How Umineko (And the existence of the Rosatrice theory) broke me

[PixelPerfect]

I'm not looking for a debate. I just want to share my thoughts and find some closure.

During the time I was reading Umineko, I was having the best time of my life. I was giving passionate performances for all the characters, emotionally investing myself in their stories, and engaging with the mystery to an extent. And when it was over, I was left with a beautiful ending that didn’t bring a logical resolution, but definitely an emotional one. I bawled my eyes out during the end credits. I felt like I experienced something I would remember forever. But then I was left with a myriad of questions, and I went looking for answers. I heard briefly about Shkanontrice, but I never really fleshed out my knowledge around that explanation. So I went on YouTube, and found the infamous 9-hour monster that is KNM’s breakdown of the entire Umineko story, which didn’t really seem like much since, you know, I just went through a 100+ hour visual novel, and one of my favorite albums is Everywhere at the End of Time.

I dedicated my time to it, and everything started to make sense. His theory was solid, well thought out, and seemed to have no obvious blunders, and after hearing what the official solution was, I decided that his theory sat better with me, and I felt like I could make peace with the story and move on to something else. But then I went onto the Umineko subreddit, and this is where I started to fall down an incredibly debilitating rabbit hole. I asked something along the lines of “What motivations does the author have to give out ‘The Single Truth’?” I wanted to know why the author of a piece of art as abstract, confusing, and cryptic as Umineko would not only put out an answer to the riddle, but to say that “This explanation is correct and everything else is wrong”, essentially shutting down most discussion around the mystery. I reached my own personal truth, and I thought I could move on.

But my biggest mistake was trying to defend the alternate theory in online conversation, or even the *possibility* of one. It cost me karma, my reputation in the Umineko community, and my own sanity. I felt worse after every exchange, and I started to question whether my entire view of Umineko was misguided and wrong. I quickly abandoned the notion that the alternate theory was the “better” or "true" solution, and I merely tried to allow the existence of both theories. And after I reread Episode 5’s hidden tea party, I discovered what I wanted all along: the allowance of the existence of multiple truths. “In this closed-off world, it’s possible for differing truths to exist at the same time. Furthermore, as long as multiple truths exist, it’s impossible to claim that any of the truths are the single truth.”

I then thought that maybe this was always how it was meant to be. There may be *a* solution, but there didn't necessarily need to be only one. And as long as they both exist, you can choose which one fits best for you. You can choose what to believe in. Even that idea wasn’t good enough for them. But the absolute worst comment I got was one that said that there is no more discussion to be had about who the culprit is. That was what hurt the most. To think that all this theorizing and speculation around a story I loved so much was a battle that had already been settled years ago devastated me.

Yet I still can’t bring myself to accept the official solution. It doesn’t make sense to me logically and especially not emotionally. The solution to a puzzle should be satisfying, yet the solution that was provided by the author seems like it was meant to make for a good story rather than a good puzzle. Puzzles are meant to be logical, yet all this talk of multiple personalities and being able to make almost everyone except the detective an accomplice feels only slightly more believable than that everything was done by a witch. In fact, maybe even less believable, since at least magic follows its own rules.

I still don’t know what to think anymore. Did the author screw up? Why would he miss such obvious blunders? Was the game even fair in the first place? Does he even like or trust his readers? Is a perfect solution even possible? Why do you have to do so much mental gymnastics in order to get some red truths to fit the official solution? Was it even intended for there to be an alternate explanation? That 9-hour explanation video is just too sound to be a coincidence.

And after all this back and forth, instead of retreating to one explanation or the other and staying there, I started to doubt what to even believe in the first place. And that’s where I’m stuck.

PS: I know that I shouldn't let comments from strangers on the internet kill my enjoyment of something I love, but I think the reason it got to me was not because they were mean or anything. It's because these arguments were coming from seemingly normal fans of Umineko. It implied that the vast majority of Umineko thought like this. That they thought any discussion of the mystery was not just unnecessary, but problematic. I was made to feel like I was morally compromised for trying to engage in discussion of this novel I loved so much, and for trying to add a new voice to the conversation. My least favorite thing in the world is being misunderstood, and I thought that Umineko would be a small fandom that I could feel at home in. And right after I got all that pushback, I felt more isolated than ever. And this is coming from someone who is still struggling to find "their people".

PPS: Let me go into a bit more detail about why I stopped debating Umineko. The main reason is because my opponent essentially has to convince me of two things at once: that my interpretation is wrong, and that their explanation is right. They’ll often poke holes in my theory, which may be somewhat valid and will end up sewing doubt in me, but that doesn’t make me start to believe in their explanation. At its worst, it’ll result in me being unable to believe in any explanation at all, and that's what ends up causing the most dread. If I'm ever going to discuss Umineko again, there has to be a mutual understanding that there isn't going to be a perfect solution. As is the case with most fiction, any explanation will need a few leaps in logic, and the only difference between my choice of explanation and the author's choice is where we suspend our disbelief. In the words of Innuendo Studios: "The text may strike you as clear or confused or at odds with itself, but in any case you draw what meaning you can from it and... that's that. That's as true as anything you're going to get."

[Eisenerz]

Originally posted by PixelPerfect:

Originally posted by DeRockProject (jongyon7192p):

Rosatrice and Kyrietrice: incest-y

Shkanontrice would also be incest-y as well, since they're supposedly the child of Kinzo and the Kuwadorian Beatrice. I don't think there's any way around it.

I think people imagined that Sayo+Battler is legitimate (romance yay) but disagreeing Rosa+Battler because it's incest is obviously applying double standards.

[DeRockProject (jongyon7192p)]

Nah, both are incesty, but I didn't wanna say the other word. I said enough controversial topic examples as it is. No need to go there.

[O5]

At least Sayo+Battler is two kids who have no clue they’re related falling in love and not a minor and his adult aunt (or mom I guess)

[Eisenerz]

Originally posted by O5:

At least Sayo+Battler is two kids who have no clue they’re related falling in love and not a minor and his adult aunt (or mom I guess)

Oh no, you don't know.

[O5]

Originally posted by Eisenerz:

Originally posted by O5:

At least Sayo+Battler is two kids who have no clue they’re related falling in love and not a minor and his adult aunt (or mom I guess)

Oh no, you don't know.

I don't know what?

[Gordo]

if you think about it you think that its kinda like the one thing

[DeRockProject (jongyon7192p)]

Originally posted by O5:

Originally posted by Eisenerz:

Oh no, you don't know.

I don't know what?

That she was told they're related at the Gold Room like a couple months before the Rokkenjima incident. (probs)

[O5]

Originally posted by DeRockProject (jongyon7192p):

Originally posted by O5:

I don't know what?

That she was told they're related at the Gold Room like a couple months before the Rokkenjima incident. (probs)

She fell in love with Battler way before that. By the point she finds out they’re related she is already quite far gone mentally. Also her finding out she is related to all of her crushes is among the reasons she snaps completely

[Eisenerz]

Originally posted by O5:

Originally posted by DeRockProject (jongyon7192p):

That she was told they're related at the Gold Room like a couple months before the Rokkenjima incident. (probs)

She fell in love with Battler way before that. By the point she finds out they’re related she is already quite far gone mentally. Also her finding out she is related to all of her crushes is among the reasons she snaps completely

Nobody was assuming Rosa was going for a twelve-years-old Battler. Rosatrice wasn't about Rosa having hots for the protagonist.

[O5]

Originally posted by Eisenerz:

Originally posted by O5:

She fell in love with Battler way before that. By the point she finds out they’re related she is already quite far gone mentally. Also her finding out she is related to all of her crushes is among the reasons she snaps completely

Nobody was assuming Rosa was going for a twelve-years-old Battler. Rosatrice wasn't about Rosa having hots for the protagonist.

Doesn't it kind of have to be considering the very blatant romantic tension between Beatrice and Battler?

[DeRockProject (jongyon7192p)]

yes, tbh...

[Eisenerz]

Originally posted by O5:

Originally posted by Eisenerz:

Nobody was assuming Rosa was going for a twelve-years-old Battler. Rosatrice wasn't about Rosa having hots for the protagonist.

Doesn't it kind of have to be considering the very blatant romantic tension between Beatrice and Battler?

You mean the meta scenes, didn't you? Battler didn't developed feelings for her because Sayo is his supposedely first love. You can paint it like Tohya has subconsciousely developed sympathy for the culprit and it became a stronger feeling. In the beginning Battler detested Beatrice because she did unnecessary cruel and unfair actions in her games, then it's "yandere" (and the optical qualities).

Also the point of time when Sayo fell in love is pretty vague because Shannon talked about love problems in middle school in Turn and outgrew them after the school. That flashback scene happens before she was directly appraoched by George, thus making the scenes in EP7 or the character and age of Shannon pretty questionable because Battler already left.

[Tamagon]

Wow, small world, huh.

I recognize you from "that community", OP. You're painting a one-sided picture of what happened, but I won't air out your dirty laundry.

I don't think you're a bad person, I think you're just upset you missed out on Umineko's "golden age", where the mystery wasn't yet 100% solved. It's like a kid getting into The Beatles in 2024: the music is still good, but the experience is very different from if you were a fan during Beatlemania. The magic is definitely lost.

That's what motivates all alt-culprit theories now. Trying to bring the magic back. But you can't. The official solution's been out for over a decade and is an appealing story. People move on. KNM hasn't cared about Umineko for years and is baffled that people even still know about Rosatrice. R07 is a more socially-conscious author who has a family to take care of and has outgrown his competitive, "author vs player" approach to writing.

Alt-culprit theorists are basically wanting to roleplay like its still 2009 and I'm sorry, but almost no one wants to do that. Most people prefer to live in the present. In fact this is Ange's whole character arc: letting go of what the past could've been, and living for the present. A character arc that Rosatrice rejects, because it says Ange was dead the entire time. And if Ange actually was alive, then Rosatrice has even more questions to answer.

[PixelPerfect]

Originally posted by Tamagon:

Alt-culprit theorists are basically wanting to roleplay like its still 2009 and I'm sorry, but almost no one wants to do that.

That implies that my intention behind defending my beliefs was just for my own amusement and to stir up trouble, but another reason was because I wanted to be understood by fellow fans of this story I love so much. To be able to have my passion acknowledged by other people. But predictably, that didn't happen, and the very reason that I left that debacle was because I was no longer having fun, and every interaction made me feel worse. The further I fell into that rabbit hole, the less sense everything made, and it caused a lot of existential dread. I felt like I was being forced to interpret the story in a way that made no sense to me on an emotional or logical level, and I would never willingly accept a belief system that makes less sense to me just because of pressure from other people.

Once I realized that they would never accept me, I left. And that realization still hurts, especially due to how isolated I tend to be in the real world. And whilst Ange may have moved on, moving on still takes time, and I think it's better if I work through it on my own. But that makes it sound like Umineko itself was traumatic for me, and I don't want all the fun I had with the story to be clouded by everything that happened after in retrospect. Either way, I think I'll keep myself at a safe distance from other Umineko fans from now on. Fandoms in general kinda suck.



(PS, I don't actually believe that Ange dies in 1998, and I have ways for Battler to survive in some form as well.)

[Tamagon]

I said I wouldn't air out your dirty laundry but now I will. Multiple people took time out of their day to write long posts patiently explaining to you why you were wrong. They would ask you why you felt X way about something, and you ignored it to keep insulting Shkanontrice as an irrational theory:

https://old.reddit.com/r/umineko/comments/1fcrbhh/what_reason_does_ryukishi_have_for_giving_us_the/

You can't expect people to understand you if you refuse to understand them back. For anyone reading this discussion, here's a reminder of what Rosatrice claims. Just something to have in mind when you see OP say Shkanontrice has "obvious blunders" and "twists the red":

1. George killed Nanjo in EP 3, even though the red truth and Battler's PoV confirms George was dead before Nanjo's death.

2. Relies on the existence of fake death drugs, things that don't actually exist and Nanjo would know this. Violates Knox's 4th. Remember that when Erika brings up fake death drugs, everyone, including the narrator, makes fun of her.

3. Knox's 8th requires clues to solve the case. Rosatrice has zero evidence for most of its claims. KNM freely admits many of its solutions are "well, it could be this way, we just don't know"

4. It's stated in red Beato made the game and wanted it to be solved by Battler. This contradicts Rosatrice since George acts independent of Rosa and is responsible for many murders

5. EP 7 Yasu is a manifestation of Rosa's guilt over indirectly causing the real Yasu's death. Except EP 5 also says Rosa was away when the servant died and Yasu's existence was covered up, so Rosa couldn't know about them.

I'll post citations if someone asks to, but I didn't wanna put to in the effort since OP said they're not here to debate.