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Ok. So if Kinzo is dead across the gameboards, we could consider his scenes to be just like the ones with the Seven Sisters or even Beatrice in E2: fabrications and delusions. Everyone who has met or spoken with Kinzo is lying. Perhaps Krauss bribed the servants (except Gohda) and Nanjo to keep it up so he could troll his family when they brought up the inheritance. This puts Natsuhi's ridiculous level of defensiveness in a new light. Or, in the case of Battler at the end of E2, everyone who meets with Kinzo is about to die. Just like with the Leviathan and Belphagor in E3, or even all of EVA Beatrice's scenes as well. Kinzo is a mask of the culprit, or a metaphor for the culprit's intentions. Wow, yeah, this possibility gives us a lot to work with. At the same time, the though of Natsuhi pretending to talk to a dead body in a chest freezer is suuuuper depressing. An "eagle engraved in your heart," indeed. Edit: depending on when he died, I guess he couldn't have written the message bottles. Otherwise they would have washed ashore before 10/4/86 and the family would have been made aware of them. Hmmmm. witchcore ricepunk fucked around with this message at 16:32 on Jan 28, 2017 |
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Jan 28, 2017 16:28
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| # ? May 9, 2024 22:22 |
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Woop, just my timing. New update on the bottom of the last page!
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Jan 28, 2017 16:30
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My favorite thing about this thread is how many people came up with insightful theories about stuff like the riddle and the final bit of episode 3 but literally no one, I believe, even suggested the idea that kinzo was dead the whole time.
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Jan 28, 2017 17:01
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I had actually wondered about it based on the fact that nobody except likely conspiracists saw him in person in the previous episodes, except during the fake witch poo poo in episode two, and that he got burned up twice (disguising the condition of his body). But I thought it was too crazy! I guess I should have learned by now that no theory is too crazy. (Also I was hoping to pin some of the crime on him, but no such luck, I guess.) Of course, there is no extra person on the island. That wouldn't be satisfying at all. Note the wording of the previous red text: there are no more than 18 people, not there are exactly 18 people. There are only 17, which is not more than 18. Edit: Also super curious about what the purpose of "the blue" is going to be. Just listing the theories? Answers in the next update, I guess. idonotlikepeas fucked around with this message at 17:17 on Jan 28, 2017 |
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Jan 28, 2017 17:11
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I think I've made a lot more progress rereading things since the last post, especially after putting the three episodes alongside each other and searching for common patterns between them, a la starting with the forest instead of the trees. While at least the first two episodes (The third is the only one that shows Eva surviving) are fictional, I believe all three were written by someone who knew what happened on the island. So despite being fiction the stories should be consistent (If they weren't this wouldn't be a good murder mystery), and serve as windows into the heart of whoever Beatrice actually was. One thing that stood out was the scale of the murders, especially the first six. I believe these murders and their aftermaths could not have been carried out by one person. First of all, quietly killing six people in the dead of night and then moving all of their bodies to a single, remote location and setting up an elaborate horror scene WHILE not waking up anyone else within such a small span of time (5-6 hours) is nearly impossible for one person. The screaming and shouting of the remaining victims if they were killed one at a time would've been enough to raise an alarm (Especially in episode 1, where the murders took place in the dining room), suggesting they were all killed at once. So no, this probably wasn't the work of a single killer, but many. Battler's extra people theory aside, most, if not all, of them must be from the cast. So our next question is who among the cast could cooperate and be responsible for an elaborate series of murders and grisly subsequent displays. I think it's those drat servants. If there's any scenes that confirm this, it's these two. We've already established that magic is a metaphor for what's really happening behind the closed doors, but if you openly start claiming that magic is real and that you saw it with your own two eyes then you're lying through your teeth and are accomplices in the act. This scene also all but confirms the surviving servants recognized Beatrice (and weren't expecting to be murdered by her). If there's any doubt left, it's erased by these scenes where Shannon and Kanon openly discuss the upcoming murders with each other and Beatrice. You could argue that some pact between several of the Ushiromiya family members would work as well, but it's far less likely considering how much they hated each other and that not one of them with the exception of Battler survives to the end of all three episodes (It's Natsuhi, Rosa, and Eva who survive to the end of episodes one, two, and three respectively). But this doesn't answer the question of who the ringleader is. Certainly, the servants helped in the killings and setting up the gruesome displays, but none of them in particular have the profile or enough motive alone to murder the entire Ushiromiya family. Though I'm positive Beatrice is a woman, we'll look at the male servants anyways. Genji: Frankly, he's uninteresting, and too drat loyal (But to who? I had thought it was Kinzo until the last update) to be the ringleader. Kumasawa: Kind and old, she's already unlikely, but the real wringer is that she already has an alternate witch self: Virgilia, Beatrice's mentor. Kumasawa and the real Beatrice are likely close as well, but we won't discuss that here. Shannon: She wouldn't even hurt a fly if given reason to swat it. Plus she's deeply in love with George, who dies rather consistently in each episode. Her harmlessness puts into question her even being involved in the murders at all, but it's possible, especially if Beatrice offered to spare George in exchange. Kanon: Nope. In fact, out of all the servants (except maybe Shannon in episode 2) he's the most openly antagonistic towards Beatrice and whatever her goals might be. His only weakness is his affection for Jessica and Shannon, something we see Beatrice twist to her own ends. Gohda: Almost an afterthought, a new employee, and a coward as well, he's not anything close to a ringleader, and probably easy to bribe/coerce as well. Definitely a candidate for the poison your employer and five other people on the first night award, though. Not to mention most of the above died during the course of every episode. There is the question of episode 3, where all the servants are murdered first. But there is a simple explanation: instead of the servants, who she most likely murdered personally (not a difficult task after she told each of them to wait alone in separate rooms), the ringleader convinced, coerced, or bribed Eva into being her accomplice in murdering the other Ushiromiyas instead, represented by this scene. Notably, their cooperation didn't last long, and Eva subsequently tried to murder Beatrice as well. So it's either a member of the Ushiromiya family or that mysterious extra person Battler keeps yammering about. I'm starting with the assumption that Beatrice represents a real person, much as witch Eva represented real Eva and her murders, and is a woman, according to my previous post. I believe whoever Beatrice is, she must have lived on the island, and for a good deal of time before the family conference. A number of clues point towards this conclusion: I) She had enough time to subvert the servants of the Ushiromiya family into a murder pact. And not just any murder pact, but one in which it's apparently okay to go far beyond just killing the poor bastards and into disemboweled Halloween candy displays, smashed faces, and stabbing with occultist stakes. Especially to people who two of them are really close to (eg. George and Jessica). You don't call someone over the phone to convince them to do that, especially not the whole servant staff, ESPECIALLY if you don't want one of them to freak out and tell their boss Natsuhi about the creepy phonecall they just got. No, you're in there amongst them carefully undermining their loyalties and running rehearsals for your murder parade. How you might be doing this I won't explain now (Hint: It involves superstition, blackmail, and lots of gold), but regardless it's something that needs to be done face to face over a long period of time and not over the phone. II) This was planned and set up in advance with detailed knowledge of the mansion and its grounds. In every single episode there are certain elements that are constant and indicative of the murders being carefully planned out. The phone lines are always cut, cutting off communications with the outside world for the duration of the storm. The closed door murders are executed rapidly and flawlessly without anyone noticing until the aftermath. The Ushiromiyas are systematically isolated and destroyed piecemeal, without anyone having a clue of what's going on. Only someone who lived in the mansion would be so familiar with its layout, all the servant keys, etc, to set up such elaborate murders and mysteries under the noses of an entire family of people, some of whom actually live there. The mastermind must know all this personally, though the servants likely played important roles as well given their own knowledge of the mansion, keys, and ability to keep an eye on all the family members at all times (Through episodes 1 and 2, only the servants were out and about, and all of them were next to or aware of where each Ushiromiya was). Also, you can't set up a scene like this in one night (Unless you Fedexed in a large pile of candy, ribbons, and carved pumpkins with overnight shipping), no matter how many people are helping - it's almost guaranteed to have been set up in advance, missing just the bodies. The phone lines being cut, the detailed magical circles, the elaborate murder scenes and closed doors - this was the work of someone who had planned this months in advance, with detailed knowledge of the mansion and grounds, the cunning and cruelty to coerce otherwise normal servants into an occultist murder pact, and the determination to carry it all out to the end. III) And probably the most important clues towards Beatrice living on the island are Shannon's, Kanon's, and Maria's relationships with her. Even before the family conferences, when there's (ostensibly) nobody on the island but the servants, Natsuhi, Kinzo, and Jessica, Beatrice confronted Shannon and Kanon. Let's take a look at this scene. As we assume that magic isn't real, but can be a metaphor for what's actually happening, and that Beatrice is a real person (At the very least, she's the same Beatrice as the one who shows up later during the family conference, with the exact same memories and sadistic personality), then there are only three ways to interpret this scene: A) One of the Ushiromiya family siblings is talking to Shannon B) An unknown person is talking to Shannon C) Shannon is talking to a hallucination A) Unlikely. Unless you mean to tell me that either Rosa, Kyrie, or Eva was secretly sneaking onto the island to have long heartfelt discussions with the servants, then Beatrice has to be either Natsuhi or Jessica. And the answer to those two is no, namely because of the end scene, where Battler witnesses Beatrice in the flesh while Jessica is standing right next to him and Natsuhi is on the floor with a hole in her head. B) Possible. We haven't conclusively eliminated the presence of another person on the island, and I'm looking at a lot of clues that actually point to the existence of another person. C) No. Kanon could see Beatrice too, and there's no such thing as a shared, detailed hallucination. Also, Shannon dies quite messily and early in all three episodes. Maria has an unusually close relationship with Beatrice; she knows who she is, and it wouldn't surprise me if they were in a mentor-student relationship. She had to have gotten her uncanny knowledge about the occult somewhere. This has been shown multiple times, and I suspect that Maria only sees Beatrice when she visits the island, which means Beatrice must be someone who lives on the island. This also eliminates Rosa as Beatrice, as there's no way Maria would confuse her own abusive mother for the apparently (and oddly) kind teacher Beatrice is to her. Moreover, Maria is the only person other than Battler who Beatrice has never harmed. IV) The real Beatrice is extremely familiar with the legend of Beatrice, to the point where she was sending accurate letters the siblings of the Ushiromiya family agreed with as containing hallmarks of the Beatrice legend, but also enough to convince actual servants who shared that legend amongst themselves that she was Beatrice. The legend of Beatrice was something that's never spread beyond the island, and even the siblings of the Ushiromiya family weren't as familiar with it as the servants that recognized Beatrice are, so it's likely that whoever was Beatrice lived on the island long enough to know about the legend themselves, in intimate detail. So I think Beatrice is a woman who is on the island, who has regular close contact with the servants, and has lived there long enough to not only have detailed knowledge of the mansion and its grounds, but also the legend of the witch Beatrice - enough to fool everyone about it. Rose, Natsuhi, and Jessica are eliminated from previous points, Eva is eliminated by virtue of already having an alternate witch self (Not to mention she would never sneak to the island owned by her hated brother to have tea parties with servants she thinks she's above), and Kyrie is an outsider with no awareness of the Beatrice legend whatsoever. Also, both Kyrie and Rosa witnessed Beatrice in episode 2, and neither recognized her. If she was one of the Ushiromiya sisters, they'd still be able to recognize her even though she was wearing what was essentially a cosplay getup. So who is Beatrice? How did she convince the servants to join her murder plot, a plot in which most of them also died? Did she have any other help? Why did she do it? I have a hunch, but I'll need to go over everything more before I feel confident enough to discuss it. The revelation that Kinzo might have been dead the entire time also throws a new wrench into everything. For one thing, it places into doubt the testimony of everyone who has claimed to see him. 
Lycaeon fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Jan 28, 2017 |
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Jan 28, 2017 17:56
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Here are some suppositions: 1. The inner circle of servants are loyal to Kinzo and also part of the Beatrice Conspiracy. If Kinzo has been dead all along, they must be acting under someone else's authority (probably Krauss'), but it also explains how they could be influenced by a murderer; it's hard to imagine, say, Genji going against Kinzo, but that's no longer a problem. Previously, we would have had to consider him part of the plot; now we can assume he was either incidental to it or even one of its victims. The servants wouldn't have the same level of loyalty to Krauss, who is kind of a dillweed. 2. Any occasion on which Shannon and Kanon are said to be dead, even with red text, can be explained by their dual identities (Sayo and K, since I don't think we know Kanon's real name yet.) Shannon's deaths in 1 and 3 are suspicious. (In 1, we don't see her body, we only hear reports of it, and COINCIDENTALLY she's the only one with enough of a face left to identify.) Kanon's death in 2 is suspicious and he's said to reappear and commit murder while not being exactly himself, which kind of passes beyond "suspicious". 3. It is possible for the servants to be actively hostile to the murderer but still cooperate with then to some extent, or up until a certain point in the murders. The arguments with the "witch" can be seen as symbolic references to this. Shannon wants to stop being "furniture" and be a free person, and the murder plot somehow gives her an opportunity to do this (lots of ways that could work). Kanon is dubious about whether this will work. Etc. 4. Threats and bribery might force people to act in ways that aren't according to their natures as we perceive them. Everybody has their price. 5. Whenever Beatrice interacts directly with people who aren't just about to die, it's someone dressed up as her (because in the non-witch reality, she's super dead thanks to sharp pointy rocks). The most likely person is Shannon - she has a similar build and the same eye color. (It's easy to wear a wig, but getting cosmetic contacts is somewhat harder.) This also puts another spin on her "arguing" with Beatrice in episode 2. It could be different people at different times, though. 6. I agree that we basically have to assume multiple murderers for any of these three cases to make sense, and most probably the fourth one too. There are just too many moving parts and too many situations in which different people are nailed down by alibis for any one person to do all of it. 7. It makes the most sense for the Primary Murderer in each case to be a member of the family. They have the most to gain, but also just thematically having the family eat itself from the inside feels better than having some outside attack on it. Barring any Shakespearean shenanigans, that lets the servants out of it. 8. The older generation is, in general, more suspicious and duplicitous than the younger, and more likely to be the culprits.
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Jan 28, 2017 19:01
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Lycaeon posted:I think I've made a lot more progress rereading things since the last post, especially after putting the three episodes alongside each other and searching for common patterns between them, a la starting with the forest instead of the trees. I have to say that I really admire the willingness to do proper rereads.
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Jan 28, 2017 20:13
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idonotlikepeas posted:
Neither is 1. Battler is alone on the island and hallucinating everything. The golden butterflies are clearly signs of being infected by nanomachines. Lycaeon posted:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folie_%C3%A0_deux I'm sure in actuality it doesn't work quite like I'm suggesting, but the game's already fudging split personalities and having separate personas with Maria.
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Jan 29, 2017 01:09
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Huh... the prospect of Kinzo being dead from the beginning is an interesting one. Nobody but a few people (Genji, Shannon, Kanon, Nanjo, and Natsuhi) ever actually interacted with him while the "game" was in progress, and the servants have been shown to be up to some pretty strange things. I myself have suspected Genji of some parts of this from the get-go, as he is the most experienced and knows the area well, and he has a good grip on all of the other servants, so if you need a linchpin for your cunning scheme to fake an old man's being alive, Genji would be the guy. Further, we know that there is some kinda weird... thing regarding Kinzo that Krauss, Natsuhi, and Nanjo have together, but it's never specified what it is or how far it goes. It could be that yeah he is dead, and that all of the conversations with people were imagined, which would explain why the conversation Natsuhi had was so at odds with the screaming, tyrannical figure in the memories of everyone else. It's actually a pretty interesting theory, but I'd like to offer two challenges to it. The first is the preamble at the beginning of Ep 1; it said that anything we see could be taken as the truth, something which is conspicuously absent from all other episodes. Episodes 2-4 experiment with scenes which are more reflections and suppositions on what happened than truth as this episode has been lamp-shading, which may or may not have greater symbolic metaphors to the story and characters, and that part of the preamble wasn't there. This is also when the greater rules of the red text was mentioned too, a rule that hasn't been broken yet... I just don't see Ryukishi playing so fast and loose with the rules, so unless you're willing to call every rule he's laid down in to question, than yes, Natsuhi actually did talk to Kinzo that time. The second problem is Rosa in the second episode; she's not a servant nor is she involved in the Plot, but she goes to talk to Kinzo about the pother siblings death and to get a gun from him. So if she never talked to Kinzo, how'd she get on board with pretending she did? And how'd she get the gun? (Although I freely admit I don't know where the gun collection is; I assume it's in Kinzo's room, but it could be that she asked Genji for a gun, but why'd she say she spoke with Kinzo?) It's insinuated that Kinzi just speaks through the door at such intervals, so it's possible ventriloquism is involved, but in the instance of episode 2, who's left to stomp around the apartment and shout BEATORICE when needed, among the cast? Everyone else is elsewhere.
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Jan 29, 2017 01:57
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If Kinzo has been dead the whole time it also ruins any Kinzo related Alibi's in the previous episodes.
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Jan 29, 2017 02:55
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We get a little preamble at the beginning of each episode, and it lists the conditions and difficulty this time around. If we have to believe in the literal truth of the first one, we not only have to accept witches (since it ends with the four survivors meeting the witch, albeit only in text), we also have to accept that Eva dies (which seems increasing unlikely). Although I guess in the latter case it's a question of in-story truth versus canonical truth (that is, what is true in terms of each individual story, as opposed to what actually happened during the Ushiromiya Murder Picnic - I've been thinking of the latter as "canonical" to try to keep it straight in my own head). I believe there is a rule here, which is that events witnessed only by conspirators can be misrepresented. Kinzo's first scene is probably legit, but it might have happened months or years before the game started. Obviously, this makes it a bit difficult to figure out what's true and what isn't, but we can probably trust Battler's point of view, at least. All of that having been said, let's look at Natsuhi's chat with Kinzo again. ProfessorProf posted:
He never once turns to face her, a fact that's emphasized in the text more than once, along with the fact that he's talking in an unusual way, as if he's another person. It's probably not Kinzo at all, it's someone impersonating him. Given that Genji handed her the key in the first place, maybe it's him? He could probably pass for Kinzo from behind, in a dark room, lit from the front by an open window. It would be very odd for him to give her the key against Kinzo's wishes, wouldn't it? resurgam40 posted:The second problem is Rosa in the second episode; she's not a servant nor is she involved in the Plot, but she goes to talk to Kinzo about the pother siblings death and to get a gun from him. So if she never talked to Kinzo, how'd she get on board with pretending she did? And how'd she get the gun? (Although I freely admit I don't know where the gun collection is; I assume it's in Kinzo's room, but it could be that she asked Genji for a gun, but why'd she say she spoke with Kinzo?) It's insinuated that Kinzi just speaks through the door at such intervals, so it's possible ventriloquism is involved, but in the instance of episode 2, who's left to stomp around the apartment and shout BEATORICE when needed, among the cast? Everyone else is elsewhere. I think Rosa is the murderer in the second episode, and therefore a conspirator. (I babbled about this earlier). The precise identities of the conspirators probably vary from story to story. I don't think we actually see her meet Kinzo, either; she just leaves and comes back with a gun and says he's shut up in his room and therefore should be alright. She could have lied about him, whether she knew he was dead or not, just to encourage everyone else to stay in the room with her and not to go looking for him. As you say, by the second story we also have the red truth and the general increase in witch bullshit throwing more doubt on the events that we actually see.
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Jan 29, 2017 04:00
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"...Madam. If you would, please take this."
"This is...?"
"But, if this key is used, won't you also receive the blame...?"
"...When the master is sleeping deeply, simple knocking on the door will not reach his ears... And when persuading the master to leave his room, it would be more difficult if you must talk through the door. Please use it..."
"...How did you get in?"
"...Go back downstairs. Are you asking me to join in on the discussion of how they chew my inheritance to bits after I die? How foolish. They can keep talking about that kind of thing as much as they like without me. And if that's what you call a family conference, it's nothing so important that I should leave my room for it. I am busy. Do not bother me."
"...Father. Even though I, Natsuhi, am not connected to you by blood, I am still your daughter. The honor and glory of the Ushiromiya family, and everything that you have left... I, Natsuhi, will definitely show you that I can protect it...!" 
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The prospect of Kinzo being dead (And it's certainly believable...it would explain a lot of inconsistencies we've seen, and his body is always found burnt to a crisp - a classic means of disguising time of death to casual inspection) aligns well with a theory I've been brewing off the back of Eva possibly being bribed or coerced into being an accomplice for the real mastermind of the murders. I don't think it's a coincidence that in each episode a different adult in the Ushiromiya family ends up taking charge, arming themselves, and acting suspiciously towards the remaining survivors. What if every episode sees one of the Ushiromiya family members being subverted into joining the servant pact, with the first episode being Natsuhi, the second Rosa, and the third Eva? Motives and cause are quite clear: each of the three has severe emotional and/or financial vulnerabilities that could be taken advantage of in turning them against the rest of the family. Every episode goes into detail of how each suffered or was wronged by the other members of the family, something I believe is intentional on the part of the author. Natsuhi chafes from the disrespect from the other Ushiromiyas (Eva in particular is vicious) and outright isolation and lack of trust from her own husband; she's treated as an outsider, to the point where she's called and considers herself to be a 'borrowed womb.' It's been implied throughout the series that Rosa was bullied and not taken seriously by her elder siblings, even now when they're all adults (In the dinner arguments over the inheritance she's treated almost as an afterthought by the rest). She also desperately needs the wealth the gold would bring. Eva despises Krauss for his arrogance and life-long position as the Ushiromiya heir despite his inferior intelligence and ambition, needs money, and has a cruel and competitive enough personality that she wouldn't let pass an opportunity for wealth and revenge rolled into one package. Subsequently, early in each episode, each of the three has a suspect encounter with Beatrice, then proceeds to act suspiciously throughout the rest of the episode, culminating in each being among the few survivors at the end. Episode 1: Natsuhi meets with Kinzo here. Not only does he act completely different than all other accounts of him, but Eva later in the episode shows that the meeting itself was likely a lie. If Kinzo was dead all along then Natsuhi must have met someone else in that time; Beatrice, who convinced her to become an accomplice for the chance at revenge against the Ushiromiya family. She spends the rest of the episode shepherding the remaining survivors around like sheep, a wolf in disguise allowing Beatrice to pick them off one by one. At the end, when it's just her and the cousins left, she goes off to confront Beatrice alone, likely having second thoughts or wanting to kill Beatrice before she turns on the only victims left: her daughter and nephews. She doesn't come out the better for it (This scene proving as well that she and Beatrice are not the same person). Episode 2: Only one scene is necessary: This one, where Rosa meets with Beatrice in the chapel along with the rest of the Ushiromiya adults. They are all murdered, she shows up alive the very next day. Aside from other clues throughout the episode it's apparent that Beatrice bribed her into cooperating with her murders and sowing confusion among the ranks of the survivors. She notably doesn't trust the servants, knowing they work for Beatrice, and sends them away in order to keep herself and Maria safe from treachery. Episode 3: After solving the Epitaph, Eva met Beatrice in the room with the gold, where this elaborate ceremony serves as an apt metaphor for Beatrice roping her in with the promise of gold and control of the family name. We know what happens next, though interestingly enough Eva doesn't cooperate with Beatrice's plans and tries to murder her too. In retrospect this isn't a surprise; out of all the adults Eva is the most ambitious and confident, and likely wouldn't have settled for merely a share of the wealth after having blood on her hands. I'm a bit tired to think out all the ramifications of this theory, but I suppose the first is my previous proposal that Beatrice isn't one of the Ushiromiya family members, but someone on the island unknown to us who subverted the servants and planned out the massacres. Also, Kinzo's early death, if true, would confirm that Beatrice was in complete control of the servants during the course of the massacres. Lycaeon fucked around with this message at 05:58 on Jan 29, 2017 |
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Jan 29, 2017 04:03
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Well now that you guys have some suspect theories, why not put them to practical use and try solving the closed rooms and other mysteries with them.
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Jan 29, 2017 04:29
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Sorry if this seems like a stupid question, but was it ever said that the events of one episode have any relevance to other episodes outside of anything stated in red to pertain to the other episodes? After seeing all of the theories and ideas being posted I was wondering if I just missed where that was mentioned or something.
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Jan 29, 2017 06:50
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tiistai posted:Well now that you guys have some suspect theories, why not put them to practical use and try solving the closed rooms and other mysteries with them. Hm. Good idea. What's below is a terrible mix of stuff we're already pretty sure of and my speculation; I won't call out which is which every time, but hopefully it's obvious. I'll take a look at the first episode, since I've already typed way too many words about the others. To start things off, someone dresses up as Beatrice and gives Maria a mysterious letter. This is probably Shannon for the reasons I mentioned earlier, although it could be any number of people. There's no difficulty in getting Kinzo's seal for this letter if at least one of the inner circle of servants is subverted and Kinzo is dead. The letter is a challenge to everyone to work on the epitaph game. (Why? To reinforce belief in Beatrice? Because the murderer actually wants the gold found? To reinforce the nature of the inheritance so someone can produce the gold and claim it? To get the parents arguing about the inheritance even more? Answers on a postcard.) Sometime in the night, Natsuhi's door is marked with a red fluid (which is never conclusively identified as blood), but she is unharmed. This is theoretically because of the charm she has. The first set of murder victims is: Gohda Krauss Rudolf Kyrie Rosa Shannon They're missing, at first, and there is a general search for them. Kanon reports to Eva and Hideyoshi that something about the garden shed is "odd", a word which here means "covered with a bizarre mystical symbol". They go to investigate. We don't see what's inside. Nanjo and Natsuhi are called out to help. The kids see that something's up and go to look, but are prevented from doing so; they only catch a glimpse of the carnage, consisting of a bunch of faceless corpses and some clothing, at which point they quite sensibly start screaming. Hideyoshi identifies a corpse that is never directly seen by George or Battler as Shannon's and convinces him not to look at it. They lock the shed back up and leave things pretty much as they are. So let's unpack that. There's no real locked room here. The only reason there might have been one in the original conception is that we were trying to find a culprit that wasn't a member of the group, but now that we know the servants are in on it, it's trivial for one of them to get the key to the shed and unlock it, help load bodies into it, and then lock it again afterwards and return the key to its usual spot. Nanjo claims that the mutilation happened post-mortem, so the people can be killed through whatever method you like; shooting, stabbing, poisoning, whatever. Since we know there are guns around, let's just say for simplicity's sake that they were shot, since the rest of this is a lot easier if the murderers have guns. One of the conspirators goes around to their rooms, shoots them, and drags them into the shed. Or multiple conspirators do so, it doesn't matter that much. Hideyoshi is in on the conspiracy this time, since he most likely is lying about Shannon. (It's possible she really dies here, but I don't think so; see below.) So, our murderers: Hideyoshi and Eva with an assist from Genji and Shannon. Eva and Hideyoshi are in it for the money. If it's them, they've probably promised Shannon that she can marry George if she helps out. Nanjo may have to be in on it this time as well, since he's called in to look at the bodies. Genji may not have done any murder, but he probably impersonates Kinzo for Natsuhi. (Why? Probably loyalty to the family. Eva is a stronger leader than Krauss. Alternately, she solves the epitaph on this path as well and we just don't see it - he might accept that as making Eva the head of the family.) Hideyoshi is weirdly cheerful after all this. Battler interprets it as trying to cheer them up. Well. (I also hadn't noticed the first time that George refers to Shannon as Sayo once when crying about her, but he does! So we know her name right from the first episode, or would have if we'd caught it.) Eva, meanwhile, tries to throw suspicion on the servants. Natsuhi searches the area and comes back with a gun. Battler gets the story from the servants and Kanon seems to be upset about Shannon dying. (He's possibly not as in on things in this go-round.) Now we get to the second closed room. Eva claims that Natsuhi couldn't have seen Kinzo... and this may be the reason that Genji faked that visit. The proof that Eva presents (a paper she tucked into the study door) is only valid if Eva's story is itself trustworthy, which of course it isn't. Genji could put that paper in the door himself on his way out of the room. Kinzo doesn't disappear through the door because he was never in there. A person appears to have disappeared out of a closed room, but it wasn't closed by any reasonable definition and he wasn't in there in the first place. Battler has none of this poo poo, and Eva and Hideyoshi leave in a huff. They also turn down an escort. It could be they're suspicious of the servants, or, you know, it could be that they're murderers, that's also an option. Now we get to the second set of murders. Genji and Kanon discover Eva and Hideyoshi's door locked and chained. Genji sends Kanon away to get wire cutters. Kanon brings Kumasawa back and there's now a symbol on the door. Some things have gone unsaid here; is Kanon in on it and helped draw the symbol before getting her in some time that we weren't shown in the story? Did Genji just quickly draw it while he was gone? Could go either way. Let's assume Kanon isn't in on it in this version of the island for a moment and Genji just drew it. Or it could have been drawn on earlier with some ink that only becomes visible when heated, etc. Inside, Eva and Hideyoshi are dead. Now, the door is chained. Should be difficult to get in there, right? Except they didn't really search the room. They just looked in, everyone showed up and freaked out, and then they all locked the room up and left. The murderer could well have still been in the room, hidden under the bed, say. Of course, everyone's accounted for, so who's the murderer? Well, Sayo isn't accounted for, is she? Nobody knows she's still alive. But why would she kill these two? George's parents? Here's a potential scenario: Sayo comes to their room and Eva lets her in. Hideyoshi is in the bath and isn't part of this conversation. Eva tells Sayo that there is no way in fuckery they're ever going to let her marry George. Sayo, in a moment of rage, kills them both. I think cutting off her potential future with George would be a sufficient motivator, especially if she's already an accessory to murder. Since the bad guys are probably armed, she could easily just shoot both of them. Then she freaks out, locks and chains the door, and hides. While she's in there, she sees George yell that he will kill whoever killed his parents. After everyone leaves, she unlocks the door from the inside, leaves, and locks it again. (The chain has been cut at this point, so no need to do anything fiddly to re-close the room.) After that, we start detecting the awful smell of Kinzo in the incinerator. This isn't a problem. Sayo (probably), acting according to the previous plan, takes his dead deceased corpse and chucks it in there. The burning means that nobody can tell he's been dead for ages. They could have even preserved him for this moment somehow. Doesn't matter. Kanon runs into her and blindly attacks her, and she is forced to fight back and kill him. This could have been done by someone else, too, but the timing is super tricky. At this point, things have gone off the rails pretty badly. Whatever plan was supposed to be happening is probably not happening anymore, and it gets harder to say why people are doing things, but we're just following through on what might have happened by human agency, so: Genji drops a letter on the table which gets Natsuhi freaked out and forces the group to break up. This was probably part of the original plan, since the notes had to have been pre-written, but it also gives them an opportunity to get together to discuss what the hell to do next. At that meeting, there's probably an argument, and Sayo, who is still armed, ends up killing everyone else except Maria. The stakes are probably inserted post-mortem. This could, broadly, be construed as self-defense, since the other servants are probably a little miffed about the other plan getting screwed up; the stake business is a kind of terrible effort to throw people off the track. She doesn't hurt Maria, who is a child and couldn't have done anything to her; she just tells her to turn away. Maria identifies the culprit as Beatrice because she's seen Sayo dress up as Beatrice before (right at the beginning of the story). Maria also doesn't really grasp the content of their discussion exactly, because she's a child, but she does understand that "Beatrice" needed sacrifices and killed them and that they were unsurprisingly not thrilled with the idea. She can get in and out through the locked door because she's got one of the keys, so this isn't a closed room either. Natsuhi then goes out to confront her in the hall, as a result of the last letter. We don't know what that one said, but probably something like "hey, come and do something stupid so we can kill you". That was certainly pre-written as well. Since Sayo has a gun, she just beats Natsuhi to the draw and shoots her dead. Everyone else sees Beatrice in the hall at this point... but it's just Sayo dressed up as her. And here's where the story ends. What happens next? Sayo knows that George is never going to accept the murderer of his parents as a wife, and she heard him announce her intention to kill her. That's probably why she's gone off the deep end here and is dressed up as a mythical witch. I believe the plan was always to burn the mansion down at the end to destroy the evidence as much as possible, so there were probably preparations made to do that. (Cans of accelerant hidden around, that kind of thing.) So she disables or kills everyone that's left and then burns the place down with herself inside. There you go. No magic needed, no witches, just greed and social conflicts and broken hearts. I don't like putting so many of the murders on Shannon; I tried to assign some of them to Natsuhi, but as I was re-reading it it was just too hard to have her commit any of them. They mostly have to be committed by someone off-stage, the "19th person", and by vanishing from her normal identity, Shannon can become this person. Someone else from the first twilight could do the same, but it's harder to explain why they'd commit suicide at the end, and we've already been speculating about her surviving her assumed name, so there we are. Please do feel free to shoot holes in this. I'm sure there are some. idonotlikepeas fucked around with this message at 07:10 on Jan 29, 2017 |
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Jan 29, 2017 07:08
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It's certainly plausible, and I'm impressed with how you elaborated Shannon would escape death as Sayo in the first murders with Hideyoshi and Eva covering up for them. I previously ignored the Shannon/Sayo theory as it appears a little farfetched with the descriptions of her deaths in episodes 1, 2, and 3, and having two personalities in one person seems like a cop-out to get around the red text in episode 3. Still, I'm having a lot of trouble seeing how Sayo would commit the majority of the subsequent murders. While she may have been capable of accomplishing them mechanically her personality and potential motivations are completely off track with what someone capable of murdering multiple people in a row would be like (Much less gruesomely mutilate them in the process). Unless she was way more crazy than I gave her credit for she wouldn't have gone with her beloved screaming about killing her and use it as an excuse to kill everyone else. Motivation should play a large role in any mystery (Hence my belief in Natsuhi being the accomplice in episode 1), and her love for George doesn't seem to be serious enough to justify going on a shooting-spree. Plus Kanon has such a close relationship with her that them attacking each other is unlikely. Moreover, given the intense level of planning that went into these murders there has to be a ringleader or mastermind of some sort from where the instructions came. Someone with an overarching goal and reason to commit these crimes. I can't find any suggestion of that in your explanation, unless it was a one-off deal between Eva, Hideyoshi, and the servants. But given the consistency of the plans between the three episodes I lean towards doubting that. Edit: Also, as for a majority of the murders being committed with guns...I don't think that's plausible. The mansion isn't large enough to obscure the sound of gunfire, and the guns definitely aren't silenced. We also hear the report of a gun going off loudly at the end (The shot that kills Natsuhi) - a shooting spree with these things would've been obvious to everyone in the mansion. This isn't as significant though as I'm certain there are other quieter weapons that can be used to accomplish the murders (Poison in the instance of the first six, for example). Edit2: I think your explanation pretty much confirms that if the servants and at least one other Ushiromiya are in on the plot then setting up the majority of the closed room puzzles we're presented with would be trivial. Edit3: I'm of the personal belief that Beatrice is someone that Maria is closely familiar with. You don't pull her level of occult knowledge (That bears so much similarity to the magical circles drawn by the culprit that it can't be a coincidence) from thin air. So whoever is going around dressing up as Beatrice IS Beatrice in more than just appearance - the two know each other, and have been meeting with each other consistently over the previous family conferences. Lycaeon fucked around with this message at 09:31 on Jan 29, 2017 |
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Jan 29, 2017 07:53
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These theories are good! Though we sort of failed a bit never even speculating Kinzo was dead the whole time... I'm going to have a look at the daisy chain room in episode 3 in light of this possibility (mainly because I thought that was a particularly creative one): Beatrice's Closed Room Definition™ Beato posted:Indeed. The term 'closed room' refers to a room where the inside and the outside are completely cut off from each other. Naturally, it will be impossible to even affect things across that boundary line, much less enter or escape across it. This includes an all-inclusive denial of the existence of hidden doors, as well as all possibility of intervention from the outside. I refer to all types of direct intervention from the outside, such as using a fishing line or a long, thin rod. In conclusion, there are no gaps in the doors and windows through which such tricks will work. All direct and indirect methods of interfering with the inside of the closed room from the outside of the room are impossible. The closed room definition does not cover whether transmission of intent across the boundary is possible or not. Relevant red text: Kinzo, Genji, Kanon, Shannon, Gohda, and Kumasawa,- these six are all dead. There is no one hiding in the six rooms! The six died instantly. Only the victims are inside the rooms, and no other people exist inside the rooms. The six were not killed by traps. None of the six committed suicide. One master key each on the corpses of the servants. One room key in an envelope for the next room in a marked envelope in the previous room. Under the assumption that Kinzo was dead all along. We have 18 people on the island, 5 of which are dead. Kinzo definitely wasn't killed in the room that he was found in. So his instant nature of death also becomes irrelevant. The question then becomes, how do you set up the room knowing that the murders didn't take place in it. Loads of us pointed out at the time that Kinzo was the odd one our because he didn't have a master key, while everyone else did. This is probably the key to the entire mystery. Based on the first episode we know that the boiler room where Kinzo was found has both an internal and external door. This may or may not be relevant. If Kinzo were dead all along, his body may have always been in the boiler room. Perhaps with in the incinerator with it on a timer. The others are killed instantly, by the mysterious 18th person, the murderer (or not). The method is not important. It may have not been a homicide in every case, but it was not suicide, and Beatrice was about to say it wasn't an accident, which means while not ruling it out, makes it unlikely. We can probably assume that Kinzo is the weird case, as the others had wounds. Euthanasia seems like an option for not homicide, suicide or accident, it's basically the only condition that meets that that I can think of. If it was euthanasia, this could possibly give some important information about the motives of the murderer too. Liked Kinzo, found out how he was being treated, wanted to mete out justice? Just a theory. Anyway, back to the the rooms. Under the above assumptions of Kinzo already being dead and all the servants being murdered. How does an external person set up the rooms? Assuming a closed room, one room has to have been locked from the inside, and it has to be one of the servant's rooms, as Kinzo/fakeKinzo has no way of locking their own room. That said, I don't think we never hear in red the keys were inside the room the whole time? I couldn't find it, if so. If you hold one key back, and plant it while investigating the room, you don't require a 18th person. Anyone can do it. It feels like this isn't the answer, and it doesn't even require Kinzo being dead beforehand, but I don't think it's denied in red explicitly anywhere. If that's not the answer, I hit a brick wall again. I can't see that an additional person helps in this case. CottonWolf fucked around with this message at 14:58 on Jan 29, 2017 |
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Jan 29, 2017 14:48
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  "Blue... So I'll talk in blue when I tell you to repeat things...?" "Not quite. When you told me to repeat lines, you were able to do it for any trivial thing. But the blue is a little more restrictive. Unless it by itself denies witches, it will not be valid." "..."It's starting to get confusing, but it's more or less something like this.  BGM: Mind That had been to confirm that there really were 5 master keys, when she claimed there were no more than 5. But since that by itself wouldn't deny witches, I can't say it in blue. So, in order to speak in blue, I'd need to say something like this...  ...Only then would the witch, who claimed that this was a closed room murder made with magic, be responsible for making a counterargument. In other words, I can't demand that she repeat something that merely confirms the premises of my reasoning. That'll probably be a significant disadvantage for me. Crap... It's enough to make the red Beato used to toy with me until now look extremely merciful...   "...Are you gonna surrender before the fight begins again? Calm down. No one said you could only use the blue once for each mystery. Do you know what that means?" "N-No. What does it mean...?" "In the pitiful way you've been fighting up until now, you've made a single theory, glanced at the witch's complexion, and if that one didn't work, you'd then start making another theory. You won't corner a witch like that." "Then how should I fight...? You don't mean..." "Yeah, that's right. You don't attack her riddles with a point. You assault them with a wall. You said so yourself in an earlier game, that the force of your reasoning should be like that." BGM: Answer Guessing and trying to expose the mystery is like trying to shoot a distant target with an arrow. Until now, I've just been shooting off arrow after arrow, asking the witch if I scored a hit, and then preparing my bow again once I'm told that I've missed. There's no way I'll hit at that rate... Bullets might be a better example than arrows. If you take one shot after another at a distant target with a handgun, you probably won't hit it easily. So how can you hit it? If a handgun doesn't work, use a shotgun! Instead of a single bullet, beat her down with 'shot' comprised of countless projectiles at once...! Shot scatters, so it impacts a wide area. That makes it optimal for shooting small, fast targets like birds. That's right, there's no rule that says I have to guess like a pistol, shooting one shot off at a time. ...Making a single theory and just hoping that it hits is no better than stopping your own thinking. Blast away with a massive number of bullets, of guesses, and make them impact like a wall, so that only one of them hitting the target is enough.   "I see, so it's an awkward gun that fires many shots. *cackle*cackle*! That sort of crude analogy is just like you." "The climax of a detective novel is always the same. The famous detective gathers all the suspects at once and displays a single trail of logic that works splendidly. Almost like William Tell spectacularly shooting through an apple with a single arrow. That's why I mistakenly took that to be a virtue."...It probably would be splendid. If I could shoot through the truth with a single guess. But, that isn't realistic. Look at real wars. Do they really have everyone pull long guns out of the trench, aim reeeally well, and take shots at each other one at a time? They don't, right?! They fire rapidly, they fire all over the place, they pin down the enemy with a barrage! Reasoning is the same way. Because of that weird virtue, I've been stuck thinking it's better to take one line of reasoning at a time. We humans can fire off countless guesses and possibilities! The bullet is the power of imagination. Suspension of thought is a clogged barrel...! The pathetic way I've been reasoning up until now is like a peashooter. I've been so lame, weakly firing off shots, getting them denied in red, and then taking the next bullet and reloading. My 'blue truth', which claims that humans and tricks are what's real, will overpower its target, the illusion told by the witch, with its firepower and the force of what I can imagine...!   "...Thanks to you, I've figured out my true fighting style. Thanks, Gretel!!" "You're welcome." "Makes me think of how pathetic I was before." "...Yeah, it's like Beato said. I've had a handicap up until now. I'll acknowledge that...!! New rule, understood!! I have my own way of fighting! I'll show it to you!!" "*cackle*cackle*cackle*cackle*!! That willpower is good, I like it! Then, try using it right away, this blue truth of yours...!!" "...Yeah, I'll use it. With this blue truth, I'll break apart your witch theory, which states that only a witch culprit was possible because everyone had alibis!!" Prof here. With this new rule, we'll need a new way of expressing color in this colorless LP format. Thus, henceforth whenever the blue is used, it will be expressed using fixed, italic text. Also, since I'm sure it will come up soon, I'll be clear on one point: Since I am not the witch who created this game board, while I may sometimes do so, I bear no explicit responsibility to respond to blue truths used by participants in the thread.  BGM: At Death's Door  "...Ridiculous." "Th-That is correct, this is worse than ridiculous!! I have never heard such an insult!!" "It'd even be possible for us to check by force whether he's alive or dead, with the police there to witness it. Isn't that right, Eva nee-san...?" "...Y-Yes... That's right, Nii-san. There are all sorts of ways we could set you up. We could easily arrange for a situation where you'd have to hold a meeting with Father under the supervision of a third party...!" "Still, I think that would bring a lot of shame to the Ushiromiya family. That's why I'm making this proposal. Here we have the responsibilities and duties of the caretaker. And a penalty in the worst-case scenario. If you consent to those terms, we'll be able to refrain from doing something like dragging Father outside." "...Yeah, that's right, Aniki... Didn't you just say it yourself...? You're carrying out your natural duties as Dad's caretaker. Kyrie's conditions shouldn't be anything to worry about, right? Why this overreaction? Are you really that worried about having the position of Successor dragged out from under you if Dad dies something other than a natural death?" "Or else, what? Do you have some reason to think Father might die something other than a natural death...?" "How could I? I see, now I too understand how Father feels. How pitiful his later years have been for him, unable even to die as he pleases." "Yes, his later years truly have been pitiful. And the thought that these 'later years' are already something of the past is exactly what we're suspecting. You could completely clear this suspicion away just by letting us meet with Father. So, even after being humiliated by us this much, you still won't allow us to meet with him, Krauss nii-san...?" "..." "Father is probably already dead. The corpse may have been disposed of in absolute secrecy. And after taking all of the wealth for yourself as Father's agent, you will make it seem that he 'disappeared' until seven years pass, making Father a corpseless member of the deceased." "...I'm sorry, but please don't take it badly, okay? I'm just playing detective here." "...H-How rude can one be?!! You have no right to stay in this mansion!! Leave immediately!! I won't permit you to cross the threshold of this house again!!" "It worked last year, but you've used up your luck if you thought it'd work this year too. Father is in a bad mood, so he can't meet with us? That was plenty suspicious last year, and yet you're doing it again. If you really wanted to fake being Father's agent and grab up all his assets, you should've done it a little more speedily, making him disappear without waiting for today's family conference. You really are naive, Krauss onii-sama..." "...I have no idea what you are-" "However! If it's a fact that Father's in a bad mood, and you're preventing us from meeting him as part of your responsibilities as his caretaker, then it's a very wonderful thing you're doing. In that case, if you just accept our conditions, everything will be settled here and now. After all, you care so greatly for Father, Krauss nii-san. There's no way Father will die in a manner that leads to trouble during the autopsy. Father hates hospitals, so he'll pass away in his study, right? An autopsy will certainly be carried out no matter what happens. The only way to kill him without an autopsy would be for him to disappear." "...Enough, Kyrie-san. I think you've bullied Nii-san enough."Eva rebuked Kyrie in an sickeningly kind voice. Considering the situation, that was impossible. Which is why it was sickening...   "...Yes, that's right. She might have made light of Krauss nii-san's pride as the eldest son a little too much. I'd feel bad for him if we were to force him to sign a statement regarding the duties of the caretaker as Kyrie-san has laid them out." "That's right. You're doing a good job, Aniki. Taking that into account, we might consider avoiding all that about signing strange papers and worst-case penalties... and leave everything to you." "...Y-You people..."Not just Eva, but Rudolf and Rosa as well, with unnerving smiles on their faces as though they'd planned this beforehand, began closing in on Krauss. They now understood perfectly how Kyrie had cornered Krauss... and exactly where she was prepared to compromise...  "...We were talking about a signed statement regarding the responsibilities of the caretaker. But, even without signing such a thing, you can make it so that we'll never demand a meeting with Father again. If you can prove your fitness as Father's caretaker with a form of guarantee other than a signed statement, that is." BGM: Fishy Aroma "The security money will be paid to Eva-san, Rudolf-san, and Rosa-san, 3 billion yen each. As a deposit, you will transfer ten percent of that, 300 million yen, before the year is out." "9 billion?! I don't have that kind of money!!!" "After Father passes away, you should be able to work it out. We've managed to investigate at least that far. You should be able to handle the deposit of 900 million yen in your current financial situation." "And it should even be possible for you to borrow it from Father, right? There's no need for obvious charades anymore." "...H-How unpleasant. Truly unpleasant...!!" "I-It is at that!! Even just the discussion of Father's inheritance was far too disrespectful! Father is already dead? My husband is hiding that and keeping all the money for himself?! I have had enough of this!! None of you are qualified to bear the name Ushiromiya any longer!!" "Calm down, Natsuhi-san...! We've all said all we need to! Why don't we leave it at that for now...?! This is happinin' all of a sudden and on a massive scale. We might even be gettin' agitated ourselves! Why don't we take a break for a while and cool our heads? Krauss nii-san probably needs a little time himself. Right, Krauss nii-san?" "...Time...? And why would I need something like that?" "Don't worry, don't worry! We aren't thinkin' of anythin' shady! We're just so eager to see Father that we've started grumblin' a bit...! And Krauss nii-san, I know reeeal well how you're dyin' to get back at us for the things we've said...! If you're willin' to go so far, then you just need to let us meet with him! Right? Isn't that right? You just got a bit stubborn, and it felt awkward to say you'd let us see him after sayin' we couldn't all those times. Isn't that it? Right? Right?" "...I-It certainly does seem that my husband has lost his composure slightly, just like the rest of you have. We were only refusing stubbornly out of respect for Father's desire not to meet with everyone." "...Indeed, that's right. It was turning into another sibling fight like the old days, and I started feeling stubborn as well. Let us cool our heads. I understand how much you all want to meet with Father. I will pass that on to him. I'll find some way to convince Father to meet with you. Will that do?" "...Yeah. I think it'd be okay to give Krauss nii-san some time to persuade Father." "Yep. We're counting on you, Aniki. Please persuade him to meet with us. After all, you're Dad's caretaker." "And as for persuading him, let's set a limit on it to sometime tonight, okay? When tomorrow comes, we'll confirm Father's well-being, even if we have to break down the door to his study. You have no problems with that, I take it? Nii-san...?" "...Do as you like. I see, it seems even the time I've been given to persuade him is short. Let us go, Natsuhi. We shall ask him to join us for dinner at least." "R-Right...!"Krauss left the parlor with Natsuhi. Once their footsteps disappeared, Hideyoshi took a deep breath, smirking and flopping onto the sofa...  "Sorry for speaking out of turn. I apologize." "...No, no. You didn't corner him like we'd originally planned, but in the end, this was even better. Just like always, I've gotta bow my head to you..." "But...can he really prepare 900 million...? I believe we estimated that 750 million would be the most Krauss nii-san could afford with his current financial situation... Isn't 900 million gouging him too much...?" "If he can't do it, that's fine too. If we do something like lowering it to 750 million so Krauss nii-san can save face, it'll look like we're compromising and it'll be easier to settle, right? And if he really does come out with 900 million, that's even better." "Nii-san is probably having a strategy meeting with Natsuhi-san about now. really will be interesting to see what kind of twisted logic our proud Nii-san comes up with as an excuse." "Convince Father...? There's no way he can."  Krauss and Natsuhi could be seen in Kinzo's dimly lit study. Every once in a while, thunder could be heard, and the dimly lit room flickered with light. It seemed that the island would be closed off by the storm very soon. "...Father...! Please, just this once, show those disrespectful people the majesty of the Head...!" BGM: Happiness of Marionette - Bonus The large shadow of a person standing by the window, his majestic back facing them, answered quietly and forcefully. He hung his head and shook. Eventually, they could hear a mumbling laugh over his shoulder.  ...Three months left to live...? An almost finished geezer...? To whom exactly are you referring?  As Kinzo turned and brushed his cape, it flashed forcefully through the room's stale air. That air pressure truly signified Ushiromiya Kinzo's majesty and willpower itself. After being blown back by that wind, it wasn't strange that Krauss landed on his butt. As though showing consideration for Krauss, who looked as though his legs had been swept out from under him, Natsuhi also crouched down. Then, with a *thunk*, *thunk*, Kinzo's footsteps approached with a heft that signified his dignity. "...F-Father..." "Yoou fooooooooool...!! I heard from Kanon. Just how far did you pathetically let your siblings lead you around by the nose?!?!" "F-Father...! My husband is doing his best to protect your honor..."Without lending an ear to Natsuhi's words, Kinzo extended his palm to Krauss's collar, as the latter sat on the floor. No, he curled his fingers, leaving only his pointer finger out, then took that finger and... pressed it up against Krauss's collar, twisted it, and slowly, with just one finger, picked Krauss up into the air.   "Gaggahh, gwah...!!"Krauss clawed at the air. Kinzo's brawny finger was choking him. He couldn't even open his mouth, much less talk. However, even if he had been able to open his mouth, as he was now, there was no way he'd be able to think up an excuse that Kinzo would accept... Still, how could this power be described...? No one would call Kinzo an old man after seeing this superhuman strength... "...Father...!! My husband is fighting in his own way...!! Please, forgive him...!!" "...Natsuhii. Fighting is a process you go through before winning. The process you go through before losing isn't called fighting." "Just one word, we call that humiliation!! Wahhahahahahahahaha, you call this my successor? Wahhahahahahahaha, wahhahhahhahahahahahahahhaaaaaaah!!"As thunder roared, Kinzo laughed heartily as though nothing could be more pleasant. And when he finished laughing, he threw his son away like he was scrap paper, slamming him against the wall... "Gwah, uuuuuuuuu..." "Dear, dear...!! Are you okay..."Krauss slid down the wall, rubbing his throat as though in pain... Natsuhi ran up to him and looked after him... But without showing any interest in the two of them, Kinzo returned to the space near the window, as though he had been there the whole time, and looked up at the thunderclouds of misfortune.  BGM: Fishy Aroma  "...It was promised from the beginning that nothing received from the witch would remain. However, the Ushiromiya name is not the property of the witch. ...Who is fit to succeed that name? It seems that this alone must be resolved by my own hand. Rejoice, Krauss!! I have changed my mind." "...F-Father... So...?" "I have no desire to have dinner with you cowards. However, I will attend the family conference afterwards!" "F-Father... Thank you very much...!" 
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Jan 29, 2017 15:26
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Lycaeon posted:It's certainly plausible, and I'm impressed with how you elaborated Shannon would escape death as Sayo in the first murders with Hideyoshi and Eva covering up for them. I previously ignored the Shannon/Sayo theory as it appears a little farfetched with the descriptions of her deaths in episodes 1, 2, and 3, and having two personalities in one person seems like a cop-out to get around the red text in episode 3. Still, I'm having a lot of trouble seeing how Sayo would commit the majority of the subsequent murders. While she may have been capable of accomplishing them mechanically her personality and potential motivations are completely off track with what someone capable of murdering multiple people in a row would be like (Much less gruesomely mutilate them in the process). Unless she was way more crazy than I gave her credit for she wouldn't have gone with her beloved screaming about killing her and use it as an excuse to kill everyone else. Motivation should play a large role in any mystery (Hence my belief in Natsuhi being the accomplice in episode 1), and her love for George doesn't seem to be serious enough to justify going on a shooting-spree. Plus Kanon has such a close relationship with her that them attacking each other is unlikely. In this case, I worked in the opposite direction. I came to the conclusion that she was the most likely killer and then guessed at her motivations (which is why I spent time addressing them). I would MUCH rather that the killer be Natsuhi, but I just can't figure out how it makes sense. Especially for that last set of murders; if you can figure out a way for anyone else to plausibly kill those servants, I'm all ears. I thought about them killing each other in some kind of fight, but the stakes kind of destroy that theory - I refuse to believe that they all simulstaked each other to death, especially considering their faces were smashed (presumably post-mortem, they didn't all fall on face-crushing machines or anything - I wouldn't NECESSARILY put it past Kinzo to own one, but there weren't any in the room). So someone else in that room killed them, and Maria doesn't have the kind of strength necessary to do that. Since all the other survivors are together the entire time, it must be someone that isn't in that group. I already believe that nobody else is on the island, so the only remaining possibility is that someone we thought was dead previously actually isn't. (This is a part of my reasoning that's weak; if I'm wrong and there genuinely is another person, they did it here. And I will be super upset with the author, because having a random non-suspect show up right at the end of the mystery and commit all the murders is foul play.) It is also likely someone dressed up as Beatrice, based on Maria's testimony. So the question became, who is most likely to still be alive? Kinzo was dead all along, and even if he wasn't, he was burned up in a fire, which is impossible to fake, and the twelve-toe thing makes it likely to be him (although I had considered other possibilities before the he-was-dead-all-along theory came up). Eva and Hideyoshi had terrible stake-wounds on them and were seen at close range by most everyone. They're probably dead. Kanon was actually still alive up until the point that Nanjo came and told everyone he'd died, and he could very well have wounded himself either genuinely or as a fake-out, so I had him down as a possibility, but as you pointed out, his hostility towards the entire Beatrice concept makes him a less attractive subject. And it's hard for him to commit the Eva/Hideyoshi murder unless we disbelieve what we see with him and Genji visiting the room, which I'm trying to do as little of as possible. So he's out. That leaves the victims of the first twilight. Of those, the one who most resembles Beatrice is Shannon. Battler's parents wouldn't have killed him at the end (and keep in mind that everyone ends up dead, so we have to explain that too). Rosa, similarly, wouldn't have killed Maria, and Maria probably would have recognized her as not being Beatrice during the servant murders. (I almost said that she wouldn't have murdered anyone in front of her daughter, but, well, Rosa.) Krauss and Gohda could not possibly have been mistaken for Beatrice by Maria unless they are the most amazing cross-dressers ever, and it's also really hard to come up with ANY motivation for either of them to do all this nonsense, plausible or not. (Plus, as of that short story that got posted a bit back, I believe Gohda is out of the loop on everything.) So Shannon is what I was left with, and I was already suspicious about her having dual identities. Again, I'm sure there are holes here; I'd be really interested in someone proposing an alternate chain of events. Lycaeon posted:Moreover, given the intense level of planning that went into these murders there has to be a ringleader or mastermind of some sort from where the instructions came. Someone with an overarching goal and reason to commit these crimes. I can't find any suggestion of that in your explanation, unless it was a one-off deal between Eva, Hideyoshi, and the servants. But given the consistency of the plans between the three episodes I lean towards doubting that. I don't think we need to have the same mastermind every time. This time, it would be Eva and Hideyoshi as the central figures. All that's necessary is for everyone to die by the end, except possibly Eva. Lycaeon posted:Edit: Also, as for a majority of the murders being committed with guns...I don't think that's plausible. The mansion isn't large enough to obscure the sound of gunfire, and the guns definitely aren't silenced. We also hear the report of a gun going off loudly at the end (The shot that kills Natsuhi) - a shooting spree with these things would've been obvious to everyone in the mansion. This isn't as significant though as I'm certain there are other quieter weapons that can be used to accomplish the murders (Poison in the instance of the first six, for example). Yeah, it could be something other than guns. I think guns are okay, though, because most of the murders happen far away from the detectives. And because there are several guns unaccounted for - note that in a later episode we have most of the adults armed while only Natsuhi is armed this time. Where did the rest of those guns go? That said, yeah, sound is an issue that might deserve more consideration. Lycaeon posted:Edit3: I'm of the personal belief that Beatrice is someone that Maria is closely familiar with. You don't pull her level of occult knowledge (That bears so much similarity to the magical circles drawn by the culprit that it can't be a coincidence) from thin air. So whoever is going around dressing up as Beatrice IS Beatrice in more than just appearance - the two know each other, and have been meeting with each other consistently over the previous family conferences. This makes sense, so it would have to be someone who's on the island during all of those conferences. That basically is everyone except Battler, though. Edit: Jesus Christ, that's what I get for not checking preview first. Edit 2: I'm not super convinced by a version of Kinzo that can lift people up with one finger, but I guess we'll see at the conference? idonotlikepeas fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Jan 29, 2017 |
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Jan 29, 2017 15:49
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idonotlikepeas posted:I don't think we need to have the same mastermind every time. This time, it would be Eva and Hideyoshi as the central figures. All that's necessary is for everyone to die by the end, except possibly Eva. I'm still not even convinced that Eva has to survive every time, with all the talk of Schrödinger's cat, each episode could easily be a parallel universe with a different killer/survivors. But to take your alternate series of events challenge, basing it on the Kinzo is dead there's an 18th person theory (which I'm still not entirely convinced by, but as an exercise it works): idonotlikepeas posted:To start things off, someone dresses up as Beatrice and gives Maria a mysterious letter. This is probably Shannon for the reasons I mentioned earlier, although it could be any number of people. There's no difficulty in getting Kinzo's seal for this letter if at least one of the inner circle of servants is subverted and Kinzo is dead. The letter is a challenge to everyone to work on the epitaph game. (Why? To reinforce belief in Beatrice? Because the murderer actually wants the gold found? To reinforce the nature of the inheritance so someone can produce the gold and claim it? To get the parents arguing about the inheritance even more? Answers on a postcard.) No arguments here. It could be Shannon. It could be the 18th person. It could be anyone else. idonotlikepeas posted:Sometime in the night, Natsuhi's door is marked with a red fluid (which is never conclusively identified as blood), but she is unharmed. This is theoretically because of the charm she has. Obviously not the charm, and I don't think it is blood. I think you're right. I did like your special pain that only becomes visible when heated theory. That makes a lot of the drawings make more sense in terms of the time they'd take to paint. idonotlikepeas posted:The first set of murder victims is: In this version on the 18th person theory, they're all telling the truth. Shannon really is dead (I'll explain why I don't by the rationale for your Shannon is alive theory when we get there). Clearly the 18th person performed the murders and hid them there. But then why? Who'd benefit? Well, after the last "Ange episode" I theorised that Kyrie's family had a lot gain by everyone on that island dying. So if they could get someone on there to impersonate Kinzo, knowing that he were already dead, and then lead to the deaths of everyone there, Ange would inherit and they'd be able to manipulate her to get the Ushiromiya fortune. But, of course, that requires that the fortune be found first. Hence the requirement for the solving of the riddle. If they could get one of the people who they were already planning to kill to find the gold all the better, saves work later. So this mysterious 18th person kills the people on the first twilight and puts the fear of the witch into the survivors. Presumably this person is female, and Maria has met her. (I'd be up for any wild speculation as to how that would work, it seems like a pretty big flaw in this theory. Perhaps a former servant they hired? It would explain how they knew the layout of the mansion.) idonotlikepeas posted:Now we get to the second closed room. Eva claims that Natsuhi couldn't have seen Kinzo... and this may be the reason that Genji faked that visit. The proof that Eva presents (a paper she tucked into the study door) is only valid if Eva's story is itself trustworthy, which of course it isn't. Genji could put that paper in the door himself on his way out of the room. Kinzo doesn't disappear through the door because he was never in there. A person appears to have disappeared out of a closed room, but it wasn't closed by any reasonable definition and he wasn't in there in the first place. Yeah, no matter whether you believe Eva or not here, there are many ways that the paper could have been put back in. I'm tempted to say that Natsuhi did speak to someone she thought was Kinzo, like you. Who that is an open question though. Importantly if Kinzo is dead, at least Nanjo and Genji have to know, plus the hypothetical 18th person. In any Kinzo is dead theory, Nanjo and Genji become a bit of a mystery. Because they were ostensibly his friends. I can't see them working with his killer. If they were sold that they were working to avenge his "murder" I could see it though. idonotlikepeas posted:Now we get to the second set of murders. Genji and Kanon discover Eva and Hideyoshi's door locked and chained. Genji sends Kanon away to get wire cutters. Kanon brings Kumasawa back and there's now a symbol on the door. Some things have gone unsaid here; is Kanon in on it and helped draw the symbol before getting her in some time that we weren't shown in the story? Did Genji just quickly draw it while he was gone? Could go either way. Let's assume Kanon isn't in on it in this version of the island for a moment and Genji just drew it. Or it could have been drawn on earlier with some ink that only becomes visible when heated, etc. Inside, Eva and Hideyoshi are dead. This is where I don't buy your Sayo theory. Eva is just far too prideful to ever suggest that it would be okay for Sayo to marry George. I can see no circumstances that this would happen. Even if they just intended to betray her, I can't see it being promised. As for the murderer hiding in the room, I suspect you're right. I think it's the only way that closed room works. If the 18th person was a former servant, Eva might have known who they were and let them in, especially if they claimed they had a warning or something (which would be a pretty dumb thing to do, but isn't outside of the realm of possibility). Another possibility is that it's "Kinzo", Eva would probably let him in. Either way, it guarantees that the 18th person must be someone the other people knew. They kill E&H. idonotlikepeas posted:After that, we start detecting the awful smell of Kinzo in the incinerator. This isn't a problem. Sayo (probably), acting according to the previous plan, takes his dead deceased corpse and chucks it in there. The burning means that nobody can tell he's been dead for ages. They could have even preserved him for this moment somehow. Doesn't matter. Kanon runs into her and blindly attacks her, and she is forced to fight back and kill him. This could have been done by someone else, too, but the timing is super tricky. As you say, but the 18th person does it, and Kanon dying is absolutely part of the plan because no-one can survive. idonotlikepeas posted:At this point, things have gone off the rails pretty badly. Whatever plan was supposed to be happening is probably not happening anymore, and it gets harder to say why people are doing things, but we're just following through on what might have happened by human agency, so: Genji drops a letter on the table which gets Natsuhi freaked out and forces the group to break up. This was probably part of the original plan, since the notes had to have been pre-written, but it also gives them an opportunity to get together to discuss what the hell to do next. At that meeting, there's probably an argument, and Sayo, who is still armed, ends up killing everyone else except Maria. The stakes are probably inserted post-mortem. This could, broadly, be construed as self-defense, since the other servants are probably a little miffed about the other plan getting screwed up; the stake business is a kind of terrible effort to throw people off the track. She doesn't hurt Maria, who is a child and couldn't have done anything to her; she just tells her to turn away. Maria identifies the culprit as Beatrice because she's seen Sayo dress up as Beatrice before (right at the beginning of the story). Maria also doesn't really grasp the content of their discussion exactly, because she's a child, but she does understand that "Beatrice" needed sacrifices and killed them and that they were unsurprisingly not thrilled with the idea. She can get in and out through the locked door because she's got one of the keys, so this isn't a closed room either. Nanjo or Genji drop the letter. They go with Kumasawa and Maria. Kumasawa and Maria aren't in on it. Persumably the 18th person betrays them, as was always the plan, and kills Nanjo, Genji and Kumasawa, but they can't bring themselves to Maria. idonotlikepeas posted:Natsuhi then goes out to confront her in the hall, as a result of the last letter. We don't know what that one said, but probably something like "hey, come and do something stupid so we can kill you". That was certainly pre-written as well. Since Sayo has a gun, she just beats Natsuhi to the draw and shoots her dead. Everyone else sees Beatrice in the hall at this point... but it's just Sayo dressed up as her. And here's where the story ends. In my theory of this, they all get shot, the place burns down and then the murderer escapes and reports back to Kyrie's family. But yeah, I really agree with you on the details, I just don't think that Shannon was the killer. Simply because it relies on Eva being less prideful than she is, and pride is basically 100% of her character. The first episode is generally more solvable than the later ones though. The reason that I went with Kyrie's family being the killers is that it seems like this has to tie into the stuff going on in the future some how, and that's a good way of making the link, especially considering that we know that they have a strong motive. That said, I can't really find many faults in your theory though. It's perfectly plausible. Certainly more plausible than mine. EDIT: Dammit. I missed an update, and now I too am a brain-dead fool. 
CottonWolf fucked around with this message at 17:39 on Jan 29, 2017 |
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Jan 29, 2017 17:23
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The crazy Eva sprite was pretty good, but here we finally go with the best sprite in the drat game. 
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Jan 29, 2017 17:24
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ProfessorProf posted:
Goddamn.  Kinzo isn't dead, but I think he is legitimately, dyed in the wool insane. Before he was treated as just this weirdo played half for laughs and half for sympathy, but if the reason he isn't coming to the conference is that he's developed the galloping crazies and has delusions about throwing people around the room... well that's a little more serious.Or else this scene is from Krauss' perspective and he's the one who's gone insane, cracking under the strain of his financial troubles and lifelong abuse and envisioning his father as this massive monster who pushes him around... and the reality is that he's kneeling before Kinzo's cooling corpse or something... Like Peas said, I guess we'll know at the conference if it even happens this time around. (Or will we actually know? This story is hard to follow, with all of the shifting viewpoints between people of varying sanities...)
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Jan 29, 2017 17:48
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CottonWolf posted:In my theory of this, they all get shot, the place burns down and then the murderer escapes and reports back to Kyrie's family. But yeah, I really agree with you on the details, I just don't think that Shannon was the killer. Simply because it relies on Eva being less prideful than she is, and pride is basically 100% of her character. The first episode is generally more solvable than the later ones though. The reason that I went with Kyrie's family being the killers is that it seems like this has to tie into the stuff going on in the future some how, and that's a good way of making the link, especially considering that we know that they have a strong motive. I hadn't thought about Kyrie's family being involved, but that does make the extra person thing work better - at least the new suspect wouldn't come TOTALLY out of left field in that case. The whole case definitely hangs together that way, and my main objection to another person is based on dramatic convention, not evidence. I don't know what the gently caress is going on as of this new Kinzo scene, though. I mean, he's clearly not TOTALLY real, because of the superhuman strength thing, but having this whole scene made totally up out of whole cloth would be weird. And while Natsuhi might be fooled by an imposter with his back to her, Krauss wouldn't be by someone facing him. Aaaaaagh.
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Jan 29, 2017 18:04
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Fake or not, I can see where Battler gets some of his character tics, from. And one more "Holy poo poo, Kyrie" for the road. Because after learning her entire family is cutthroat as hell, this makes so much sense.
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Jan 29, 2017 18:35
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bman in 2288 posted:Fake or not, I can see where Battler gets some of his character tics, from. As I said earlier I think her family is a Yakuza one.
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Jan 29, 2017 18:46
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idonotlikepeas posted:I hadn't thought about Kyrie's family being involved, but that does make the extra person thing work better - at least the new suspect wouldn't come TOTALLY out of left field in that case. The whole case definitely hangs together that way, and my main objection to another person is based on dramatic convention, not evidence. I read all of your analyses and I have some suppositions of my own. I honestly think that the "new" suspect has to be Shannon/Sayo. That is to say, there are still 17 people on this island, but 19 personas (if you count Kanon's split identity shenanigans also).
Because she dies in some of the episodes, it makes sense to assume that some of her accomplices betray her sometimes, and the rest of her accomplices seal the deal in her stead. Perhaps they betray her out of pride, like CottonWolf suggests, or even just simple fear, since it doesn't seem like she is eager to let anyone leave the island alive. But until then, she has them all wrapped around her little finger. The latest scene with Kinzo in the study could potentially be read as Sayo, Krauss, and Natsuhi coming up with a plan to kill the rest of the family in an "accident."
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Jan 29, 2017 18:55
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and association with a trite Romeo & Juliet scenario is absolutely meant to disarm the viewer and deconstruct gender stereotypes.
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Tender Child Loins posted:I read all of your analyses and I have some suppositions of my own. I honestly think that the "new" suspect has to be Shannon/Sayo. That is to say, there are still 17 people on this island, but 19 personas (if you count Kanon's split identity shenanigans also). After reading this I think I have to do a reversal on my stance on the theory. It seems a lot more plausible now, what with the requirements that whoever Beatrice was must've lived on the island, had close contact with the servants to manipulate them, and was in close relationships with Shannon, Kanon, and Maria. Shannon satisfies all those requirements. It certainly clarifies what's happening during this scene; Shannon is not talking to an 18th person as I originally guessed, but is talking to her other self, someone completely opposite from her; someone unimaginably cruel and spiteful. Oh poo poo...and this sentence. quote:
It's the exact same one Eva told Shannon here. She was just repeating it back to herself in the scene with Beatrice. quote:
Shannon isn't capable of killing everyone on the island. But Beatrice...or Sayo...is. Time to go back and do another reread. Edit: quote:
In retrospect it makes this quote a lot more saddening than sinister. It's not cruel spite, it's complete lack of self-confidence and terror at losing George.  Edit2: And she would have more motive than just love for George. The Ushiromiya adults, especially Natsuhi and Eva, treat her like poo poo. Edit3: And it explains why neither Rosa nor Kyrie recognized her in episode 2; not living on the island, and likely not regarding the servants at all during previous conferences, they wouldn't know her well enough to recognize her. Lycaeon fucked around with this message at 01:12 on Jan 30, 2017 |
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Jan 29, 2017 19:31
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"To answer that expectation, he has studied tirelessly, entered a wonderful college, and is getting wonderful grades. Did you really think you could snatch George away, you uneducated, incompetent, unqualified, uncultured servaaaant?"
"George is the eldest grandson carrying Father's blood. He's a person who may bear the burden of the Ushiromiya family someday in the future. To answer that expectation, he has studied tirelessly, entered a wonderful college, and is getting wonderful grades. Did you really think you could snatch George away, you uneducated, incompetent, unqualified, uncultured servaaaant?"
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Those are great spots. That Eva/Beatrice overlap is pretty damning. I'm not wholly convinced that Rosa wouldn't recognise Shannon/Sayo though, Kyrie maybe, but surely Rosa would. They must have met several times at least.
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Jan 30, 2017 01:15
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Tender Child Loins posted:[list][*]We know Shannon, but not her. We can't imagine Shannon killing, but what about Sayo? Her being a relative of Kyrie's is an interesting idea, since that whole family appears to be a bit screwed up. It would also unite that part of the theory with some of the clever stuff CottonWolf said. I have to admit that this thing with Kinzo took some of the wind out of my sails, though. I thought I had something with all this, but if he really is still alive it muddies the picture. His murder is in an awkward spot for either a crime of passion from Shannon or a calculated move by Eva/Hideyoshi. I guess he could have been killed and fed into the incinerator earlier, though? It might take a while for the smell to start spreading around the house. Of course, in that case, why would Sayo be in the basement to run into Kanon? Ugh. Oh, speaking of: tiistai posted:Well now that you guys have some suspect theories, why not put them to practical use and try solving the closed rooms and other mysteries with them. Since I assume you knew what was coming up: good job. You totally got me with this.  (Witches are still fake, though.)
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Jan 30, 2017 02:11
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Just spotted in the first-ever update: the study is noted to have "a sickly-sweet stench." I think other people note that later as well. It's Kinzo's rotting corpse.  Believe, y'all! He is most certainly dead and still hanging out up there. The scene in the latest update is an illusion.
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Jan 30, 2017 02:22
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I don't know what's real anymore!
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Jan 30, 2017 02:24
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idonotlikepeas posted:(Witches are still fake, though.) I'll remember this when you change your mind
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Jan 30, 2017 02:29
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CottonWolf posted:I don't know what's real anymore! I'm glad that the thread is getting to have the full Umineko Experience.
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Jan 30, 2017 02:33
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Tender Child Loins posted:Just spotted in the first-ever update: the study is noted to have "a sickly-sweet stench." I think other people note that later as well. I know they would have needed to keep it somewhere... but just leaving it in his loving study? For God knows how long? If that's true, they are even crazier assholes than I thought. tiistai posted:I'll remember this when you change your mind 
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Jan 30, 2017 03:01
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CottonWolf posted:I'm not wholly convinced that Rosa wouldn't recognise Shannon/Sayo though, Kyrie maybe, but surely Rosa would. They must have met several times at least. If Rosa visits the island only once a year she probably wouldn't remember one of the random servants, and, given her general sense of apathy towards her own daughter, she probably wouldn't have noticed Maria dallying somewhere in the mansion with Shannon. Kinzo showing up alive here doubt on his deadness, but his supernatural old man strength here...I don't think we should take this scene at face value. I suppose we'll just have to wait and see. I'm still twisting my head around Shannon being the culprit - after going over things there are still inconsistencies. I had thought she was simply a victim of Beatrice's machinations, but if she is Beatrice it completely ruins my idea that Beatrice was someone who enjoyed making relationships then tearing them apart. For one thing, Beatrice murdering George here now means it's Shannon murdering George. And that is completely nonsensical. Lycaeon fucked around with this message at 03:08 on Jan 30, 2017 |
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Jan 30, 2017 03:05
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Lycaeon posted:I'm still twisting my head around Shannon being the culprit - after going over things there are still inconsistencies. I had thought she was simply a victim of Beatrice's machinations, but if she is Beatrice it completely ruins my idea that Beatrice was someone who enjoyed making relationships then tearing them apart. For one thing, Beatrice murdering George here now means it's Shannon murdering George. And that is completely nonsensical. Shannon sometimes dressing up as Beatrice doesn't necessarily mean that every time Beatrice appears, it's actually Shannon. I think Beatrice is just a representation of the murderer, whoever it happens to be at that time. It could be the scene here is as represented minus the magic - someone else comes in, Shannon defends George, they both die.
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Jan 30, 2017 03:18
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That doesn't explain why the Beatrice in the murder acts exactly the same as the Beatrice Shannon meets with over the beginning of the episode, along with her completely over-the-top rant cursing Shannon and her love with George. I don't think we can ignore all the jam-packed symbolism here. I had imagined Beatrice as a spiteful demon who's destroying Shannon's relationship out of jealousy and hatred of love, but with them potentially being the same person...it doesn't make sense anymore. As possibly crazy as she is she would never kill George. Edit: Nevermind, the below explanation works. Lycaeon fucked around with this message at 04:15 on Jan 30, 2017 |
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Jan 30, 2017 03:32
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Regarding Shannon and George, it's possible that she doesn't believe in their future; thus, a murder-suicide is the only way they can be "together." She might not believe based on their class difference, the risk of George alienating his entire family for her sake, or, based on my earlier supposition about her parentage, the possibility that she and George are blood relatives. Her arguments with Beatrice could be read as an internal debate. Beatrice might represent the harsher side of Sayo, trying to put Shannon off of a hopeless love by pointing out its flaws.
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Jan 30, 2017 03:55
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Is that really an example you want to go to? A man who strongly believed in his incorrect assertion long past the point of ludicrousness? VVV In that case, shine on you crazy diamond. oath2order fucked around with this message at 04:51 on Jan 30, 2017 |
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Jan 30, 2017 04:38
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| # ? May 9, 2024 22:22 |
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oath2order posted:Is that really an example you want to go to? A man who strongly believed in his incorrect assertion long past the point of ludicrousness? I chose it with care.
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Jan 30, 2017 04:47
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