Recap / Umineko When They Cry Episode 6

Warning: This page contains unmarked spoilers for "Dawn of the Golden Witch" and previous Episodes

Prologue

BATTLER is forcibly wed to Erika, with all demons plus Zepar and Furfur as witnesses. Someone is stuck in a locked room. Amakusa and Ange wake up in the parlor and are met with a novel writer Hachijo, who has impersonated Maria in the Message in a Bottle and wrote Episodes 3-5, but claims those were true. Ange has a memory conflict and calls her out, who reveals herself to be a witch Featherine. Featherine asks Ange to read "Dawn" for her.

In order to secure his position, BATTLER needs to win against Erika. He creates a Chick Beatrice who Really Was Born Yesterday. From there on Ange and Featherine requently comment on everything. Genji warns BATTLER that leaving a contradictory explanation will cause a Reality-Breaking Paradox.

The First Day

Shannon and Kanon go over previously established stuff. Jessica and Kanon exchange love confessions, and his name is revealed to be Yoshiya. Featherine summons Chick Beatrice and Virgilia to talk about past games. Erika drifts to Rokkenjima and solves Maria's quiz book. The mysterious captive goes through another Nightmare Sequence where Beatrice eats him. Chick Beatrice examines the portrait, falls through it, time travels to Episode 2's prologue and finds Elder Beatrice there.

Everyone discusses Rokkenjima ghost stories and have different takes on them. George admits he went after Shannon 6 years ago because he was jealous of Battler. Elder Beatrice shows she's weak to spiderwebs while Chick is not. The mysterious captive note if he undoes the chain lock, a collar appears to keep him in the room. Elder Beatrice uses Gold to confirm that the candy trick is magic.

Chick Beatrice bakes cookies for BATTLER, but he rejects them. BATTLER starts seeing delusions of the real Beatrice, who asks to treat Chick Beatrice as Dead Guy Junior. George and Shannon, Jessica and Kanon, are kidnapped by Zepar and Furfur to test the lovers with only one pair surviving, Elder Beatrice asks Chick Beatrice to participate on BATTLER's behalf.

Erika realizes that BATTLER is preventing her from using previous tricks. Erika has a traumatic flashback of her love life. George argues with Eva over Shannon and he disowns himself, then Eva is replaced by EVA-Beatrice and is killed. Jessica and Kyrie have a love talk, before Jessica and Ronove kill her. Kanon kills Rosa, but MARIA bombards him, who is then killed by Shannon. Chick Beatrice kills Natsuhi. BATTLER joins the game, who kills someone off-screen.

After the First Twilight

Erika bets her life on winning without using Detective's Authority. Jessica and George wake up Erika, who promptly runs away to look for the crime scenes. For the sixth victim, BATTLER chose Battler. BATTLER gives Erika a handicap of three tapes out of pity, soon revealed to be her Crocodile Tears.

Erika seals everyone in the guesthouse, then spots an envelope addressed to her from Battler. Erika shows she has used the remaining tape on Battler's room, threatening to call the Logic Error. When BATTLER uses a shower trap to create a distraction, Erika shows she also put the chain lock beforehand. When BATTLER tries to use an accomplice card, Erika confirms Faking the Dead is impossible because not being a Detective allows her to kill everyone who remained. Due Logic Error, BATTLER is trapped in the nightmare room until he finds a way.

Bernkastel decides instead of waiting, Erika should marry BATTLER and turn him into a puppet. Shannon and Kanon hold a pistol duel and Kanon dies. Kanon disappears from the board in front of everyone, but his ghost releases BATTLER from the locked room. Chick Beatrice, now awakened and assisted by other demons, interrupts the wedding and duels Erika. Beatrice confirms in Red that Kanon locked the door from inside despite not being found, which kills Erika.

Tea Party

In the Meta-World, BATTLER marries Beatrice. Kanon is revived. Shannon and George also get married. The tale is over and Ange wonders what was the point, but forgives Hachijo and leaves. Over the public phone Amakusa reveals he, Okonogi and Kasumi have been working together the entire time.

Bernkastel walks around the empty mansion and meets Featherine. Despite BATTLER's victory, Bernkastel is appointed as the next Game master because Featherine wants the tale to end without unresolved mysteries.

TIPS note Erika has been missing after falling off the boat and nobody bothered to look for her due to "Rokkenjima Explosion Incident".

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Tropes:

• Abusive Parents: Chick Beatrice treats BATTLER as her father. Similar to the many adults of Ushiromiya, BATTLER loses his cool because she's just an obedient Replacement Goldfish and not who he wanted. He softens up over time.
• Alternate Self: Elder Beatrice is Beatrice from Episode 2's backstory, who becomes a mentor to Chick Beatrice, an empty clone of the Golden Witch, though neither have the knowledge or personality of the previous version.
• Ambiguously Evil: Kyrie monologues how she almost killed Asumu, but she just happened to die on the same day, which makes it sound Kyrie did in fact kill her. Kyrie's child also curiously died at the same time Asumu's was born, and the identity of Battler's mother is still currently unknown.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • The narration extremely bluntly says that Shannon, Kanon and Beatrice are part of the same, but avoids confirming outright if they are the same person.
  • The ending of EP 4 is recontextualized as Amakusa shooting the bodyguards. It's unclear if she shot Ange or Kasumi as well.
  • Since the entire Episode is Featherine's writing, it's uncelar if literally any part of it should be taken at face value.
• Angrish: When Erika invalidates BATTLER's Faking the Dead card, she glees so much her words become hard to understand.
• And Then What?: Ange asks Chick Beatrice what she's going to do if she wins BATTLER approval, but she can't answer because love isn't rational.
• Arc Villain: Hachijo is the most powerful enemy in the series, while also doing pretty much nothing. Because she has "reached the truth" and has spread legends about Rokkenjima's murders, it really bothers Ange who wants to know the truth and doesn't like stories of her family killing each other for public entertainment. In the end scene she she joins the board to give it a Happy Ending Override.
• Arc Words: "Logic Error" is foreshadowed early in the Episode. Even the Game Master can't use magic to make contradictions as it would instead create a Reality-Breaking Paradox. BATTLER makes this mistake and becomes an Empty Shell until someone else solves the riddle for him.
• As the Good Book Says...: Ange says it's not surprising that people can change drastically over time if someone has died and been reborn three days later.
• Awesomeness Is a Force: The sheer pressure of the reborn Beatrice was enough to knock out all minor Chiester snipers.
• Bait-and-Switch: Battler takes a while to answer a children puzzle about how to cut a "cheese instead of a cake" into 8 pieces with less than 4 cuts. Literally everyone else got it right away, which makes Battler look like fool. While the puzzle is relying on Outside-the-Box Tactic, Battler and Erika were instead thinking over an unintended solution that allows doing it in one cut. This also metaphorically describes the game so far.
• The Casanova: When he was younger, Rudolf was popular with girls, who he has made to compete with each other over his attention.
• Celestial Bureaucracy: When Gaap uses a Blue Truth, Dlanor A. Knox responds that she'll have to wait until Great Court has the time to review her written complaint officially.
• Central Theme: Kinzo's, BATTLER's, Erika's, Eva's, Kyrie's, Rosa's, Natsuhi's "love" has been an "investment", they only love someone because they seek something personal from it. George's and Jessica's love is unconditional, they would rather sacrifice themselves and others for it. The question raised is where Beatrice falls into.
• Competition Freak: Once George brings it up, Erika goes out her way to solve the entirety of Maria's quiz book before anyone else can just because she's that prideful.
• Complete Immortality: According to Featherine, higher-tier magic characters physically can't die and instead remain in some limbo state until they "feel like" coming back. Dying does take away a lot of motivation required though, so it's still often permanent.
• Create Your Own Villain: Featherine makes a deduction that "Battler's Sin" from 6 years ago has effectively created Beatrice that we know, making him responsible, but it's unclear if indirectly.
• Cruel Mercy: Bernkastel gives BATTLER one way to escape the impossible lock room, cutting himself up and getting flushed in the bath drain. He considers, but doesn't it.
• Cynicism Catalyst: Erika's failures to use her analytical skills in her love life have caused her to reject all forms of love or magic as hurtful lies to Never Be Hurt Again.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Lambdadelta mentions that she went through a similar hell and has "climbed her way out", and wonders if she's still inside a dream. However, just because she can relate, doesn't make her feel sympathy to others. She tells that Bernkastel has went through something similar as well and escaped "by a miracle".
• Deadly Prank: The real story is that the first twilight victims were Faking the Dead as a welcome party for Erika, which BATTLER hoped to use to throw her reasoning off with some slice of irony. Erika reveals she personally made sure all who played dead stay dead.
• Decoy Damsel: By Kyrie's account, Asumu always presented herself as scared and vulnerable, as a plan to get close to Rudolf, though Kyrie was already known for being bitter.
• Detective Mole: While it's an easy guess if Erika is the killer and that BATTLER may be using this trickery to throw her reasoning off, however, that was not BATTLER's intention, and Erika revealing herself as the culprit throws his other misdirection out the window.
• Disowned Parent: George says that if Eva rejects his love with Shannon due to the mother's duty, then he can no longer see her as a parent. Symbolically, he starts seeing her as EVA-Beatrice.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Erika sliding her Obedience Ring on BATTLER's finger "all the way in", much to his pain, is narrated very close to rape.
• Double Tap: When Erika checked the corpses, she beheaded them. Meaning, regardless if they were faking or dead, they couldn't have been used in the game in any way. Erika then confirms she checked that they were in fact alive, just to rub it to BATTLER.
• Dramatic Irony: After Erika's introduction, Krauss wonders if she's eager to solve his possible murder. That's exactly why is she here, though Krauss isn't the victim this time.
• Dying Declaration of Hate: When Erika suggests that she'll remove the ring if BATTLER apologizes, he resists brainwashing just enough to say that he'll never forgive her.
• Easily Forgiven:
  • Ange finds it hard to believe that BATTLER apologized to Beatrice after she killed his entire family wondering just what kind of turth has he uncovered.
  • Ange thanks Hachijo for her time and leaves, despite calling her forgery unforgivable before.
• Evil Is Petty: Erika goes out of her way to shatter Maria's fantasy because she can't tolerate magic talk even from a 9-mentally-3 year old, then going further trying to crush her heart (metaphorically). Eiserne Jungfrau even repeatedly remark that she has nothing to gain from this and drag her away before she finishes.
• Evil Mentor: Kyrie tells Jessica that a good woman would murder for the sake of love. It's unclear what her thought process was, but after hesitating Jessica picks her as the next victim.
• Face Death with Dignity: When she's about to get killed by Shannon, MARIA prepares herself and snarks that even Erika wouldn't solve what happened.
• Fair-Play Whodunnit: As a Game Master, BATTLER notices he has to follow a previously unknown rule. All murders must be possible without magic, regardless if magic is actually used or not.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Logic Error is brought up early and does in fact occur.
  • To humans, the personhood is defined by the personality, but in the fantasy world all versions of the same character are treated as the same person. Ange wonders if there's a correlation between Literal Split Personality and certain past events. Erika asks BATTLER to be specific when verifying the number of people against the mentioned named, because they supposedly didn't match in the previous games. Zepar and Furfur very non-subtly tell that Shannon and Kanon cannot both have a love live because it's a physical impossibility due to them being "incomplete".
  • Kyrie and Asumu have given birth on the same day, but Kyrie's child appears to have died.
  • The narration describes the crime as a perfect locked room first and a perfect murder second. All victims are revealed very early to be Faking the Dead, then killed after the discovery. There's one person who explicitly visited all rooms after the first twilight, and BATTLER removes right away as few people from suspects. Erika also has agreed to not use protagonist privileges. It turns out BATTLER isn't setting up Erika as a surprise culprit, she makes herself one to his shock.
  • Before meeting Hachijo, Ange assumed the mysterious writer would be male. There's more to her than she lets on.
• Fourth Wall Psych: Other characters have picked up that Erika says the "What do you think, everyone?" Catchphrase even when nobody is present, but she's nodding at the characters in the Meta-World.
• Given Name Reveal: Kanon is reintroduced as Yoshiya.
• The Ghost: The wedding is secured by a dozens more Chiester Sisters that aren't seen.
• Has a Type: In EP 4 Beatrice claims Battler prefers blonds with large breasts. Here, his conversation is shown explicitly, which is what Beatrice based her appearance on.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Kanon takes BATTLER's place in the nightmare room. Since the mystery is resolved, Kanon disappears along with the room, though Beatrice brings him back.
• He's Back!: Chick Beatrice triumphantly realizes that there's no point solving Erika's locked room, as the Golden Witch, creating absurd locked rooms while mocking players is her job, as he cackles across the cathedral.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: The culprit is not created by a witch. After checking that everyone were Faking the Dead as a welcome party, Erika personally beheaded the first twilight victims just to ensure they won't be going anywhere during the investigation. BATTLER is shocked she can do it so casually and laugh about it, be she states that due to magic morality doesn't apply to her.
• I Hate Past Me: When Chick Beatrice learns about the previous games, she's only disappointed that Beatrice wasn't Battler's dignified rival she imagined, but feels she still needs to understand her.
• I Know Your True Name: It's said that a true heart-to-heart can only happen when people call each other by names.
• Innocently Insensitive: Erika says that Bernkastel looks perfect even if she'll get wrinkles. Bernkastel gets even more upset.
• Interface Spoiler: Checking Erika's status after the game shows that shortly after she fell off the boat, some Rokkenjima Explosion destoryed all evedience.
• Irony: Erika, an already established Witch of Truth, tries to drill into MARIA, the Witch of Origins, that magic doesn't exist.
• Jerkass Realization: George confesses that he used to see Battler and Jessica as immature and felt himself entitled to women, but has grown out of it.
• Killed Off for Real: Featherine says in Red that the real Beatrice's Death by Despair is final, though making a full clone of her is possible.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In the very beginning, Bernkastel asks if her listeners can respond. She's looking at Battler, but uses a plural word.
• Locked Room Mystery:
  • Kyrie locks herself in Krauss's study. Because it's a Locked Room, it repels Jessica's murderous intent because only a demon can kill in a Locked Room. Jessica gives away more of her soul and Kyrie is burned alive by the Killing Intent alone. Natsuhi, Eva, Rosa and Maria, and Battler are all killed in locked rooms as well. The parlor doesn't require a Master Key, but is blocked by a hat stand. Furthermore, Battler and Maria were supposed to be in another building and couldn't have entered the manor without someone letting them in.
  • Despite the presence of "magic", the rules say all locked rooms should be possible for a human. BATTLER tries to say that Battler was Faking the Dead and sneaked away while Erika was distracted, but Erika reveals she retroactively has repaired the chain lock, thus creating an actual impossible room and invalidating BATTLER as the Game Master.
• Love Makes You Dumb: Each Beatrice's feelings to Battler are described as irrational and comparable to magic itself. They don't know why they act the way they do, only because.
• Love Makes You Evil: Jessica abandons her humanity for Kanon's sake and kills Kyrie. George has an excuse against Eva, but Kanon and Shannon kill Rosa and Maria by picking them by chance. This is somehow presented as romantic.
• Not So Stoic: Kyrie, who shown to never lose her cool even against demons in EP 3, panics seeing monsterized Jessica. Once she starts thinking it's all a dream, Kyrie summons Leviathan and shows she is incredibly versed in how the magic logic works.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane:
  • In her introduction, Hachijo Tohya claims to be the author of Maria's letters and also of three Episodes of Umineko. But then she turns out to be a God in Human Form who claims to have created the events of those Episodes physically. Either is very likely.
  • Elder Beatrice clarifies that the ghost pranks on Rokkenjima were her creating fear to gain more power while she's too weak to manifest. Ange and Erika instead interpret it as the the true culprit already being active years ago, creating room for "Scooby-Doo" Hoax.
  • Erika uses a slight of hand to make a candy "appear" while Maria had her eyes closed, implying this is what happened in Episode 2, though is interrupted when she tries to finish the argument.
  • Despite it being shown that nobody died at the time, it's unclear what Zepar and Furfur's trial for George and Jessica is supposed to represent if the Game Master isn't showing it to anyone.
• Megaton Punch: When Jessica gets determined and has Hellish Pupils, her punches can pulverize people.
• Metaphorically True: It is implied that Gold Truth is the truth when allegories and what "people agree to" are included to facts. It may not be factual, but is something people "say" has happened.
• Mood Whiplash: In the middle of a climax, Zepar and Furfur announce their Image Song CD.
• Mundane Made Awesome:
  • Witch of Origins and Witch of Truth with Dlanor A. Knox have a magical battle. In reality it's just Erika with an empty tea cup in hand yelling at Maria over a candy.
  • George confessing his love for Shannon to Eva is shown as him fighting EVA-Beatrice in a chapter of Journey to the West, arguing George wouldn't have made anywhere without her guidance.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: Kyrie admits she attempted to murder Asumu to be Rudolf's only woman, but Asumu died on her own right when Kyrie had the chance.
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: When reminiscing about his life at the mansion, Kanon recalls that everyone has a soft side to him and still treated him as family. Except Gohda, who Kanon can't recall anything positive about other than his cooking.
• Older than You Think: Discussed In-Universe. Erika feels latest Mystery Fiction are just rehashes of the classic tricks because authors haven't read that far, and that a lot of Romance works use Romeo and Juliet as a base. Battler tells her to read more new books.
• Pet the Dog: When Erika senses she may lose, she thanks Dlanor A. Knox for her service, due to respecting her more than Bernkastel ever did.
• Percussive Therapy: Erika punches Dlanor A. Knox in frustration and gets hurt by her metallic body.
• Placebo Effect: Magic is compared to medicine that is more effective when people trust it.
• Power Nullifier: Sakutaro can cast Diplomatic Immunity, which cancels all direct attacks in his proximity.
• Psychic Strangle: Chick Beatrice tries to choke Natsuhi with an invisible vine.
• Raise Him Right This Time: Because Chick Beatrice has no idea who Beatrice is, it's discussed that she is in opportunity to turn out for the better. BATTLER however, insists her to become the cruel witch so he can get answers out of her, until the illusion of Beatrice calls him out for his unfair treatment.
• Really Was Born Yesterday: BATTLER revives Beatrice with the power of the game board, but she's not the Beatrice he knew and really has 3 days worth of memories, so his confession goes completely over her head. He gets really angry realizing his efforts were not enough.
• The Reveal:
  • It's established that Magic can have only two forms. Illusion, which is something that is only visible to those who agree to it, but has no physical effect. And Trick, where the description of events matches the result while the method is obscured. Real magic doesn't exist and is also forbidden, all puzzles must be possible for a human, and "magic" is just a naming convention for tricks in the game. Battler could have won if only he was even more open-minded.
  • Beatrice is revealed to be physically 19 years old.
  • "There are 18 humans" and "There are 17 humans" are shown to be equally true.
  • Amakusa and Okonogi were actually Kasumi's moles working for some higher conspiracy, and Amakusa is asked to take care of Kasumi's bodyguards regardless of results.
• Sarcasm Failure: BATTLER says to laugh at his efforts being All for Nothing. Chick Beatrice obediently gives him an Evil Laugh and wonders if it was good enough.
• Shared Family Quirks: Like Battler, Asumu also panics when on a plane or a boat.
• The Stinger: The credits are interrupted by Bernkastel taking a pawn representing Beatrice.
• Super-Hearing: The Detective's Authority boosts Erika's hearing power to not miss anything as long as it's somewhat audible.
• Supernatural Repellant: Maria clarifies that Beatrice minions fear spider and scorpion imagery because these animals feed on butterflies. Erika notes that this was part of the Akujikishima legend, which got mixed up with Beatrice's myth. Chick Beatrice has no weakness against either, but she is weak against Natsuhi's mirror.
• Take That, Audience!: As a Reader Miko, Ange represents part of the audience who aren't interested in theory-making and just want to know the answer, and Featherine calls her out that you can't know the full story without thinking about non-explicit subtext. In contrast, Erika switches from looking for the truth, to thinking the answer she's got is the only correct one and insulting anyone who thinks otherwise, what the actual story is implying be damned. invoked
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Erika spends the entirety of Eiserne Jungfrau, just to prove to a child how a sleight of hand was done, simply becuase she hates anything fantasy that much.
• Throwing Down the Gauntlet: Chick Beatrice throws a glove in front of Erika, making all her bodyguards step aside and await what she'll do. Erika could have just ordered to shoot anyway, but she's too prideful.
• Time Stands Still: Ange notices she had several conversations with Hachijo, but in reality time almost hasn't passed.
• Villain Protagonist: BATTLER creates the new game board. Even if he doesn't have Beatrice's cruelty, he still arranges the game where people kill each other. This is a clue that he wouldn't do it and everyone were Faking the Dead in a silly prank, until Erika personally ensured the people stay dead.
• What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: Erika says the only form of love she understands is foreshadowing of motives for murder, otherwise human emotions annoy her.
• Wham Shot:
  • BATTLER uses Battler as the first twilight victim.
  • Erika declares that she has abandoned the detective position to be the culprit of the game. Since BATTLER has alredy used the Faking the Dead card, Erika can retroactively say with certainty that the Game Master is lying.
  • Shannon and Kanon have a Duel to the Death and Shannon wins.
• Worthy Opponent: After being humiliated by Erika, MARIA starts to look forward to crushing her next time.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: Both the player and the Game Master are allowed to change how events have happened, as long as it doesn't contradict previous Red Truths. Erika baiting BATTLER into building an "actual impossible mystery" made him completely revise his strategy to avoid the game being declared as illegitimate, which caused her to change her own actions she hasn't clarified before.
• You Wake Up in a Room: One of the first scenes is someone waking up in a nightmarish version of a room with a lock wielded shut and being unable to scream. This is later revealed to be BATTLER being punished by Logic Error.

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