Umineko Episode 4 Spoiler-Free General

Yay, I finally have time to make a post! I took your advice –

[quote=“pictoshark, post:34, topic:31, full:true”]
I was watching the Ep 3 ??? and would advise you to go do the same. If we’re trying to figure out “Who aaaaaaaam I?” then it contains a goldmine of useful stuff. If anything it’s making me stand even firmer by my original theory. As you seem to still be online, gogogo! It will only take 15 minutes to read, maximum. I’ll be working up my real response to your post while you do that.[/quote]

– and wow I’m glad I did. How did I forget all this? Lambadelta says outright that Beatrice is ‘nothing more than a temporary witch’ and that she’ll go back to being Human without Lambadelta’s sponsorship. She also says that Beatrice was in some pretty miserable circumstances before Lambadelta decided to sponsor her, and that if Beatrice fails, Lambadelta will find the most miserable Fragment in all the possible Fragments and seal her there. Much like when Bernkastel offers to find the happiest Fragment she can for Ange but, you know … in reverse.

That does seem to align with your theory that Beatrice is the human Beatrice who died and then ascended to the metaworld, much like Battler did. In fact, from what we’ve heard, it sounds a lot like how Ange was chosen by Bernkastel to be her piece.

Lambadelta says why she chose Beatrice, too. It was in exchange for her ‘gameboard,’ which Lambdadelta wants to use to trap Bernkastel. But what exactly does that mean? In this episode, they talk a bit about Beatrice’s gameboard, and where it’s located in time – I believe it’s October 4-5 of 1986. That’s why Ange is such an advantageous piece, because she can look beyond that timeframe. And I would guess the gameboard is also Rokkenjima Island itself, which in October 4-5 is closed off from the rest of the world by the typhoon and damage to the phones lines. I’m struggling a bit with finding the right words to describe this, because it’s sort of a unique concept. The gameboard isn’t like a tabletop game you bring to a party, it’s not a physical thing, it’s … a place, a time, a series of events? But a series of events with some variation, which we see from episode to episode.

So in what sense, then, do those belong to Beatrice? I really don’t know, but maybe it’s something like a plan – a plan that took many years to set in motion, that required a particular set of circumstances. (Like: the island being cut off from the rest of world during a family conference. Or even: Ushiromiya Battler being at the family conference, which we were speculating about above.) And if it’s Beatrice’s plan, something she thought up when she was alone and miserable in Kuwadorian, that’s a more concrete way that we can claim she is the concept of the Rokkenjima killings. She died, but the killings still came about, so her will still exists in the world. We can say she still exists, as the Rokkenjima killings. Sort of? Like I said, this is tricky to talk about.

It might help to think about the mystery of the message in the bottle? That comes up in this episode, too – we find out that there’s multiple messages, and they’re written in the same handwriting in Maria’s journal that Maria attributes to Beatrice. The messages tell different stories, but they’re always the story of the Rokkenjima killings of October 4-5, 1986. Different plans, maybe, different ways events could unfold within the required circumstances. It’s always been a little mysterious who wrote those messages – they’re supposed to be from Maria, but Maria didn’t seem to have the time to chronicle everything or the opportunity to put it in a bottle – so maybe they were written in advance? Written by Beatrice? We know there’s a human Beatrice – most likely a Ushiromiya Beatrice – but she died when Rosa was a child, didn’t she? In other words, she died long before Maria was born. So why would she claim to be Maria or – heck – why would she write about any of the grandchildren at the family conference? And how would her handwriting get in Maria’s journal … Is it someone else pretending to be Beatrice, in order to enact her plan? That could be it, right?

I feel like we’re so close! But, speaking of being so close …

Oh, I like this theory a lot. That conversation Natsuhi had with Kinzo, the one that we know now didn’t happen – I was thinking there still had to be a grain of truth in there, one that explained her change in attitude when she returned to Eva. In that conversation, Kinzo hints that he regrets Natushi isn’t his heir, that she isn’t a man and Krauss a woman. Perhaps she was having those thoughts herself, while looking at Kinzo’s body – and then she realized there was still a way that she and Jessica could inherit the Ushiromiya family title. (By being the only Ushiromiyas left.)

Those last three twilights are hard, admittedly. Natushi did advocate pretty hard to push the servants out of the study, so she could have had a trap of some kind waiting for them in the parlor. But with the state of their bodies, it’s hard to imagine what that trap could be, and why there wouldn’t be any visible evidence of it. Man, I’m going to have to think more about this.

I thought her gameboard just referred to the game she was having with Battler. Remember, Bernkastel came down to Beatrice’s fragment to watch and aid Battler, as she felt for his plight having been in a similar circumstance in the past, before she became a witch.

Perhaps Bernkastel has to abide by a certain set of rules to enter Beatrice’s territory? Maybe one of them is not leaving until the game concludes, a condition she saw no issue with at the time, as she came to avoid boredom and see Battler to victory.

This next blue may seem obvious, but it’s important to get down on the record.

However, Battler was bait, the game was begun on orders from Lambdadelta and the true purpose of the game is to force an endless tie to keep Bernkastel within arm’s reach of Lambdadelta, so she can play with her for as long as possible.

Oh yeah, another important thing. It is possible that Ange’s future is not the world of Post EP3. It could be another world, Eva could have been telling the truth.

On a similar note, it is possible that the description of the scene that the police arrive upon (that we read in the end scroll of EP1) is not the aftermath of EP1.

They could both be unseen routes, they may not correspond to any of the EPs.

I should be able to reread the last three twilights of EP 1 sometime tomorrow, I’ll post back here when I do (so in about 24 ish hours).

Since no one else that was living could possibly be in the room that wasn’t the killer, only Maria could be the killer, the Red truth completely denies that Maria is the killer. I could only come up with one theory that could work around this (partially relates to my previous theory, about Beatrice being a split personality). Maria has Dissociative identity disorder, which was caused by emotional and physical abuse from Rosa!!!

This is backed up by the signs she shows when she is talking about Beatrice and insulting everyone, Battler and the rest of the cousins also made comments that support this. Also her mother, Rosa shows heavy signs of bipolar disorder throughout all the episodes thus far, Rosa having a mental disorder increases Maria’s chances of having one too. One of Maria’s split personalities (most likely MARIA, who tortured Rosa) was somehow convinced to commit homicide on the three adults in the room. They were all probably caught off guard and at least two of them died before defending themselves. After this the murderous MARIA reverted back to the old Maria, and sang while facing the wall, or she might not have reverted back at all and was pretending to be Maria

Although this theory involves Maria being a killer, she was only an assistant to the murders, her mother was planning, she doesn’t necessarily have to be [Beatrice] herself.

Rosa would have known about Maria’s mental illness and could have manipulated her so that she’d help with her planned murder.

The only person I could think of that would be able to do this would be Rosa herself, if so that would mean she would be the culprit or at least one of multiple culprits.

I’ll add your theory to mine, Natsuhi killed Rosa before she could enact her plan, Natsuhi than found the letters Rosa had written pretending to be Maria. Natsuhi used Rosa’s plan to murder the entire Ushiromiya family and than killed herself in guilt. THIS IS THE TRUTH BEHIND THE FIRST EPISODE!!!

The murderous MARIA may not have known about her mother’s death or maybe she still continued the plan knowing this fact but not caring.

You need more of a precedent to make such an outlandish yet specific claim. You would find a hole in the red just to solve a single set of twilights? At least find a way for your Maria DID thing to explain Natsuhi’s death, and the following appearance of Beatrice. Quite frankly, I think simply solving who this Beatrice was will already give us everything we need. I appreciate the attempt to push things forward, but your assertion about Natsuhi’s suicide doesn’t really check out.

It is stated that she was “killed by another person”. Unless you can account outside intent into your theory, it simply doesn’t hold water.

On a more constructive note, I finally finished my re read of Ep 1. That was… An eye opening experience…

Ow. That really hurt my theory.

So. There was no way for Jessica to have written the Letter which then lead to Natsuhi’s suicide by provocation. Therefore if I still want to stand by my provoked suicide theory I need to explain how the letter caused Natsuhi to want to kill herself. Also, I see almost no opening for the parlor killing to occur.

Let me throw a crazy assertion into the mix, this kinda concerns mysteries in later episodes too.

When Kanon is stated to be dead in the red truth, by some method, he can still be alive.

The main thing that led me to this (incomplete) theory is how in Episode 2, 3 and 4, Battler never sees his body.

This explains his sudden (re)appearance in Ep 2, gives us a backup plan for the Nanjo killing in Ep 3, and gives us a rather convenient culprit for Ep 4, along with someone who could have been dressing up as Beatrice in the scene where she asks Battler if he remembers his sin.

Still, I think outlining our objectives would be a nice start, which is why, I will be writing the mysteries of an Episode in lime colored text.

So let’s set an objective list for Ep 1, the mysteries presented by the story are as follows:

Who was deceived about Kinzo’s life/death status, and who is lying to us?

Who gave Maria the letter?

Who wrote the letter?

How did they imprint the Head’s seal onto the wax?

How did they conduct the first twilight? Why those victims?

How did Rudolf predict his own death?

How did the culprit know which Magic Circles to use for each crime scene? (They seemed to match Maria’s descriptions, and Kinzo’s notes in his study)

How was the closed room of the second twilight constructed?

How was Kanon killed?

How was the letter placed on the table in Kinzo’s study?

How was the killing in the parlor carried out?

Why did Natsuhi seemingly kill herself?

Who was the Beatrice Battler and Maria saw at the end?

Please keep in mind the red truths shown in the Episode 4 Tea Party, they can be a great help, though they do put some restrictions on our answers.

Alright, while I wait for a certain someone (@Seraphitic) to join the most magnificent picnic we’re hosting here, I want to talk to all of you about the basics of how to prove things. Mathematically speaking. And since logic IS maths, I think it’s relevant.

All of maths is predicated on certain truths. These truths prove other things to be true, but the initial statements aren’t inherently true, it’s possible they could be proven wrong, which would bring the entire system crashing down.

These “starting truths” that you assume to be true to start off with are called axioms. The truths that are built off of these axioms are called theorems. As theorems have been proven to be true, you can use theorems to prove more theorems.

Naturally, to avoid your axioms being proven false later (as that would cause most of your theorems to collapse), it’s a good idea to keep them as low in number as possible, and make them be things that seem true enough.

The axioms presented in Euclid’ “Elements” all seem simple enough,

  1. If we have two points, we can draw a line between them
  1. If we have a line, we can extend it either way as much as we want
  2. We can draw circles, of whatever size and position we want
  3. All right angles are equal to each other
  4. If a line crosses two other lines, check the angles that were formed on either side, between the two lines. If they add up to less than 180 degrees, then those lines are gonna intercept eventually on that side if we extend them enough.

I know the last one is a bit wordy, (Euclid wanted to prove it using the others so his axioms would look better) but all in all, a pretty good list of basic truths, right? He used it to prove that maths works out, by starting with these.

Since math is pretty cool, and it works and stuff, it might be an idea to copy it’s structure.

Also figuring out our goal in the whole of Beato’s stupid game might be an idea.

I propose the following axioms for solving Umineko:

  1. If something is said in the red, then it is true.

  2. If a scene is from gameboard Battler’s POV then it is as his mind perceived it.

  3. If a clock is shown advancing, and if the following scene is from Batter’s POV, then the scene begins at the time the clock was shown to have advanced to

  4. Scenes shown from Battler’s POV follow each other in the same chronological order as the order that they are presented to the viewer in.

Our aim is to prove that Magic is not real on the gameboard.

We don’t have to, but figuring things out about the backstory, and how things happened, along with how the metaworld works could be fun to try.

Is that an accurate summary of the game we have been presented with?

EDIT: added a third and fourth axiom, just for completeness. These are VERY basic assumptions, but technically speaking we have nothing that backs them up. I also added bonus goals.

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Of course, with an axiomic system, you want to make it so that none of your axioms are contradicted.

Yet we have a problem riiiiiight out of the gate.

The ending of EP 2 presents a slight problem.

Battler sees dozens of goat men (and people with goat masks on) parading around the entrance hall who then eventually start eating Kinzo and him

Quuuuuite magical. My first thoughts upon seeing that scene was to jokingly think, “I’ve had worse trips”.

But that’s exactly the solution! Battler is seen drinking very heavily before Genji comes in to see him. He doesn’t even know the identities of the drinks he’s shoving down his throat.

Battler is in a drunken coma on the floor of the dining hall at the end of Ep 2. Everything he sees may be as his mind is perceiving things, but that doesn’t mean they really happened!

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I accept your blue as valid.

I was typing up a post that listed all of the events that Battler saw in Episode 4, in order. Then firefox crashed lol.

So I might work on getting that back thogether next week.

For now, I have a bombshell to drop, and I want it to be discussed. At the end of the Tea Party of this episode there is a credits scene for the cast.

This is a screenshot from it:

Discuss.

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Hohoho, you found it I see.

Well, my mind’s reeling. Okay! Time to start throwing spaghetti at the wall, and see what sticks. My first observation is that it doesn’t say when exactly Ange died. The year of 1998. Off the top of my head, though, I’d say it’s one of three or four death-defying stunts.

  1. When she jumped off the roof of the hospital.

  2. When she jumped off that other building.

  3. When Kasumi’s men shot at her on Rokkenjima and she saved herself through the power of true magic???

  4. Before, during, or after any of these events. I like to have all my bases covered.

My second thought is … well … we did see her die. Or, to be more accurate, we saw the grisly aftermath. Battler, our viewpoint character, didn’t see it until the end because he was asked not to look. (I can’t help but detect shades of Izanagi and Izanami there, or Orpheus and Eurydice, but brother and sister instead of husband and wife.) We saw this in the Meta world, the events of which we’ve more or less decided to accept as true for the sake of continuing the game. So it’s true that Ange, or an Ange, ANGE Beatrice, died. More or less. As far as the game is concerned.

But … 1998? The Meta world is timeless, right? (Isn’t it?) Did dying in the Meta world make her die in 1998, too? Why, though? Is it a metaphor of some kind? ANGE Beatrice died by using the red truth, and breaking the rule not to reveal her identity. Is that a metaphor of some kind?

This is just dregging up all the time shenanigans I thought I resolved when I said to think of Ange’s existence as a thought experiment, or a Schrodinger’s Box paradox. Even if it is a thought experiment – how did she die???

The Ange of 1998 cannot die as a result of the actions of her Meta counterpart.

That would be equivalent to me spontaneously combusting because of the actions of some god I’m not aware of. It defies the laws of causality in that universe.

That’s not to say they’re unrelated, however. Her dying as she held Battler is definitely meant to symbolise the death of her physical body in 1998.

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In addition, if she could that would be proving magic exists…

Until now it seemed like someone could only ascend to the meta by dying, Battler and Kuwadorin!Beatrice certainly did. Why don’t we argue from that angle, see where it gets us.

What the three floor jump onto the car? That wasn’t that bad, and there were 3 people near by who really wanted her alive. So she wouldn’t die instantly from that (unless she fell headfirst lol) and it seems really unlikely that she’d die from her injuries due to nearby car and three people who need her alive.

Pretty sure @mimsy meant the jump from the skyscraper at the end of the Episode 3 ???.

I might be wrong but I think this is the jump from the end of Episode 3:

The problem here is clearly that Ange has jumped off too many buildings.

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This is true. I said ‘that other building’ because I got confused and combined elements of both jumps, but picto’s right, the second jump wasn’t that drastic. Too much jumping!

But it seems I was on the right track thinking about Meta Ange’s death – just in the wrong direction. Rather than saying her death in the Meta world led to her death in 1998, we could say her death in 1998 was reflected by her death in the Meta world. That hurts my brain a tiny bit less, as far as time shenanigans go. So maybe it is significant, that she died by using the red truth and revealing her identity. Admitting she was Ange – and not just Meta Ange or ANGE Beatrice, but Battler’s sister Ushiromiya Ange – would be the same as admitting she was the Ange who died in 1998. Did she die in the beginning, when she spoke with Bern and leapt off the roof? That makes sense – we’ve been bandying about the speculation that someone has to die to get to the Meta world in the first place, and that’s when she became Bern’s piece. Is everything that follows in the world of 1998 just a ‘what if she lived’ thought experiment? What does everyone think?

There could be a fragment where she died leaping off that building, and then another fragment where her miraculous survival occurs. She ascended to the meta we know after her death in this first fragment.

Easy.

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It doesn’t really add anything to solving the mystery, but it is fun to participate in these discussions on the metaphysics of Umineko :stuck_out_tongue:

I think the requirement of needing to die to enter the Meta is unfounded, however.

Just finished Episode 4. I’m still confused and trying to piece together the story, but I’m just going to throw a bunch of theories and observations out there in hopes that one of them is correct (they’re all probably trash anyway).

One observation I made that I don’t think can be ignored is that in the first twilight across all episodes, there are 5 people who are not killed. These 5 are Jessica, Battler, Maria, George, and Nanjo. This can imply two things. Either the culprit (or at least someone involved) of the first twilight is one of them, or the killer has a reason to not kill these 5 specifically. It can even be both. The first twilight is a huge mystery, and most people’s alibis for this twilight are very sketchy, so the perpetrator can be mostly anybody. Although, I don’t remember Nanjo ever having a solid alibi for these twilights, or most anything really, so I’m saying right now that Nanjo is a very suspicious character (not to mention that his body is never found afterwards in Episode 3).

This leads me to a theory. If we assume that the killer or killers in the first twilight had a reason not to kill those 5, I can come to the conclusion that the perpetrators of the first twilight are the same across all games on the basis of consistency. And with this I am also saying that, yes, one of the perpetrators could have theoretically died on the first twilight. I have my doubts that this twilight in particular could have been done by one person considering how they essentially kill 6 people, all of whom I assume are killed around the same time. I also have more reason to believe this theory. We know from the letter that were sent to the surviving families that at the very least some of the murders on the island were planned beforehand, and also that the perpetrator had the Kinzo’s ring before the family conference (though it can also be said that Kinzo wrote those letters himself and died between their sending and the conference). Because some of the murders were at least planned, we have to ask which murders were planned. And to this I say that the first twilight was planned. This is mainly for the fact that it’s the twilight that sparks everything, and also because it’s the most consistent of all the twilights. The twilights don’t always happen in order, and with the second twilight, there isn’t a stake for that one in the third episode. It’s very odd, so the first twilight stands out to me as something more calculated and planned. Of course there are flaws to this argument such as how the 5 people not dying specifically could just be a coincidence, but I’m still throwing this out there.

I also have a bit of another theory to throw out that is a bit more credible and can go together with my previous one. The person who “killed” Kinzo across all games can only be Genji, Nanjo, Kanon, Shannon, Krauss, Natsuhi, or Jessica. I say this because whoever burned Kinzo’s body must have known Kinzo was dead. They must have either burned the original body (meaning they knew where it was and that he was dead) or prepared a double (thus knowing he was dead). They must have also had access to his key, since the key to his room was on his burnt corpse, at least in the first game. However, Krauss, Natsuhi, and Jessica’s knowledge of his death isn’t certain. We don’t get much confirmation that they know he was dead, so the possibility stands that the servants were hiding it from them (though it wouldn’t surprise me if Krauss and Natsuhi knew). But the reason I’m saying the servants definitely know he was dead was because it’s shown in Episode 2 that the only people Kinzo allows to see him are servants who bear the one winged eagle.This is why I’m intentionally leaving Kumasawa and Gouda out of this. Nanjo is also Kinzo’s doctor and friend, so it’s realistic to think that he knew about it as well, since he probably confirmed his death. This can tie into my previous theory because if we are made to believe that the perpetrator for the first twilights are all the same person, then since Kinzo was burned in the first twilight of the third game, we can say that the person who committed the first twilight can be one of the 7 mentioned above. But this is only assuming my theory is correct.

Now let’s get into my least credible theory. I don’t believe that the events of 1998 past the end of Episode 3 actually happened. However, I believe the information about the murders told afterwards was all true. Yeah, this is a stupid theory, but considering how the end of this episode shows that ridiculous reasoning like Battler’s isn’t accepted, I’m proposing the idea that the ridiculous reasoning for how Ange survived her fall of that building isn’t real either, and that her death in 1998 that was told to us in the end was because of this. Most of her story is a fabrication that is tied down to Gretel, and Gretel isn’t real. If we’re assuming Beatrice isn’t real when she is shown to have some kind of backstory, then it isn’t unreasonable to assume Gretel wasn’t real, and what we saw was a fake backstory. As to why I believe the information about the murders given wasn’t fake, I just have to say that it’s more convenient for me. As can be seen, I’m not very confident in this theory.

That’s about all the stupid theories I have for now. I don’t think we have enough information to understand who killed who in this episode, since a lot of it was muddled with the magic stuff, which while I like, makes it very hard to understand what exactly I’m supposed to believe or not. But at this point in the series, I’m not sure I know what to believe in in any of the episodes. To try to tell what’s real, I’ll just make up two rules for myself going forward. 1. Everything in Red is true, and 2. I can’t believe what happens, all I can believe in is the aftermath. Goes along the same lines as the battle in the beginning of Episode 3. If there’s no concrete evidence of magic left over, then there was no magic to begin with.

As for my thoughts on this Episode, I really liked it. I would agree with others that the Ange parts weren’t nearly as interesting as the Gameboard, but Ange’s parts did have their moments. I was really into the Maria and Sakutaro story, especially in the beginning. Although, I do think the things got incredibly slow at points, specifically when Maria was teaching Ange to use magic is when I was bored out of my mind. I also found the first time Ange’s storyline interrupted the gameboard to be very poorly placed. I was far more interested in the gameboard at that time, so having it interrupted wasn’t a pleasant experience at all.

The whole Krauss vs. The Goat scene was really really weird. Very similar to the Kyrie vs. Leviathan fight in Episode 3. The whole death flags making Krauss’ power higher felt out of place, even within this series. It makes me wonder just how magic works within this world. Or it could just be Ryukishi doing that because he thinks it’s cool. It can go either way. But the rest of the magic was interesting, I just don’t like the scenes with weird explanations, other than the basic stuff we usually get.

That’s all I have for now. You’re free to reject all my stupid theories now.

Edit:
Don’t know if these have been proven false with the red truths, so I’ll write these in blue to try and explain things happening in the episodes.

Not everybody on the island is who they say they are. A person who is said to be on the island could be dead beforehand, so red truths can’t apply to this individual when the person they’re impersonating is confirmed dead.

Shannon and Kanon aren’t the characters’ real names, so the red stating them as dead means nothing to their status.

This is a bit of a bold one, but considering wording, I’ll put this one on here.

There are no more than 16 humans on Rokkenjima. This will probably eventually be answered, but until they stop saying “no more than,” we can keep reducing the numbers.

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@pik3rob

No that’s very compelling actually! It stands to reason that the one who organised Kinzo’s ‘death’ was somebody who knew about it, narrowing the list down significantly. And we know that Kinzo was killed in the first twilight of Episode 3. If we follow your reasoning about a consistent culprit, does that mean you suspect Nanjo as the original perpetrator behind everything?