Board 8 > Umineko Playthrough Topic Part 6

(+) Yeah! (+)

yessss, letters are my favorite

i don't know why, i think it's just because the simplicity makes it more baffling. with the murders, i have no clue what sort of weird obfuscations have happened with people's status/alibis/location etc, so there's lots of options

but when these letters appear, it's usually just so clear where everyone is and why no one could make a letter appear. the mysteries i'm looking forward to seeing the answer to the most are the episode 1 letters (appearing in the study literally right in front of everyone's eyes?!) or the episode 2 one that appears when only battler/rosa/maria are in the living room. and the episode 5 dining room letter.

ALSO:

the letter says battler's corpse has moved.

but just a few moments ago, battler confirmed in red that all corpses were where they were discovered. and everyone was in the two rooms. and yet, between then and now, the corpse is gone? hm hm hmmmmmmm

i think the game is still likely messing with us in terms of who has the upper hand in battler/erika.

it portrayed it like erika fooled battler and he was a sap who gave her 3 seals when he shouldn't have.

but... well, first of all, just on a surface level, whether he was being fooled or not, he made the choice to give her that, knowing it was a big boost. but even then, i'm not convinced he got tricked. for all i know, he wanted her to have them because he knew she'd use them like this and get overconfident.

hm. we're talking about the possibility that battler was still alive when first found dead.

my bad, i don't think we ever confirmed in red the 6 were dead.

ange and featherine talk about how magic can only be used for things that actually happened. the super fake illusions are just lies, and the magic with an observable result can only happen if something physical caused the result, and therefore magic is a lie.

i'm just noting this, but we've already covered this theme/idea in depth so i have nothing more to add.

if only it was possible for me to be ahead of the curse at solving the actual mysteries instead of just the themes.

the game is actually very strongly taking the side now that there's always a "true" "trick" and an "illusory" "magic"

urgh. the more this talk goes on, the more i worry it really will be the situation i feared - that the killer's motive makes no sense. if the killer in episode 6 is battler or anyone else and they fake their own death and create 6 closed rooms and stuff just because "it's a game and it's what the gamemaster wanted" it feels cheap

like i remember back during episode 1

when i started speculating

"who is the killer. what is their motive. is it family? money? actual belief in witches? why are they killing in line with the epitaph? what are they covering up?" etc

i want these questions to have satisfying answers. in episode 1 at least, but preferably still now. i don't want the answer to be "the killer in episode 6 is battler and he's the killer because he just has to be, we've invented a backstory where he learned he's an abandoned baby and wants to kill everyone because it made him angry, and he follows the epitaph just because i said so", y'know?

erika feels she's trapped battler by retroactively placing tape on battler's death room

the other characters are all acting like this is a big move and battler will be in trouble

(because theoretically, his plan involved battler waking up and placing the letter himself. if he takes it back, it's admitting that it's because the seal would've been broken and that he's not dead)

so either he keeps it in, in which case the seal will be observed to be broken shortly, he takes it back, in which case you assume that's why, or he's forced into a logic error if he says the seal is intact.

but

battler himself hasn't admitted this is a problem yet. perhaps he was aware of this and in fact knew erika would use the tape for that. he'll be cornering erika quite heavily if he comes in now and says "no retroactive change needed. no logic error. the seal is intact." and i hope that's what happens.

nope, apparently not.

battler's inner monologue admits he was tricked and that his plan was for battler to be alive and sneak out.

and now he'll change the story so someone else sneaks out and does it instead.

in other words, like i feared, the motive of the killer/accomplices in this episode likely makes no sense and is being made up on the fly as a justification for whatever "physically possible" scenario the gamemaster can come up with.

essentially, if the motive of the killer doesn't matter, and the killer is willing to do incredibly unreasonable things that no killer would actually do (i.e. fake their death, create closed rooms, follow epitaph, hide letters, etc etc) then this becomes less of a mystery and more of a lateral thinking puzzle

i hope you guys understand what i'm asying

2:34pm

like, for battler's original plan to be that battler was apparently the killer/accomplice: what's his motive?

i'd need a lot of convincing to believe that battler was not only okay with murdering a bunch of women including an 8-year old girl, but that he also, as a 19-year old, was able to plan 5 closed rooms and fake his own death and then go through the trouble of placing a letter to fool a 10-year old detective that showed up that he doesn't even know (since the piece battler shouldn't know that erica is actually a magical witch, he should just 100% believe she's a stranger from a boat crash)

you know what i mean?

anyway, the most narratively satisfying thing here, after the build up, is for the lights to turn on and battler to reveal that there's no one on the bed

that would really up the stakes, because battler would be getting out of an impossible situation, and it's really escalate the situation that's been built up

if battler's body is just still there it's pretty unsatisfying

okay, cool, we are doing that.

so even though battler really did mess up, apparently (at least, so his inner monologue and his dialogue to beato/lamda says), he now has a real plan for how battler's body could've left this room depsite it being completely sealed.

that's interesting.

i mean, i certainly can't come up with a lateral thinking answer to "how could a person/body leave a room which had its doors and windows sealed with tape that wasn't touched"

i would love it if we entered the bathroom and battler was just in there taking a shower

"huh? what are you doing here? dead? what? i was just taking a nap earlier. i know i'm a heavy sleeper. anyway, i couldn't find anyone so i took a shower"

so we're assuming that battler got up and set the bathroom trap and then escaped somehow

that doesn't have to be true though. some other person could've moved battler's corpse and set up the trap.

but the game seems to want me to trust that it really was battler, so, ok.

it'd be pretty silly if battler was hiding in the closet, so that won't be it

"Ushiromiya Battler does not exist in the guest room"

theoretically this isn't being silly with "well he's not really battler because he's not the son of asumu" shit

oh, ange says he must've been hiding in the closet and then left while she was distracted with the bathroom

well

yeah, that's really the only thing that makes sense, i guess.

would've been unlucky if the closet was checked first though...? not very reliable...

man, this ability to retroactively change your past moves and have them still update in realtime is a bit weird.

anyway, speaking of those magical chained guest room scenes from earlier

they are a perfect representation of battler now - stuck in the chained guest room, unable to leave, unable to touch the chain from the other side

again, i wonder if this is just metaphorical or if there's more to it

why is battler so freaked out here when just a moment ago he confidently said he'd checkmate in 2 moves

apparently the plan really was to have battler escape from the closet

and now he's in the position of solving this lateral thinking puzzle himself

i mean, this game isn't about to end to a logic error

the second trial still hasn't happened, and it was set up.

Oh.

I see.

I see where this is going.

That magical chained room was showing the future.

Battler is about to fall into logic error

And will go there now. It's the "hell" he'll be trapped in, as Lambda describes.

And while in that hell, he'll have to come up with a solution, which will allow him to return.

Clever. Very clever.

"It's valid." - Lambda

:o

So we're not going to that closed chained room purgatory.

Was I wrong?

Hm. Hm.

Truly truly shocking that there's actually a valid solution to this.

Isn't the only way this is possible is if the "corpse" found earlier wasn't Battler at all, but a body double/fake?

That hasn't been ruled out by red, has it...?

oh, okay, the answer apparently was that any of the other 5 were also not dead and they switched places and were in the closet now

uh

yeah, that's an answer i guess

kinda silly >_>

i don't find it super satisfying

again, it totally breaks suspension of disbelief that any character is going to have a reasonable motive or chain of events other than "they did it because the game master decided they have to"

why would in-universe kyrie every feel the need to go help battler out there, she'd ahve no idea erika was gonna examine it or that erika had used tape or that she'd reset a chain or whatever

y'know?

anyway, dlanor reds it out and now we see what happens next

but i have to be honest, the game has lost me.

greato equaraiza is za desu!

its a miracle i ranked dlanor so highly when its impossible to take her seriously during this lmao

lmao

erika killed all the victims again to make sure they are dead

my god, that's hilarious

i'm not a fan of the fact that this is all just a lateral thinking puzzle instead of a true murder mystery, but i'll admit this is funny

haha. this chapter is silly.

beato believes it was all a prank and none of them were dead for real, they were just messing with erika, not realizing she was actually a supernatural being.

okay, that works, actually. it's silly, but it's not bad as far as motives go.

and then erika murders them for real, retroactively. lol.

but.

battler can still change the story.

NOW battler will be trapped in logic error purgatory and have to come up with another way out...? one where the people really are dead...?

beato's explanation would explain why krauss and hideyoshi and rudolf go along with everything erika says though, if they were playing a trick on her =P but they don't seem like great actors, i must admit.

still, the point of this was to show battler understand beato's game. unless all 5 of beato's games were pranks, this wouldn't exactly prove he got it.

https://snag.gy/qn0iBL.jpg

god

i have to admit

she's really dialing up the over-the-topness enough that i'm honestly starting to be amused by her instead of just 100% disgust

hm. erika says that if battler cuts himself up to fit through the pipe (lol) then "both siblings will end up the same".

...what "both siblings...?"

anyway, i was right about the purpose of the magical guest room scenes

i like it, nice foreshadowing. i'm a big fan of how that was handled.

theoretically, the only way the game moves forward is, after all, if we can explain how someone gets out of a room with a chained door, on their own, without displacing the chain.

truly this is one of the most difficult seeming puzzles of all time

can umineko give me a satisfying answer?!

because the last attempt wasn't very satisfying

https://snag.gy/XVFUGK.jpg

remember how i talked about how this game has a theme of society perpetuating bad things to each other because of cycles?

upper social class continues to judge the lower social classes because that's how it's always been done

the middle sibling bullies the younger sibling because the older sibling did it to them

the kids have abusive parents and so they become horrible parents themselves

etc

lambda explains this theme here in another context. because lambda and bern went through 1000 years of hell, they want to subject others to it as well.

just like how a bully bullies others to feel strong and forget the times they were bullied themselves.

if 1000 years truly do pass... new-beato can change in that time span.

lambda is being strangely kind to beato here

we've moved very far away from the gameboard and the lovers trial

the lovers trial plotline got dropped like a hot potato lol

...nevermind, that's apparently what we're going to next.

but the game is suspended????? =/

@Zyxyz0 , I don't think your archive of topic 5 is correct. It seems to be stuck on 10 posts per page, so it covers page 1 to 10 out of 49 pages.

if the gameboard is still going while battler is in purgatory... then does that mean it's part of battler's plan anyway...? i don't really get it.