Umineko Episode 4 Spoiler-Free General

True enough. Good alternate possibility.

While this is true I canā€™t really think of anybody that specifically has a death wish from what we know about them in the story. Obviously we could reply that Beatrice would want to die (since it seems that way in the Tea Party) but as to which of the characters that would be, I canā€™t really think of any. Plus, if that were the case then ā€˜Beatriceā€™ would simply be an accomplice to the main culprit, which doesnā€™t seem to make much sense. Canā€™t rule it out but Iā€™m not too sure about it.

Men die for less foolish reasons than wanting to leave this world @Seraphitic.

What other emotion often leads to death despite not being directly related to it?

The thing is, on paper at least, there isnā€™t anybody that I can think of that would have any reason to want to die. Nobody is suicidal. Nobody (aside from Kinzo who is already dead) wants to ā€˜join their lover in deathā€™ or something like that. Everybody seems to have learned to live with their regrets. Nobody seems to really feel the need to atone for a sin by killing themselves. There are probably infinitely many reasons why someone might kill themselves but I canā€™t really think of a particularly probable one for any of the characters that were supposedly in the room.

People have yelled at me. I will now stop.

Giving away too many secrets were we, @Pictoshark?

You know my theory for who the murderer is does require me to believe that the murderer does have some kind of death wish anyway, right? I just donā€™t think that that person is one of the people in the room.

Hello :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:


A couple weeks ago, after finishing Episode 3, I claimed I was hooked on Umineko. This was not true.

It was true that I was thereafter more interested in Umineko than I had ever been previously. It was true that I wanted to read Episode 4, not partially because of a book club, but because I genuinely 100% wanted to know what was going to happen. But I was not hooked.

I know what it is like to be hooked. I canā€™t stop thinking about it, and the more I think about it, the more I want to read more. It requires a sense of excitement. And I am here to say, I have finally found that sense of excitement toward Umineko.

In terms of pacing and negative points of this Episode, I did find myself a little bored with how drawn out (and at times repetitive) the Ange and Maria parts were. However, this has existed in every Episode, and is something that Ryukushi struggles with in general. Iā€™ve seen it in every Umineko episode, Ive seen it in Higurashi, and Ive even seen it in Luciaā€™s route in Rewrite. Its just something I force myself to look past in order to enjoy all the other amazing parts of his writing.

Speaking of which, there were so many parts of this episode that literally made my jaw drop, usually out of awe for a new mystery. Namely
What did Ange see in the captainā€™s store that gave her a reason to go to Rokkenjima?
What was Battlerā€™s ā€˜sinā€™ that brought about this terrible crime?
WHO IS BEATRICE?

The number of solid theories you all have come up with really amazes me. Many of them donā€™t sit well with me, but theyā€™re very well thought out nonetheless. I personally havenā€™t been able to come up with a complete theory, but below are all my little comments and things I thought of while reading the episode and while reading all of your posts!


First, as related to ā€œwho is Beatriceā€ and ā€œhow is she related to Battlerā€™s sinā€:

In the lore of the Golden Witch Beatrice, the name ā€œBeatriceā€ is passed down. We know for certain that at least 4 beings (Virgilia, Beato, EVA, ANGE) have had this name at some point. While, since witches are not real, we could be tempted to ignore this as part of the untrustworthy magic scenes, this name passing ritual is a main point in Ep 3 and cannot be overlooked.

Not only that, but Kinzo seemed to have recognized two separate human bodies as Beatrice. We cannot of course believe this homunculus, witch cage bullcrap. BUT we could see that situation as one Beatrice passing on her name to another Beatriceā€¦

Furthermore, we see the concept of name-passing brought up again, when Battler proposes that people claimed they saw Kinzo, but Kinzo was dead. ā€œThe name Kinzo is passed down to the Head of the Ushiromiyas.ā€ Beatrice accepts this as valid. But as we know from ???, most of the theories Beatrice accepted as valid were not true. And after all, who would all of the people in the dinning hall possibly all accept as the head of the family? But the theory was accepted nonethelessā€¦

Now, lets take into consideration the red truths of Battlerā€™s sin:
The sin (ā€¦) is not between Ushiromiya Battler and Beatrice.
Six years ago (for Battler) no person called Beatrice existed.

So, when Battler committed this sin, he did not commit it against a person who was called Beatrice. Yet, Beatrice is clearly distressed. This is a turning point in the episode. The person who is committing the murders goes by the name of Beatrice. She is doing so because of Battlerā€™s sin. The fact that Battler cannot even remember the very reason she is committing the murders is of course upsetting.

I wonder, do you see what I am getting at? The person who Battler sinned against 6 years ago (or more?) was not named Beatrice at that time! The name Beatrice was, while Battler was gone, passed on to this person. This of course does not solve the mystery of Battlerā€™s sin, or who it was against. However, it does explain why Beatrice was so upset, and why his sin could have caused people to be murdered by a person named Beatrice, which was particularly bugging me.


Because it ended up actually being disadvantageous for Battler to base all of his theories around Kinzosā€™ being dead. Although it provided us with new clues to look at character in different ways, it caused Battler to believe that there was an ā€œ18th person Xā€ that was committing all the crimes, when in fact there were no more than 17 people on the island to begin with.

Im still a fan of Maria found the letter (and umbrella) in her bag. No one directly handed them to her. She proclaimed that Beatrice gave it to her because Beatrice has given her things before (e.g. candy).

In fact, perhaps let me go another step further: The Beatrice that Maria claims to know has never interacted with her directly! Through Mariaā€™s wild imagination, and through indirect acts such as giving her candy and writing in her notebook, Maria believes and tells people that she has been interacting with a witch named Beatrice who looks out for her.


I was about to argue that this isnā€™t true for Episode 4, but then I thought of something. While Kanon is confirmed to have died nineth on that day, his specific time of death is not confirmed. We assume that he died when we saw him in the magic scene: before Kyrie called Battlerā€¦ but we donā€™t know that for sure. This would mean that Kyrie didnā€™t actually die when her conversation was cut off eitherā€¦ but that actually makes sense. I donā€™t know if this was bugging anyone else, but Battler was supposedly on the phone with two people when they died, but neither time did he hear a sound; it just cut off. Kyrie was probably killed by a gun, but youā€™re telling me Battler didnā€™t hear it over the phone?

Hereā€™s what actually happened: Kyrie did not die in that guest room. Or if she did, it was after Battler had hung up. Actually, we donā€™t even know if that phone call was made from the guest room. It could have been made from the dungeon. Or perhaps the five were never in a dungeon at all. The phone call could have come from any phone in the mansion, and Battler will never know.

Im not sure if Im fully on board with Beatrice on the game board = Kanon, but if that is so, this point certainly supports that.


Hmmm, I originally thought of Fragments as the worlds of the many-world interpretation of quantum mechanicsā€¦ but perhaps that is much more grand than reality. Starting in Episode 3 and again in this episode, the fact that ā€œmany different truths can exist at the same time,ā€ and ā€œthe truth can differ for each personā€ has been emphasized constantly. The Braun tubes, Mariaā€™s interpretation of Rosa being different than Angeā€™sā€¦

So perhaps, could each Fragment be ā€œthe truthā€ for each personā€¦? That would make it kinda hard to explain how drastically different things seem to be able to be in each Fragment (like a person being alive or dead), but I donā€™t think it is a completely impossible definition.

(Seems @pik3rob and @Aspirety seem to have come to the same conclusion as I)


Can we talk about the use of stakes in this Episode? Not only do they not follow the Epitaph as usual, but two of them are just laying on the ground next to the victim!! What could this mean!

Well, one, it could mean the killer was in a rush. This seems plausibleā€¦ but if they were in so much of a rush that they couldnā€™t quickly stab the victimsā€¦ why drop the stakes at all? Aha, why donā€™t we turn the chessboard around? Maybe the killer wanted it to seem like they were in a rushā€¦ I unfortunately donā€™t have any idea why they would want thisā€¦

Discuss!


Ok so most people here seem to be going along with the Kanon theory, so I just wanted to voice my main problem with it. What is Kanonā€™s motivation? I assume youā€™d say something like ā€œHeā€™s tired of being furniture, etc.ā€ But hereā€™s the problem: Ushiromiya Battler has a sin. Because of (this) sin, people die. Kanon did not work for the Ushiromiyas when Battler left, so I think we can assume Battler did not meet him until arriving on the island in 1986. So how is Battlerā€™s sin connected to Kanon then?

I also really donā€™t like the ā€œKanon isnā€™t his real nameā€ trick for getting around his being confirmed dead in readā€¦ but I guess with a lot of word play you could still get around that, so I donā€™t knowā€¦

That said, I do have something in support of the Kanon=Shannon theory, as well as the ā€œKanon is actually a girlā€ (as much as that theory doesnā€™t sit well with me either). Despite what someone said earlier, Kanon is not an uncommon Japanese nameā€¦ but it is usually a girls name. Interpret that how you like.


Also, its easy to focus all on Battlerā€™s sin know that we know that is a causeā€¦ but we still donā€™t know why the culprit is committing these murders in such an elaborate way. If the goal is to get some sort of revenge on Battler for his sinā€¦ then why mess around with all this Epitaph, closed room, etc. stuff? Even if the murder doesnā€™t actually consider themselves Beatrice, the Legend of the Golden Witch Beatrice is clearly very important to them for some reason.


I assume by ā€œweā€ youā€™re referring to the podcast. I havenā€™t listened to that yet, but thats interesting because Ive been wondering about that kind of theory since the beginning, but especially in this episode. It seems very unlikely, but its interesting to think about: what if everyone except Battler (or maybe except the cousins) are in on it together? That of course begs the question, why the fuck would everyone agree to being killed like this. A prank gone badā€¦ would explain it, but I really canā€™t come up with a reason for it ā€œgoing bad.ā€


Of course it does. After all: No one escapes, all die. and The only one alive on this island is you. Unless we assume someone else with a death wish kills the original murdererā€¦ or could it be trap X, kihihhihi.

Speaking of No one escapes, all die.
Does this not conflict with the ending of Episode 3, in which Eva ā€œescapesā€? Im confused, because that would have huge implications on the Ange of 1998ā€¦ but as @Aspirety said it would silly to completely disregard 1/3 of an episode. I guess this could only apply to Episode 4ā€¦ but then, does Battlerā€™s sin as well only apply to Episode 4? That doesnā€™t make sense either.

I guess we could argue semantics here. The red truth says Because of (this) sin, people die.
and A great many humans on this island die. It does not say that ā€œa great many humans on this island die because of this sin.ā€ And it does not say ā€œa great many humans die on this island.ā€ So of course, all of the humans on the island will die at some point, but not necessarily while on the island. That is the only argument I can come up with.


TL;DR: I comment/add to a few theories people have already proposed, and also bring up a few new discussion points people havenā€™t talked about in this thread yet (there is so much going on its no surprise weā€™ve missed stuff)

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Iā€™d love to hear your additional thoughts after youā€™ve taken a listen to the podcast.

I too will wait until you finish the podcast before commenting. Iā€™m looking forward to discussing this with you.

So Iā€™m currently rereading Umineko and was originally planning to only make another gigantic post once I finish, but thereā€™s something I wanna get off my chest because itā€™s in the end not that important for the big theories Iā€™m going to most likely spin.

So in the beginning of episode 3, thereā€™s this scene where a vase gets broken and stuff. It wants us to believe that thatā€™s Beatriceā€™s distant past. It also is the first appearance of Virgilia. So I was thinking if this scene actually shows the very first time where Maria meets Beatrice. It would explain why that character calls the old man ā€œgrandfatherā€ (This wouldnā€™t make sense with real life Beatrice, which is the other most likely interpretation). The person that first poses as Beatrice there is probably Kumasawa, as there are already many hints that Virgilia is based of her. Another point for this theory is the servants in general admitting in I think episode 1 that they were keeping the legend alive for the children through various acts, so it is very possible that that very first occasion with the vase was just like that. Perhaps there wasnā€™t even a cat to begin with.

From this theory we can make various different claims saying that either Beatrice explained her different look with the portrait that the portrait shows her in a different time, or that several different servants pose as Beatrice and that they look different through magic (and Maria would believe that).

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Just saying to throw a wrench in your theory (well you can probably work around that) the backgrounds used for that scene are that of Kuwadorian and not the main mansion.

Well, if anything itā€™s definitively something worth thinking about.

Iā€™m not there yet, so this is more distant memory, but I think the same goes for the Mariage Sorciere scenes in episode 4, so itā€™s not much of a wrench.

But okay, assuming I misremember. Rosa found her way to Kuwadorian by chance, perhaps Maria did too and perhaps there were still servants keeping Kuwadorian clean even after real life Beatrice died.

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Interesting actually about Mariage SorciĆØre.
When you get to it, Iā€™d like you to confirm that.

Allow me~

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Thanks!
Now Iā€™m wondering where your thoughts will lead you to Vyse.

So I just got a crack idea that no one has really discussed yet (I think) and that I havenā€™t really thought about full implications either, so I kinda wanna throw that idea out here so that others might be able to do that thinking while I focus my endeavours on my reread for now. So here goes nothing:

What if Kinzo and Genji switched positions at some distant point in the past?

It would be an alternative explanation for that scene in this episode where supposedly the entire family accepts someone as ā€œKinzo Ushiromiyaā€. But again, I havenā€™t really thought about full implications of this yet.

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Mmmmm I guess itā€™s possible. I guess my main question would be, what about the toes? Granted, we donā€™t know the number of toes that Genji has. However, we do know that a corpse was found that did have six toes. If I remember the reds right it is guaranteed to be Kinzo (or at least the person people think is Kinzo).

Wow, Iā€™m not quite sure where to start with this episode. Iā€™m tempted to jump right to the end and start talking about ā€œWho am I?ā€ but I suppose I should touch on the rest of the episode leading up to that first. Apologies if I repeat things that have been thoroughly covered, I wanted to get my mostly untainted thoughts out there before going all the way down the rabbit hole of this 260 post thread. I see the problems with pacing that people have with this episode, but overall I really did enjoy the story of Ange and Maria. There may have been a few parts where it went on a little longer than it needed to, but overall, some great stuff which certainly did a lot to deepen my understanding of magic.

As for the actual game, itā€™s really hard to tackle because instead of neatly finding new crime scenes over the course of the day, weā€™re just fed a magic narrative and then can only verify the aftermath once itā€™s all over. It puts into doubt not just the nature of the deaths, but the timing as well. I think that the key to the mystery is multiple people entering the dining room with guns, killing some people, and then coercing the others into feeding Battler the magical narrative. The only closed room weā€™ve got to deal with here is with Kumasawa and Gohda in the storehouse. I believe this can be explained by a transfer of key to someone they thought they could trust, and then subsequent murder.

Now, on to the big questions: Who is Beatrice? What is Battlerā€™s sin? Who is the culprit?
Even before what we get at the end of this episode, I think that the episode gives us a lot to build off of in terms of establishing Beatrice as a single individual, or at least establishing a single individual who claims to be Beatrice. This comes primarily from Beatriceā€™s connection to Maria, and the ability to connect Mariaā€™s grimoire to the bottles and letters. So if we look at this from the perspective of ā€œBeatrice is Mariaā€™s friendā€, then how can we work from that to find out their identity?

In the first three episodes, Maria claims to be given a letter by Beatrice. In the beginning I thought that there were so many ways to write this off, but now Iā€™ve come to think that there really is someone on the island that Maria identifies as Beatrice. And this being the case, I want to turn my attention to the one time that Maria actually interacts with Beatrice in front of Battler: when Maria runs to Beatrice to be with her at the end of Episode 1. If we assume, for a moment, that this is the real ā€œBeatriceā€, the one Maria knows, then we can narrow down this personā€™s identity by quite a bit. Kinzo, Krauss, Natsuhi, Eva, Hideyoshi, Rudolf, Kyrie, Rosa, Nanjo, Genji, Gohda, and Kumasawa are all, as far as I can tell based on the red truths and evidence, very dead. Kinzo is dead all along, Kraussā€™ death would be very hard to fake, everyone without a face is confirmed dead by red truth, and I believe Eva, Hideyoshi, and Natsuhi can be ruled conclusively dead because of the red stating that a homicide took place at all. Jessica, George, Battler, and Maria are of course all accounted for. This really only leaves Kanon and Shannon. The possibility of Kanon faking his death was something that I noted as far back as Episode 1, but kind of fell to the side as I focused more on those without faces. I believe the red truth we get in this episode supports the idea that Kanon didnā€™t actually die. Every reasonable cause of death is ruled out, so I think the simplest conclusion is that there simply wasnā€™t a death. Iā€™d be content with calling Kanon the culprit, but when I revisited key scenes with increased skepticism after reading Episode 3, I couldnā€™t help but notice that Shannonā€™s death is not confirmed by Battler, and I canā€™t help but think that this is a deliberate move. Itā€™s a well hidden fact, because itā€™s not something that a reader would necessarily think about while reading Episode 1, but which becomes much more obvious with the knowledge of how the narrative likes to mess with you.

I think that one of these two being Beatrice lines up really well with the other things that we know about Beatrice. It casts a whole new light on those scenes from the beginning of Episode 2, thatā€™s for sure. Though Iā€™d love to know if anyone has a counter as to how the Beatrice that appears at the end of Episode 1 is someone other than these two. Iā€™m not sure how to narrow it down further. Iā€™m leaning towards Shannon because of the fact that she was actually around to know Battler six years ago. Beatrice even references Battlerā€™s middle school English in her phone call in Episode 4. I think that itā€™s entirely possible to smash through the twilights of the first two games using Shannon as a primary culprit and a few accomplices (Rosa being key in Episode 2), but Episode 3 is tricky, and makes me believe that there really are name games going on with the red truth, or Iā€™m totally off base.

And as something of a side note: whoever Beato is, it would appear that she spent time as a child in Kuwadorian according to her Episode 3 flashback, which to me means that whoever it is has more going on in their past than weā€™re lead to believe. Thereā€™s a reference to a ā€œgrandfatherā€, and thereā€™s only ever been one grandfather on Rokkenjima, as far as we know. If sheā€™s Kinzoā€™s granddaughter, Iā€™m leaning towards her being the child of ā€œhomunculusā€ Beatrice, as I donā€™t think any of Kinzoā€™s known grandchildren fit the qualifications to be Beatrice. Though thereā€™s the possibility that any one of Kinzoā€™s children could have a child that through some strange circumstance ended up being raised in secret in Kuwadorian. Which, regardless of parentage, points me back to Shannon and Kanon again, as they fit in the right age range to be Kinzoā€™s grandchildren.

As for how Battler dies at the end, Iā€™m going to go with an explosion. I donā€™t know if I would have thought of it independently while trying to solve the murder, but while trying to reconcile the body parts, the incident being an accident, and the talk of lost books on Rokkenjima, I came to the theory that the incident on Rokkenjima ends with a bang.

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It is time.

While I will speak of myself through most of this post, do note that everything that has been said in the four threads has influenced my thinking, so even if I end up solving this beast, it is in part through all of your help. So if you have posted in these threads, thank you very much!

This means I have now finished my reread of Umineko. Throughout my reread, I was looking for answers. And I wanted to have an as open as possible outlook as possible, so to some regard I went through it without already suspecting one single individual, even though another part of me did exactly that. So basically, what I did was look at each individual murder or group of murders and list everyone who had the ability to do that particular murder. I only considered someone as cleaned from suspicion if A: they were observed by Battler at the time of the murder or B: a red truth made it impossible for them to commit that particular murder. However, I still went at it with as open a perspective as possible, so as an exception to B, I ignored any and all red truths regarding Kanonā€™s and Shannonā€™s life or death status under the argument of vacuous truths that has been brought up in this thread repeatedly. So without further ado, here is that list of potential suspects for each murder:

So what I see looking at this list now is that Kanon and Shannon are still suspects for pretty much everything. Rosa has to be involved in episode 2, and Eva is very likely to be involved in episode 3. Episode 4 is just one giant clusterfuck of who even knows, so it tells us nothing in terms of lowering our list of suspects. Of course, one can assume that the culprit who planned shit from the beginning was hijacked by someone else in one or more episodes, so what I end up with is the list of Kanon, Shannon, Rosa and Eva as likely candidats to be this Beatrice. Furthermore, it is likely that Nanjo is an accomplice if it is Kanon or Shannon at least, as he always helps them fake their death in that case. For that matter, note that there really is no one that could have killed Kanon in episode 1. (And Then There Were None spoilers)As a funny sidenote, with this we have yet another reference to Agathaā€™s story, as in both the doctor helps the true culprit fake their death with a wound that everyone would automatically assume to cause death. Well, if Kanon is the culprit, that is.
I myself would like to think that the murder plot wasnā€™t hijacked in episode 1 at least, so for that reason my order of most suspicious to least suspicious (to be Beatrice, remember) is:

Kanon > Kanon=Shannon > Shannon > Rosa > Eva

I will say right here that I will consider it as a partial victory for myself if any of those five options above ends up being the correct one.
Anyhow, now with these options laid bare, we need something else to try to figure out which one is the correct one. And our main clue for that is of course Battlerā€™s sin, although there are other clues as well.

For Eva, I honestly have no clue what his sin could be. So if youā€™re reading this and you wanna make an Eva-culprit theory, Iā€™d be curious to hear it!

For Rosa, his sin would probably be leaving the family register, as that would remind Rosa of being left alone by Mariaā€™s father.

And now we get to the most likely options, as for all three the sin would be the same. This is also the one I myself believe to be correct. As @Seraphitic and I think others have reasoned, I think this sin would be Battler promising to return to Shannon but in the end never doing so. Sera already brought up some points in the story that suggest this, but thereā€™s even more. I myself think that Beato was also in part trying to get a message across to Battler with these murders and the fates surrounding the actors in this tragedy. One of these things is Beato explaining in episode 2 the three ways to hurt a woman: ā€œHurt her with a blade, hurt her heart or betray her expectations.ā€ Not long after that Beato says a red truth that doesnā€™t seem to add to any mystery at all, but might actually be a hint to this sin weā€™re breaking our head over: I keep my promises. Almost seems to me like sheā€™s saying that Battler did not keep a promise. And then the entirety of episode 3, with the North Wind and Sun strategy. This might simply be Beato making Battler experience how it feels to be betrayed. And she finally outright asking in episode 4, I really see a progression there, basically a ā€œHow much more to I have to hint at it until you finally realize what you did?ā€

By now youā€™re probably saying to yourself ā€œOkay, this is all connected to Shannon, so why is Kanon your most likely suspect?ā€ Well, this is mainly because Beato says that she didnā€™t exist for Battler 6 years ago. What I believe happened is that Shannon was truly hurt by what Battler did, and cried about it to Kanon. While Shannon herself eventually got over it, even starting a new relationship with George, for Kanon this was still an important thing, and perhaps in part caused Kanon not being able to see love, since he saw that very same love hurting his sister. So basically, as a defense mechanism, he wasnā€™t able to embrace loving someone else, which is why he refused Jessica even though he seemed to have feelings for her. Perhaps he even viewed his sister as breaking that original promise when she started going out with George. So yeah, this is one aspect for why the incident happened. However, it is only one. It isnā€™t the entire reason.

So now that we cleared up the topic of Battlerā€™s sin, letā€™s look at Kanon, who I believe to be the culprit, and the mysterium that is Beatrice in detail. (This is also the point where I start to make some baseless assumptions, trying to tie a lot of things in this story together.) Well, and to look at Beatrice, we need to look at Kinzo for a bit as well. So we know that Kinzo had a mistress named Beatrice. Letā€™s call her Beatrichi for future reference. I believe that we never saw Beatrichi. No, I think she died at some point far in the past, but she is the one that gave Kinzo the gold. Now I believe that later on Kinzo found a child that he believed to be a reincarnation of Beatrice. This is the Beatrice that we saw in Rosaā€™s flashback, the one that was raised in Kuwadorian and that died some 20 years ago. Letā€™s call her Bea-nii. Like I said, Bea-nii is dead. However, I think that Kinzo truly believed he experienced a miracle, having found Beatrice again. And if this assumption is correct, then this could be the root cause for his involvement with the Fukuin House, the orphanage Kanon and Shannon are from. What I basically believe happened is that after Bea-nii died, Kinzo hoped to repeat that miracle, to find another reincarnation of Beatrice. That is why he wanted orphans from that house to work for him as servants, to test himself whether maybe, just maybe, one of those orphans is his beloved Beatrice. Perhaps one of those tests was showing them Kuwadorian, trying to discern if they recognize this second mansion. So basically, what Iā€™m saying is that not only did Genji, Nanjo and Kumasawa know about the hidden mansion, but all servants from the Fukuin House as well. So now let us make another asumption. What if Kanon actually recognized Kuwadorian? In reality this was probably due to Shannon talking about it, but for Kinzo this probably was kind of a dilemma. The miracle actually happened again, he found Beatrice again (letā€™s call him Beatrice-san), but heā€™s a boy, so something canā€™t be right! So while he might have exclaimed ā€œBeatrice!ā€ at first, he promptly denied that again. In Kanon however this might have created a sort of escapism persona, and shortly after he founded Mariage Sorciere together with Maria. After all, the most important part of this alliance is that each acknowledges the existence of the other.
Following Mariage Sorciere, both first wanted to add others into the alliance, Kanon inviting Kumasawa as Virgilia, which as a reallife senpai and perhaps advisor in servitude would make sense as a teacher even though she was added later; and Maria inviting Ange, which we know eventually lead to Ange destroying that fantasy a bit by denying Sakutaroā€™s existence.
Following Kinzo a bit, I believe that he then came up with the idea of the epitaph to find the next reincarnation of Beatrice. He basically believed that only Beatrice would be able to solve the riddle. This is why the name Beatrice is also inherited to the one who solves the Epitaph. Whether Kanon knows the solution, Iā€™m actually not sure. It could be, it could also not be.
Back to Mariage Sorciere, later on it took a change for the worse, with the two imagining how to take revenge on their abusers instead. Thatā€™s where another part of the motive to the disaster lies. And then thereā€™s of course the how. How the murders happened. This is basically to prove that magic exists, both to the family, which is why all those closed rooms are employed and why the epitaph is used as inspiration, and to the rest of the world, which is why multiple message bottles have been sent out and why everything is ended with an explosion, most likely, as it probably wouldnā€™t hold up against a police investigation.

So I hope this little theory at the end here was enjoyable to read. If you think someone else is the main culprit, feel free to make a similarly compelling theory, I have heard there was at least one culprit theory that gained a lot of traction and ended up being wrong (I of course donā€™t know which culprit theory that was, perhaps it was a theory similar to mine and I am wrong all along), so even though it might seem to you like thereā€™s nothing left to think about after this post, do not stop thinking. However, if I ended up hitting the mark, Iā€™ll view it as a greater victory than just the one I mentioned above. Weā€™ll see once Chiru hits steam. Hope to see you all then!

EDIT: Ohh whoops, forgot, hereā€™s all the notes I took while rereading:

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This theory is pretty thorough, i like your reasoning concerning Kanonā€™s motivation and the theory about multiple Beatrices. I would very much like to see a timeline detailing all of the murders and how they were committed across each episode, to solidify your stance. I think it could also be helpful to try and work out a timeline of events before the game starts, considering the death of Beatrice and Kinzo before the game it might help to iron out your thought process there. I hope to hear what others have to say as well, I unfortunately am restricted to light comments and a spectatorā€™s role.

Hmm, would you think that Kanon would go to all that effort, just because Battler hurt Shannonā€™s feelings? I mean, he is very protective, somewhat feisty and outspoken about what he thinks, but would he go that far? Thereā€™s also something else you need to consider, if Kanon is Beatrice, then why does he hate Beatrice so much and doesnā€™t want any of her help in the form of magic, and then, according to you, proceeds to be Beatrice and use magic? Good theory though, I enjoyed reading it.

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