Umineko Thoughts: Episode 1, Chapters 6-10

Right. Well then. It was all going so well. I was expecting one person to die, not the whole crew. Six dead, this letter, and a more clear task, but still no idea where we’re going or how this will end up. And what was that butterfly? Theories below the cut:

• So the most obvious thing is the six dead corresponding to the ‘six chosen by the key’ from the epitaph. And this makes sense, this is the ‘first twilight’ i.e. the first night since things started going wrong.. but does that really mean that the typhoon will cut off the island for a week and a half?
  • Furthermore, just how much detail are we going to go into here. I’m on chapter 10 and episode 1 has no sign of letting up, and the fact that there’s seven more after this… there’s so much I don’t know…

• The second line in the epitaph, “those who remain shall tear apart the two who are close”. Before everything went to shit, I was thinking that it must refer to Shannon/Sayo and George, but that’s… not really possible now. The only real ‘happy(ish) couple” left is Eva and Hideyoshi, which I suppose could break but .. that seems unlikely somehow

• After the deaths, I checked the character screen, and the descriptions of the dead have been overwritten by messages, presumably from Beatrice: “She was chosen by the Demon’s Roulette. That’s all there is to it.”. What does that mean. Have these always been from Beatrice’s perspective? Is it possible that all of the weirdness in perspective I mentioned last time are also from Beatrice? And does this mean that Beatrice is a real person?

• Another weirdness I’ve seen: Before discussing something important, many characters are stated to have significant changes in their voice, as if someone else was speaking. Kinzo just now, Maria when reading the letter, a few others earlier. Hm.
  • Again, I don’t know if I’m reading too much into things like this. Most of my VN background is Uchikoshi’s games, and they really reward detail like this so I might be paying too much heed to it here.

• If the doctor is to be believed, the deaths occurred at roughly midnight. That’s… not a whole lot of time since we last saw everyone. And what’s going on with the magic circles?

• Given all this I’m leaning into the idea Beatrice is a real person, probably distinct from the people we’ve seen so far, and wants everyone to believe that magic is real (hence the magic circles in … they seemed reluctant to call it blood but with the full context it could be.)

• But how does Kinzo fit into any of this? It’s not much of a contest to find the gold if the main people who would have reason to just get killed immediately.

• There’s so much I don’t know.