Umineko Episode 4 Full Series Spoilers General

07th Discussion
#23

That’s a very sad state of things…

I’ll probably get around to write my vision and theory of “everything” about Umineko, tho I’m a bit reluctant as well since it’s most likely controversial in most of it’s aspects and I’m a bit tired of finding myself one vs the world.

If anything I believe that while we can solve the “mystery” aspect of Umineko, we can also, in essence, solve the “fantasy” aspect of Umineko, and that it’s where the most important answers lies.

I’m vehemently against discarding a fantasy scene under the premise that it’s a fantasy scene, similarly to how from my pov it’s like dismissing the value of anything in it simply for being a fiction in-universe.

But I’ll get around to it, as my ultimate contribution to Umineko fandom.

2 Likes
#24

They are so close and so far away in the speculation thread. They bring up the concept of a trap that could be anything. I just want to ask them the following. I won’t because I think it would be too leading.

Why were the police unable to find out the details of the murders?
Why was the only evidence recovered a piece of Maria’s jaw?
What did they make of the state of Rokkenjima in 1998?

2 Likes
#25

Don’t worry, those questions have already been addressed. Just waiting on a few people to post their thoughts now.

#26

What was their answer? Im a bit curious but holy hell that thread is long and I don’t know where it is in it and I don’t want to miss it while skimming.

#27

Enough about the newcomers, the Tea Party isn’t for them alone. How about you guys? What thoughts and feelings come to mind returning to Episode 4 after the truth has been revealed to you?

I’ve found it very… Tragic. But I really do love how they put a new spin on magic here. It was never about witches and furniture, it was about painting the world with happiness and protecting the happiness of others. Unless we’re talking about black magic, which ironically was portrayed as a witch who denies magic at the very end.

But damn, watching Beatrice completely lose heart and surrendering herself to a fate of oblivion together with Maria is… Heart rending. The voice acting adds so much to the experience.

1 Like
#28

I like this episode a lot better after knowing the truth. The scenes with Ange and Maria to me are the slowest in the whole series. In hindsight, they really explain the concepts of magic to the user. Liked the Ange stuff in 1998, because it gives a lot of hints.

Seraphitic has some of the details correct but can’t put it all together. Definitely more than I did.

On reread, I still like episode 2 over this, because the Shannon/Kanon/Beatrice scenes are really giving you a lot of answers very early on.

2 Likes
#29

I doubt they recovered Maria’s diary from the island, as well… if they could only recover maybe pieces of people, it’s doubtful they would have recovered a fully intact diary. Perhaps the diary was found at Rosa and Maria’s home? And I think it’s stated in the manga of EP8 that Bern’s “Ange does not live past 1998” in Red was a playing with words, since in the Magic End, Ange essentially kills that part of herself to live as Yukari Kotobuki. I imagine people must have been surprised that Rokkenjima was covered in landslides due to the explosions, and as for why the police being unable to find the details of the murders and why they only found Maria’s jaw… I’m not entirely sure?

Also, in hindsight, it’s hilarious that the biggest theme of Umineko is dropped by a character who isn’t even a main character.

But EP4 really seems to be where Tohya tried to humanize Beatrice the most with her relationship with Maria. You can see her fondness for Maria and how it upsets her with Ange denying Maria’s magic, as well as how it breaks her heart to see how Maria’s heart was torn to shreds with Rosa destroying Sakutaro. Their relationship is adorable and symbiotic, which makes it all the more heart-wrenching when Beatrice can let Ange fool Maria in the end or be selfish and tell Maria the truth to keep Maria by her side, and she chooses Maria’s happiness (and on the actual gameboard side, Maria’s corpse is displayed in a manner that Battler can tell that her killer cared for her). You can tell that the writer from EP3 onwards very much tries to humanize the person behind the mysterious murders, and while EP3 was about her relationship with Battler, this one opened up on her relations with others.

And this EP put a lot of new revelations on when it came to Maria. How her kihihihi is actually a coping method where she murders the person who offends her in her mind, repeatedly, as a dark contrast to her previous coping method of having imaginary friends to create a perfect illusion to not feel alone. How Maria is so broken by her life with her mother that she prefers a world that she can only reach by dying, where she can finally have that dream of a mother who only dotes on her and has all the time in the world for her. And what the real icing on the cake for what makes Maria so tragic is the circumstances of Sakutaro and why Ange was able to “resurrect” him. And the whole fact that Maria had broken the chain of abuse, even if just for a bit, by pretending, I can’t help but cry over a nine year old’s strength.

3 Likes
#30

I think you’re on the mark for the most part, but I don’t agree that Maria or Ange’s stories were mentioned in the EP4 letter bottle. I’m pretty confident that was restricted to the events of the gameboard, including the magical scenes.

#31

i honestly sob at episode 4 because i’ve experienced abuse like maria & it just hurts so much to see. & i’ve experienced suicidal depression like ange & i know just how it feels to admit to people that you want to die & they just… don’t care. & i love, love, love beatrice so much; she just hoped for someone to understand her but she ultimately wouldn’t let herself reach for anything better. (ep 4 battler, i swear to god…)
actually, might as well sum it up as “i relate to umineko too much” lol

also, i think it’s sad when i see people say that battler not fulfilling his promise to shannon is too stupid to be the true reason behind beatrice’s motives. i mean, yes, that’s not all of the truth; sayo’s motives are so much more complicated than that. but still, do people really not understand how maddening it would be to not hear anything from someone you love for 6 years?

4 Likes
#32

I don’t think they’ll still be thinking that when they have a better grasp on Yasu’s character. Sure, if you’ve led a happy life a “broken promise” isn’t gonna be the catalyst to committing forced group suicide, but there are many facets of Yasu’s character, what that promise meant to her, what else was going on with her at the time, etc. that all play a role, and the newcomers simply aren’t at that level of understanding her yet. I think it’ll come with time; with Seraphitic especially I consider it possible he might come to understand her before even moving on to Chiru. And if not, come EP7 they’ll probably see why it was a bigger deal than they’d thought.

1 Like
#33

Kinda off-topic but I am curious how Seraphitic will get mad when he sees Shannon and Kanon in the same room in the first scene of EP5.

And it makes me wonder, how can people reach Shannon=Kanon so early on? Truly amazing minds some people have.

2 Likes
#34

I think so too, the difficult thing that people trying to solve Battler’s sin have to understand is that the question isn’t exactly What the sin is, it’s instead Why it’s a sin. Because, on the surface, the sin is actually kinda silly, especially since both of them were kids at the time Battler made his promise (as most people in that age would probably just have moved on). But once you understand Yasu and why they reacted the way they did to his promise and his failure to keep it, it becomes much more understandable and gives it much more weight.

2 Likes
#35

@Karifean @EternalMagician

yeah, definitely, i know that new umineko readers aren’t gonna fully grasp sayo’s mindset at this point. i was mostly thinking about people who have read through all of umineko & still think that sayo was being melodramatic, you know?

#36

Yeah, I gotta say, I’m impressed by how the non-spoiler people are reaching these conclusions with just the core arcs when I recall that a lot of the Shannon is Kanon hints really start popping up in Chiru. I know in one of the EP1 side story TIPs (something about how Gohda said he didn’t fear Beatrice to Kanon and that night, Gohda was haunted by Beatrice) strongly implied that connection between Kanon and Beatrice.

And to be fair, during the time Umineko was first released, characters like Sayo were far from common in Western media and almost nonexistent in Eastern media (and in many cases, the characters were generally portrayed as jokes), and it feels like a rather shallow motive at first (especially with how in EP7, they keep hammering that it’s Battler’s fault for coming in 1986 when really, that was just the spark that lit the powderkeg, so people are naturally gonna be like “Really? Are you serious?”. And a lot of people most likely get annoyed by the fact it’s miscommunication to create drama, because that’s an overused trope that’s rarely done right. Plus, not a lot of people have experienced that sort of wanting to wait for someone to come back. I know if my childhood friend suddenly got back in contact with me after saying she’d call back but never did after twelve years, I’d be ready to fight her.)

1 Like
#37

i mean… i agree with you that first time readers may think that it’s simply annoying miscommunication drama at this point. but i still think that it’s sad that people think that that’d be a shallow motive? like, for context, i’m an lgbt person & i’ve experienced suicidal ideation because of my sexual orientation & internalized homophobia & i know many other lgbt people who’ve felt the same way. & i’m a mentally ill abuse survivor so i totally get sayo’s sense of hopelessness… i get that a lot of other people wouldn’t think it was a big deal at first but from my perspective, it makes total sense.

1 Like
#38

can someone explain the whole without love it can’t be seen thing? its said that beatrice cant be seen without love… but how

#39

It also doesn’t help that the VN really did a terrible job of portraying Sayo’s issues as being more than “Battler didn’t come back for me, so I’m killing his family” because it really does keep hammering “IF BATTLER HADN’T COME BACK NOBODY WOULD HAVE DIED IT’S ALL BATTLER’S FAULT” when it’s actually a whole bunch of deeply-rooted stuff (it wasn’t until we had Confession available that her struggles and what led up to them were properly explored, and much better than the VN), and the fact that at the time, most people weren’t fully aware of transgender people existing. That’s most likely why people think it’s shallow, besides the fact that most people aren’t ever in positions to where they’d hope for their crush to come save them, and Ryukishi’s way of doing it in the VN reminds the readers (well the ones that didn’t have Confession at the time) of a spoiled teenager who thinks their parents are abusive because they won’t pay all the money so the kid can have a luxury car for their birthday and want the kid to try to save up to pay for half of it. I know it seems pretty messed up in hindsight, but Sayo’s motives were poorly explained in the VN (all the while Ryukishi’s interview in Answer of the Golden Witch had him call his fans who just wanted some sort of answers lazy, mindless goats, and it’s hard to feel sympathy for a character who was responsible for setting up the events of that October when the author does a poor job of explaining her motives while excusing her actions that even Sayo herself condemned), combined with all this, it’s really no wonder that there were a lot of bitter Umineko veterans who didn’t find Sayo sympathetic until Confession came around.

Well, for the most part, the “without love, it can’t be seen” is generally a way of looking at the events of Umineko without a cold, uncaring eye to what occurred. Like, when it’s first introduced, Okonogi uses it as a suggestion to get Ange to look at the massacre of her family through the eyes of somebody who actually loved Eva, and not somebody like Ange who wanted Eva to be the culprit. So, basically, it’s more of like looking through a more objective lens and being able to view things without completely condemning the person(s) responsible.

3 Likes
#40

yes that is one interpretation, but im wondering about how in episode 2 where it says beatrice herself can’t be seen without love… for example the part where beatrice is right behind kinzo while hes crying for her to come back.

#41

Well, in the context of that scene, Kinzo was wallowing in his own pain so much that he couldn’t ‘see’ that ‘Beatrice’ was right behind him in the form of Kanon. That scene is pretty darkly hilarious in hindsight.

3 Likes
#42

one more question i have is how everything was supposed to make battler remember his promise