Thoughts on Umineko: SPOILER EDITION

This is an addendum to my review of Umineko where I'm going to spoil the game's central mysteries, as well as its ending. Please turn back now if you haven't read Umineko. So much of the story is built around carefully managing what the player does and doesn't know at any given time, and it's an entirely different experience if you know these things going in. The fact that I split this off into its own separate post should tell you how serious I am about the spoilers here. Read Umineko and find your own truth in it, don't just take my word for it.

It can be difficult to express criticism of Umineko's story, and particularly its ending, on the internet. It has an incredibly devoted fanbase, and even mild dissatisfaction is often met with some smug combination of "you just didn't get the story like I do," "without love it cannot be seen," and/or "actually this is all addressed in the manga version, so it's fine." But, well, I have to admit there are some things I have mixed feelings on.

This is going to make it sound like I hate Umineko. To alleviate all doubt, let me say it in red: I like Umineko a lot. There are a great many aspects of the story that I enjoyed that I could talk about here, but there's only so much time in the day for me to write, so I think it's better to use this space to sort out my feelings on a few specific areas of the story where I feel conflicted. Allow me to rant a little.

The Murders

I won't say the murder mystery aspects of Umineko are bad. Because they aren't. If you look back at the solutions people have pieced together (because the story refuses to outright explain most of the murders, despite how many hours of your reading will be spent watching characters try to explain them), you can certainly see how there were clues present. Everything operates on its own internal logic, it's just that this logic is very different from how most stories work. But this can also make for a frustrating reading experience as you're going through the story, as there's no real way to truly understand what's going on when you don't know all of the rules.

Perhaps the biggest one is simply that every episode can have any number of accomplices—up to and including literally everyone on the island other than Battler, or Erika in the two episodes where she's the detective. And accomplices' POVs in the story are fallible. It's sort of like how, in a normal murder mystery, the detective will gather testimonies from witnesses to understand the story surrounding the crime, and those witnesses can lie. Except here, those lies are woven directly into the narrative, rather than being clearly framed as testimony. In other words, this means that large swathes of the story can just be completely wrong, full of things that didn't actually happen, in any given mystery. If everyone in a room is an accomplice in the current murder, the story can depict fucking anything happening in there.

This is sort of explained in episode 5 when it's shown how Kinzo can appear as if he's alive in scenes where everyone present is covering up his death, but the example given there also rubs up with the general stuff about how the story will take characters playing make believe at face value, so long as no nonbelievers are present. But this doesn't just apply to magic stuff. Anything in a scene with only accomplices present can be made up. (The same goes for victims in scenes immediately preceding their deaths, too, since they aren't around to clarify what they really saw.)

In the end, given the stance the story takes on "the truth," a lot of this can be seen as a moot point. Solving the murder mysteries doesn't really matter, right? The story sweeps them aside with very few explicit answers in favor of giving the characters an emotionally resonant sendoff. It's the heart of the story that matters, not the specific mechanics of its plot. But the puzzles have to matter on some level, though, because we spent dozens and dozens of hours going over them in detail! Featherine says the love scenes in episode 6 wouldn't be a part of the story if they didn't matter, even though they're seemingly irrelevant to the murder mysteries for much of that episode's runtime. They still reveal something about the story's heart. But the inverse is also true. If scrutinizing the logic puzzles didn't matter, they wouldn't be there, either. The story wouldn't expect you to remember the specific details of every closed room murder over 100+ hours of reading off the top of your head so that the story can relitigate them over and over again if this stuff didn't matter.

On some level, this feels like a meta-commentary about how we engage with stories, and mysteries in particular. Not just murder mysteries, but any sort of unanswered question in a story. In many cases a story is better if it doesn't answer everything, leaving room for interpretation. The details don't necessarily matter as much as how it resonates with you emotionally, and that'll be different for everyone.

But, like... I already see art this way? I'm already a person who doesn't think every little thing needs to be explained in a story, who doesn't lose sleep over stuff like "plot holes." I don't think we need a definitive answer on what happened to the top at the end of Inception, or whether or not Tony Soprano got shot when the show cut to black. The ambiguity is the point. Shit, I'm a David Lynch fan! That third season of Twin Peaks is one of my favorite things ever! I don't need to sit there and try and decode the rules of all the surreal magic stuff in that show, because it isn't as important as the emotional core of the story and how all those elements make me feel. It's art, not science.

So when Umineko started hopping timelines and discussing events as outside observers from another dimension and showing me tons of crazy magic duels and whatnot, I was like, okay, fine, I guess magic could exist. I'll roll with this and just enjoy the story and see where it takes me emotionally. It's not real life. But the game spends hours and hours beating it into your head that no, you have to fight back. "Never stop thinking." If you stop thinking, you die. Never stop questioning what you're looking at. Never stop trying to solve the mysteries. Never fall for the witch's trick! So I'm like okay, jeez, fine, if that's what the story wants to focus on then I'll scrutinize every little thing and try to figure out how the closed room murders could be done without magic! I'll doubt everything not said in red text. I'll distrust everything Beatrice does. I'll take every scene involving magic as a lie of the narrative, and largely ignore it when trying to solve the mysteries. This is the expectation the story has clearly set for me, as stated outright countless times, so I'll meet it on its level. And then, in the end... the murder mysteries don't really matter that much, obsessing over the truth is wrongheaded, and the good ending has Ange believing in magic and witches at least a little.

It certainly gets you into the heads of Battler and Ange, I suppose. They think that seeking the truth is their ultimate purpose, until they go through some experiences that make them think otherwise. I'm sure that's the intention. But it's not hard to see why some players became obsessed with solving the mysteries when the story spent dozens of hours telling them to do exactly that, or why those same players felt burned by the ending when the truth seekers are framed as the endgame villains of the story. I don't think it's this great "betrayal of the audience" or whatever that it's sometimes made out to be, because I mostly like the ending. It really tugs on the heartstrings and feels like a fitting conclusion. But I think the grand bait and switch might have landed better for some if the story wasn't so incredibly long, meaning that readers would spend less time getting indoctrinated into the anti-magic mindset in the first place.

(It also probably doesn't help that the "heart" of the story—the characters and their feelings—is often delivered through repetitive slice-of-life scenes that just aren't as entertaining as the big debates over the murder mysteries. Or that many of the real world characters other than Battler and Ange kind of get overshadowed in the final episode's long and drawn out shonen anime climax in the meta world.)

The Culprit(s)

The truth behind Beatrice is... interesting. Sayo's tragic story is certainly one of the most emotionally affecting elements of Umineko. But is it also kind of a convoluted, and an odd solution to a mystery? Maybe a little bit.

Again, when you go back and look for the clues, the foreshadowing is there. There's a consistent logic to it, once you know what that logic is. It was clearly planned from the start. Someday I'll reread at least some of Umineko and have a grand old time going "oohhhhhh" at all the sneaky hints. But so much work is done to obfuscate the twist that I have a hard time believing anyone reading episode 1 would be able to intuit that Shannon, Kanon, and Beatrice are all false personas created by one person—especially when that person's true identity as the lost baby from 19 years ago isn't even referenced in the story until episode 5.

Sure, false identities and disguises are a common fixture of mysteries, but the rules of the narrative in Umineko mean that these alternate personas can all appear in the same scene together, so long as Sayo is either in private or interacting with accomplices. Maybe you'll notice that Shannon and Kanon don't appear together when Battler is around and start to wonder if something's up, but the art embellishes how different Sayo's various forms look from each other so that you don't clock they're all the same person wearing different outfits and wigs. (If you're playing with voice acting, they're also all played by different voice actors.) And, again, a 120-hour visual novel has a hell of a lot of details like that to keep track of. For most readers, these things are going to get lost in the shuffle.

Not to mention all the red truth all over the story that seemingly contradicts the idea that these characters are all the same person, which only works through pedantic technicalities. The red truth can say Shannon "died" because Sayo abandoned the Shannon persona. Battler and Erika can both say different numbers of humans exist on the island in the red text, because Erika is implicitly referring to the number of people and Battler is referring to the number of bodies, and Shannon and Kanon are considered two distinct people who share a body. It's a stretch.

And Jessica and George really never realized that they were both dating the same person in two different disguises? Really? Even if you buy that, the reveal never being explicitly stated outright means that they never learn the truth. We never get to learn how they would react to the truth about Sayo's identity or the fact that she was plotting to murder them, even after all that time spent focusing on their love lives. It feels like a wasted opportunity, and it's part of the reason why it feels like Jessica and George fall by the wayside in episode 8.

Like I said, though, I do think Sayo's story is compelling. It's sad! It's an incredibly sad story, and it only gets sadder the more you think about it. She just wants to live a normal life, but she has to be the embodiment of all this family baggage stretching all the way back to her grandmother's time. I do have to admit, though, I think the telling of that story in episode 7 might put its emphasis in some odd places. A lot of time is spent explaining "Battler's sin," which kind of makes it feel like Sayo decided to murder the whole family and blow up the mansion because, uh... Battler forgot about a promise he made to his childhood crush when he was 12? There's much more to it than that, obviously. But the really gut wrenching stuff that contributed to Sayo snapping is kind of skimmed over at the end, whereas the love story element of it makes up a big chunk of episode 7, framed as the key to understanding everything. This whole story is also told in a very coy way that intentionally obfuscates Sayo's true identity, instead using "Clair" as a stand in, which might leave some readers feeling a little emotionally distanced or wondering when the "real" reveal is coming.

Again, it's a good story. Is it the best resolution to a murder mystery? Probably not. But it's also not trying to be. But the story did spend many, many hours trying to trick you into thinking it was going to follow the rules of a murder mystery. I could keep going in circles with my opinions like this. My thoughts remain complicated. It's not surprising to hear that the manga makes much of this way more explicit.

Also, if the "whydunnit" really is the true heart of the story, it does feel like a missed opportunity to not go into more depth on the (strongly implied) true culprits: Rudolf and Kyrie. They have their scenes, but there's no episode that really focuses on them, so we don't get an explanation beyond "I dunno, I guess they were just sociopaths who wanted the gold and lied about loving their family the whole time." Maybe we never got much insight into them to make the twist more unexpected. Or maybe I'm just supposed to look at them with love and give them the benefit of the doubt, since they're dead either way. I dunno.

There's certainly supposed to be room for interpretation here. Being okay with that is one of the central themes of the story. But then Ryukishi still went and did a manga adaptation that explains everything due to fan backlash over the more open-ended VN ending, so who knows!

Ange, Maria, and the Truth

For a while, I thought I understood where Ange's arc, and by extension Umineko as a whole, would land. The "Schrödinger's cat box" of the Rokkenjima incident offers infinite possibilities, endless what-if scenarios for what could have happened, because there's no way to know the truth of the incident. Everyone that could've told us what happened is dead, and all the evidence is long gone because the mansion fucking exploded. Ange would have to accept that she could never be certain of the truth and move on with her life. Any of her relatives could have theoretically done it, because we're all capable of great cruelty, but they all could have been innocent as well. She must simply find peace in not knowing.

This, of course, isn't quite what happens.

Ange can find the truth, actually, because it turns out Eva left behind a secret diary explaining what happened on Rokkenjima. It's even confirmed as the single, definitive truth of the incident by the red text. But learning this truth is framed as an act of self harm on Ange's part. This is a truth that mustn't be discovered, everyone tells her, and Ange's obsession with the truth is only hurting her, in the same way that Erika's obsession with the truth is unhealthy. This is all handled very differently in the manga, apparently, but in the VN Ange does read the diary, though it's kind of unclear whether or not she's actually processed and accepted that truth by the end of the story. In the ending that you're very obviously guided towards, Ange chooses to believe in magic, and that her family lived on in the Golden Land, and that they all loved her and that they weren't really bad people.

There's certainly some merit to the message here. Basically, Ange is choosing to let go of her resentment for her own sake. Her whole family's gone. What good is hating any of them going to do? She just has to remember the good times, if that's what keeps her going, and know that they'll always be with her in spirit. It's touching. I mostly like this ending. But this outlook where learning the truth and healing from trauma are treated as diametrically opposed goals has some very obvious shortcomings. I think this is best illustrated through all the stuff with Maria and Rosa in episode 4.

Maria has a rough life. The story never uses the word, but she's pretty clearly autistic. She's a nine year old who seems to be surprisingly well read for her age while also behaving more like a younger kid. She struggles to make friends at school. She has her weird little witchcraft hobby she's obsessed with, almost becoming a whole different person when she gets to info dump about it. She has a vocal tic and takes a stuffed animal with her everywhere. It's all there. And Rosa is ashamed of her for it.

Rosa's a complex and sad character in her own right with a lot of pressure put on her by her family, just like the rest of the Ushiromiya mothers, but she takes out that pressure on Maria. She's so embarrassed of her daughter's behavior that she'll hit her and scream at her in public and cause a scene. When she gets mad at home, she'll punish Maria by breaking her possessions. She's also frequently completely absent from Maria's life, going on "business trips" that are really excuses for romantic getaways with her secret boyfriend, leaving Maria home alone for days at a time. Maria has to feed herself by going out and getting food from the store, but they have to be different stores, because Rosa doesn't want the shopkeepers recognizing her and piecing together just how often Maria is home alone.

(There's also the possibility that all of the stuff we saw with Rosa straight up just didn't happen. Did Rosa really have a boyfriend she went on vacations with, neglecting Maria? Who knows! It's never said in the red text! Oh, Umineko, you really know how to drive me crazy. I'm choosing to ignore this possibility because, like, come on. It's there for a reason.)

How does Maria cope with all this? Through escapism. Through "magic." She imagines that she's a witch, and talks about magic on the phone with "Beatrice" (Sayo). She imagines that her stuffed animal is her best friend. And she imagines that when Rosa beats her, it isn't really Rosa. She's just being possessed by an evil witch. When she apologizes, that's how you can tell her real mommy who loves her is back.

Ange learns about all this and sees right through it. She thinks it's incredibly fucking sad that Maria has to come up with coping mechanisms like this. Because it is! But to Maria, this is her truth. She lives a happy life full of magic. And Ange denying this is an act of violence towards Maria, stealing away her happiness. In the end of the story, Ange comes to see things Maria's way, choosing to believe in magic as a coping mechanism and spreading that belief to children all over the world.

It's just... man, this really rubs me the wrong way. Accepting reality isn't an obstacle in the way of healing. Maria is a victim of abuse, and abuse is perpetuated in part by convincing the victim that it isn't happening. By choosing to ignore the bad and find happiness through delusions and escapism, that cycle only continues. It can be true that Rosa really does love Maria, and also that she's taking out her issues on her daughter and hurting her. The problem needs to be addressed! The tragedy here is that, as a 9-year-old, there really isn't much Maria can do here other than telling herself her mother loves her and that everything's gonna be okay. It's understandable why she makes the decisions she does, in her position. It's not like she and Rosa got a chance to work through all this. They died on Rokkenjima. But then Maria gets turned into a role model for the game's whole philosophy, and that philosophy doesn't really sit right with me.

Can Maria really move on from her trauma if she just pretends it never happened? Can Ange? Can anyone? In a story about cycles of abuse, how are we supposed to learn from the past and break those cycles if we only focus on the good in people and pretend that an evil witch was responsible for their bad behavior? We can see that good, and we can accept that we'll never truly know the contents of the cat box that is another person's heart, but we can also recognize the potential for harm. I think the story is very close to reaching this nuance, but the fact that it's not quite there makes it a little more frustrating in an ending that otherwise generally works for me.

Anyway

I dunno. Fans often say that Umineko is the greatest story ever told and a work of art that completely changed their lives. It wasn't that for me. I did like it, though.

Like I said up top, focusing on my nitpicks in this addendum post makes it seem like I hated it, but I liked Umineko. I'm really glad that I read it. I liked that it kept me on my toes. I liked the logic battles. I liked the atmosphere. I grew attached to the cast of characters. Despite being depicted only through simple, static talk sprites, they feel much more real to me than most AAA video game characters depicted via ultra-HD photorealistic graphics with full voice acting and mocapped animation. I liked the friendship between the cousins. I liked Beatrice. I liked Dlanor. I liked Lambdadelta, that lovable idiot. I liked Ronove, the cooler Genji. I loved to hate Erika. I was so satisfied when I was right about Kumasawa knowing way more than she let on. I am unreasonably amused by the fact that Gohda is just kind of there as a normal man who isn't particularly connected to either the decades of family drama or the supernatural stuff. I loved the massive soundtrack, which I'm listening to while typing this. Yes, I did even like the ending, aside from these complaints. I was happy for Ange. It got to me. I don't necessarily agree with the story's philosophy, or all of the choices it made along the way, but it's certainly a unique work of art that's given me a lot to think about. This is gonna be one that sticks with me.

But more than anything, I'll never forget... Battler boldly proclaiming that the victims of the First Twilight of the second game could have been killed by tricking them into eating small bombs.