Welcome to the second part of our Umineko theory.
Turn of the golden witch is a lot more dense with information, but we'll hopefully make it easy to comprehend our thought process at every step of the way.
A few words on our modus operandi. After we outline what we agree to be the main points of each theory (our "blue truth" if you will), I (Crunter) write down the theory and Hound takes care of editing and providing a second opinion, as well and the technical side of the project.
There might be parts in which we helped each other here and there, and others where we don't 100% agree on some position. In general, if I speak in (I) It's Crunter's position, if we speak in (We) it's the general position of both.
The prologue of Turn opens on Shannon (who is, obviously, Sayo, given that she reveals the name herself) and George going on a date at an aquarium in Okinawa. This is apparently their first vacation together. It's apparent to us that there is something sketchy with this date. Sayo's dialogue and general attitude makes it seem like she's not fully into what's happening.
There are a few possible explanations.
Maybe she likes him but she is struggling with emotions related to feeling inadequate and/or also having feelings for another person (as we'll explore in a bit).
Maybe she really doesn't like George (as we'll also explore in a bit), either because she doesn't like the direction in which their relationship is going or because she's using that relationship as a stepping stone to achieve her goals.
It's possible it's some mix of these is on the table.
Could it be she is just being shy according to anime tropes? Well it's not impossible, but given the weight this character has in our theories we can't make that assumption.
She insists on magic being what granted them the miracle of their relationship, and she remarks that Kanon doesn't believe in this magic, in the ability to see a blue sky even when it's cloudy.
As established, magic in Umineko is mostly about interpretation. The symbolism speaks for itself, doesn't it? She's looking at a grey sky and calling it blue, because that's what she desperately wants.
But to us, Kanon not being on board suggest that a part of herself isn't on board with her "magical" narrative.
Let's say that Sayo, for some reason, is really invested in the fantasy of being in a relationship with George, and even if this isn't working out, she's conflicted about this because she worked really hard on it and it is what she wished for a long time.
We're on the small shrine that is supposedly struck by lightning during the 2 days on Rokkenjima.
We see someone, probably Sayo, smashing the mirror in the shrine. It's worth noting that she never mentions George or anything like that, she talks about becoming a person, discovering love and the suffering that comes from it.
For example, she could be talking about how after breaking out of some sort of metaphorical shell, she opens herself to love, but she realizes that she likes Jessica instead of George, and that comes with a whole baggage of internalized homophobia, especially if she was raised around Kinzo and his, mmmh, well, let's say less then optimal view of gendered expectations and traditional family values.
She breaks the mirror, and says it's now Beatrice's turn to keep her promise. This marks her buying her own magical narrative angle.
Sayo says that she is being tempted by the witch. This definitely won't be the last time that an evil witch is used to represent and justify the despicable deeds of a character within the context of the Beatrice narrative.
Importantly, the scene opens with "It wouldn't let me forget the memories of the day when my old fate was broken and smashed.". We're sure this is important but we can't nail down what event she's referring to exactly.
Also importantly, someone told her about the motorboat she uses, maybe at this point she is already somewhat involved with her future plan, given that the only motorboat we know of near Rokkenjima is owned by captain Kawabata.
We jump back in the timeline to a previous family conference, an unspecified amount of time before the one central to the story.
We're probably talking about something like 3 or 4 years ago, since Shannon is in middle School and Geroge is Barely an adult (Yikes).
We learn that George has been looked after by Okonogi, who might help the angle of "Sayo is courting George as a step in her plan for some reason", but we really don't know enough about her motivations to make this theory work. It's far fetched, but it's a hint on the table I guess.
Jessica sets up Shannon and George, while Eva is, uuuh, let's say discouraging this relationship.
A short amount of time later, Sayo gets scolded by Natsuhi for not being able to properly clean in time the places assigned to her, which is perfectly natural given that she is now doing the job of two people, Shannon and Kanon.
After that, a whole scene where she meets Beato in front of the portrait happens.
Shannon is given the Golden Butterfly Brooch, the ultimate placebo, then Kanon and Shannon are marked with a burning sign and they are moved around like puppets.
We believe this scene is to be understood as an internal conflict in Sayo. She's struggling between the cynical and pragmatic Kanon and the "longing for something more" Shannon.
The part about Beato being able to give Shannon endless gold is obviously referencing the already established golden witch lore.
Meanwhile, as already mentioned, Sayo breaking the mirror is an allegory to her starting to push the magic narrative that culminates in the family conference of 1986, where the witch will take the blame for everything at the end.
What we see on screen is an extremely magical retelling of what actually happened. As mentioned in The tea party of those who are not human, this is how the unreliable narrator (the witch Beatrice) is presenting it to us (Bernkastel).
This prologue as a whole is, in fact Beato's first real move in this game. She's on the offensive, creating a reason for her existence that Bern wouldn't be able to attack.
This pattern of magic having double meanings will hold for every scene in Rokkenjima where explicit magic is involved. After all magic isn't just making stuff up, it's about warping one's perception of the events.
When people buy into a narrative and become convinced that their interpretation is real, they then act based on it and have an impact in the real world.
The following scenes in Rokkenjima where Beato and Kinzo appear only strengthen this interpretation of magic, which will eventually be spelled out pretty definitively in Alliance.
Yes, we're saying that magic in Umineko is a little bit like pro wrestling
So with that established, going forward only the scenes where someone other than Kanon, Shannon or Beatrice are present, are to be trusted without a grain, or a massive bag, of salt.
Jessica's school is having a culture festival! Hurray!
Yes, Sayo is, in fact, trying to set herself up with Jessica by using her two identities. It's actually really funny once you notice it, she's not being remotely subtle, she forces it so hard, it's adorable.
I think this is her actually listening to her heart for once, as signified by Shannon giving the golden brooch to Kanon. After all, the brooch works if it involves blind love, and ironically this fits Sayo-Jessica better compared to Sayo-George.
Maybe it also works a potential hint for Sayo being a man and not a woman? Since the brooch strengthens relationships between the sexes.
The conversation between Jessica and Kanon that evening is very revealing when viewed in the context of our theories so far.
So. Sayo harshly refuses Jessica at the end. After all, She must be disillusioned by the failure that trying to love George produced.
This is where Beatrice starts to turn into a "Black Witch", AKA where the magic, the cope, the narrative, stops being a benign-ish fantasy and becomes something more obsessive and self absorbed.
That's reflected in the heel turn we see from Beatrice in here next interaction with Kanon, in which he steps on the brooch, the benign magical tool that was the catalyst for Beatrice.
Two seeds sown today (Jessica and Kanon) and one already sown. and then the scene immediately shifts to Kinzo. (We aren't even considering George!)
Now granted, there is another working explanation for this one, which is Kinzo already being dead and not counting.
I should add, It's probably very reasonable that Sayo wants nothing to do with George at this point, given his complete inability to read the room.
Sayo is barely an adult, still working for your family in a very subservient position, and they aren't even in that much confidence. I'm not sure they even kissed! Did they even talk about personal stuff? I also feel bad for George because, Jesus Christ, it's a miserable level of lack of self awareness, It's so scary to be this clueless and this unaware about how clueless you are.
We spent a lot of time and words on this prologue because reading it back really made a lot of things click into place. This is the point where we started to to formulate the Sayo conjecture, and that became the core of our theory once we saw it could hold up to scrutiny.
This screen pretty much sums up our state of mind before that.
Let's actually get started setting up the board for the next game now.
We spend some time observing the "chessboard preparations" for the first confrontation between Battler and Beato. It's technically the second, but keep in mind that during Legend Battler wasn't yet a willing participant.
Here are some of the scenes worth discussing.
We see Rosa severely mistreating Maria on the train, and when she eventually calms down they land on the narrative that Rosa was being possessed by an evil witch. This is clearly far from the first time this has happened.
This ties back to the general idea of the Black Witch, it's a violent form of ideation used to deal with bad circumstances, although here it escalates from idea to action a bit too quickly...
They buy some halloween candy on their way to the airport.
We see Krauss discussing something with Natsuhi, they talk about needing to keep the others away from Kinzo with the cooperation of Genji and Nanjo.
They're clearly talking about hiding Kinzo's death, which of course needs to remain a secret.
Then, we finally see Beatrice and Battler in the tea party.
When Beato announces the start of the game (with a distinct lack of quotation marks, meaning she is narrating this), the background of the tea party turn purple, which to us is a tell that what is happening stopped being a magical parallel of something real.
This color filter basically marks the magical scenes that happen outside the game and don't constitute hints for solving the game itself.
Whenever a meta scene needs to be overlayed over images from the game they will instead use this transparent flower pattern as framing. This has the same meaning as the purple filter in the tea party.
This all makes perfect sense, but as you'll surely remember, the tea party of Legend didn't have a purple filter! So we need to ask ourselves, is Battler and Beatrice arguing about the existence of witches also a parallel to something happening in the real world?
It could go something like "Sayo and Battler survived the events of Rokkenjima but Battler was imprisoned and forced to witness all of this", or maybe, "Sayo survived the games and is fantasizing about alternative versions of the story, writing them down, and distributing them as bottled letters".
This question will become relevant once we get to Alliance.
Lastly, when Battler tells Beato that he'll play with her until she loses patience, Beato asks if a certain witch planted this idea in his mind. She's referring to Bernkastel, given the conversation they had in the first tea party of those who are not human.
The game has officially started and we're about to meet a new friend, but first, a bizarre scene takes place.
In the rose garden, once again Rosa lashes out at Maria for talking about witches, and steps on her candy before leaving Maria alone. Truly one of the mothers of all time.
Kanon approaches Maria and offers her the other candy he had received from her earlier, which she refuses. Then Kanon asks her if she knows Beatrice, and Maria suggests that they invite the witch to play.
Our theory so far states that Sayo is the Beatrice who formed Mariage Sorciere with Maria, so she should know very well who Kanon is, and Sayo shouldn't need to ask this question when it's just the two of them.
Of course, it's possible Maria only knows about the Shannon persona and not the Kanon one, it could fit the rest of the theory with a couple small adjustments... but there's another explanation that fits even better.
Yes, Maria knows Kanon IS Sayo, but to her he isn't Beatrice.
As it'll becomes clear in Alliance, Maria is another character who lives by her magical interpretation of reality, and in the endless witch narrative surrounding Beatrice, Kanon and Shannon are furniture made by Kinzo.
This is why Maria won't interact with Kanon as Beatrice and vice versa, to them the roleplay is part of the magic, so in this scene she will not accept a replacement candy from Kanon, but if the witch Beatrice were to show up, then she would close her eyes and accept a simple switcheroo as magic.
And sure enough...
Soon after this, Rosa comes back to check on Maria... and she's surprised by the appearance of someone who she didn't expect to see ever again. Someone who looks exactly like the person of the portrait. Who could this person be?
If you've picked up on the pattern you might expect us to claim that she too is Sayo, but we'll soon argue that this can't be the case.
That's right, she's not getting ALL the blame this time.
In order to solve turn we will need someone who exceeds expectations, someone a bit more exotic, definitely exalted, and at the risk of exaggerating, dare I say exceptional.
Are you ready? Excellent.
Let's state this; In the context of Turn of the Golden witch, there are 17 people in Rokkenjima.
X Beatrice is the special guest that appears in Turn and Alliance, who several people remark to be the spitting image of the witch's portrait.
She can be distinguished from Sayo based on her clothes, possibly her face, and because of the tattoos or marks we see on their legs in the character profiles.
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This is a small detail, but one that the author had to put there on purpose, and he did it in such a way that we can see they don't match.
In case this wasn't enough evidence, another strong hint that they must be separate people will come near the end of Alliance, when we will see the two of them interact inside the game world as two versions of Beatrice and get to see a glimpse of what X's motivations might be.
She will also be helpful whenever two corpses are needed for the price of one, or she can still be around even when Kanon, Shannon, or both are confirmed to be dead by the Red truth.
So, what do we know about this person?
Well, to start, she looks exactly like the girl in the portrait, so it's possible she was the model used when Kinzo commissioned it.
There will be another candidate for that role later on, but that person died long before the portrait was hung in the hall (six years ago at most, since Battler has never seen it), so it would have been based on old photos.
There's also another version of the same painting in Kinzo's study and we have no idea when that one was painted, so it's better not to focus on this too much.
It's possible that she is a servant, this would make her able to own a master key without going against any red truth. Maybe she is one of the other orphans with the On kanji in their name, the ones mentioned in Legend.
Genji talks about her multiple times, even if it's largely in scenes that we can't trust I think it's enough to suggest that they know each other to some degree.
She talks casually about Kinzo, so it's fair to say that she knew him as well.
She refers to herself as a bird in a cage for Kinzo, which could mean a number of things, it's not clear if it refers to the general concept of Beatrice or to herself.
About her motive? We don't really know. We can at least say that she is an accomplice of Sayo with goals that align to hers, and her presence serves in part the purpose of validating the existence of a witch.
She will be around and play a role in Alliance as well, and we think she was the recipient of Battler's promise because of what she says there and her reaction to Battler failing to remember it.
That is probably a big part of her motive, and the only one we can point out with some confidence.
That's as far as our evidence goes, but while we can't 100% say who she is, here's an interesting guess.
We'll soon argue that she disguises herself as Shannon at various points in the game, which suggests that she would have some experience in doing so, as well as a physical predisposition.
Hound will quickly point out the amount of assumptions that go into this conjecture, but I believe that she's the twin sister of Sayo, both daughters of the Beatrice who died 19 years prior near Kuwadorian.
They were both raised at the Fukuin house, and learned how to swap between each others. The details of their upbringing are unknown, but the general idea is that they were often in contact with Kinzo and the older servants.
Maybe while Sayo was getting used to impersonating two servants she would have needed someone else from the orphanage to fill the shoes of Shannon from time to time?
Ok but. Why does she need to be a twin sister when Shannon doesn't even look like Beatrice? Why does she need to be a sister at all? Can't she just be someone else with a similar body type and some make up?
Well yes, it wouldn't change any of the solution but... How can I put it without going out of topic.....
I'll just say this, I believe that Ryukishi 07 is exactly the kind of author who, in the second chapter of a mystery story, would add a twin sister with basically no involvement in the first chapter for the sake of having them act as each other.
That, combined with the fact that she knows some servants, she's able to act as Shannon, and she wears her clothes well, is enough of a proof to me.
Now, the existence of X Beatrice by itself puts something on the table in Legend of the golden witch. Is it possible that Shannon's corpse was none other that the corpse of X dressed as Shannon?
We would need to somehow make the case for her counting as Shannon in the red, but if they really did share this identity, it wouldn't be impossible.
Alternatively she was alive in the shed and just playing dead... but that scene really goes out of its way to not show that body to anyone reliable, so ironically it's harder to suspect someone who can convincingly pass for Shannon.
In the end we figured the explanation was just as effective without her, so she didn't make it into that solution.
We also played around with the idea of X Beatrice being Kanon in the previous scene with Maria, but we always come back to that annoying red truth.
If only one person can be Kanon then Sayo takes precedence. We'll just have to assume Sayo goes away and X shows up instead after Rosa comes back.
As for why Maria doesn't call her out, keep in mind that magic to her is more about form than substance, so even if Beatrice manifests as multiple people she is able to rationalize it.
When Rosa sees X Beatrice, she is instead quite shaken.
Contrary to what the narration says, she is not shocked because Beatrice appeared out of thin air, nor because she repaired Maria's candy with magic, but it's because she is facing the girl in the portrait, the same person who died in front of her 19 years ago.
Or at least, that's what it looks like to her, Rosa's memories of that event aren't perfect, and if they are indeed related a mother would look similar to her child. It's not a far reach to say she saw the portrait that many years later and assumed that must have been exactly what the girl in Kuwadorian looked like. After all, the portrait wears the same dress as the Beatrice of 19 years ago did.
X delivers two envelopes to Maria and Rosa.
Maria's envelope contains the key to the chapel, making it clear that X will be involved in creating the illusion of the closed rooms. Rosa instead receives a different envelope, it contains the usual letter to read at the family conference, but also possibly something else.
In a similar way to Eva in Legend, we believe Rosa might have received a warning about the murders and a proposal to side with Sayo's group. The reward would be the same as last time: safety and a large sum of money in the form of the same bank card and PIN that the families of the victims received in Alliance.
It's unclear if they all get this proposal individually, or if who gets it is part of the variable starting conditions of each episode, after all X says it could have been any of the siblings.
Sure, she was told not to open it in advance, but would anyone really trust Rosa not to read it the moment she isn't under Maria's sight?
While the guest of honor is being accompanied to the VIP room by Genji she is spotted by Kyrie in front of the portrait. She is obviously ok with making her presence known given the nature of the plan she's a part of.
This is where we first see the portrait change to X Beatrice. Let's come back to this during Banquet, for now we'll just say this change is symbolical and doesn't physically happen.
She burns her hand trying to open the door to Kinzo's study, what does this mean? Of course this didn't happen, but it might be hinting at her not knowing that Kinzo is dead, although we don't ever need this to be true.
Devo ritrovarlo per fare uno screenshot
Rosa insists that Godha shouldn't carry her bag to her room, which is relevant because Godha not feeling the weight of any gold ingots in the luggage is brought up later on as evidence that no one smuggled in the gold.
I say that, but I have no idea how to make this whole "Rosa brought in the gold" hunch fit in with anything else. I'll still mention it here because it looks important.
Meanwhile, we know Godha isn't allowed to interact with X Beatrice, since he complains about not being able to carry the food to her room.
Later in the day, both Kanon and Shannon meet X Beatrice in the VIP room, and this time they are both hostile towards her.
Now, it's very possible this is just a continuation of the magic narrative from the prologue, but it could also hint at a conflict between Sayo and X's goals. For instance, they could be having disagreement about who should be the sacrifices, or elements of their plan.
Kanon and Shannon take for granted that they will be put to rest and likely die once the Golden Land is opened, which might mean that if they go forward with the plan, Shannon and Kanon as identities, will become redundant and be discarded along with their respective love interests.
During the family dinner, the existence of Beatrice is revealed to everyone.
Kyrie and Rosa corroborate by offering their testimony, however Rosa doesn't read out loud the letter given to her, so we can't say for certain that it was the same as the one Maria received last round. In Legend, the first letter was meant to set up the presence of Beatrice, but this time the supposed witch is a person they can physically meet, with far more evidence than "Somebody handed Maria an umbrella".
But here comes the counterpoint. If this envelope really did contain a message directed at Rosa in particular, (either the plans for the upcoming murders or details on how to contact Beatrice in secret), they would have to account for the risk of Rosa blindly bringing it up without reading it first.
Either way you slice it this isn't a very strategic choice, but hey, this is the episode where we're told that sometimes Beatrice likes to play suboptimal moves on purpose. ¯\(ツ)/¯
Let's use a a simple table to map the possible causes of Rosa's actions.
The fact Rosa claims to have seen a witch makes us think she's already playing into it to some extent, and soon her cooperation will be a crucial piece of the puzzle, so we'll say Rosa probably opened the letter but didn't think sharing that fact with her siblings would benefit her.
Soon after the topic comes up, Gohda and the kids are kicked out to the guesthouse, and once again, Maria shows that she's totally on board with the witch narrative.
All the Ushiromiya adults are left alone with Genji as they interrogate him on the identity of the guest.
The next scene is bizzarre.
George, proposes to Shannon just like in Legend. That time she seemed very unsure after receiving the ring, which lines up with what we derived from the part 1 flashbacks, but this time she strangely accepts immediately and with enthusiasm.
We have fairly contrasting interpretations of this scene so we'll briefly undo our fusion and you'll get to hear from both of us separately.
On the one hand I {Crunter} think that at this point X Beatrice is already dressed as Shannon and is the one accepting George's proposal. This would imply she either likes George or is out to deceive him for some reason.
I'm just not buying that it's Sayo because I can't see what the manipulation is for, so I'll say that here Shannon is X.
That being said... It's really weird that she'd be this much into specifically marriage, and there's definitely something I'm missing. But what I'm not missing is that Sayo would NEVER act this way. She didn't shy away from being uncommitted towards George, not only earlier in this game, but in legend too.
On the other hand, I {Hound} don't see enough signs of a switch up, instead this change in attitude could be explained as:
Maybe in her mind, at the end of this big group suicide they really will get to live happily ever after in the golden land.
Right after the marriage proposal, Shannon and Kanon have another conversation in which Kanon admits he wants to be a human and be with Jessica.
The regular dress Beatrice shows up under the rain to comment on it, notably without any quotation marks.
To reiterate, this is the Beatrice from the tea party speaking as the narrator, she embodies Sayo's endless witch narrative and she interfaces with Bernkastel and the version of Battler at the highest level of abstraction, both stand ins for the reader.
Midway through the monologue she transitions to X Beatrice.
From a meta point of view this marks her adding one of her pieces to the chessboard, and it's only natural that the Platonic idea of Beatrice can take both forms at will.
On a lower level of abstraction, it could mean both Sayo and X at this point are working towards building the same narrative.
Cut to the siblings talking to X Beatrice in the chapel, we don't see what led up to it but now suddenly everyone is acknowledging her as a witch, or at least the narrator says so.
Let's rewind to a little before midnight, what actually happened to the adults that night?
For starters, we know for a fact they were murdered right there in the Chapel by somebody in the same location.
Genji probably told the group that the guest was waiting for them in the Chapel, so they all followed him there. Only Rosa possibly had an idea of what was really going to happen.
When they arrived the door was unlocked, and Beatrice was indeed inside.
From there, the simplest reconstruction is to say that, just like in Legend, they were ambushed and murdered in cold blood by Sayo armed with Kinzo's shotgun, which she was hiding under her clothes.
In this case, the witch pandering was all fake, and the reason why we can have a fake scene involving people not sold on the magic narrative is that those people died there, this will come up again with Jessica and George.
And yes, the shotgun only has 4+1 bullets, so that means at least two guns (and probably two gunmen) were involved, luckily there are a few candidates.
The accomplices from legend excluding Eva would of course also be complicit this time around for the same reasons, although if "Genji, Kumasawa, and Nanjo are not killers" applies to all episodes this disqualifies Genji from pulling the trigger.
Rosa was present and yet she survived the ordeal, so we think she ended up going along with the plan, and for what it's worth she wears the rifle pretty well.
That said, X Beatrice is the most obvious candidate for a second killer, let's say she was having a conversation with the group, then at some point Shannon showed up, she was allowed inside, and then they opened fire at the same time.
After the ordeal they carefully prepared the scene with the help of Genji, and of course, they didn't forget to sabotage the phone and radio lines just like in Legend.
(Note that this solution applies regardless of who was wearing Shannon and Beatrice's clothes in that exact moment, they were both there, they are both guilty.)
But what if instead of ignoring the short exchange we saw, we instead assume it actually took place word for word?
~Transcript of the conversation in the Chapel
Abstracting the sentences from the context of the narration, we see X Beatrice has presented irrefutable proof of some unthinkable fact, such as for instance a birth certificate, a DNA test, and/or a will signed by Kinzo that proves she has a right to the inheritance.
It seems that whatever this revelation is, it caused caused the siblings to all agree to some kind of contract or proposition that hinges on them formally acknowledging her. The wording and attitude shown isn't so different from when they were acting like Krauss had 10 tons of gold in order to put pressure on him.
If this is them being indirect, then perhaps they settle for calling her a witch because not doing so would put them in a bad spot, like having to legally give her one part or all of the inheritance.
Of course, this alone doesn't explain why they all end up dead. Maybe from X's point of view they stopped being useful once they signed whatever they needed to sign, and that's when Sayo showed up, or maybe their goals weren't really aligned after all.
We've handled the whodunnit, now how do we solve the glaring closed room case? After all...
From the time Maria received her key to the instant Rosa unsealed the envelope the next day, the key passed through no one's hands!!
There's a very simple way out of the apparent contradiction. The door was never closed to begin with, and putting the real chapel key in the envelope was only meant to create the illusion of a closed room.
And yes, Beatrice did give a definition of what she means by closed room that excludes unlocked doors, but none of the red truths relating to the chapel explicitly describe it as a closed room.
With this new insight, let's examine the dynamics of how they discover the crime scene.
When the morning comes, Genji wakes up Rosa and they go back to the Chapel to meet Gohda, Shannon and Kanon.
Let's address the furniture in the room first, why are Kanon and Shannon here while it's not a magical scene? Isn't Gohda supposed to be a reliable witness not involved in the murders or the magical narrative?
The explanation hinges on whether or not Gohda is aware of Sayo's double identity.
Let's say he doesn't know, then we would need to claim that Shannon is currently X Beatrice (and Hound would have to drop his skepticism), but there's another explanation.
We think it's more likely that he knows and begrudgingly accepts it because it's something Kinzo imposed on all servants, and from what we know of Gohda, he would go along with whatever his employer wants. (This doesn't stop him from disliking Kanon though, after all he's getting outranked twice by the same kid.)
But in this case, we have a scene where everyone present knows about Sayo and is keeping the secret, so we haven't broken our own rules. Furthermore, like every scene they shared so far, there's a deceptive reason why the author is showing it to us.
Sayo aside, we don't think Gohda is in on the crimes, it doesn't jam with our impression of his character, and especially with the Notes from a Certain Chef. So when rosa plays her part and goes to get the key from Maria's envelope he becomes a witness to this supposed closed room.
This interpretation assumes Gohda believed the others and didn't try to open the door himself, which isn't the most reliable plan ever, but it's important to reiterate: reliability isn't Sayo/Beatrice's top priority, making risky moves is a known habit of hers.
Alternatively one could always say this scene didn't go exactly as shown. Maybe Rosa didn't twist the key, or maybe Gohda was ordered or convinced to lie about it. It's much weaker but it's an option.
Moving on, the cousins wake up to Maria throwing a tantrum about Rosa opening the envelope, so they immediately know something is going on regarding a locked door, then they see Kanon and Gohda asking Nanjo to follow them.
This exchange could also be read as them discussing something Rosa did to mess up their plans, but the fact it happened in public makes it far more likely that it's just them acting surprised.
Shannon is sent away to have a scene with Kinzo, just in time for Battler to miss seeing her and Kanon together, how strange....
Here's a recap of what they find at the crime scene.
Nanjo proposes locking the door, which is a way to set up the chapel being sealed later on, as an element of Natsuhi's close room. More on that later.
Of course, they only pretend to close the chapel, which stays open.
Rosa strongly claims that the chapel was a closed room, which is really easy to doubt as from the point of view of a character in the story without access to the red truth.
This could suggest that the original plan failed in some way, and what they're going with right now is some kind of contingency.
Up in the tea party layer we have the first introduction of the red truth as a mechanic, and it reads more as a tutorial round for Battler.
We were able to narrow down our solution thanks to the red truths revealed at the end of Alliance, but Battler doesn't have the same luxury, so he "solves" the closed room by claiming that someone took the key, locked the door, and then resealed Maria's envelope.
But why did Beato wait two games before countering this wrong theory? She could have easily removed his check at any time, right? Especially since it didn't come up as a way to lay another trap later on.
As hinted at by Bernkastel and Lambdadelta, this is one of many examples of Beato not playing to the best of her abilities, she isn't trying use her full potential to crush Battler, instead using this opportunity to teach him how the red truth works.
He needs to learn the rules before they can play, and the fact that Beatrice wants him to improve is a first hint towards her true motives.
Jessica, Sayo (Kanon) and Gohda rush to the VIP room and find a bed that has been slept on. Either X Beatrice actually slept there, or she was busy helping with the corpses that night, so they made it look like she did, it hardly changes anything.
Sayo pretends to find a letter, which she actually secretly had on her person.
The contents are mocking Jessica's parents, but the language is was vague enough that it would have worked no matter which of the cousins read it first, she just happened to get there first.
The letter triggers Jessica's asthma and she heads stumbling to her room. Sayo sends Godha away before helping her reach the destinationand then...
Look! There are goat demons and magic, and Kanon's hand became a sword! I guess that settles it then, witches exist.......
Of course not!!!
This just the most blatant example yet of narrator Beatrice twisting the story to fit the narrative, and she can do that because, yet again, there are no reliable witnesses to contradict her.
Jessica is innocent according to our interpretation, sure, but she is dead and dead people can't testify.
You can probably see the irony in Beatrice summoning her and Kanon as ghosts later on and having them testify as a way to lean into tea party Battler's moral dilemma. Since they exited the scene the narrator can do whatever she wants with their characters as long as it doesn't have any repercussions on reality.
But while it would be tempting to ignore the magic battle entirely, its interpretation actually has a very large impact on the rest of the episode.
If we were to take all the magic literally, the plot of this episode would be about Kanon and Shannon defying Beatrice, getting relentlessly toyed with, and eventually being tragically killed alongside their crushes. It makes for a nice compelling story just like Beato's redemption arc in Banquet, but if we work under the assumption that the witch and human sides rhyme with each other, then this narrative has to function as an allegory of some sort for the real course of events.
Furthermore, each interpretations has to fulfil a few conditions to be satisfactory.
As of now we have two working readings, both with pros and cons.
Reading A: |
Reading B: |
|---|---|
| Sayo has second thoughts about killing Jessica, and tries to defend her from X Beatrice, but she fails and is killed. | Sayo gets over it, and she shoots or stabs Jessica in the back in cold blood. |
| The scene represents an internal conflict between the two perpetrators. | The scene represents Sayo letting the black witch win and killing the identities of Kanon now and Shannon later, when she will have to also kill George. |
| Every appearance of Shannon from here on is X Beatrice, and every appearance of Kanon is fake. | X Beatrice may or may not use the identity of Shannon at some point, but there is no definitive evidence. |
| "Kanon was killed in this room" simply refers to Sayo's death. | "Kanon was killed in this room" is more metaphorical, after all what does it mean for a false identity to be killed? |
| Jessica could have suffocated from an asthma attack caused by shock, and the wound in her back was inflicted later. | It's backed up by Rosa's deduction that Jessica wouldn't show her back if someone she didn't trust was in the room. |
| The dress is wrong, but that is as fake as the goat suits. | It squares well with the fact that the Beato in the scene is wearing her regular dress, unlike X in all her scenes. |
| The death of the original leader could explain some discrepancies in the plan from Legend. | It doesn't look like the sacrifices were predetermined anyway. |
From now on both scenarios will be taken into consideration when coming up with solutions, but for obvious reasons, they cannot both be true.
This is ok, and it's to be expected, the very concept of Battler's blue truth suggests that the goal of the reader shouldn't be to narrow everything down to a single killer solution, but to cast a broader net. That is what we're doing here, and at the end we will pass the burden of denying each theory over to the witch side in the answer arcs.
scegliere lo sprite
Lastly before moving on, we almost forgot to mention them because of how secondary they are to everything, but The Seven Stakes of Purgatory make an appearance here for the first time. They are furniture, so like the goats they don't correspond to real people, instead they're the magic side personification of the piercing weapons found stuck in most of the corpses.
No, they can't actually fly at high speeds on their own and bounce on walls.
Rosa leaves Battler and the rest in the guest room to head to Kinzo's study, where she meets Genji and Shannon, who supposedly stayed there during both the chapel debate and Jessica's murder, but only Rosa backs up that claim.
According to reading A, the Shannon here is of course X Beatrice, however in the case of Reading B this isn't 100% necessary, as long as Sayo had the time to change identity after Killing Jessica and before meeting up with Rosa.
Kinzo asks Shannon to write down his will and autobiography, or in his words, a records of his past games.
If this scene has some foundation in reality, it could imply X was busy writing down the Bottled letters, which are records of the games. At the very least though, it's an alibi they agreed on, since Shannon references it later ("the master ordered me to copy down something").
It's worth mentioning that this is the only episode where the smell of Kinzo's body being burned doesn't fill the mansion. We think the body was in the incinerator as usual, but they never turned it on for some reason, which leads to the body not being found and Kinzo not being counted among the sacrifices.
This potentially supports reading A, where X Beatrice has decided to override the sacrifice list in Sayo's original plan, if such a predetermined list even exists.
As for what happened after Rosa arrived, we can't know what they talked about exactly, but it's probably important because from here on Rosa has a pretty big change in attitude. This is signified by a butterfly stopping on Rosa's shoulder.
Maybe they told her about how they just killed Sayo, or maybe she still didn't know that Kinzo was dead and is finding it out like this.
Regardless of the reason, she's a lot more resolute now, and she's convinced that working with the culprits is in her and Maria's best interest now. They must have made a very solid deal, especially considering the fact that she's being trusted with a rifle.
Onward to the investigation of Jessica's room.
Rosa is once again the first person to interact with the door of a closed room, except now we have reliable witnesses. Of course, this is easily explained by claiming that they took a detour and closed it on their way back from the study.
Because Jessica's own key was inside the room, the suspicion quickly turns to the people who had master keys with them.
Rosa fabricates an alibi for Genji and Shannon, and she lets Gohda and Kumasawa off the hook with some fairly weak logic. Their goal is of course to blame Kanon, who very conveniently went missing.
In the tea party layer we see Beato with the ghosts of Kanon and Jessica. As already mentioned it's a plot device to sell the whole "everyone is innocent" story to Battler and Bernkaster.
In general, Beato's narrative seems very invested in removing culpability from everyone except the general concept of "Beatrice". This is very reminiscent of the passage in Maria's diary in Alliance, when she talks about the 20th kid in the classroom taking the blame to keep the other 19 kids safe.
But if we want to keep claiming that Beatrice's goals and ideals reflect Sayo's goals and ideas, this implies that framing Kanon is either a set up for a magical explanation later, or something Sayo wouldn't approve of, adding credibility to the theory that she is dead.
So far both readings still stand.
Lastly, tea party Beatrice kindly restricts the space of possibilities for us by confirming the number of keys so we can narrow down our solutions more effectively.
Notice how there are technically only 4 servants on the island, so if we want to read this statement as strictly as possible it's implying that X Beatrice is a servant. Of course two of them could also simply belong to Sayo, it's not worded that strictly.
Temporary theory tree:
We're relying reeeeeeally hard on Sayo and X being extremelly theatrical here. Boy sure having a good grasp on their motives would help a lot now!
When asked about what happened by Rosa, all three are incapable of giving a coherent answer that would prevent her from shooting them.
Rosa herself is of course already aware of this part of the plan and is just playing her role as the dispenser of accusations.
Let's get the conservative solution out of the way first.
This encounter with Kanon plainly and simply didn't happen: either Sayo is dead and X Beatrice is acting as Shannon, or she's alive, which would keep the counter of scenes where Shannon definitely must be X to zero.
Kumasawa and Nanjo were killed and carried away, then the remaining people threatened Godha by saying that if he doesn't go along with what they say they'll kill him outright or hand him over to Rosa as the culprit. Thus the poor guy lied, and very poorly at that, given that he was improvising, and if you actually single out Gohda's sentences you can see that he's just going along with anything Genji says, as if he's scared to say the wrong thing.
One chink in this theory is Gohda's genuine looking reaction to not finding the corpses in the servant room, as well as the door being locked.
There's no one left who could have carried out those two actions without him present, so we're left to assume that it's just yet another act, but let's see if we can find a more compelling solution that solves this problem while mirroring the magical narrative a bit more closely...
It's important to reiterate that, according to all our theories, Gohda at this point still has no idea of who's committing the murders, but he does know about the Kanon-Shannon double identity. You'll quickly see why that's important, after all we're about to explain how the two of them might really have been in the same room.
At first they head a knock, it was Sayo dressed as Kanon (but no longer identifying as him), who was acting wounded just like in the boiler room mystery last episode.
Godha was immediately freaked out, not just by the blood, but because... what the hell? Wasn't Sayo right there beside him? Who is this person!?
Of course, he figured he couldn't talk about Sayo in front of Nanjo, and he assumed the other servants were thinking the same thing.
Nanjo started giving Sayo fake medical attention, and then all the magic bullshit from that point on was a premeditated performance, including the bags of fake blood used to fake both his wound and the ones he inflicted on Nanjo and Kumasawa, and the spider webs that X Beatrice used to drive Kanon away.
Gohda pinning Kanon against the wall is realistic given the difference in their builds and it discredits any narration giving him superhuman abilities.
Meanwhile, it would be a bit far fetched to argue that Sayo has some light special effects that makes her hands look like blades so we'll just blame the narrator for that, after all nobody mentions them explicitly. The same goes for Genji's throwing knife.
At the end of it Nanjo and Kumasawa are left in the room still alive, and as soon as the others leave they leave the letter there and flee.
When Genji, Gohda and Shannon report the scene to Rosa (who of course has been briefed about it), Godha is in a difficult spot because he knows that person can't be Kanon.
Rosa is suspicious, or at least acts like she is, but notably, she doesn't seem to give a damn about Maria seeing the corpses, which of course makes sense if she already knows that there are no corpses at all.
They all go back to the servant's room, and they don't find the bodies, because Nanjo and Kumasawa already left at that point.
Rosa discovering two master keys inside the envelope can be explained in a thousand and one ways, since she, Nanjo and all the master key holders except Gohda were in on the plan.
As programmed, Rosa kicks out everyone that isn't her family.
George insists on going with Shannon, and Rosa doesn't insist on keeping him there at all, did she mistreat Shannon on purpose in order to prompt this reaction?
At this point it's easy to assume, and it will be useful later, that at any point X used the bathroom and switched herself with Sayo, since it will make some later events work better.
In the kitchen, George proposes going to the chapel.
Once there they break in from the window. Inside the chapel, after finding Natsuhi's key they see X with a shotgun. They all escape, and after some moments of panic the door opens (because it was unlocked). They run to Natsuhi's room, and they close themselves inside, but it doesn't matter, since Sayo takes a weapon she had hidden inside to kill George and Gohda. with the help of X she prepares tho whole room, then she closes herself inside with the key, which she puts in the pocket of George. Then she bloodies the stake with fake blood, she puts it on the ground, and she shoots herself on the head, in a way that makes it so the weapon will fall out of sight. Battler hears none of the shots because he's sleeping. It's possible the weapon wasn't even a gun, after all she had the surprise factor against both Godha and George. Not sure how you set up something that isn't a gun to pierce your skull, but I'm sure it's possible.
In the meantime, Genji meets with Kumasawa and Nanjo in a place they agreed on beforehand, and he kills them with another weapon he had prepared. That's what him throwing a knife to the butterfly means. He then prepares the corpses. When enough time has passed, he calls Rosa and everyone else so that they can execute their carefully prepared discovery process.
When they come back to the room where Battler finds the letter, Rosa is able to execute the last part of the plan, as she kicks Battler out with the excuse of the letter that she herself prepared earlier.
Worth noting, in one of the tea party discussions, this exchange happens
We believe this refers to the promise that Battler made to X.
Battler invokes Beatrice, and the game is up. At that point he has officially lost the round.
The scenes we see from this point onward are assumed to be magical in nature and the things shown and said may not match reality even when Battler is present.
The next time we see Battler he's getting himself drunk, which will conveniently explain the weird things he's about to see.
We don't see how the scene with Rosa ended, but it can be assumed she didn't want to shoot him (be it on principle or because of Maria) so she just left to look for X Beatrice.
He's accompanied to Kinzo's room by Genji. There he meets Kinzo and Beatrice having the chess game of their life, and she convinces him that witches exist. It all totally happened, and it was incredibly convincing. Just, we're never shown it, of course! :)
We can't know what actually went down, but Battler probably did talk to X Beatrice, and their conversation might have been similar to the one they have in Alliance. Then, at midnight, they are both killed by the big bomb™ (sigh).
As a refresher from the end of Legend, we think something was set up to automatically kill any remaining human in the mansion at precisely midnight of the second day. Our best guess is still a powerful ticking bomb, or a bunch of them all over the estate.
This is probably the work of Sayo and her sponsors outside the island, meanwhile Rosa and X Beatrice probably had no idea, or they would have taken precautions.
It's a couple minutes before midnight, and Rosa is frantically looking for Beatrice in the chapel, perhaps she still needs to receive her part of the deal.
Because she can't find her anywhere, she settles for at least bringing back the gold ingots and tries to run away with Maria. Sadly it's too late, and they end up getting caught in the explosion before they run far enough.
Meta Beatrice says she's going to reward Rosa for her collaboration, in reference to her being a key accomplice in the events we discussed.
Of course, as Maria's friend, Beato also has a bone to pick with Rosa for her poor treatment of her daughter, so the reward is being tortured in the most horrible ways while being reminded that she left all her siblings to die for her personal gain.
But the torture actually has a second purpose as it motivates Battler to keep fighting in the next game, thus breaking the stalemate.
You see, as far as the tea party narrative is concerned Battler has distinctly surrendered to Beatrice, and yet he didn't instantly lose, which gives us more context on what the win conditions at play really are.
It seems that simply getting Battler to say he believes in witches is not enough, he has to actually believe in witches for Beatrice to win, so it's bad for her if he becomes too depressed to keep going.
This is incidentally the same reason why saying "Witches exist and magic is real" in red would only cause a stalemate and force a draw within the logic of the tea party.
At the highest level of the tea party we see a conversation taking place between Beatrice, Bernkastel and Lambdadelta. A version of Battler before getting his motivation back is observing them as a stand in for the reader
Beato finally calls Bern out on actively favoring Battler, meanwhile Lambda has apparently recruited herself to Beato's side for a chance to fight Bern once again after being defeated.
This project isn't meant to contain any major Higurashi spoilers, so we won't discuss the two of them them in too much detail, suffice it to say they have beef.
That being said, even though they bicker and banter, they don't seem to take the stakes that seriously, almost like they're preparing to play a board game (that's a recurring metaphor huh?).
Their drive to fight each other comes from cheap pride and a need for entertainment and there's a shared understanding that they're in on it together, after all only boredom can kill a voyager witch.
After they split up, both Bernkastel and Lambdadelta have a one on one talk with reader Battler.
Let's examine Bern first, she starts by giving Battler a pep talk, but more importantly she makes the point that we've been referencing about Beatrice making suboptimal moves.
Apparently there's a very big weakness in Turn, this might refer to her deliberately not countering an attack, but it's not really a flaw and it doesn't get exploited later. The truth is... there are so much little holes in the story that this could refer to a lot. We probably discussed it earlier.
Lambdadelta shows up next and immediately thrash talks him and Bernkastel, but she still gives him some very valuable hints. We don't need to guess her reason for doing so because it's clearly spelled out in Alliance, she wants the confrontation to keep going indefinitely so when Battler looks like he might deadlock the game she has to step in and help him.
She refers to Battler as Bern's piece, he is her subordinate in the grand scheme of things , then Lambda reiterates all the flaws with Beato's game plan.
Basically as we've been saying, the culprit isn't looking for the most efficient ways of killing everyone, she will make sure that each case looks mysterious, add unnecessary preparations like the halloween decorations in the chapel, or go out of her way to deceive somebody who is going to die soon after. From Lambda's perspective all of this is just "Taking worthless pieces".
"Place excess pieces on the board" refers to the addition of X Beatrice to this game. While she played a major role here, her not being in Legend means she isn't required in the grand scheme of things.
Since we've already foreshadowed the next two episodes a bunch of times, there's no point in hiding it. Lambda is just putting up the facade of a dumb tsundere when she interacts with Bern and Battler, even when she inadvertently calls herself an moron with a japanese pun.
But if that's the case, who's to say Bernkastel's thoughtful sympathy is genuine?
Saluti finali!