m completely sold now, I’m really interested what the remaining episodes will bring, I hope witch Eva appears again but idk if she will, regardless I’m excited to see how the story can continue turning everything up to 11.
The best thing is that said step sister was also mentioned by I think Battler himself way back when in the airport scene in episode 1. Glad to see you enjoying Umineko, though.
Wow. This episode was really something else. Some great fantasy scenes, as well as some great mystery and logic scenes, with potentially the most interesting closed room setup yet and that beautiful web of red near the end. The “Braun tube trial” concept really invites people who, like Battler, felt beat down by the appearance of magical fights to continue to treat these mysteries as mysteries and not fantasy.
Now, on to the actual mysteries. When I realized the setup of the First Twilight, with the chain of locked rooms, I was immediately hooked. And pretty stumped, considering the red truths that Beato gives. But to me, the most interesting thing about this twilight may not even be a consideration when it comes to solving the actual mystery of the twilight. And that’s the question of cause of death. Beatrice refuses to say that the six deaths were homicides, despite the fact that this would handily corner Battler, but she is willing to say that there were no suicides. She even appears willing to say that there were no accidents, if not for Ronove’s intervention. This eventually lead me to the answer that Kinzo did in fact die of illness, something that @Seraphitic has covered pretty well in terms of its implications earlier in this thread.
As for the topic of the actual mystery of the murders, I have two ideas. One is that the key lies in the overlooking of the courtyard door to the boiler room. The other is that, of the servants proclaimed dead by Beatrice, the corpse of one of them is not actually present in the room we believe it is. As an example, it would be if Shannon’s corpse was disposed of elsewhere and somebody else was playing dead as Shannon in the parlor with the help of Nanjo. No reason that I think it’s Shannon in particular, though I do think that would open some interesting things in the later murders.
I largely accept Battler’s explanation of the murders that occur from the second to eighth twilights. I think that if Eva was not involved in these murders, EVA Beatrice could have defeated Battler easily. There is still room for doubt, but I don’t have any evidence that leads me to believe that Eva didn’t do it, aside from perhaps that killing Hideyoshi seems rather uncharacteristic. It should be noted that the murders carried out during these twilights use a variety of murder methods, but that the First Twilight, George’s death, and Nanjo’s death are all said to be done by “a gun or spear-shaped object”.
George’s death is interesting. For Hideyoshi, I can envision how Eva would come to kill him. After killing Rudolf and Krauss, Hideyoshi believes that Eva has gone too far, and there is some kind of confrontation that tragically leads to Hideyoshi’s death. But Eva has no real motive to go out of her way to kill George. It is possible that this murder was carried out by someone else, though by who, I cannot say. Perhaps the same person who killed Nanjo, who we know could not possibly be Eva. Though the fact that I used Shannon as my example of my First Twilight theory actually brings me to an interesting possibility. What if it was in fact Shannon’s corpse that had been disposed of, and the “Shannon” in the parlor was the victim of the first twilight? Then the killer has a motive for killing George. George sneaks out of the guesthouse (with Nanjo’s help?) to see Shannon’s corpse, and “Shannon” is forced to kill him to keep him quiet. Then, “Shannon” turns around and kills Nanjo to either tie up the loose end of an accomplice that helped her play dead, or for his foolishness in letting George out of the guesthouse. If Kinzo does not count as one of the 18 people due to his prior dead status, the existence of “Shannon” is quite possible.
Disregarding the existence of “Shannon” (or really any other “fake servant”, Shannon is just the most compelling because of the George connection), then the only remaining explanation I have for Nanjo’s death is that somebody who was thought to be dead but not confirmed in red (Krauss, Natsuhi, Hideyoshi, George, Rudolf, or Kyrie) killing him and then dying soon after, either from succumbing to wounds or from suicide. I think Rudolf and Kyrie are both compelling choices for survivors, as I find them the most likely to write the number on the parlor door which contains Battler’s birthday. Though Hideyoshi is also an interesting one because of his dead character profile text: “That was careless of me. Didn’t think you were still alive…”
And finally, the last thing that I’d like to touch on. In EVA Beatrice’s final argument, she essentially argues that a witch would be considered a magical human. Unless the 18 people on the island are not the 18 people that we think are on the island, this essentially confirms that the killer has to be one of the main 18 suspects that have existed since Episode 1, as even from a magical perspective the killer would have to fit within that 18 according to EVA Beatrice. Though really, good mystery sense tells us that, but I still find it interesting.
Hey guys! I just posted a thread about a theory I made during episode 3. I decided to keep it out of this thread because it likely contains spoilers (though to be honest I don’t actually know because it’s speculation and detective work). If you want to check it out, head over here! Please read the warning at the top though - it is important.
