Umineko: When They Cry/WMG/Open Two

=== This is a list of Wild Mass Guesses which are still possibly true. Just for Fun and silly guesses go on the silly page. If a WMG is Jossed, please move it to the jossed page, if it is Confirmed, please move it to the confirmed page. ===

Please add new entries to the bottom of the page.

Bernkastel is The Virus
This is generally hinted at throughout Umineko, but I'd like to enumerate it. We know from Higurashi that "Frederica is not Furude Rika", but we also know that Bernkastel is probably an agglutination of all of those dead Rikas throughout Higurashi. The theory is that Bernkastel and Featherine are extremely powerful possible versions of Rika and Hanyuu and that, like an opportunistic infection, they forcibly write themselves into kakera after kakera (possibly overwriting the personalities of the existing Rika and Hanyuu). Either the Higurashi universe is one of the kakera that escaped this treatment or the Rika and Hanyuu we all know and love are the ones who went evil in the first place.
 * Poison oak or not, that one might be correct. R
 * Y T
 * B Shame on you if you thought so. B B N b
 * B Shame on you if you thought so. B B N b

Kumasawa wrote the bottle messages.
The writer of the messages had the same handwriting as the "Beatrice" in Maria's Grimoire. Maria claims to have met Beatrice every year on the island, so it stands to reason that they were there that year too. Kumasawa appears to narrate certain details, ones that would otherwise go unexplained for several games, a few times early in the first game as if she were the one telling the story.

Maria really does understand (somewhat) the things Battler asks her to promise to him. She promises anyway because she developed a crush on him when they met at the airport.
Uu~ Maria doesn't have many human friends... But Battler understands Maria Uu~

Uu~ Everything's more fun when Battler's around Uu~ Battler even knows about Halloween Uu~ If only Maria could get Battler to believe in magic Uuu~


 * No. Just...no.
 * Aw, you're no fun... Uu~! Maria's glad to see Beatrice again! Maybe now... Uu~? Why is Battler paying so much attention to Beatrice? Why has Battler forgotten about Maria? Uu~. Maybe it's not such a good thing Beatrice's here. Maybe Beatrice needs to sleep forever. Maybe Battler should join her if he likes her so much.
 * (Respondent here.) Y I If you want your petty revenge against your cousin and your teacher, you will have to go through me. Do you think you can defeat me? Come, try to satisfy me, MARIA USHIROMIYAAA!!!
 * (Other respondent.)
 * (Respondent here.) I meant what I said, arrogant child. If you want your revenge, you must defeat me in this game. Also, what do you mean by the thirteen...? * looks at a bonfire, thirteen bodies can be seen burning* Oh, those? Thought it wouldn't be respectful to leave them lying around. Your helper? You mean that person? * a faraway gallows has someone hanging from it, but neither the gender or the identity can be verified* Heh, not their first time doing it. Harumph. Arrogant girl. Know your place.

An explanation of the first twilight and Maria's death as derived from Maria's dream
Isn't it odd that most of the first-person statesments in Maria's dream actually belong to Rosa? M

I We maybe have him saying that she needs to get away from Maria because Maria's not Maria anymore(I'm debating how much dialogue is relevant if we're removing narration from context. My leaning is to include it only where it is on the same screen as first-person narration). Then things start to get weird, where her head hurts a lot in connection to the "uryus", he leaves a hole in her hand, and then she denies him and he disappears (I forget whether this bit is in first-person or not). R

O T T b Honestly, I would look at something like Ketamine - one of the "date rape drugs" - since i In fact, as further evidence, I submit to you a section of That Other Wiki on Ketamine - my own speculations in red & blue:

"Ketamine produces effects similar to PCP and DXM. Unlike the other well known dissociatives PCP and DXM, ketamine is very short acting, its hallucinatory effects lasting sixty minutes when insufflated or injected and up to two hours when ingested, the total experience lasting no more than a couple of hours.[71] W H Like other dissociative anaesthetics, hallucinations caused by ketamine are fundamentally different from those caused by tryptamines and phenethylamines. At low doses, hallucinations are only seen when one is in a dark room with one's eyes closed, while at medium to high doses the effects are far more intense and obvious.[72] I

Ketamine produces a dissociative state, characterised by a sense of detachment from one's physical body and the external world which is known as depersonalization and derealization.[73] R At sufficiently high doses (e.g. 150 mg intramuscular), users may experience what is coined the "K-hole", a state of dissociation whose effects are thought to mimic the phenomenology of schizophrenia.[74] Users may experience worlds or dimensions that are ineffable, all the while being completely unaware of their individual identities or the external world. Users have reported intense hallucinations including visual hallucinations, perceptions of falling, fast and gradual movement and flying, 'seeing God', feeling connected to other users, objects and the cosmos, experiencing psychic connections, and shared hallucinations and thoughts with adjacent users. John C. Lilly[75], Marcia Moore[76] and D. M. Turner[77] (among others) have written extensively about their own spiritual/psychonautic use of ketamine. (Both Moore[78] and Turner[79] died prematurely in a way that has been linked to their ketamine use.)"

W

S B R T

In fact, I It's not proof because she could have been killed in another room with the dining room with the dining room itself sealed off from her sight. H

a

b

Now, here's why I don't think she could have been led into the dining room if they were killed with their heads smashed at the time we think they were - s S Sure, that could have happened, and she could have been injected with something, but in that case, you'd expect to see some sort of evidence of a struggle, like an injury. T

S

T Doesn't necessarily need to refer to Rosa here. I would have it as any of the six adults, because remind me how they were found again? Oh yeah - T I will say this, though - i

Now then, I know what you're thinking - "Well, then, why did Gohda and Kumasawa say that they saw the faces half-smashed before running to the guesthouse? A

As for why this goes against Kyrie's first-person statements? Frankly, I I think that K T is suspicious enough, but when it' s looking more and more likely that Shannon and Kanon are one person (see statements about that theory - connects to the sixth game too), the fact s makes me even more suspicious. T

A S

There may be some other hints that can be gleaned from this scene, but the fact that it was so non-sensical in the flow of the story just makes me want to root around in it even more.

So. Stakes.
They're shafts about yea long. In appearance disgusting, even 'demonic'. Viciously pointed ends. They embody all that is sinful. They're partially autonomous, and might leap up and try to pierce a person even if their bearer doesn't wish them to. They talk at length about how ecstatically pleasant it is pierce flesh.

All of this was extrapolated from one phrase in the epitaph about how body parts should be 'gouged' somehow.

Conclusion: Our killer has issues. LOTS of issues.

Battler has lost his magic immunity
With Erika promised to take over the role of detective, Piece-Battler's lost any privileged status as 'narrator' or 'witness'. His testimony is no longer any more reliable that any other piece on the board. Because of this, the polite fiction that he never witnessed any witchery in action because of his abnormally strong magic resistance is no longer necessary.

The next time Battler slinks off on his own, he's going to turn on the lights and BOOM! Piece-Beatrice right up in his face. She'll give him a hug and a kiss, shake his hand and then slap him across the cheek. "Beatrice: I can't say how long I've wanted to do that."

Then she'll pull his face off, just for old time's sake.

Battler should be feeling a lot of deja vu right about now
There is a woman who loves the Ushiromyia family very much. When she saw the terrible events that would follow from Kinzo's death, she swore to do anything to cover the truth with noble lies. She would gladly drag her reputation through the mud to preserve the honour of the Ushiromiya.

She never imagined how bad things would get, though, and the strain of constant deceit tears her apart. Worse than that, the witch of miracles has sent a detective against her who constantly attacks and belittles her, pokes holes in her deception and treats her with a chilling lack of love. Worse than that, she's acting under duress, and an enigmatic mastermind sometimes orders her to perform acts which further slander her -- but if she refuses she will suffer the worst of all possible fates. Pinned on a board, she is gradually worn down until at her lowest ebb she breaks and confesses her darkest and most private shame. But it's all too late, zenzen dame da -- the torture has broken her and she'll never be whole again.

Quickly: did I just describe the events of Episode 5, or Episodes 1 to 4?


 * This is why I think Natsuhi is at least one of the most appropriate successors to the headship, despite marrying into the family. She ties with Eva for the position, IMO.

Beatrice is actually three people.
Meta-Beatrice, that is. At least, the Beatrice from the first four or five games; whether this still applies to her is debatable, but...meh. Anyway, she is composed of the three Beatrices who existed: The Beatrice Kinzo loved but could not marry, the Beatrice whom Rosa met, and piece-Beatrice, who is also loli-Beatrice from her dream in the beginning of Ep3. Kinzo did indeed love a woman named Beatrice, but that Beatrice died shortly after giving birth to their illegitimate daughter. Kinzo had this girl raised in Kuwadorian so he could keep a part of his beloved Beatrice nearby without shaming the family, but then SHE died. Kinzo was now on the grip of insanity and devastation after losing the only reminder of his lover, so he adopted another Beatrice from his orphanage, a baby (or a child) with blonde hair and blue eyes, hoping to raise this girl to become his beloved Beatrice.

Now, this Beatrice was truly unique. She had a wild imagination but no playmates. She somehow learned about the previous Beatrice's (possibly by going through old diaries left behind in Kuwadorian, and looking up old photos) and these two women combined and became her imaginary friend. Then she met Battler, who promised to come back for her on a white horse (in combination with the Pony Theory). This caused her to take her imaginary playtime with 'Beatrice' to a whole new level; she started dressing up like Beatrice and even claimed that she was Beatrice herself, pretending to be a princess awaiting for her prince to arrive.

To her misfortune, however, an already unstable Kinzo took her words a little too literally. He visited her one night, and questioned her of her identity, asking if she remembered him. She tried to explain she was just playing make-believe, but he tortured her into 'confessing' to being his beloved Beatrice. After this 'confession', he then proceeded to sexually assault her, believing this was his beloved Beatrice come back to him. Alternately, Genji and Kumasawa showed up just before he had a chance to do this, but it was too late; the damage had already been done.

After this incident, she was completely broken, thoroughly convinced it was her fault for pretending to be Beatrice while Kinzo was within earshot. She had a total nervous breakdown, causing her personality to split quite literally (similar to Eva and Eva-Beatrice) and merge with the other two Beatrices. Therefore, meta-Beatrice is in fact all three Beatrices put together.

This Beatrice has all the memories of the past Beatrices who lived, but she also has a combination of the three Beatrices' personalities, which is why she keeps tripping through the Face Heel Revolving Door. One of these Beatrices (probably the first) was slightly arrogant, the other one (the second) was a bit softer yet naive and unknowing of the world beyond Kuwadorian, and the third was a slight mixture of the two childish and naive, yet jaded by her experience with Kinzo, while also holding an affection for Battler. When you mix these three personalities together, you get meta-Beatrice.
 * This theory works quite well, but I'd make one small alteration, the original Beatrice secretly survived and stayed by Kinzo's side without him knowing it. This helps reconcile the Virgilia/Kumasawa as Predecessor Beatrice argument with this one.
 * This theory is, in fact, partially correct (especially with regard to the first Beatrice), but as a whole, jossed as of episode 7.

A Brief Explanation of Time Loops
This theory arose as a means of trying to explain the time loop and meta-world without magic. It does however, require some seriously unlikely psychological phenomena. It's based on the time looping concept from Hiroshi Sakurazaka's novel All You Need is Kill. Basically, only the beginning of the first arc and the conclusion of the last arc really happen. Everything else is Battler contemplating the path that's led him to the point at which he usually dies and considering where that path will lead him.

First Arc: The murders commence as usual. Before the ninth twilight, Battler tries to imagine what will happen next. His conclusion is that he, George, Maria, and Jessica will be killed in the ninth twilight, so he tries to formulate a plan that will lead to a better end.

Second Arc: Battler commences his session of thinking and imagines another possible way the last few days events could have played out. (His thinking here is influenced by the conversation about "bad luck" he overhears Genji and Kanon having in Episode 1.) Battler realizes accepting Beatrice rather than denying her will yield different results, but when he considers the consequences, it dawns on him that that course of action will only lead to more death.

Third Arc: Battler wonders if safeguarding his own safety by hiding would be a better course of action. He also probes his mind for memories of his grandmother's tales about Beatrice and discovers he remembers more about her than he thought. His disdain for the idea of Beatrice being the culprit leads him to assume Eva, being the most blatantly obvious suspect, is the killer. He realizes that if this is so, she'll eventually get to him anyway and moves on to another line of thought.

Fourth Arc: Battler, remembering the purpose of the family conference and the original positions of the first twilight victims, realizes it is quite likely his grandfather is the culprit. This hasty conclusion is a similar error to his folly regarding Eva in the third arc, and he decides that the very idea is absurd. His thoughts lead him to piece together a theory that Kinzo may already be dead, and thus should not play into his scheming any further.

Fifth Arc: In his despair at his inability to come up with a method of survival, Battler's thoughts lapse from strategy to fantasy. He prays desperately for a deus ex machina situation to occur and save him from his fate. His hopes manifest in the idea of a "super-detective" that would have the skills to solve the mystery. It finally hits Battler that if Beatrice doesn't exist, one of his family members must be a culprit and he hates the idea, so he changes his thinking.

Final Arc (Unseen): Battler comes to an ultimate conclusion, solves the mystery, and defeats the culprit. This is the true answer to the first arc. All meta world segments can be considered metaphorical looks into Battler's mind.

Rosa was planning on giving Maria a new Sakutaro on Rokkenjima.
We know that Ange found something when she went down the stairs while talking with Captain Kawabata. We also know that things clicked into place for her regarding Maria and Beatrice. We also know that in the Golden Land, she summoned the Sakutarou plushie, which was the thing that allowed Maria to accept Sakutaro's existence again. This completely flummoxed Beatrice, who tried to state in red that Sakutaro was a plushie handmade by Rosa, and that there was only-" and then she stopped. Inference would lead us to think that she was trying to say that there was only one in the world. This, she couldn't say because what Ange had found was another Sakutaro plushie. Rosa had packed it to take to Rokkenjima, but dropped it accidentally on the boat ride over there. Captain Kawabata later found it and, although he wasn't sure who had dropped it, planned to give it back to them later. Of course, he couldn't do that, but he held on to the plushie, and after 12 years, of course he wouldn't remember it. After all, he had no one to connect it to. But Ange noticed because she knows what Sakutaro looks like, and on Rokkenjima, 12 years after the murders, she offered it there to Maria's spirit so that Maria's spirit could be at peace. Before she, herself, died.

Events in each arc correspond (loosely) to the appropriate twilight.
Sometimes literally, sometimes metaphorically...


 * At the first twilight, you shall lift up as sacrifice the six chosen by the key.
 * At the first arc's tea party there were only six people (if you don't count Beatrice).
 * At the second twilight, the surviving shall tear apart the two who are close.
 * Perhaps referring to Maria and Rosa being torn apart (in more ways than one) at the end of the 2nd arc.
 * Rather, the whole arc revolved around it: First all of the adult COUPLES, then Jessica and Kanon, then George and Shannon, and finally Maria and Rosa. In short, the theme of the whole arc.
 * At the third twilight, the surviving shall praise my honorable name on high.
 * First arc with someone finding the gold and escaping, Battler almost gives in to Beatrice due to her 'North Wind and Sun' strategy.
 * At the fourth twilight, gouge the head and kill.
 * The illusion of the living Kinzo (the head of the Ushiromiya family) is destroyed, nearly every death involves a head wound.
 * Also, Battler's mental breakdown after finding out about
 * At the fifth twilight, gouge the chest and kill.
 * The object that was piercing his chest.
 * Not to mention
 * At the sixth twilight, gouge the stomach and kill.
 * This one is more on the metaphorical side I think (it might just plain not fit, but it's close enough for me to add), but
 * At the seventh twilight, gouge the knee and kill.
 * Wounds to the knee are used to prevent a target from escaping, which is one of the themes of the episode. Will is trapped in Bern's fake Fragment, later Lion and Ange are trapped on the theater, no one can escape from Kirie, and it ends on the desperate, hopeless escape from Bern through the Sea of Fragments. And with the reveal of the love-lacking truth, it is no longer posible to escape from reality.

The following twilights are for games that have either not been translated or have not been released, added here for completeness.


 * At the eighth twilight, gouge the leg and kill.
 * At the ninth twilight, the Witch shall be revived and none shall be left alive.
 * At the tenth twilight, the journey shall end and you should reach the village of gold.

Furthermore, what someone would be given for reaching the golden land sounds like what would happen if the story ends with a happy ending, as many assume/hope it will. The witch being put to sleep sounds like it represents the illusion of the witch being dispelled.


 * This is impressive. It gets a little weak at the sixth twilight, but gains strength towards the end. Considering 07 will probably only do 8 episodes, the 9th and 10th represent the game ending and us solving the mystery, respectively.

Love and the Seven Stakes of Purgatory
. Some old books show the Plan of Dante's Inferno. These books divide the Seven sins into 3 based on Love. Considering reaching Beatrice is understanding Love, this might prove relevant.
 * Misdirected Love: Pride, Envy and Wrath.
 * Defficient Love: Sloth
 * Excessive Love: Gluttony, Lust and Greed.

Torture is Witchspeak for "I love you."
Among witches, torturing your crush Higurashi/Umineko style is a perfectly acceptable way to court someone, because it's meant to be a fun game and gives you an excuse to spend lots of time with your target and get to know them. Hence the reason for all the Les Yay between Bern and Lambda; by witch standards, Higurashi is a classic romance story, and Bern was very touched by all the effort Lambda went through to win her over. For whatever reason, Beato has fallen in love with Battler and is trying to win him over the way any other witch would: by setting up a high stakes game (the gruesome murders just make it that much more exciting). However, torture isn't romantic at all for most humans, so Battler utterly rejects Beatrice at first. Beato realizes this fact over the course of the games and starts flirting with him in a more conventional (by human standards) manner. This is why her playing is so lackluster--she wants the damn game to end because it doesn't serve her purposes any more. However, it's not so easy to stop a courtship ritual once it's started, which gives Bern and Lambda to take it over for their own purposes.

The golden butterflies are a lit fuse
The golden butterflies might actually be the light from a lit fuse, a sparkling kind. If you follow them, it might lead to some trap to injure the follower... In the end of Episode 1, I reckon the survivors saw golden butterflies and Beatrice coming out of the portrait. That scene might be about a fuse set on the portrait, which might give quite an impression when it lights up.

Umineko is to Ryukishi07 what Evangelion was to Hideaki Anno.
Think about it; Evangelion deconstructed the mecha anime upon which it was based, while Umineko clearly deconstructs most of the tropes present in Higurashi. They both include You Suck and You Bastard moments along with serious Mind Screw and meta segments. Also, you really can't deny that some Creator Breakdown is going on, what with BT's death and all.
 * But Umineko's been doing that since it started, and BT didn't die until a month before the fifth game came out.
 * Who is BT? (Doesn't know all the terminology, nicknames, or names behind the series.)
 * BT was Ryukishi07's best friend, and the entire reason the When They Cry franchise exists. Ryukishi07 originally wrote Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni for him.

Okonogi is the true culprit.
We know from Higurashi that Okonogi is a very clever and influential man. He out-xanatos'd Takano for God's sake! Looking at Umineko, Okonogi has a lot to gain from the deaths of the Ushiromiyas. He could get a payout from the Sumaderas for finishing off their greatest rivals, and the Ushiromiya fortune would fall under his control until Ange was of age. So it wouldn't be a stretch to say he might have paid off one of the Ushiromiyas to betray the rest, or used a trick in the counting of the people on the island to sneak in a few Yamainu to assassinate the key players at the right points to make it appear Beatrice had commited the crime. He then has his forces bomb the mansion, eliminating any remaining survivors. He then sends Amakusa (Yamainu himself) to gain the trust of Ange and eventually snipe her.
 * K
 * K
 * U T. As for the "clues not presented" part... I got nothing.
 * O I

All the murders were done by a witch, using her witch magic
Bear with me a moment...
 * K
 * Prove that Knox's Decalogue is in effect! Say it in Red!
 * That I can't say, but I can guarantee that since H t
 * K
 * R.
 * False dichotomy! R b B T
 * Yup, pure Fantasy or pure Mystery is boring, and not Umineko-ish. I suspect that magic is just a representation of different values (this doesn't apply to kakera magic, though). Anti-Fantasy all the way, but boo pro-mystery.
 * I H Otherwise, it can simply be a certain interpretation based on Dlanor's involvement and her recitals of the Decalogue in Red. S
 * W (For example, I can say " or list the victory conditions in red, and it is inarguably true despite being a rule) F For instance, I can say " despite Higurashi explicitly breaking other Knox rules.
 * G Plus, the whole "absolute validity" thing mentioned on Umineko's Wiki. B
 * R a
 * The statement that "A" can only apply if all involved believe it. A a, as stated in a WMG further up, n b (Most of the blue statements are due to possible misinterpretations or possible mistaken beliefs. I could be completely wrong, or simply looking at it the wrong way.)
 * This WMG is becoming... A READING RAINBOW!
 * A-are we sure that it's a good idea to encourage children to read by throwing Umineko at them? "See spot. See spot run. Run spot run. See spot get his goddamn face smashed in with gardening tools and see Spot locked in the shed. See spot get into a metaphorical battle of wits with a witch that may or may not exist. Run spot run."
 * Who cares whether Knox decalogue applies or not? Knox's second states that the detective cannot use magic. It does not prevent the culprit from being a magical witch. T
 * Who cares whether Knox decalogue applies or not? Knox's second states that the detective cannot use magic. It does not prevent the culprit from being a magical witch. T

The statement "The games between Beatrice and Battler Ushiromiya adhere to Knox's Decalogue as Mysteries" must be stated in Gold to truly rule out possibilities that violate the Decalogue.
After all, hasn't Red been confirmed as being a subjective truth, which can be used if the statement is literally true from at least one given perspective? T
 * Actually, if we read the novels more accurately, we can notice that it is often said in red that "X goes against Knox's Decalogue!". But the other necessary logical step, "These events all follow Knox's Decalogue!" is never stated in red or gold. Therefore, we know that a number of things happen that run counter to Knox's Decalogue, but this might well be meaningless in the context of Rokkenjima of Knox's Decalogue isn't followed.
 * (OP here.) Precisely. How do we know that the Decalogue is absolute in this game? Until it is verified in Gold, c

It's the servants
Ok, this isn't as spectacular as many of the other theories on this page, and it's easy enough to poke holes in, but I'm throwing it out there anyway. We all know that Kinzo was obsessed with reviving Beatrice, and would be quite happy to sacrifice his family if he thought it would bring her back, but he's far too busy being dead to be responsible for the murders. This, however, doesn't stop him from leaving instructions for his furniture detailing the ceremony that needs to be carried out. Genji is repeatedly stated as being incredibly loyal to his master, and believing he would kill for him is not a stretch. Shannon and Kannon were both raised in an Uroshimiya-run orphanage and have been brainwashed to the point that they don't even see themselves as human. Getting them to kill and/or die for their master would not be hard. It's unlikely that Kumosawa is in on it, and Gohda almost certainly isn't, but the fact remains that three people working together, all possessing master keys and an intimate knowledge of the island, could explain many of the twilights. They aren't necessarily responsible for every murder, only the more ritualistic ones, with the more crazy/opportunistic family members capitalising on the deaths to eliminate a few loose ends of their own. They choose their victims at random, and if they themselves are selected (notably episode 3) then they offer themselves, confidant that the ritual will continue as their master predicted. Other theories can still apply (i.e. Shannon faking her death in episode 1 so she can continue the ritual - episode 3 apparently shows only five sacrifices are needed, Kannon giving up his identity in episode 2 and perhaps turning on the other servants etc).

Nanjo is the murderer for the Episode 3
The first twilight is conducted by Nanjo. The reason is simple. Only servants, Krauss, Natsuhi, Nanjo, and perhaps Jessica know Kinzo is dead. The servants are dead. Jessica is with her cousins playing cards. And Natsuhi and Krauss are discussing the issue of who is actually Beatrice. He can only be Nanjo. In addition, Nanjo ensures appear just as they leave the meeting all the brothers. I suspect that Jessica helped. That and the mobile Nanjo I explain later.

The second twilight is also borne out by Nanjo. Nanjo was at the top of the stairs, so quietly he could accompany Rosa and Maria to give him air to the child. Once out of he kill them.

Nanjo leaves a cigarette in the room of Eva and Hideyoshi to throw suspicion. Kyrie falls into the trap. Nanjo follows Kyrie, Rudolf and Hideyoshi to the mansion and he killed them by treachery. Prepare all the stakes stuff and return to the guesthouse. However, Kyrie has only been hit in the stomach, so he is not dead, just lost consciousness from the shock. This is shown by the fact that Ronove refuses to confirm that all three are dead in red.

After finding the bodies, George is very upset and decides to go to Shannon for the last time. Nanjo sees out the window and close the latch of the window to hide that fact. Take advantage Natsuhi and Krauss are alone to kill them. Probably he first drug them or something, to not resist and then strangle them. He then goes to the room where the body of Shannon is and kill George.

In the last part, when they discover the bodies of Natsuhi and Krauss, Eva runs off in search of George. The number of the door should be a message between the murderers. That's why I suspect that Jessica is complicated as it is the other person alive who knows the secret of Kinzo. When Eva and Battler then run out after she that hurts Jessica, Jessica and Nanjo are left. Whoever shoots Nanjo is Kyrie, who regains consciousness and decides to kill the murderer to save Battler. Kyrie then bleeds to death. When Eva discovers Nanjo is dead, Eva concludes that the murderer must be Battler, and so kills him.

Now the mobile of Nanjo. Nanjo is silent on the death of Krauss for the simple reason that they need to pay an expensive operation to save his granddaughter. However, Krauss has already lost all the money in the family business, and the only money left on the island is gold. Nanjo discovers that fact on the day of the conference. The problem is you can not extract the gold from the island without anyone noticing, so your only option is to kill them all and then take the gold.

And about Eva-Beatrice... after the massacre happen, Eva feels very remorseful because: 1 - has killed Battler but then she doubt that he is the murderer, and 2 - In his heart he wanted the rest died to win gold medal. So believes the witch inside the murders committed in its place.


 * I'd agree on Nanjo as the murderer, but would make a couple of changes:


 * Nanjo didn't need to place the cigarette in Eva and Hideyoshi's room. Hideyoshi really was making an alibi for Eva, but it was while she searched for the gold instead of while she murdered Rosa and Maria - we got that part of the story in Anachronic Order, and Kyrie was correct in deducing Hideyoshi was alone in the room. Eva just couldn't tell about the gold when she came back because she'd look guilty of Rosa's murder since she had no alibi.


 * Kyrie, Rudolph and Hideyoshi were dead at the time we saw them (eight hours or so is an awful long time to survive bleeding out from a wound that looked fatal). The reason Ronove couldn't proclaim them dead in red was to draw attention away from the fact that Krauss, Natsuhi and George were also not proclaimed dead in red until after Nanjo's murder. Krauss and Natsuhi were killed by strangulation, which isn't really something that could kill them later to fit the red text if they weren't already dead. George was the one who killed Nanjo, then died of his wounds. He brought Jessica back with him to the parlour before dying. Jessica died there too from something that Nanjo had done to her (possibly even just giving her an asthma inhaler with nothing in it while she's having trouble breathing). When Battler accuses Eva of being the murderer, they're standing in the parlour, and the reason he's suddenly convinced it was her is that Jessica is lying there dead, with the only mark on her being where Eva shot and blinded her earlier. Eva, who's aware that for almost every murder she has no alibi, has been starting to doubt her sanity. Believing herself to have killed Jessica, and knowing that everyone else on the island is dead, she agrees when Battler says she must be the murderer, and kills him, a victim of temporary insanity.


 * Nanjo's motive is that he's being paid by the Sumaderas. If all the Ushiromiyas die, Ange becomes the sole inheritor of the estate, the Sumaderas take custody of her, and the Ushiromiya fortune is theirs. Bernkastel makes note that Ange is always sick on the 3rd and never accompanies the family. She tries to justify this as being before the cut-off of Beatrice's game board, but the witches have been very cagey on whether everything is the same at the start of the games or not - the only other thing said for definite to always be the same is Kinzo's death. The real reason for this is that the Sumaderas arranged that Ange be sick. The number on the door of the parlour is the account number for the bank that had money for Nanjo's son. George somehow discovered what was going on, and painted the number there after he was injured. Regaining consciousness to discover Nanjo leading a blinded Jessica somewhere alone, he set out to save her.

Kanon and Shannon are murderers in the Episode 1
The first twilight is conducted by Shannon. She shots the 5 ones, but her gun explodes and destroy her face. Then Kanon destroy the faces of the other to hide this fact. The original plan was likely to kill all adults, but because Natsuhi locked her bedroom and Eva and Hideyoshi were gone... they make the crime look like the sacrifices to revive Beatrice.

The second twilight is conducted by Kanon. He cut the chain, kills Hideyoshi and Eva while Genji or Nanjo draw the circle. Then the act like they didn't know Kinzo is dead.

The forth and fifth twilight were Kanon faking his dead. He just have to use red paint into his chest. Then Nanjo "certifies" his death. The Kinzo's corpse probably was planted before killing Eva and Hideyoshi. The reason that Kanon fakes his death is to been away from Natsuhi survillance and kill her by surprise.

The sixth, seventh and eighth twilight were realized by Kanon. He kills Nanjo, Genji and Kumasawa. He is the "Beatrice" that Maria told the others about.

Regarding Natsuhi's death, she was killed by Kanon. He needs her to be separated from the group to do this. Probably in order to avoid Jessica being implicated. He separates her with the letter and shots her.

Kinzo is a child molester
We know that Kinzo have a girl being locked in Kuwadorian. After she is dead, he tries to ressurect her. This "resurrect" means to seek for other childrens that look like Beatrice, make dress like her and the rape their. This is probably what might happen to Kanon and Shannon. We have the following clues:


 * Erika proposes in Episode 5 that Natsuhi dressed up like Beatrice to seduce Kinzo.
 * Kinzo donates a lot of money to an orphanage.
 * He adopted a lot of this orphans as servants. Too suspicious for someone who locked up a girl all her life.
 * In Episode 2 it seems that Kanon is the "Beatrice" that repairs Maria's candy.
 * Kanon obsession of being "just furniture". Kinzo made something really gross to him.

Nanjo, Genji and Kumasawa were the ones that take care of this child in Kuwadorian and were "her parents", because for Kinzo, Beatrices is her lover, not her daugther. Because Beatrice died and also because of the attitude of Kinzo, they look after for revenge. In fact, Genji, Kumasawa and Nanjo are the demons Ronove, Virgilia and Gaap who helped Beatrice.

However, Kinzo died before Nanjo, Genji and Kumasawa could have a revenge. So they enforce their revenge on Kinzo's children, who probably knew about his secret. In fact in Episode 1 it said something like "Everyone knew the secret Kinzo's hobby". This could be his black magic hobby or... the things he done to the servants.

About Beatrice nature, she is the clamor asking for justice of all the orphans raped and abused by Kinzo with the consent of his children. That's why in Episode 5, when Battler reach the truth, he supports Beatrice.
 * Kanon and Shannon look nothing like any Beatrice. DThus, whatever the culprit's motives are they are centered around Battler not Kinzo. Also, if Nanjo, Genji, and Kumasawa knew about this, why didn't they tell the police?

It is possible for information given in red to be objectively false.
Because any given scene might just be a hallucination, we have no way of knowing that anything said was actually ever spoken. Do we have any way of knowing for sure that red text can't be hallucinated? For that matter, maybe this is all just some absinthe-fueled scientific romance fantastic mystery nightmare Battler's having
 * No, it is not allowed for Battler's perspective to be hallucinated, falsified, misinterpreted, or otherwise wrong. As the Detective, the narrative is bound to make him reliable so that the player can construct the mystery. Therefore, Battler's perspective in the Meta-World is 100% reliable.
 * Except in EP4. when he's not the detective but Erika.
 * Well, yes, on the Gameboard, atleast. Either way, the Meta-World can be taken at face value, due to it's role as a narrative device.

Erika can't detect her way out of a paper bag
She's an actress, hired to put the screws on Natsuhi. Kyrie feeds her her lines.

Seriously, people like that don't exist in real life.
 * Yes. How could a Great Detective, something I've only seen in fiction, possibly exist? She must be an actress!

There is no enemy anywhere
Beatrice scapegoats herself to spare the family. Lambda is Beatrice's patron, and therefore complicit in her secret and terrible innocence. Bern talks a good game, but only seems to take actions that force Batter into a deeper understanding of himself. Dlanor is an unshakable pillar of moral character in a crooked world.

Hang on. We've no villains left; just a cast of actors in the make-Battler-a-better-person psychodrama.

Any letter claiming to be from Beatrice, that isn't checked against Maria's diary is a forgery.
Maria claims she meets Beatrice everytime she comes to Rokkenjima. Furthermore, her diary contains a bit of Beatrice's handwriting. The message bottles and money letters contain the same hand writing, and thus it is reasonable to assume they were written by the person Maria calls Beatrice. On the other hand Maria initially mistakes EVA for Beato, meaning its likely that anyone could claim to be Beatrice and she'd believe them (unless they acted too differntly from Beato) and thus believe that anything they gave her was from Beatrice. To summerize, the money letters and message bottles were written by the person Maria meets every year, and everything else is written by another person or persons.

EVA is and always has been the Big Bad
The mirror that prevented Beato from regaining her powers was created to seal the various evil spirits on Rokkenjima. These spirits eventually fused into one being, the black witch/EVA. However, at that point she was only able to influence people, in order to be able to directly interact with the world she needed people to commit murder on Rokkenjima and thus manipulated the killer(s) into killing the victims.
 * ...Doesn't that go against the "No magic is responsible for the murders" thing? Also, what does this make Lambda and Bern?
 * It does go against "No magic is responsible for the murders", and is thus Pro-Fantasy. However, it is not inheriently Anti-Mystery, since it only attributes the killer(s) motive to magic, the actual crimes had to be carried out via mundane means.
 * As for Lambda and Bern, they are simply Voyagers. Lambda's position is Anti-EVA, as long as the games remain tied EVA will be unable to directly interact with the world. This is most strongly supported by episode 3 where any conclusive result would of lead to EVA's victory If Battler proves the culprit is human, then she becomes able to interact with world due to the above. If he accepts that the culprit is Beatrice, she becomes able to interact with the world since at that point she is Beatrice. Bern's position is Pro-EVA, if someone proves the culprit is human then EVA becomes able to interact with the world.

Maria is the mastermind, but she has an accomplice.

 * Motive: The Freudian Excuse taken to a logical extreme; Everyone knows of Rosa's abuse of Maria, but is either doing nothing about it or actively covering it up. And Maria found out about the cover-up. Maria, not exactly of sound mind, decides to exterminate the family that has betrayed her.
 * Opportunity: Well, duh.
 * Means: Ah, that's the rub. Maria lacks the size or strength to do it all herself, but someone has become The Atoner in regards to Maria and is actively helping her, and that person is Eva. Her maternal instincts (coupled with her disgust with her relatives) convinces her to join Maria's side... sort of. Plus, Maria knows about black magic almost as much as Kinzo.
 * EP1: Eva is the one who put the bodies in the storehouse. Maria did all the rest. Eva gets second thoughts about it all so Maria disposes of the only one who could expose her. Maria is the lone survivor.
 * EP5: Eva bails on the plan from the onset, so Maria dispatches her as a part of the first twilight. Maria is the lone survivor, killing Rosa last when Maria's inner Agent Scully causes her to realize her happy paradise with mama is only a fantasy.
 * EP1: Everything goes according to plan. Maria's death is faked. Compared to the other murders, Maria's is remarkably tame. Eva leaves the island alone while Maria stays behind alone.
 * EP2: Same as EP3, except now Maria has access to a firearm and decides she doesn't need help afterall. Maria is the lone survivor.


 * Then again, it could be a different person playing the role of Maria's accomplice in each episode.


 * Maria is not Beatrice's piece. Beatrice is Maria's piece. Hence Maria's total reversal of luck between the first four games and the last two.


 * It is confirmed in Red that Maria's deaths are never faked, and that she is not a murderer.

Beatrice's Game does NOT follow the rules of Knox.
After all, it would be ENTIRELY within Beatrice's character to have the 'detective' be the criminal, considering that she is obsessed with revealing people's sins. In addition, she has ALREADY violated one of the rules, the one on secret passages. There was no way for Battler to discover the passage to Beatrice's Mansion, since the way was locked. Most of theories with Shannon/Kanon rely on violating the rule about doubles. Even the 'demon' trick violates that, if barely.
 * It's confirmed that this isn't a Knox game, but B either way.
 * How do we know that Virgilia was talking about this guy? Was it stated in Gold that she meant him? For all we know, s
 * Excellent. This, however, leaves open 'mistaken identity' and such...Now, to go through a list of family members and verify THEY are not the culprit!

If this is a mystery, the servants MUST be the killer.
Each of the servants perfectly lines up with one of the demons. The character sheets explain which. Thus, it seems reasonable that if this is a mystery, they MUST be the servants in disguise, otherwise there is no way to solve it. Admitedly, it is BARELY possible that Gaap is either Nanjo, or possibly Hideyoshi, since those are the two least-developed characters.
 * Definitely Nanjo. Hideyoshi can't "make evidence disappear" like Nanjo and Gaap can. This is, of course, assuming that the demons aren't just total allegories for non-living forces, such as guns, anyway.

Umineko X is the arc after the Good End.
After all players reconcile, Beatrice gets revived, and Battler solves the mystery and finds the gold, he cracks open one of the ingots to find that Kinzo hid his stash in them. The entire family gets really baked, and he offers Beatrice a hit. While everyone's stoned out of their gourds, someone mentions a fun game idea they had and Beato agrees that it might be interesting; Bern mentions that she knew someone who might want to tag along...
 * To expand on this: Using several EP4 above, there are ten arcs, including Episode X. In the ninth arc, Beatrice is revived in a way that merges the gameboard with the Meta-World, meeting the requirement that "At the ninth twilight, the witch will be revived and none will be left alive". Bernkastel reveals that she knew this would happen, using the magic of miracles to make sure that Beatrice would survive. She then explains that a)she wanted a good story, b)she was calling the audience out, or c)she was prodding Battler into action so that he'd solve the riddle. They then throw a massive celebration and Battler drops one of the ingots, cracking it open.

Maria suffers from Disorganized Schizophrenia.
Symptoms (from college psychology textbook):
 * Occurs at earlier age then other types
 * extreme social withdrawal
 * hallucinations
 * delusions
 * silliness
 * inappropriate laughter
 * grimaces
 * grotesque mannerisms
 * Flat or inappropriate affect

The only ones that you can argue with are delusions, hallucinations, and silliness, and you can make a strong case for them as well. This would be even more interesting if you are pro-fantasy, as it would make her a creator witch as well.

The are two culprits in the story.
There's the true mastermind, the one behind at least the killings of at least EP2. And there's also The Shion of the story, someone else who also go goes on a killing spree because of some form of trigger. Therefore, using every game as a means to determine the original culprit is foolish.

I suspect WMGs is one of the red herrings, as it doesn't follow the epitaph past the first twilight, and Maria's death could be the trigger for somebody else's Roaring Rampage of Revenge. Though The Shion is not necessarily Eva.

The previous game between Bernkastel and Lambdadelta was similar to, but distinct from the events of Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni.
Yukiwatashi-hen reveals that Hanyuu looped the live's of multiple Rika, and Bernkastel's profile note's that she is also called "the witch who knows that miracles don't occur", yet she was somehow able to beat Lamdadelta.

Some Red Truth is not the literal truth, but are instead metaphors.
Let's play with this and return to the second twilight of EP1. When "W" was said, it could be meant the corpse made by Jessica was found there, not her actual body. Plus only Kanon is explictly stated to have been killed in Jessica's room in red, the same is not said about Jessica. Nor it is ever said two people died in her room in red. Taking all this into account, theoretically, the dead body found in her room could have been Kanon's, not Jessica's. Obviously, this thinking implies Jessica is Beatrice. And there are other ways to rethink the situations.

Battler's endless nine magic cancel is due to the charm Maria gave him.
Maria said the scorpion had the power to block magic. If the charm works, then that overlapping with or magnifying Battler's natural Anti-Magic would result in this.
 * This might make a fun Chekhov's Boomerang. * Battler gives someone the scorpion* "Ha! No such feeble charm can block this! We will kill [indistinct], and then we will kill Battler! * casts spell* What the...?"

The Ushiromiya family are literal bastards.
This is based on the fact that Kinzo has six toes. Given that polydactyly is actually a dominant genetic trait (odd but true), the chances that none of his four children would have it are one in sixteen at best (if he's homozygous polydactyl [two genes for it], the odds drop to about zero).

Virgilia is Pendragon-sama
Virgilia is noted to be on good terms with many beings of different kinds and the Siestas have worked with the EVA, Goldsmith, the Eiserne Jungfrau, Cupid, and of course Beato.
 * Additionally, Pendragon-sama is implied to be King Arthur. What other series do we know that has a lot of magic and a female King Arthur...?

Battler was part of the conspiricy to hide Kinzo's death in every arc except the first one.
and B
 * First statement demoted to Blue Truth. I s

Piece!Battler was never the detective. Therefore, it is possible that he is the culprit for the first four games.
Even though it's been confirmed that meta!Battler was the detective for the first four games via Dlanor, piece!Battler has no such barrier to prevent being the culprit. On the gameboard, he tries no harder than anyone else to find the criminal and solve the mysteries. I As for the red truth that "B" this can be explained is multiple ways - either that Virgilia was referring to the baby from 19 years ago, or, again, that this only applies to meta!Battler and not piece!Battler.
 * M T
 * M

As Kyrie pointed out, it's easiest to see your opponent's moves in the endgame when there simply aren't many possible moves left. So, working from the end:

When Natsuhi was killed, Battler, George, Jessica and Maria were locked in the parlour. Red text confirms Eva, Hideyoshi, Kinzo, Nanjo, Kumasawa and Genji as dead at the time, leaving only Kanon and the people of the first twilight as suspects.

Red text for Kanon tells us he was either killed by a trap or faked his death since and. Of the people killed at the first twilight, we only know that, which doesn't allow fake corpses, but

In short, if Kanon and Shannon were responsible, they faked their deaths in such a way as to draw suspicion away from them, in line with clues we were given to satisfy Knox's 8th, and with their faked deaths, everything else falls into place.

With Shannon's faked death, the second twilight locked room is easily solved with Shannon locking the door from the inside and hiding in a closet. Kinzo was most likely placed in the furnace at Natsuhi's orders, and Maria was most likely responsible for the magic circle of paranoia. The only remaining question is why Nanjo would say Kanon was dead.

This also means that at the time the first game ended, Battler, George, Jessica, Maria, Shannon, and Kanon were alive - the six people at the first tea party.
 * Not just dead, but that the stake had gone in and pierced his lungs. He was pretty darn specific about it. T He does die in the later twilights for the first, second, and third games, if we assume that he was also in on it in the second game and was hiding or something when he was initially proclaimed dead. The fourth one is a little bit more ambiguous.

E
W Therefore,

E
A S

W
As shown above the scence where Kinzo is pronounced dead is unreliable. Furthermore, a  Thus,

E
From this we can conclude that E Furthermore,
 * One small problem. "D" If Erika was not the detective, she could not have used that to remove Battler from her path.
 * KT
 * Well, technically, Erika doesn't use the red; Bernkastel uses it for her.
 * (1st respondent here.) Wrong, sir, wrong! When Battler refuses to let Erika enter the cousins' room, she says that Red and Battler gets thrown out of her way. As the 2nd respondent was kind enough to remind me, Knox's 2nd forbids such things. But, she wasn't using the Red for her deductions or to help solve the crime, she was using it to remind Battler of her right as the "detective" but I still agree that Knox's 2nd kills such a move.
 * ES
 * Read the TIPS again. It says that Erika has no power to use the Red, due to being a human, but she has the benefit of the Red. Bernkastel is the one using the Red, but the words are coming from Erika's mouth. Still, nothing guarantees that Knox's rules actually apply.
 * (1st respondent here.) Watch EP2 again. When Erika tries to enter the cousins' room to inspect the scene, Battler stands in her way. Then Erika recites the Red Truth I originally posted, and Battler is lifted up (by nothing at all, I might add) and flung out of her way. Also, funnily enough, no one questions the fact that Battler was just thrown aside seemingly by words.
 * Again, as stated, the words come from Erika's mouth, but it is Bernkastel that makes it Red Truth, according to the TIPS. Citing the scene I'm explaining doesn't mean anything. As for no one questioning anything, this is because they're pieces on a board, and thus are subject to the will of the Game Master.
 * (1st respondent here.) I knew that bit about the Game Master's will, I just figured said Game Master (Lambda) should have paid attention to the fact that such a thing would seriously wow some humans IRL.
 * I honestly don't think she cares. She and Bern are, in Virgilia's words, "scribbling on the gameboard."


 * Who is the father, then?
 * Lambdadelta. They are witches, therefore it is entirely possible and regular rules of biology need not apply.
 * So, how exactly are a cat and a cake able to give birth to a drown victim?
 * So, how exactly are a cat and a cake able to give birth to a drown victim?

B
W I H w h Furthermore,
 * You can't use the red to propose speculation. Furthermore, none of that implies in any way that Battler is the detective. It still doesn't change that Piece!Battler had a "conversation" with "Kinzo", invalidating his point of view.
 * Not at all. It's already been supported in Red and Gold Truth. We have an absolute guarantee that Kinzo is dead before the game even started.
 * D
 * D
 * D

T
I red G, since it would be a contradiction for the wicth side. I T Battler's objective was never to prove the games are a mystery(trherefore following Knox), but just prove it was not a fantasy(that is it, there is no magic in it). All these use of the rules are just Erika and Bern using Insane Troll Logic to confuse him. The Knox rules is only required with the mystery side, i.e. Battlers side. In the games he is extremely limited in his theories since he has to come up with suggestions that work without magic. The magic side isn't limited in the same way since they pretty much only have to say this is how I did it with with magic. So to sum it up Battlers is trying to make the game a mystery (which is what Knox rules is about) but Beatrice is trying to prove that it is a fantasy (which Knox isn't about) and so Battler (and the readers) who tries to prove the mystery side is restrained by Knox while Beatrice isn't.
 * Let me come with an alternative (which might be conflicting with other information, has only read ep 1-4 and if it doesn't work just ignore me).


 * In English, please. I don't see where the WMG part is, since it was pretty obviously established that the magic scenes are metaphorical.
 * Basicly what I'm saying is that the magic scenes happen more or less as shown, but that magic requires the user to be willingly and able to perform mundane actions that would lead to the same result. For example, in order to use magic to kill Kanon one must be willing and able to kill Kanon without magic. This allows us to accept the fantasy scenes at (close to) face value while still allowing us to find a human culprit. Thereby, allowing us to have the best of both the Anti-Fantasy and Anti-Mystery views.
 * This doesn't really work. Such as, well, almost all of Episode 4.
 * I'm not saying everything shown in a fantasy scence has to be achievable by mundane means, just that the end result has to be. For example, in order for the George vs Gaap Battle, and the Jessica versus Ronove Battles to happen. The culprit must have some mundane way to acheive the following, 1) having George appear in the arbor with a gunshot-like wound to the head, 2) have Jessica make the call to Battler, and 3) have Jessica appear in her room with her head half destroyed. There doesn't have to be, for example, a mundane way to make George and Jessica kill eachother. Also, note that this theory actually makes the culprit weaker then a pure Anti-Fantasy perspective as he/she/they could mistakenly target someone who has one of Maria's charms using magic. Or are you saying that there is something that definitly happened (i.e. either confirmed in red or witnessed by piece!Battler) that can't be explained via mundane means.
 * Most of the magic scenes are so dissociated from the reality of events that they literally can't be "more or less" proper counterparts for the mundane events, and indeed some scenes might be entirely falsified with no mundane counterpart. For instance, how about Shannon's resurrection in Episode 3?
 * If she was the murderer, then presumably, she faked her own death. Battler didn't see the corpses himself - the aunts and uncles did. That scene could be George finding out that she's still alive, then both of them promptly being killed by someone else.
 * And how about the "loser flags" scene in Episode Four? And Shannon and Kanon having a Spirit Particle Jamming fight with the Siestas?
 * Regarding the "loser flags" scene, Krauss beat the crap out of someone who his trying to kill him and the others. Unfortunatly, that person wasn't the only culprit.

I T s
 * It hasn't been stated in red that Beatrice was the one who gave the key to Maria, so this doesn't work. Even if such a statement had been made, "Beatrice" refers to the human culprit. Ontop of that, while Beatrice may not be a human, she is still a "someone".
 * Regarding the key, Beato says, "
 * Does "I" refer to Beatrice herself, or the human culprit she represents? Does "I gave" even indicate an objective position of "Beato gave Maria the letter" or does it simply indicate the letter that, in a Fantasy Scene, came from "Beatrice?" Either way, the thesis of this WMG doesn't really work out.
 * The point I was trying to establish is that Beato claimed she was on the island, yet claims she isn't one of the seventeen and thus would have left room for herself in the count if she counted as a person. Your're later question is basicly invoking Knox's 2nd against the Red Truth about the key. In which case,
 * K
 * M a
 * M a
 * M a
 * M a

S
F

"Do you know what your sin is?

It isn't because you ate the forbidden fruit.

Do you know what your sin is?

It isn't because you listened to the serpent.

You still don't know what what your sin is?

Then, that itself is your sin."

"-Frederica Bernkastel"


 * T H

For example,N could refer to someone who isn't even on the island.

T
Since she isn't really part of the Ushiromiya family Red Truths referring to the family do not include her.
 * Given the emotional context and the Red Truth's established unreliability, it's more likely that "Ange's family" refers to her direct relatives: Rudolf, Kyrie, Batter.

Regarding piece-Beatrice
B ( a ( a t ( k Just because she's a mean bitch doesn't mean she's the culprit whenever she shows up.

T
 * T I wouldn't be surprised if this was canon.
 * The braun tube argument of EP5 is a very strong support of this theory. In fact, one possible solution is that U Due to Battler's anti-magic power, however, his presence(And in Game 5, Erika's) prevents the existance of magic in his presence. This makes the two worlds akin to two pieces of paper side-by-side, able to move freely with differing events, with Battler acting as a pencil lanced through both pieces of paper, forcing events in his vicinity to remain very similar, but the farther away from his anti-magic power, the more the two worlds are allowed to differ.
 * One reason Beatrice wants Battler to win is because i... a world in which she's a sadistic witch that has lived for a thousand years in cruelty and will live for a hundred thousand more. She wants Battler to win and destroy her for the sake of her own heart.

Shannon and Beatrice are both alternate personalities of Kanon's.
Prepare for TL;DR.

First off, this isn't exactly a new theory, but I don't see a formal entry for it, and especially not one as indepth as what I'm about to provide.

The basic premise also has a twist. Although the current Shannon is a product of Kanon's invention, Shannon was indeed a real person up to a certain moment in time. Shannon died for some reason (perhaps falling from the rocks when she went to break the mirror as per her deal with Beatrice, maybe she fell off that cursed fenceless cliff of doom people keep dying on, maybe she fell down the stairs in a tragic Dojikko fashion. Ultimately irrelevant), and her death was recent enough for Shannon's and George's romance to be entirely sincere. I would wager that her death happened after the formation of the romance, a few months before October 1986. Most importantly, her corpse was preserved and stored somewhere.

Kanon recreated Shannon in his mind because he couldn't bear the depth of his onee-chan, and although he couldn't see the sea past its greys, she could see its blue. This new Shannon is a sincere personality, carrying on her life. Kanon is so dedicated to preserving her existence that his own self only came out for his servant's duties, causing him to become the depleted, repressed "furniture" we see today. He runs from his love for Jessica because he doesn't want to jeoprodize Shannon's future with George.

The Servants may or may not know of this; they surely would've noticed something was up, and it's not the first time they covered a death. Besides, there's no malice, and they surely miss sweet Shannon too, so what harm is there in letting this "magical resurrection" go on? Then again, they might also play into the charade for fear of awakening the ire of the Witch...

Which brings us to Beatrice. Born at the same moment as "Shannon", of Kanon's resentment that Shannon had to die. Of Kanon's resentment that she couldn't live for Battler to fulfill her promise. That she couldn't live to be "human." Beatrice represents this resentment, and thus she is sympathized with the tragic, caged witch of Beatrice. Like Beatrice, Shannon couldn't see the world save for the blue her magic showed her. Like Beatrice, no one came to save her. Like Beatrice, she has to use the magic of lies to keep existing. And like Beatrice, she may have died on the rocks while yearning for freedom. And now...the only way Beatrice can be free, the only way Shannon can be free, is if she dies like she was meant to. Kanon's insistence on their existence is like trapping a ghost. An unpleasant half-existence.

Is it not telling that Shannon has seen the Golden Land, which can only be visited through death? Lord knows Kanon can't be the false personality. Not only is it red that no one can take his name, but there is just no way you'd bound up those ginormous tits.

Is it not telling that Kanon and Shannon not only have magical powers when almost no other real human does, but they're also "furniture" like Beatrice's magical servants?

Is it not telling that only Kanon and Shannon can see Beatrice prior to the start of the Games, due to their being on the same "wavelength?" Yea, I fucking thought so. Though Maria can see Beatrice, one could argue this is just Beatrice being the dominant personality. What is clear is that Kanon, Shannon, and Beatrice behave like typical "headmates" of a Multiple system.

Most tellingly, in my opinion, is that at the Tea Party of the First Game, we have the children who lived to the end, Beatrice, and Kanon and Shannon. Why the hell are they there? Sure, you could argue that it's because of Jessica's and George's wish, but then why exclude Rosa? The reason they're there is because Beatrice is there, and they're all parts of each other.

How can we work this into the specific Games? Let's see:

First Game: Shannon's death in the first Twilight is simple. The Beatrice personality just appropriately mutilates and places the Shannon corpse, and then suppresses the Shannon personality from doing anything. Simple enough. After this things get a bit tricky. What about Kanon's death? Perhaps he may have have a Battle In the Center of the Mind with Beatrice, and she won out. After this, Beatrice fakes Kanon's death, and perhaps Nanjo is an accomplice. He's also necessary then for placing the letter that gets the servants and Maria kicked out of Kinzo's study. Beatrice then swoops in and kills the servants, and later Natsuhi. Beatrice may also be responsible for the message in a bottle.

Second Game: Simple. Kanon's death is reconciled by Kanon's personality being suppressed, and Beatrice takes control of the body. The Fake Kanon scene is effectively Beatrice revealing herself and forcing the servants into cooperation under penalty of death. When they report to Rosa, it's Beatrice speaking through Shannon's mouth, and she's threatening the servants to collaborate with her story, to both support the magic narrative and clear Kanon's name. After this, she drags off George and Gohda and kills them, then dumps the Shannon corpse. Beatrice proceeds to clean up the rest of the murders, throws out the message in a bottle, yadda yadda.

Third Game: Shit gets messy here. Beatrice carries out the First Twilight, dumps the Shannon corpse, and then fumbles and accidentally gets themself killed. The Dojikko curse. After this, Eva Culprit theory kicks in, but this doesn't explain Nanjo's death, does it? Well, I kind've found it suspicious that Krauss and Natsuhi's corpses are removed and unfound. Perhaps Eva-Beatrice dealt with them, but Natsuhi was still alive albeit injured? She knows she has to stop Eva, but she instead comes across Nanjo and an injured Jessica, and assumes that Nanjo is an accomplice. We know that mental stability isn't her thing.
 * OP Here. Actually, after reviewing some facts, I'd like to amend this. Eva is actually completely innocent, though she falsifies aspects of her alibi so she could investigate independently, or even check on the gold. Kanontrice faked her death with Nanjo's help again and carried everything out, framing Eva. This Beatrice is the one who kills Nanjo.

Fourth Game: It's safe to assume that atleast the Beatrice personality is aware of where the gold is. She could come forward and present this similar to the Second Game, and proclaim herself as the new family head, and thus the new Kinzo of Goldsmith. Beatrice kills the First Twilight victims, kidnaps everyone else, etcetera. She has them say what she wants over the phone via threat of violence as usual. She visits George disguised as Shannon and kills him. She visits Jessica disguised as Kanon and has her say what she wants on the phone, then kills her. She gives her beloved Maria a beautiful death as usual. Pretending to be an escaped Shannon, she gets the key from Gohda, gets into the shed, kills them, and locks it back up. Battler was unable to verify that the key was still on Gohda's person, after all. Beatrice kills the kidnappees where they are, has Kyrie say as she wants under threat of violence, then puts out the Shannon corpse. Now Beatrice takes on her own appearances, tests Battler, yadda yadda. Unsatisfied with his answer, she commits suicide in Kinzo's study. What kills Battler in the end? A bomb rigged up beforehand that goes off at the tenth twilight.

Fifth Game: I'm so not even touching this due to how much Lambdadelta and Bernkastel utterly fuck with the game. Though the implication seems to be that Kanon and Shannon switch regularly and Beatrice never emerges.
 * Therefore,
 * Simple.
 * I...And to the second one... As said before, E
 * T
 * 1. We've definitely seen that words don't have static definitions. For example, witches "die" of boredom, or a person "dies" when s/he stops thinking. Just because we haven't had someone refer to "kill" specifically is irrelevant. 2. More importantly, who said Kanon wasn't murdered? And who said that it was something done to himself? He was murdered by Yasu, who is a separate person. It's just not a physical murder. Since Shkannon is all but confirmed, there is no possible way for Kanon to be murdered physically if Shannon isn't as well.


 * EP5 makes it pretty obvious that Kanon and Shannon are the same person, and hints strongly that s/he is also Beatrice. (See "Kanon is Shannon", up near the top.)

Gaap represents Natsuhi.
What is Gaap's role and power? She disposes of corpses to create Closed Rooms, hide times of deaths, and such like that.

What is Natsuhi's biggest secret? She covered up Kinzo's death and burned it in the furnace to hide how long ago he died.

On top of that, neither of them wear the One Winged Eagle, and oddity for both sides. Ding ding ding! Winner.

The "chess" game they're playing isn't actually chess, it's Arimaa.
Arimaa has some similarities to chess and it can be played using a chess board and chess pieces, but it's definitely not chess. Watch this tutorial and think of the people on the game board as Arimaa pieces instead of chess pieces and see if it makes sense to you.

Oh, and before you bring up the Knox rule about not solving the mystery with clues not presented; 1) This doesn't exactly solve the mystery, and 2) in the beginning of the 5th game, when Battler was re-examining Beato's old moves it was mentioned that the game looked like chess at a glance, but when you looked closer it wasn't like any chess game or something (sorry if I wasn't very articulate in stating this wmg but it's 4:30 am)
 * In EP 6, there's also mentionings of "not-chess." Battler also comments about pushing and pulling back.

Furthermore, from our perspecitve the endgames seem to last much longer then a minute.H
 * Additionally, Time moves differently in the Meta-world, as evidenced by the way that they can stop a scene. Presumably if they shut up for a while time will keep moving, so they have to keep arguing to maintain the hesitation of time, which is another reason for their battles to be so desperate.

E
F Therefore, a

W However,
 * K
 * ITherefore,
 * T. '
 * Therefore, a

E
 * Alternatively, everyone recognising the existence of Kinzo doesn't actually imply the existence of Kinzo at the family conference. K

D T
 * Technically, the line is B There's no Red Text guarantee that everyone must die.
 * From the novel: D So actually there is a red text guarantee.
 * That still doesn't necessarily mean anything. The Red can be wrong depending on interpretation. It's going to have to be proven wrong anyway when the ending rolls around (There's just no way we're not getting a happy ending here, let's face it).
 * That particular red text referred to the gameboard of Episode 4. 1998 Ange was from the Episode 3 gameboard timeline, and no red text prevents that Eva from surviving the island.

The remaining Siestas are not bunny girls.
When Maria received the rabbits a lot believe the Siesta sisters are based on, she didn't just receive those rabbits. It was a whole forest band of different animals. There were about 20 in all. Just the four were rabbits. The remaining are all sorts of other Half Human Hybrids. So when they started referring to the other Siestas in EP3, those are the rest of the forest band! We're going to see Catgirl Siesta, Dog Girl Siesta, Rooster Girl Siesta, Tanuki Girl Siesta (My, that one will be interesting), etc.!

In the sixth game, Lambda said that Bern used to be the piece of an incompetent game master who lost sight of her goals and created a logic error. The incompetent GM forced Bern to repeat events over and over in order to find a solution, and Bern escaped by becoming a witch. But in the second game, Bern said that she was born from "Lambda's game". Also, Lambda wrote in her diary that she had tried to help a girl who "wanted to become a god", and that girl created a new witch for her. There was no indication that Lambda was competing with someone as part of that process.


 * It's entirely possible that Featherine was Lambda's opponent. It certainly seems like Hanyuu was her piece, or something.
 * We don't know. But right now, we do know that Bernkastel was Featherine's miko. In other words, she was reading Featherine's story, just like Ange in ep6.
 * The GM was Hanyuu, she started the game resurrecting Rika, but she stopped playing until the last Kakera.
 * It's also possible that Featherine is a character invented by Lambda to be her opponent. After all, Meta Battler was Beatrice's piece originally, but that didn't stop them playing games with each other.

The closed room that produced the logic error in EP6 is not referring to the Guest Room but to the entire Mansion
If we reread all the red texts concerning the Guest Room closed room. The term Closed room is not directly appointed to the guest room. As this troper sees in the beginning of the sixth episodes, there is a puzzle in which the solution is to put one inside another. What if the real closed room is the mansion and the guestroom is a closed room inside another?
 * Your spelling needs work. I cleaned it up for you. As for your theory, i

Okonogi is the Mastermind but not the culprit
Okonogi is cited in the first game. He could easily get any pressure method for almost any characters of the game. What if he is using that to make people do things they are not supposed to do (e.g. Natsuhi in the closet in the Guestroom)?
 * Yeah, Okonogi is the mastermind, and Gohda is the culprit, he constricted his fist, and the whole island exploded. True story.

Younger Beatrice is weak against Mirrors because they reflect whom she really is.
If you take the whole theory that Beatrice=Shannon=Kanon, it also explains why Beatrice had Shannon destroy the mirror in the shrine. A mirror will reveal the true body regardless of the personality in charge -- doing so breaks the illusion of the witch on herself. Once the mirror was broken in Ep2, Beatrice became more powerful because there was no way to break the illusion in her mind. It also explains why Beatrice couldn't harm Natsuhi properly in Ep6 until she dropped the mirror.
 * Even if you don't take the multiple personality theories as true this still works! Even from a meta perspective, since she's really a Human she has the anti-magic toxin that comes from her eyes and is probably reflected by mirrors.

The story does not actually take place in 1986.
Some people have noticed things that they believe hint at the gameboard being a story told between the characters, with the metaworld usually being a warped representation of the real world. If this is true than the metaworld doesn't need to be in 1986. If it's not set in 1986 then when is it set? Probably 1992, 6 years after the gameboard's setting, after all if Beatrice is using the story to remind Battler of his sin it has to be set in the time period he did so, and since they say he sinned 6 years ago if the story isn't set in 1986 it must be set 6 years after the sin that took place in 1986.

Lambda's true goal...
Bern, listen.

I will seal you in this Fragment, through your own pride at being unable to accept a loss. So that you may hurt no one else.

You may now hold the game board though the manipulation of that monster, Featherine, but I hold the trump card.

Battler and Beato will never give up. You will never make them surrender. I guarantee it on my name as the Witch of Certainty. No matter how much you twist this story, you will not win.

Beloved~, you will not leave until you rediscover love.


 * Where's this from, I wonder? Sounds interesting.

In EP6, Battler was a terrible Game Master.
The events of EP6 were not due to Erika being a supergenius or detective or anything. The fault, really, lies mostly due to Battler not just holding, but juggling idiot balls. His biggest mistakes, from minor to major: Of course, it's been shown that Battler, while terribly clever, isn't always smart.
 * Letting Erika have the duct tape in the first place.
 * Letting Erika get away with taping his room and not tell him until it came up, when he made the rule that she would have to tell him immediately when she was applying the tape.
 * Letting Erika out of his sight on the gameboard long enough to let her kill 5 people without him knowing until later.
 * To be fair to Battler, 1) The first point was him letting his heart get the better of him, and 2) the second two points are the fault of the Game Master not being an omniscient being.
 * (OP Here) Of course, this brings up another question... if the Game Master isn't a an omniscient being when it comes to the happenings and going-ons of the island, or even the opposing player's happenings and going-ons... what are their powers?
 * And what about everything being planned in order for the "miracle" in the end of ep6 to happen? Just like Kinzo is always doing, and there is a lot of comparison between Battler and Kinzo since ep5. Well, if it is not the case, yeah, Battler is really stupid and incompetent. Basically, he was playing in the witch side like a detective, repeating everything, etc, and it can not work.
 * Actually...

It is implied that Battler planned everything out in EP6.
Not only does it make the story much more coherent, but Lambdadelta, someone who knows the entire truth, praised Battler for his "logic error", saying that he surpassed Bern as one who created miracles instead of waiting for one. And if there's a solution to it, then it wasn't really a Logic Error. It was all a Xanatos Gambit to force Beato to revive. He even goes so far as to awkwardly say, "Oh, if only the real Beatrice was here. She'd think of a solution in no time flat." And later, everyone is waiting for Beatrice to show up, to the point of calling her late! To say nothing of the Kinzo parallels of Battler trapping himself in an eternal locked room, pushing all his chips on one space to revive BEATORIICHE.
 * This is awesome and I want this to be true.
 * You are my new favourite person, and I love you from the bottom of my heart.
 * Gosh, guys, thanks for the praise. Makin' me blush here. On that note...

% just for fun

Beatrice(s) is a typhoon(s)
Fun fact. In 1947, there was a typhoon that passed through the sea of Japan, though it didn't actually hit the country. What was it's name? Beatrice. It was also the 19th typhoon of the year. Coincidence? I think not. We also know that Umineko is a separate universe from the real world with minor historical differences like Higurashi is, so perhaps the rules can be stretched here. Perhaps that typhoon did hit Japan. And, well...there were rumors of an Axis ship that was smuggling illegally obtained Nazi gold to hide which got sunk...perhaps the typhoon shipwrecked it and Kinzo found the gold? It helps that when Rokkenjima is hit by a typhoon that Kinzo declares, "You're late, Beatrice!" Out the window, then claims to give the ring to her by tossing it out into the storming sky.

An attempt to solve the first game
First twilight: The culprit first took the key to the garden shed, went around the main mansion, killed the first six victims, dragged them into the garden shed, locked them up, drew the magic circle and then returned the key to the servants' room.

Second twilight: Hideyoshi and Eva were poisoned. The culprit was able to switch Hideyoshi's jar of bathing soap with an identical jar of poisoned bathing soap. (This doesn't violate Knox's 4th as there are many well known organic chlorine compounds whose vapors are toxic to humans in even the slightest amounts.) After the culprit made sure that both of them are dead, he used a strong magnet to undo the chain lock on the door to Eva's and Hideoyoshi's room, entered the room with a gas mask on his face, opened the windows to drain the room of the toxic vapor, switched the soap jars, staked the bodies, and then exited the room, locking the door in the same way in which he unlocked it. Once again, he drew the magic circle on the door.

Fourth twilight: The culprit hauled Kinzo's body from the fridge to the incinerator;

The letter: Maria dropped it on the table;

Final three twilights: The culprit entered the parlor, and used a special crossbow to fire the poisoned stakes, one by one, at Genji, Nanjo and Kumasawa in that order; He then quickly ran out of the parlor, leaving behind in it Maria and the bodies.

Natsuhi's death: Shot by the culprit using one of the spare Winchester rifles.

Battler, Maria, George and Jessica died in the explosion.

Let's start looking for the culprit through the process of elimination; We have

( (

Kinzou is dead from the start, and in one of the later games, it is stated that neither Battler nor Maria are culprits (applies to all games); Therefore, we can eliminate them from the suspect list; Among the first twilight victims, only Krauss and Shannon didn't have their faces bashed in completely; The second twilight is impossible to fake; A red truth from episode 4's ???? states that Genji, Nanjo and Kumasawa really are dead, and that neither one of them is a murderer. Another red truth from episode 4's ???? states that Natsuhi was murdered; Therefore, she cannot be the culprit; All of the cousins were trapped in the parlor when Natsuhi died, so Jessica and George cannot be suspected; Another red truth from episode 4's ???? states that the identities of all the unidentified corpses are guaranteed and that no body double tricks are possible; That rules out all first twilight victims, and we're left with...

(x)(x)(x)(x) (x)(x)(x)(x) ((x)(x)(x) (x)(x)((x) (x)(x)(x)(x)

(x = not the culprit)

There is no 19th person on the island. (Including Kinzou's corpse) This means...

...wait, what?


 * Second twilight couldn't work that way, since from the fourth game we have red text about that twilight saying that ""
 * The fourth game red text guaranteeing the identities of corpses doesn't guarantee that anyone they think is dead is in fact dead. Although there is red text that will guarantee Eva, Hideyoshi, Kinzo, Kumasawa, Genji, Nanjo and Natsuhi had died, and although Battler, Maria, George and Jessica were trapped in the parlour at the time of Natsuhi's death, there is nothing in the red text preventing Rudolf, Kyrie, Krauss, Rosa, Gohda, Shannon or Kanon being alive at that time if they had pretended to be dead earlier. As any of the first twilight victims would still need someone outside to let them out, and as Kanon's red text only allows the options of "faked his own death" and "killed by a trap", Shannon and Kanon seem the most likely culprits.

Kanon is Kinzo.
This could be true regardless of whether or not Shkannon(trice) is true, so we'll leave that variant aside.

Kanon is the only servant, hell the only person period that Kinzo tells to solve the Epitaph. While Kinzo has been dead, Kanon did meet him, and it's already theorized that fantasy!Kinzo's dialogues happened in the past when he was still alive. (And if Kanon is Beatrice, he sort of has to know where the gold is anyway.)

Kanon finds the gold, inherits the legitimate headship and Kinzo's name, and everyone must acknowledge it in EP6. Cue Goldsmith shenanigans. It also allows for the filling of the EP6 Closed room Logic Error. "Kanon" isn't in the guestroom anymore, he's "Kinzo" now. That, and this all allows Kanon to be with Jessica without having to deal with the ire of her family. Hurray!

E
This ties into the Shannon=Kanon theory. Basically, Erika's red truth was I The red truth that followed was E If we take the word "human" to mean anything that can be classified as a human (even a corpse), and the word "people" to mean number of pieces living (or assumed to be living) on Rokkenjima, then both statements can be true, and it could very well add evidence to the Shannon=Kanon theory.

K

S
 * The person above shall no longer take any part in this game. Speaking anything but the truth in red shows that he has no respect for the rules and is therefore not qualified to play. Erika used "人間", Battler/Beato used "人". The Witch Hunt translation is correct. Interestingly, "人間" can also mean "character" or "personality" ...
 * Oh, shit, I was totally thinking of a different--nevermind, I ballsed up the context. Also way to be a hypocrite; you're not allowed to use Gold if you're not the Gamemaster. So demoted and your decision repealed.
 * T Furthermore, due to the absence of an actual Game Master, I propose the Golden Truth should be used on this EP4 page to describe events AS THEY ACTUALLY HAPPENED rather than how others remembered/presented them.
 * W Also, all of the above posters make valid points concerning the language barriers between English and Japanese, and the Gold Truth. N
 * (4th respondent here.) I don't do tea, sorry. Got any Mountain Dew? (OK, now I really think we need a chat room for EP6 discussion.)
 * (4th respondent here.) I don't do tea, sorry. Got any Mountain Dew? (OK, now I really think we need a chat room for EP6 discussion.)

The Repentance Enforcement Agencies of the Great Court of Heaven cover every genre of fiction, not just mystery.
We know there are atleast eight disticts exist, and that two of them investigate heresy involving mystery fiction (the 7th using Knox's rules and the 8th using Dine's). And of course in real life there are people who will claim something isn't a real or fair mystery (and is thus heresy) if it violates whichever rules they support. Such people exist for all genre of fiction and thus it seems plausible that the Great Court of Heaven would have districts for every genre of fiction.
 * Not gonna call Knox's 8th here, but I would like some evidence in case someone does.

Therefore, Alternativly,  and. Thus,
 * T

Battler was not playing a game of chess with Beatrice.
It's either a game of Mastermind or Battleship.
 * Or possibly a messed up Clue game.

Everybody Did It

 * It seems ridiculous, but it is REALLY possible. It would explain why, after finding the truth, Battler didn't have a grudge against Beato. Because rules-Beato is not really "the killer", there is not "one killer".
 * Or, to account for accurateness, Everyone did it except Battler, Maria, and whoever Beatrice is.
 * Of course, the three of them may have caused other people to do it, whether on purpose or by accident.

Erika used magic while trying to prove that Maria's candy magic wasn't magic.
T Y,r We are told that when Erika arrived on Rokkenjima all she had was her swimsuit and her life jacket. Therefore,s Furthermore, K, no indication is ever given that she had found or been given candy at any point. Therefore, s
 * She obviously got the candy from the same place the cousins were.
 * K
 * Cool rule, bro. Good thing I didn't break it huh?
 * Unless there is evidence that candy existed in the place the cousins were in, yes you did.
 * Since the trick was performed RIGHT THERE by the cousins, all she has to do is either grab a piece of candy from whatever candy bowl is in the room, or reuse the candy while Maria's eyes are closed. Duh.
 * Maria and Erika are the only one's who performed the trick. T, "You may have put candy under the cup while my eyes were closed. However, N Therefore, there is no evidence to suggest that Erika had access to actual candy.
 * I'm pretty sure George or someone slipped the candy under while Maria wasn't looking, which is why it worked. But if you're just going to rely on "purely conceptual candy" then this whole argument becomes meaningless as it's just a metaphor. No trick actually took place on either party's side.
 * I interpeted Maria's performence of the trick as being akin to Beato showing Battler a magical murder and asking him to explain how it could have been done without magic. The difference being that rather then simply arguing about it Erika decided to show how candy-magic could be done without magic. I really can't see how the scence would make sense if Maria actually performed the trick, or if Erika didn't perform the trick. If Maria actually performs the trick she has no reason to envy Erika, and if Erika doesn't actually perform the trick Maria has no reason to envy her.

Bernkastel is jealous of Ange.
Bern isn't nice to anyone, but she seems to have a particular grudge against Ange and takes every possible opportunity to torment her. Is Bernkastel jealous of Ange? This theory seems unlikely unless Ange's story leads to a happy ending, but why else would Bern focus so much on someone who doesn't even come to Rokkenjima?
 * Because she's easy to pick on, is more rewarding of a victim due to her emotional tirades and thus much less boring, and if Ange gets her way, the catbox will be broken and Bern won't be able to play with the Gameboard anymore. Quite literally, Ange's the one force who can really validate the destruction of the catbox, as Magic can only be acknowledged by an outside observer. Battler can prove the truth all he wants, but Ange accepting that truth will be what ends everything.

Umineko is Higurashi.
We already know that different universes exist in the When They Cry series (as explained by Bernie), but I submit that Umineko is Higurashi in a different dimmension. That is to say that in another dimmension, Keiichi is Battler, George is Satoko, Jessica is Mion, Shannon is Rika, Maria is Rena, and Rosa is Shion. However, even though the 12 characters cannot exist in the same realm together (neither can the Hinamizawa Disaster or the Rokkenjima Incident), Rokkenjima and Hinamizawa can exist in the same universe, albeit with a different cast of characters.

The witches are The Fair Folk.
Their incredibly warped sense of morality fits the bill enough, as does their desire for recognition, like Beatrice demanding the players kiss her feet and praise her name. The sacrifices are actually payments she makes to Hell in return for the use of the demons. It also explains her inability to lie, which is why she has to make up ways around whatever is stated in the red text.
 * But, Beatrice can lie and probably does so a lot. The only time she has to tell the truth is when compelled by someone using Blue Truth, and she's the one who introduced that in the the first place.
 * Maybe she only can't lie in the meta-world? I don't recall her using Red Truth on any of the gameboards so far, but I could be wrong.
 * Beatrice lies all the fucking time. She does so every time she says "I'm a witch" or something of the like. It's only the Red that can't lie. She hasn't used Red on the boards because that makes zero fucking sense.

Beatrice's body is made out of the spirits of Akujikishima.
When she was killed, in 1967 she didn't have enough magic power to interact with the physical world in any way. She thus resorted to consuming the spirits of Akujikishima in order to build up magic power. This explains why she has the same weaknesses they do. However, the spirit mirror limited her abillity to consume them, which is why she wanted Shannon to break it.

Lambdadelta considers her role as the Witch of Certainty more important then her other goals.
During the trial Battler tried to use the red truth, U, but Dlanor countered with Knox's 2nd. Lambda could have backed up Battler's claim, but didn't because of this the game (temporarily) ended in Bernkastel's victory. Thus, Lambda failed in both the Game Master assigned goal of beating the detective-side, and her personal goal of having the game go on forever. However, as the Witch of Certainty, Lambda rewards those who work hard. Although Erika's theory was wrong, she reached the conclusion that Natsuhi was the culprit though hard work, while Battler was simply told that Natsuhi wasn't the culprit.

T
Those red truths were made after six people had been killed. In the fourth game it was established that the red truth doesn't count dead people. Therefore, a
 * You're not accounting for the fact that those truths are timeless.
 * It won't matter if you counter that since, B
 * If we're going to concede that it's referring to the start of the gameboard, then the point about the six dead people and the conclusion of 23 is negated. Way to shoot yourself in the foot.
 * I never said they were reffering to the start of the gameboard, they were made after the game was suspended due to the logic error, and thus are reffering to the state the gameboard was in at 2:34 am on the second day.
 * Nevermind, you're not getting what the problem is.
 * So far, I've made two arguments supporting my cliam that the difference (if any) between humans and people doesn't matter. Both of which rely on extra people being on the island, the various Love Duels (for example Chick!Beato and Lucifer's duel with Natsuhi) are sufficent evidence to satisfy Knox's 8th, as is Erika and Dlanor's conversation when the former discovered the lack of duct tape. Argument 1: T Nanjo's murder in the third game showed that the Red Truth is time sensitive. If you would claim that the last two Red Truths of the sixth game were not time sensitive you must present evidence to support that claim. Argument 2: B I will now present a third argument which doesn't rely on any extra prople being on the island. Arguement 3: " Therefore, Erika killed those five people.
 * If there were six people unaccounted for, then a Logic Error was never even at risk. If Erika knew there were more people, her blues would have been ineffective. Moreover, The two Reds needn't necessarily be time-sensitive. While Eva-Beatrice's riddle was, there were many that explicitly weren't. Erika's red simply references how her presence boosts the initial number count by one (She can't "introduce" herself at any point but at the beginning of the game, see?) And Battler and Beato expose a part of Beatrice's heart, a little bit of the truth that supercedes all games: Even if Erika is here, the count would only be 17.
 * Erika factored in the possibillity of other people when she set up the logic error. " That being said, if I understand you correctly you're saying "Erika is the 18th person" is the truth of Dawn and End. While "There are only 17 people" is the truth of Rokkenjima-prime, right?
 * Close enough, yea. It was stated that defeating Erika would reveal a part of Beatrice's heart, after all, and Beatrice is a personification of the mystery.

The meta-reality is total bullshit.
There isn't any reason to believe that it follows reality at all, or that Beatrice is ever telling the truth. In fact, the necessity of the creation of a specific universe with its own rules to "prove" that magic is real, instead of simply doing something else magical in the real world, speaks to this. Battler could just as easily avoid all this nonsense by destroying the meta-world by telling Beatrice to fuck off behind him, what what.
 * The Meta-World was, not to convince him to accept magic.

Maria is the detective
Battler and Maria are almost never separated, so Battler's testimony is 'locked in' to the Detective's objective observations for most of the story. Maria is conveniently absent when Battler meets Beatrice in the flesh in Episodes 2 and 4, and also when he inspects the bodies in the shed in Episode 1, all events that are surounded with mystery and innuendo for other reasons.

There's precedent: Murder mystery tradition dictates that that detective be the smartest and most eccentric person in the room, and the narrator be their not-quite-so-smart sidekick.


 * U Then it was Erika, then Erika for a part of it and then no one.
 * Also, doesn't the right to examine bodies fall under "detective's authority" w Being the detective doesn't automaticly give someone "detective's authority" it simply prevents one from falsifying one's viewpoint.
 * When were we told Battler never had the Detective Authority? Putting that aside, his viewpoint was unfalsifiable, meaning he had some sort of Authority. Just because he never actively used it doesn't mean he never had it. Battler has the right to do all sorts of things he never invoked, like the Blue Truth before Episode 4.
 * Around the same time Erika revealed she didn't intend to make the detective's proclamation. Also, Battler didn't have the right to invoke the Blue Truth until Beato gave him the right to use it.
 * When were we told Battler never had the Detective Authority? Putting that aside, his viewpoint was unfalsifiable, meaning he had some sort of Authority. Just because he never actively used it doesn't mean he never had it. Battler has the right to do all sorts of things he never invoked, like the Blue Truth before Episode 4.
 * Around the same time Erika revealed she didn't intend to make the detective's proclamation. Also, Battler didn't have the right to invoke the Blue Truth until Beato gave him the right to use it.


 * In the sixth game, when Erika and Maria were arguing about Beato's candy magic, Erika asked Maria to confirm that she was telling the truth in red. Dlanor claimed refusal would be a violation of Knox's 7th. S

The Mad Staker is...
None of the parents could do it. None of the kids could do it. None of the servants could do it. A Nanjo-Shannon alliance could almost do it. Jessica could just about do it, if you assume she managed to fake her death in "Turn of the Golden Witch".

But aren't we overlooking someone? Someone very close to the heart of the case, someone who is verifiably alive at the time of each staking, someone with ample opportunity to do the deed, perhaps while the camera is away focusing on another character?

B But he makes one hell of an accomplice.
 * Battler can't be an accomplice, he's the Detective. And there's no stakings so far in Chiru, so...

Stakers and Fakers
An odd thing happened to Hideyoshi in Episode 5. In a closed room, he lay down on the bed and was run through by a demon stake.

So it's a fake: a pretend murder to pressure Natsuhi. But... there's something bizzare about it. Why would the 'fakers' stumble across the exact same method of murder as the killer from the previous four episodes? There's nothing in the epitaph to suggest goetic stake murder: only a vague suggestion that body parts be 'gouged'. What are the odds of the 'fakes' reinventing the 'real' stakings they know nothing about?

So.

Somewhere there is a cardbord box. The box contains stakes (some of them cunningly halved so as to harmlessly appear to pierce a body), stage blood, stencils (for the quick printing of magic circles) and other tricks of the pseudo-witch trade. The box was either assembled by the real deal and found by the fakers, or assembled by the fakers and found by the real one. The latter sounds slighty more plausible -- it also fits the series theme of fake things become real.
 * Why is it a fake? It can be solved the same way as the second twilight of Episode 1, or even how Natsuhi was supposed to be in the room herself - the killer was hidden somewhere in the room when Hideyoshi locked it, came out, killed him, then hid again. As in Episode 1, they didn't think to search the room, but this time if they had they would have found Natsuhi and assumed she was the killer instead!

1998 is a fantasy
Ange's persecution at the hands of a vast and faceless conspiracy, her flight across the nation in the company of her idealised boyfriend-figure, all that monkeying about with bank vaults and codes and bottle letters, did not exactly so to speak entirely honestly really... happen.

Like the man from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, she escaped a fall that should have killed her, had many exciting adventures on the run, returned home, buried her demons and... suddenly broke out into a rash of fatal wounds. Turns out the whole adventure was a fantasy flashing before her eyes in the instant before she died.

I'd hate to pull the trigger on this 'nuclear option', but it sure would explain a bunch.


 * Why does anything need to explain? The conspiracy is plausible, realistic, and in line with the Ushiromiya family's sordid financial business. Amakusa is hardly an idealised boyfriend-figure (especially since he probably killed her), the bank vaults and codes and bottle letters are real...and it's not all that odd for someone to survive a fall like that if they bounce off of soft canopies like that. Besides, the "everything was a dying dream" thing is cliche.
 * Too bad Ange's 1998 is not a detective story, huh?
 * [ A Therefore, Ange's 1998 is part of a detective story.
 * Sure, it's part of Umineko, but the entirety of Umineko is not a Mystery story; it's a blend of genres. The Meta-World is not strictly Mystery, and there are multiple Fantasy scenes on the Gameboard. The thing is, by definition, 1998 doesn't qualify as Mystery because Ange's perspective isn't reliable as her journey breaks a lot of Knox and Dine rules, which, by the way, only need to apply to the Gameboard, because only the Gameboard needs to follow Mystery rules. Reality isn't bound by Narrative Causality.
 * T
 * The 1998 fragment came about due to the interference of Lambda and Bern, and it contains a large number of elements borrowed directly from the Higurashi game board. Isn't that an indication of fictionality?
 * The 1998 fragment came about due to the interference of Lambda and Bern, and it contains a large number of elements borrowed directly from the Higurashi game board. Isn't that an indication of fictionality?

Bern and Erika never intended to trap Battler in a Logic Error.
There real intention was to show that Battler didn't understand the truth of Beato's game. The Logic Error they set up had a flaw he could have used to escape. Namely, he could have claimed his piece left the room using magic. However, we know from the fifth game that Beato's games were solvable and that magic apparently doesn't count as a valid soloution. If Battler had used magic as the soloution the game would have continued until the end, but Lambda would judge that Battler had not reached the truth of Beato's game. Thus, either returning things to how they were at the start of the fifth game, or giving Erika a chance to be the Game Master.
 * so no, it would not be a valid solution. The thing is, there's really no such thing as an inescapable Logic Error, just like there's no unsolvable mystery. A Logic Error is proclaimed if the Game Master is unable to explain the trick, not when the trick is unexplainable.
 * Of course there's no such thing as an inescapable Logic Error, it's flat out stated that in order to escape the Game Master simply has to admit that the error exists.
 * Which results in death. That's not exactly what I meant by "escape".
 * It was only stated that the gameboard would be destroyed as a result. BATTLER's goal was not to create a coherent story, it was to show that he understood the truth of Beato's game. Admitting the logic error would have certanitly hurt his chances of doing this. However, as long as he didn't stop trying to prove he understood Beato's game he would not die. Actually, since Beato is the one who actually solved the Logic Error, it's likely that BATTLER had succeeded in proving he understood Beato's game before the Logic Error had even occurred.
 * And as the Gamemaster, he would suffer if the board was destroyed, just like Beato did earlier. Damaging the game damages it's owner; if it was so easy to just waltz out of a Logic Error, it wouldn't be so traumatizing to Bern and Lambda. Anyway, I would say that Battler actually PLANNED the Logic Error, and it was a bit Kinzo-style gambit to revive Beatrice by putting pressure on her. See my above theory about it.

The first twilight of the sixth game could not have been accomplished without magic.
[ R
 * She took people who were "killed" by the competing lovers and "rekilled" them so they were actually dead. The Red Truth can allow for repeating fictions, since none of the Gameboards actually happened.
 * That red can be explained with, E If the first deaths were false in the context of the gameboard, Erika wouldn't be able to say she rekilled them in that context.
 * So Erika could not have revived them with magic. However, the characters were "playing dead." It's a fiction nested within another fiction, so there's absolutely no problem. I think your issue is that you're interpretting the Red too literally, and don't seem to realize how many layers are at work, here.
 * E Therefore, e
 * Well, actually Erika was the Witch of Truth during the span of Episode 6, admittedly.

Erika didn't fall off the boat, she jumped.
Bitch is crazy; she could've done it just cause, or she was suicidal over her boyfriend's betrayal.

All Games can be solved if everything was just a dream.
No matter what red truth you can use, if the detective was just dreaming, all episodes can be solved without magic. Well, episode 1 cant, but that was not a game so... well, again, all just a bad dream.

Beato like acronyms
The names of each episode are Legend, Turn, Banquet, Alliance, End, Dawn, Requiem and Twilight. You get LTBAEDRT, order and then get BATTLERD (D can be another letter of another word, or be there just by mistake because if i recall right Really? I think i should say that.
 * Banquet, end, etc, are written by Auau, not Beato. Also, it could mean.

None of the Game Masters know what really happened.
According to Maria's book it takes 3 cuts to slice a piece of cheese into eight pieces. But, Erika and Battler are able to figure out how to do it with one cut. The book's riddles are a metaphor for the mysteries the Game Master presents and the answers in the book represent what the Game Master believes the solutions to the mysteries to be. Therefore, the book having the wrong answer is a metaphor for the Game Master having the wrong answer.
 * Taking the idea further, none of the answers we've been given to any of the mysteries in the individual games are correct. Of course it is possible for us to find the correct answers, just like Battler and Erika did.

Erika didn't fall off the boat, she was pushed.
Erika being the Great Detective that she is had come to the conclusion that a single mastermind was behind most of the major crime in Japan, and was in the middle of gathering enough evidence to bring said mastermind to justice. Unfortunately, she wasn't discreet enough and ended up being attacked because of it. Who was this mastermind? It was none other then popular mystery author Toya Hachijo. Since Erika's body was never found, Toya concluded that she was still alive, and had gone into hiding for the time being. Toya wrote End of the Golden Witch, and Dawn of the Golden Witch in order to taunt Erika so that she would come out of hiding.

Battler was indeed the culprit of the fifth arc and the man from 19 years ago, even if the child thrown off the cliff was actually Yasu.
I cite as evidence the meta-world fact that the Beatrice of the fifth arc was trying to defend Natsuhi. If Beatrice, and by extension Yasu, was in character (as even characters in the meta-world have to be), then she would not be trying to both get revenge on Natsuhi and defend her at the same time. In addition, the only one who has any right to hold a grudge against Natsuhi is Yasu, not Shannon or Kanon, since neither of them existed at that point.

It's also established that Battler and Shannon are a couple. If Yasu or Shannon had ever confided in Battler about their past then it's possible that Battler would have tried to get revenge on Natsuhi in order to get her to apologize to Yasu by pretending to be Yasu over the phone. It's also possible that since Natsuhi told Shannon about her favorite season, that information had also been passed on to Battler, allowing him to plant the card in her room. It's been hinted that even among normal circumstances. Is it really so much of a stretch to say that he would commit murder in order to right a wrong done to the person he loves?
 * Your theory fails to take into account that 1) Shannon and Battler are not a couple, it's Shannon/George, with Battler having forgotten their old crush, and 2) the Beatrice of EP 5 isn't the one we know, but a piece representing the illusion of the witch and Natsuhi's delusions. It's not actually a person like Shannon.
 * 1. The fifth arc's board is stated to differ in a very fundamental way from boards 1-4, but it was never made clear exactly what that difference was. Even if Yasukashnontrice was the culprit, she has no reason to care all of a sudden more about Natsuhi than Battler. I
 * (Still OP) 2. It was never stated that the Beatrice of that board represented Natsuhi's delusions. It could have. Or it could have represented Yasu. There is no red statement denying it.
 * N Nothing prevents Yasu from being EP 5's Beatrice in her other appearances, but it would be kinda inconsistent.
 * N
 * T I'm not completely sure, but I believe that Erika saw Kanon and Shannon together at least once. This can only be explained by Kanon(/Yasu) being a different person than Shannon(/Yasu) in this game.

Ange is the Culprit.
Yes, you read me right. Ange. You see, everyone's always been an asshole to Ange. Eva treats her like a snivelling brat, the cousins forget her, her mother was just using her to get control of Rudolf, and Maria stopped being friends with her after their fight. The only person who was ever nice to her was Battler, and because of his sin (forgetting Beatrice, causing the cascade of events that caused him not to come for six years), Ange grew up without her brother.

She had to kill them all for the suffering she went through. Also she's kind of a petulant and evil brat.

She faked being sick, and then stowed away in the back of the boat, then skittered around the island doing the murders and/or Bomba. Shkanon is indeed actually necessary to the plot in order to cover up the number count. It's a troll.

So she kills everyone. She is infact the one who sent out the first two message bottles, forging Yasu's handwriting and set the bitch up (This is why Meta-Beatrice is both suicidal and wanting to hide the truth; she's a personification of this fictional martyrdom of Yasu, but she wants the truth to get to Battler).

It was infact ANGE who hijacked Beatrice's innocent game, so no one figured out the horrible truth in the script until it was too late. Eva managed to escape, knowing the horrid truth. Yasu killed herself, since her game allowed this opportunity and she felt at fault. Battler and Ange actually hilariously collided on the way out and both of them drifted to different shores with amnesia of varying degrees.

Eva, knowing the truth, found and raised Ange, and realizing that the girl was amnesiac and retained her sweet personality prior to becoming embittered, and seeing that she fabricated fond and warm memories of her family, decided not to tell her the truth, and raise her lovingly. But because this is the little girl who killed her precious family, resentment and hatred slipped out. Eva is a tremendously strong woman for being as genuinely loving as she was.

Ange grew up never realizing the truth, and always yearning for her dear brother, who rises above all the other victims in her heart for some reason she can't seem to figure out despite their limited interaction. She entertains fantasies of magic, and even gains the title of "Beatrice"....why is that?

And why...WHY, does she comment that "she did something terrible to Maria, and somehow I feel that it played a role in that tragedy"?

If Maria had been her friend still...the tragedy would not have come to pass.

Why can Ange, someone who wasn't on Rokkenjima, travel to 1986's Meta World?

She was there.

Why does Bern keep torturing Ange disproportionately?

Because she deserves it. It wasn't a witch who spoiled Ange's relationship with Eva, it was her own subconscious, personified as the heartless monster that dresses up as a character from Onii-chan's favorite novel. It's the same reason Ange can see and interact with Erika in 1998, and why Bern/Erika keep "taking Ange's side" in a sense.

It's why Battler decided the catbox should be closed, and Ange should move on with her life.

It's the truth so terrible that Ange rejects it at the very end, then decides to fake her death.

It's why Ange, prior to Battler getting through to her, decided that she could trade her life if she knew the truth.

Ange fucking did it, and her entire personal journey was her trying to reclaim that memory, not knowing it would destroy her. Battler only wished to spare her little sister. Just as Toya felt that the memories of Battler would destroy him, Battler felt the memories would destroy the good-hearted Ange.

During the seventh game, Bern wasn't moving the pieces in order to hide information from Will.
When Will is first given Theatergoing authority it's mentioned that its use requires permission from the Senate. However, it's never stated that Bern actually acquired permission to give it to Will. B However, u

In the next When They Cry series, Ange will appear as a Voyager Witch
Or whichever terminology is used in it. Just like Higurashi did, Umineko will spawn some extra recurring characters in the next work. While Beato and Battler all always centered around their gameboard, Ange keeps traveling both within and between Fragments and meeting high-level characters, so if any character does become a Voyager, it is gotta be her.

Eva did it, and I can explain why and how.
Be forewarned, there may be massive spoilers ahead. Be prepared.


 * You never read Episode 4? ...Anyway, it can't have been Eva, if only because she's the red herring culprit. The person playing Beatrice is Shannon. This is a fact; an extra person would've violated many reds and someone would've noticed an extra missing person.
 * Even if you haven't read Episode 4, I assume that you're aware that half of what you said has been confirmed by Episode 7, but greed doesn't work as motivation here for Eva, since the bomb blows up the 10 tonnes of gold when it goes off, leaving her with less money than if she hadn't blown it up. You're also incorrect about the twilights working off the clock - they happen at different times in different games.

In Alliance, the bomb detonated on the first night.
However, Battler is a person on the island. If he really had the opportunity to roam freely on October 5th, then the chance existed, however slight, that he would be able to reach Kuwadorian before the bomb went off, leading to his survival. So, in order for the red given to be certainly true, Battler must already be dead. The epitaph was probably solved early on October 4th, which led to the drastically accelerated murder timeline and the bomb mechanism being set before midnight.

The consequences are that everything after midnight on October 4th was an illusion, beginning with Battler meeting Piece-Beatrice and including the whole next day's investigation on. Although Battler had control of his illusion-piece, he no longer had an objective viewpoint on account of being a corpse.

Some additional clues:
 * Will's summation for the 9th twilight - "Earth to earth, illusion to illusion. When fiction is shut up inside a cat box, it becomes truth."
 * In Dawn, Battler and Erika briefly mentioned the possibility of the detective being killed off before the end of the game.
 * In spite of all the information given in it, Battler's investigation was cut out of the anime completely, as if it were irrelevant. Ryukishi said in an interview that the anime would have fewer red herrings.


 * Your theory relies entirely on the possibility of piece-Battler doing something different than Beatrice expected. It seems clear from Game Master Battler's TIPS that Battler had to explicitly work out the whole story of Episode 6 before the game started. Beatrice should also have similarly known what was going to happen on the gameboard in Episode 4 before meta-Battler saw it play out.
 * EP 5 firmly established that players have direct control over their pieces, even assuming that wasn't already clear by the second twilight of EP 2. It'd hardly be a game if there were only one person playing.
 * At the second twilight of Episode 2, piece-Battler worked out what was going on first. Meta-Battler is temporarily confused and only figures out what piece-Battler is talking about after he has explained a bit of it. He most certainly wasn't directed by meta-Battler there. Hardly anything in Episode 5 is actually narrated by the detective, so there's no actual proof that anything that might be suggested by a player was really performed by the piece instead of just being shown in the magic story. Did Battler really jump out the window of Kinzo's room instead of just explaining that he could have jumped to escape the closed room? Also, practically the whole game was played before Battler started, and was replayed for him, during which time he couldn't interfere - your argument that it was confirmed in Episode 5 relies on assuming that Bern is telling the truth when she says that she made piece-Battler look smart at this part of the game or that he's acting as Lambda's piece in that part. She has no particular reason to be truthful and we have no other reason to believe it than her words, while other things like Game Master Battler's TIPS suggest they shouldn't be able to influence the game. The game doesn't need to take place on the chessboard to be a game. The game of logic and truth in the meta-world about whether a witch was involved has two players whether or not Battler can influence what's happening on the chessboard. There's no reason to believe the people in the meta-world can actually do anything but watch the real story even if the witch side can also conjure up any magic story that fits the already known facts.

R
Battler's goal in the sixth game was to prove he understood the truth of Beato's game, and he successfully did so. Battler was unable to solves the logic error. Therefore, the solution to the logic error cannot be part of the truth of Beato's game. The solution to the logic error is Shannon and Kanon being the same physical person. Therefore, Shakanon can not be part of the truth of Beato's game.
 * This isn't quite the case. The logic error was a trap of conflicting red truths that Battler wove about himself as the game master before Erika revealed facts he'd accidentally allowed her to change. As the game master, he was aware of what actually happened in the room, but if he explained what had actually happened in that room, Erika would definitely be able to answer every mystery in his game. Because of this he chose to try to come up with a different answer instead. The solution to the logic error isn't "Shannon and Kanon being the same physical person", but "nothing said in red prevents this magic story involving Kanon freeing Battler from the logic error". Since Battler was no longer capable of directing Kanon or anyone else to solve it for him, he couldn't come up with this answer himself after he was locked in, and was restricted to what he could try himself from inside the room. Because of this, there is nothing preventing Battler already being aware of Shannon and Kanon being the same person at the start of the sixth game.

A
Consider his explanation for the first twilight of the second game, "Illusion to Illusion. The golden truth locked the lock of illusion." T, and neither of the golden truths that have been used have anything to do with locks.
 * Will's explanations are mostly vague and nonsensical unless you think about them carefully, but they do provide the real truth once you look beyond the surface meaning. In the case of the first twilight of the second game, the "lock of illusion" is pretty simply interpreted as meaning that t. It is never stated in red that the chapel was locked at the time that Rosa claimed to open it. Battler's arguments focused on how the key could have been removed from Maria's care to unlock it.
 * When you take this into account and look closer at the "opening" of the chapel, we notice that both Shannon and Kanon are present.. which from Episode 7, we know to be impossible. R - they are "locking the lock of illusion".
 * When you consider that the most likely meaning of the midnight meeting with Beatrice is that the adults were shown several gold ingots and acknowledging the person who found them as having solved the epitaph, we can guess that R. This is what Will means by Golden Truth in this instance. "
 * So then Will's use of the term "gold truth" was simply a pun?
 * Not exactly a pun, more like a metaphor. It's the "truth" that occurs when everyone agrees that it's what happened, brought about by the promise of gold.
 * It may not even have to be that. The Golden Truth is only usable by the game master, the one who understands the whole truth behind Beato's game. In that sense, any "truth" pertaining to the game that is used for an illusion can apply. It doesn't mean to literally use the golden truth, but that the game master's "truth" is sealing the illusion. It can also be interpretted a number of other ways. The most important part about Will's statements is not actually the explanation, but what precedes it. Pay attention to when he says "illusion to illusion" and when he says "earth to earth". Go back to those murders during the twilights of the previous games. If the foreshadowing clicks, I guarantee your jaw will drop. It took me a while to notice some of them.

"
i

This statement was made to MARIA. Thus the first sentence can be replaced with M However, the trick that was performed in that scence was Beato's candy magic, not MARIA's. Furthermore, no evidence exists that MARIA has a candy magic trick of her own. Thus, by Knox's 8th we can determine that "Your so-called candy magic" refers to an empty class, and thus Erika can say whatever she wants about it and still produce Red Truth. As for the second sentence, the statements "" and "I" prove that Beatrice is a real witch and thus the "fake witch calling herself Beatrice" doesn't exist.
 * Beatrice specifically says that nothing said in red can be used to prove the existence of magic, since it would be circular logic. Battler would have no possible move to counter it, but he wouldn't have been convinced, so he'd just have refused to accept it and the game would become a draw. The bits you quote as evidence of the existence of the "witch" Beatrice literally have to have a different interpretation than there being a real witch on the gameboard or Beatrice wouldn't have been able to say them at all.
 * Being a witch doesn't automatically mean one can use magic or that magic exists.
 * You're only suggesting then that Yasu/Beatrice can use the title of witch, but that it doesn't mean anything, and doesn't actually affect anything else in the story?
 * I would say that Yasu is able to use the title of witch because she solved the epitaph, after all Beatrice Castiglioni was the person the title Golden Witch was first applied to and she didn't have magical powers.

T
When Will says "No falsehoods in their final moments as told." He is referring to the author's original intention.

In the candy magic battle between Erika and MARIA, the Eiserne Jungfrau weren't obligated to recognize Sakutaro's diplomatic immunity.
Sakutarou's diplomatic immunity protects him from members of the Mariage Sorciere and those who have contracts with them. The members of the Eiserne Jungfrau are not members of the Mariage Sorciere nor do they have contracts with it. However, as shown they found the candy magic battle to be pointless, and thus when given an opportunity to get out of it did so.
 * Well, technically speaking, yes, but Dlanor is friends with Virgilia, and is honorable enough to respect the spirit of the law rather than the cold letter.

The love duel was originally written as part of Land of the Golden Witch.
Land of the Golden Witch was suppose to be the third game, but was scrapped due to being to difficult. From a fantasy perspective it makes no sense for Shannon and Kanon to have the love duel in the sixth game when they completely rejected the idea that they were furniture in the fourth game.

Shannon and Kanon experience the games in a different order then they are played.
From their perspective Dawn of the Golden Witch takes place before Alliance of the Golden Witch.

The love duel is actually meant to show that Shakanon is false during Beato's games.
BATTLER's goal in the sixth game is to show that he understands Beato's game. The love dual is a fantastic metaphor for Shannon and Kanon being the same person physically and being torn between Jessica and George. However, the fantasy we are shown makes no sense in the context of the previous games. For example, Shannon and Kanon declared themselves to be human in the fourth game, since they retain their memories between games it doesn't make sense for them to consider themselves furniture in the sixth game. Also, The butterfly brooch just happens to summon the same demons Jessica had summoned for Mother's Day using Kinzo's grimoire, not only is that a rather contrived coincidence, but Jessica doesn't appear to recognize them at all. In short, even if magic exists there is no way the fantasy we were shown could have happened. Since the fantasy is impossible in the context of Beato's game, we can assume that its mundane counterpart is likewise impossible. Therefore, Shakanon is false.
 * You realize the Extra TIPS aren't canon...right? Furthermore, the fantasy Love Duel makes perfect sense, since EP 4 and EP 6 are TWO DIFFERENT UNIVERSES. You haven't raised a single point against Shkanon whatsoever.
 * Has Ryukishi 07 stated that the Extra tips aren't canon? If he hasn't then it's a matter of opinion whether they're canon or not. If he has, I invoke Death of the Author. Also, one of the fantasy premises is that Shannon and Kanon retain their memories between games, thus it doesn't matter that they take place in different universes.
 * Death of the Author is a pretty terrible excuse and I'm not going to accept it when the series makes a big point about trying to understand the intentions of the author. As for the canonicity of the Extra TIPS, it's pretty obvious they're not universally canon when we have shit like Beatrice using magic to switch around Parents Day presents at their houses where Yasu can't access them, etcetera. Moreover, Jessica doesn't remember meeting Zepar and Furfur. As for Shannon's and Kanon's memories, this isn't consistent in absolutely every single game; for example, they do not possess special memories in EP 5, and other characters exhibit Meta-knowledge in other episodes (such as absolutely everyone in EP 8, or Eva drawing on memories of the future in EP 6).
 * I'll concede the point regarding death of the author. By Parents Day you are referring to the "Labor Thanksgiving Day Gifts" tip right? If so, m Or, Why should that fantasy be treated differently from any other fantasy? Jessica not remembering meeting Zepar and Furfur is part of my point. I don't think we say enough of Shannon and Kanon in episode 5 to judge whether they had any past memories or not. As for the other characters, As such, I submit that things we know about how the multiverse works in Higurashi can automatically be applied to Umineko. In particular it is possible for ordinary people to remember events in other universes. Furthermore, Shannon and Kanon's consistent ability to remember previous arcs shows that in that aspect they aren't ordinary people.
 * m according to the Territory Lord himself. Moreover, Shannon and Kanon obviously aren't ordinary people; because they're the same individual as Beatrice. They exhibit special knowledge only because she is the author, and they are her self-inserts into the story. This is is also why they're present in the EP 1 tea party, which consisted of the survivors and the culprit. Moreover, trying to use Higurashi logic won't work here; everyone pretty much acknowledges things as a game or a story when they get meta; this isn't a case of equally real universes trading information, and even if it was, it's certainly suspicious that no one uses this information to...DO anything. The fact that no aspect of Mother's Day Extra TIPS are not acknowledged in the actual sixth episode is only evidence that the former is non-canon, unless you're going to forward the preposterous idea that some sidestory is more canonical than one of the main events of one of the main episodes.
 * Is it completely clear what "layer" the Territory Lord is on? Because if he's simply a character in a message bottle or forgery it could still be possible for magic to exist in the "real world" or in message bottles/forgeries written by a different author. However, I'll concede the point about the love duel. As for whether the extra tips are canon. In episode 5, Dlanor says pieces can't act out of character. Given this it might be best to interpret the Mother's Day tip as meaning "If it was possible to summon demons, then Jessica would do so in order to give her mom a Mother's Day gift, which would lead to the events described."
 * The Territory Lord is said to exist on a higher plane than every other Meta-character, since he knows the truth about everything on the gameboard, so at the very least, he's beyond everything of 1986. As for the "pieces acting in character" thing, the fact that Bern can depict Battler as a cold-blooded murderer is probably more about believability more than a hard and fast rule. A writer can put down whatever they want, but if they want people to swallow what they're feeding, it has to seem legit.
 * To be fair, Meta!Battler did accuse Piece!Battler of being the culprit of the fifth game.
 * Yea, which is completely irrelevant to my point; there's no realistic way Battler could be the culprit if you take into account his characterization and literary purpose, but it was believable that he might be if you stretch your brain enough, therefore it's possible to write him as one despite the fact that murder is not possible for Battler otherwise.
 * After reading "Forgery No. XXX", I think the "pieces have to act in character" rule goes by how the author and/or Game Master thinks they would behave. For example, Bernkastel believes Battler could realistically be a cold blooded killer, but isn't necessarily correct

Yasu isn't the only person who uses the Beato identity on the gameboard.
During the sixth game it's stated that Chick!Beato and Elder!Beato are to halves of the same whole. However, only Chick!Beato participates in the Love Dual. Furthermore, near the end of episode 1 Bern claims that thinking of Beato as a single person is a mistake. Furthermore, two Beatos talk to each in the fourth game, and this might have been witnessed by Battler.
 * The Fourth game was the conversation between Piece and Meta Beato; Battler did not witness it. Elder!Beato of EP 6 is heavily implied, if not outright stated to be, the personification of the ghost stories and legends about Beatrice; the phantom that pulls tricks in the night and is blamed for creepy situations. She's not represented by a person at all.

The rules Dlanor gives are what (Touya thinks) Yasu thinks Knox's rules are.
In episode 2 Beato says, "Hmm. No secret passage exists that you all do not know of. Was it Knox, or was it Van Dine? It seems that in mystery novels, there must not be hidden passages, no matter what. I also follow that etiquette." While this indicates she follows Knox's 3rd it also shows she isn't 100% certain about the contents of Knox and Dine's rules. This also explains why they aren't the same as they are in our world, but for the most part are pretty close.
 * I'm pretty sure that Beatrice was pretending to not be sure because of her witch persona. In reality she's an avid mystery nut.

Okonogi Tetsuro is a lot more than just a side character
In fact, it is the same Okonogi Tetsuro from Higurashi, which is not fiction to Umineko as it was hinted in episode 1. In fact, the universe in which the Hinamizawa incident resolved without any people dying is the same universe in which Umineko takes place (and will probably resolve in happily). If Higurashi really is a work of fiction presented within Umineko, then it either shares nothing but the title with 'our' Higurashi, or it actually is the very Higurashi we had read, and is actually an account of the Hinamizawa events written down by Okonogi as part of a in order to make people believe it's all fiction. The only way to explain this is by considering Okonogi to be a Voyager Sorcerer, who expirienced all the kakera of Higurashi and Umineko, and is dead bent on rescuing at least one kakera from the occurence of every single When They Cry murder-party. Meta!Okonogi and Piece!Okonogi are actually the same entity, and he, alongside with Tohya/Aurora/Hanyuu is one of the few entities who can actually 'sneak' themselves into the gameboards of When They Cry and masquerade as pieces. Herr Okonogi is there to save the day, while his diametric opposite, Fräulein Hachijo is a thing that is ready to prostitute the feelings, lives and integrity of everything else for personal entertainment. But before I continue, let me elaborate on the meta-levels:

[Nightmarish infinity of meta-levels stacked like layers of cake] ⊃ Rokkenjima Prime ⊃ Alliace/Dawn!1998 (meta-3) ⊃ Featherine's study (second meta-world floor) ⊃ Meta-world (first meta-world floor) ⊃ Gameboard Rokkenjima (ground floor) ⊃ [Infinity of antonymofmeta-levels]

Basically, what we have here is an analysis of the meta "cake" in Umineko, in which every layer is a gameboard to its hierarchical superior. Note that horizontal branching of meta-levels is also possible, while not depicted. This actually makes for an interesting situation where Bern's constant breaking of the fourth wall is actually justified because 龍騎士07 actually attempted to write our reality into the layered reality of When They Cry, what is, going by same logic as from above, actually a he pulled in order to trick us into thinking that he isn't a Voyager Sorcerer (that he probably is), and that the When They Cry series aren't actually his memoires (which they probably are).

Now excuse me, I have to rest because I think I just short-circuited my brain.
 * Welp, it's canon to me.

Battler knew what he was doing the entire time in Episode 6
He desperately wanted to revive Beatrice, however, she was not the same person. No matter how much he wished, the Beatrice he loved would never come back. Eventually, he locked himself away in a room. The only way to get him out was to solve an impossible riddle, Beatrice solved it. And the two were reunited. Now tell me, am I talking about Battler, or Kinzo?
 * This theory is already up here...

W
In the second game we're simply told K Which leaves room for tricks like Kanon died, but Yoshiya or Yasu is still alive. However in the third game we're told that 6 Thus, Kanon must be dead in the same way the other five are dead. (Note that there aren't any clues that would suggest Gohda's identity can be discarded). Likewise, in the fourth game we're told Kanon is the ninth victim.
 * K
 * It doesn't makes sense for two different definitions of "dead" to be used in a single statement.

The Witch's Epitaph is fully functional magical ritual.
Furthermore, if successfully performed it will work regardless of whether or not Battler believes in magic. The person(s) trying to perform it are simply doing it wrong. The phrases "At the [nth] Twilight. . ." refer to the passage of time. In other words it takes ten days to perform, one simply cannot perform it in two.
 * I wouldn't put it past Kinzo.

When Toya Hachijo wrote End and Dawn she was rushing to meet a deadline.
This is the reason End ends before the third twilight, and that Kanon is the victim of most of the twilights in Dawn
 * Or she wrote everything fully, but our reading of it is interrupted because Erika already solves it and/or calls out a Logic Error.

Ryushiki07 is well aware of the The Bechdel Test and intentionally wrote a story that it would be difficult to apply it to.
Let's list the things required for The Bechdel Test:
 * Two female characters.
 * Between one and five characters, depending on how they're counted, are of Ambiguous Gender.
 * There is sometimes an additional requirement that they have names. Four characters have numbers instead of names.
 * There could be said to be an additional requirement that the characters have to exist. Many characters may or may not exist, and one definitely does not.
 * Who have a conversation.
 * Numerous conversations happen without being witnessed by the detective. There could be said to be a requirement that the conversation have definitely happened.
 * Some conversations are actually duels or abuse. Do these count?
 * Some conversations start between female characters, but are later joined by a male character.
 * That is not about men.
 * See first point. Conversations about may not count. Conversations about  may count.
 * See second point. In most games, a conversation might not count if a man (Battler/Willard) is not within earshot.

If Ange and Maria had been born earlier they would have been Love Interests of Yasu.
(S)he did fall in love with all of the other cousins after all.

Ryukishi07 deliberately wrote Umineko in a way that would allow fans to easily disregard parts they don't like.
In universe, the game boards after the first two games are fanfiction based on the original two message bottles. And there's no guarantee that Ange's world and the Meta world are any more real then the game boards.

Rosa suffers from Bipolar disorder.
It would explain a whole lot. Any woman's going to be a mess if her fiance/boyfriend knocked her up then left, but Rosa's behavior goes beyond that. She experiences some pretty violent mood swings, going from an incredibly sweet mother to the mother from hell in half a second. She could have Bipolar disorder going undiagnosed.
 * More likely Borderline Personality Disorder, from your description.
 * Ah, good point.

Ronove's and Virgilia's roles should actually be filled by Shannon and Kanon, not Genji and Kumasawa.
The second Toya Hachijo assigns Ronove and Virgilia's roles to Genji and Kumasawa, he completely misunderstands Beatrice's identity. That's because the true mentors to Beatrice were not Genji and Kumasawa, but Shannon and Kanon, and Beatrice was not, but Jessica. By misunderstanding who Beatrice's mentors were, Hachijo shifted the entire identity of Beatrice to the wrong person and disguised the true main conflict of Umineko.

Now, I'll tell you a story. A story of two lonely young girls who just wanted to find happiness. Our story begins on Rokkenjima, not in the year 1967, which is the year in which Beatrice and Kinzo had their conversation and is the only one referred to by year, but the next year, 1968. F The child left was taken by Kinzo and given to Natsuhi. It is here that Hachijo makes her second fatal mistake by assuming that Natsuhi, and that if she hadn't, then the result would have been a world in which Lion and Jessica both lived happily together. S

S That gave her a self-esteem boost and helped to ease her loneliness. also helped to reassure her during her first few years serving the Ushiromiya family. During this time, he was not a servant himself, and merely an Imaginary Friend. This also solves a small plot hole - namely, existing - even just to Shannon - before he should. In Hachijo's telling, Shannon at (and even possibly a little after) the time that, for which the mirror is a metaphor. H

Jessica and Shannon were very close. Friends almost to the point of being sisters, and so eventually, Shannon was able to substitute being with Jessica for being with. However, though his existence was faint, Shannon was still able to call upon him to comfort her whenever stress was threatening to overwhelm her.

However, Kinzo hadn't had how awry things went with to teach him how badly he had screwed up. Although keeping away from Kinzo so that he wouldn't treat her the same way he had treated Beatrice Ushiromiya was a good idea of Hachijo's, it never actually happened. I

K Not that the servants didn't have a problem with it, of course, but Genji was obedient to Kinzo's whims, and none of the other servants were willing to say anything if Genji didn't - Genji being the most senior. All of them, however, at least tried to make things less painful for Jessica. That was... difficult, for good reason. H Jessica trusted Shannon, and Shannon knew a way to keep her calm. After all, it was Shannon who originally came up with "creating another self within yourself," not Jessica.

S To help Beatrice to understand, Shannon very gently introduced her to. Although at first, when Beatrice and talked,, it didn't take long for Beatrice to understand  existence and copy it within herself. However, the circumstances of and  births were very different. W

S She and Jessica were very similar ages and rather like twin sisters. However, Beatrice, created in the midst of pain and confusion, was not the most emotionally well-developed, and was far more like a dependent younger sister to Shannon. , then, was almost like an older brother. She would cry onto their shoulders and beg them for hugs and reassurance. E After all, if Kinzo could see multiple beings within her, and she could see multiple beings within Shannon, then why should she believe that there weren't multiple beings inside of all sorts of things?

In trying to pretend that she was, in fact, Beatrice, Jessitrice learned to nod along and agree with whatever Kinzo said as he ranted about their past together. Because of this, she began to incorporate aspects of both Beatrice Castiglioni and Beatrice Ushiromiya into her own life story in an ad hoc, jigsaw puzzle-ish manner. '

really did fall head-over-heels for Battler, as did, but that does not connect in the way that the audience is lead to believe. , in fact, only met Battler once, under the guise of Jessica. She quite liked him. He was very nice, if a little weird. However, one time is not enough to build an infatuation off of. , on the other hand, loved Battler and would not stop talking about him with Jessica and Beatrice. While Jessica liked to laugh it off and never thought much of it, gushing formed most of what Beatrice knew about Battler. That combined with her one time meeting with him, and especially his "coming back on a white horse" remark led her to build him up into a kind of figure, to an extent that  knew him too well to do, even though she was hopelessly in love with him.
 * J
 * D I
 * H Mind you, the culprit of the Gameboards, and the culprit of the real world are n. It should also be noted that the year Rosa met Beatrice is stated in red. You also make a mistake in interpreting a scene in Episode 2; the point where Shannon breaks the mirror is several years after the point where the love for Battler is forced onto Beatrice and Kanon is created; there is no impossibility there. All the rest of this is stuff that is totally and completely made up, without a single bit of in-text support.
 * T unless you can come up with one particular riddle that Jessica absolutely cannot be the culprit for. K According to the explanation you accept, Kanon is around two to three years before the Rokkenjima incident (That being when he came to the island). There is no "several years later" for the mirror incident to occur. A a H (If you'd like, I can elaborate, but for the sake of brevity, I'll leave that there). A A T H

There is a subway system underneath Rokkenjima
While I can't say how or why Kinzo had his own train, quite a few rules could be circumvented if there was an underground subway station connection to one of the other islands in the Izu archipelago or the mainland. The people who have gone missing are abducted and put on a train, possibly to be killed elsewhere. " was lowered from eighteen when it was declared Kinzo was dead. A train car full of fresh Mooks, possibly dressed as goat-headed butlers, was waiting underneath the island to fill in for the non-living persons and stake people.

Also, guess what's inside the arc.nsa file?
 * Finally, here's exactly how the fourth game ended.
 * That was fucking awesome. I laughed my ass off.
 * No connection to other islands, but the subways are confirmed as of episode 4 and explained in episode 7.

Explaining "
Simple, really. It never says when he dies. So kanon murders Jessica, leaves the room, goes off and commits all of the other murders, and then happens to be in that room Does not even require the dropping of personality theory. Multiple personalities to the death. If you assume that Genji and Gohda are in on it, the murders of Nanjo and Kumasawa can also be by him, and Shannon and the web are just a fallacy to magically explain him leaving the room and bringing the corpses with him.
 * ...Um...Jossed by S
 * (OP here) Not at all. Kanon and Shannon can both 'die' by red at separate times. After all, she lives on after Kanon goes poof in the closet in EP 6.

Yasu survived
When Beatrice committed suicide, this was actually Yasu leaving all personalities behind and really becoming Yasu. Battler diving after him/her was him trying to stop him/her and loosing his memories afterwards, when the boat capsized. They drifted away in different directions and Yasu eventually ended up in/went back to the Fukuin House, where s/he staid and took care of the kids. When Battler saw him/her again, he accepted his memories again. I want a happy ending for them!

N
The theory conflicts with several red truths:

1. B (Episode 5) Erika has the perspective of the detective in this game AND sees BOTH Shannon and Kanon at the same time. 2. P (Episode 6, might not be exact words though.) This discredits the notion that personas count as a person. 3. S (episode 7). 4. If Beatrice and Shannon are the same person, then this is physically impossible.

As for Yasu, recall that episode 7 is from a magical perspective and thus is not to be trusted at face value. Symbolism is still valid though. This means that Yasu as a literal physical person does not exist. Since Yasu and Beatrice are the same entity, it means that Yasu is to be interpreted symbolically. What does Yasu symbolize you ask? The answer to that has already been given in a section of background story in the question arcs if you know where to look.

In addition, the location of the one winged eagle tatoo on "Island Beatrice" and Shannon are on different locations (front side of right leg on "Island Beatrice" and front of left leg on Shannon). There is no indication that this tatoo is anything but a permanent tatoo in this series.

I suspect that the reason for the theory even existing is due to a massive, multi-snare trap that was placed in the core arcs. Ryuukishi even said he was going to be doing such a thing in an interview before the core arcs were done and that he expected most of the fans to fall for it. Given that he's a Trolling Creator (we love it), this should not be a surprise. There are four likely snares in this trap. 1. Mis-interpretation of red truths via adding meaning that is not there. Red truths are supposed to be taken literately since they are merely truth without evidence and impossible to contradict. 2. The logic error (the double sealed room IIRC). There is a non magical solution to it. The hints needed to solve it are Erika's location, the order in which she does things, and the fact that there's three rooms in that hall. 3. The accidental "perfect closed room" in episode 6 (accidentally created by Erika). 4. Misinterpretation of what Yasu is considering the point of view (subjective) not being taken into consideration. 5. The seeming conflicting red truths regarding 18 and 17 people in episode 6. That discrepancy is not about Shannon and Kanon, its about Erika. The reason for the difference is a simple contra factual involving alternate timelines (which are therefore alternate worlds differing by differences between time lines). Alternate timelines/worlds is a common element of When They Cry. In most time lines, Erika would be dead rather than surviving. Its a similar trick used to rule out Kinzo as one of the "bodies".

This asks the question of who is "Island Beatrice". To prevent internet spoilers (something Ryuukishi said in an interview he wanted to avoid to protect the hard work of those who correctly solved the mystery), I shall not say who I believe to be the prime culprit. I will however say this: it says.......quite a lot actually, explains certain priorities, and explains the symbolic meaning of Yasu.