prof | Let's Play Umineko Chiru, Episode 5: Review

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Knox's Decalogue
The version of the Decalogue used in Umineko is slightly different from the original. Red is the version this story uses, italics are the original text from Knox's essay.

Knox's 1st: It is forbidden for the culprit to be anyone not mentioned in the early part of the story.
The criminal must be someone mentioned in the early part of the story, but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to follow. The mysterious stranger who turns up from nowhere in particular, from a ship as often as not, whose existence the reader had no means of suspecting from the outset, spoils the play altogether. The second half of the rule is more difficult to state precisely, especially in view of some remarkable performances by Mrs. Christie. It would be more exact to say that the author must not imply an attitude of mystification in the character who turns out to be the criminal.

Knox's 2nd: It is forbidden for supernatural agencies to be employed as a detective technique.
All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course. To solve a detective problem by such means would be like winning a race on the river by the use of a concealed motor-engine. And here I venture to think there is a limitation about Mr. Chesterton's Father Brown stories. He nearly always tries to put us off the scent by suggesting that the crime must have been done by magic; and we know that he is too good a sportsman to fall back upon such a solution. Consequently, although we seldom guess the answer to his riddles, we usually miss the thrill of having suspected the wrong person.

Knox's 3rd: It is forbidden for hidden passages to exist.
No more than one secret room or passage is allowable. I would add that a secret passage should not be brought in at all unless the action takes place in the kind of house where such devices might be expected. When I introduced one into a book myself, I was careful to point out beforehand that the house had belonged to Catholics in penal times. Mr. Milne's secret passage in the Red House Mystery is hardly fair; if a modern house were so equipped - and it would be villainously expensive - all the countryside would be quite certain to know about it.

Knox's 4th: It is forbidden for unknown drugs or hard to understand scientific devices to be used.
No hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any appliance which will need a long scientific explanation at the end. There may be undiscovered poisons with quite unexpected reactions on the human system, but they have not been discovered yet, and until they are they must not be utilized in fiction; it is not cricket. Nearly all the cases of Dr. Thorndyke, as recorded by Mr. Austin Freeman, have the minor medical blemish; you have to go through a long science lecture at the end of the story in order to understand how clever the mystery was.

Knox's 5th: Not included.
No Chinaman must figure in the story. Why this should be so I do not know, unless we can find a reason for it in our western habit of assuming that the Celestial is over-equipped in the matter of brains, and under-equipped in the matter of morals. I only offer it as a fact of observation that, if you are turning over the pages of a book and come across some mention of 'the slit-like eyes of Chin Loo', you had best put it down at once; it is bad. The only exception which occurs to my mind - there are probably others - is Lord Ernest Hamilton's Four Tragedies of Memworth.

Knox's 6th: It is forbidden for accident or intuition to be employed as a detective technique.
No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be right. That is perhaps too strongly stated; it is legitimate for the detective to have inspirations which he afterwards verifies, before he acts on them, by genuine investigation. And again, he will naturally have moments of clear vision, in which the bearings of the observations hitherto made will become suddenly evident to him. But he must not be allowed, for example, to look for the lost will in the works of the grandfather clock because an unaccountable instinct tells him that that is the right place to search. He must look there because he realizes that that is where he would have hidden it himself if he had been in the criminal's place. And in general it should be observed that every detail of his thought-process, not merely the main outline of it, should be conscientiously audited when the explanation comes along at the end.

Knox's 7th: It is forbidden for the detective to be the culprit.
The detective must not himself commit the crime. This applies only where the author personally vouches for the statement that the detective is a detective; a criminal may legitimately dress up as a detective, as in the Secret of Chimneys, and delude the other actors in the story with forged references.

Knox's 8th: It is forbidden for the case to be resolved with clues that are not presented.
The detective must not light on any clues are not instantly produced for the inspection of the reader. Any writer can make a mystery by telling us that at this point the great Picklock Holes suddenly bent down and picked up from the ground an object which he refused to let his friend see. He whispers 'Ha!' and his face grows grave - all that is illegitimate mystery-making. The skill of the detective author consists in being able to produce his clues and flourish them defiantly in our faces: 'There!' he says, 'what do you make of that?' and we make nothing.

Knox's 9th: It is permitted for observers to let their own conclusions and interpretations be heard.
The stupid friend of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal any thoughts which pass through his mind; his intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly, below that of the average reader. This is a rule of perfection; it is not of the esse of the detective story to have a Watson at all. But if he does exist, he exists for the purpose of letting the reader have a sparring partner, as it were, against whom he can pit his brains. 'I may have been a fool,' he says to himself as he puts the book down, 'but at least I wasn't such a doddering fool as poor old Watson.'

Knox's 10th: It is forbidden for a character to disguise themselves as another without any clues.
Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them. The dodge is too easy, and the supposition too improbable. I would add as a rider, that no criminal should be credited with exceptional powers of disguise unless we have had fair warning that he or she was accustomed to making up for the stage. How admirably is this indicated, for example, in Trent's Last Case!

The debate over the interpretation of these laws continues to this very day, and it has become the source of countless unfair controversies. While fundamentalists call any infringement upon these commandments heresy, revisionists point out that many canonized geniuses have violated these rules.

The Detective's Authority
Furudo Erika is the detective.
The detective has the right to inspect all crime scenes.
The detective has the right to call assembly.
The detective's perceptions are not permitted to be false.
Erika is not the culprit.
Erika has no influence on any game board before this one.

The Knock
At midnight, somebody knocked on the door to the lounge. When the door was opened, a letter from Beatrice was found there.
Before the family conference, Erika, George, Jessica, Maria, Nanjo, Gohda and Kumasawa left the mansion and moved to the guest house.
Of those who remain, only Krauss, Natsuhi and Genji were in the second floor corridor, while all others were in the dining hall.
Krauss, Natsuhi and Genji never touched the letter.
Among all those inside the mansion at 24:00, not a single person placed that letter in the corridor.
At 24:00, except for Krauss, Natsuhi and Genji in the second floor corridor and all of the people in the dining hall, no humans existed inside the mansion.
Neither Krauss nor Natsuhi nor Genji knocked in any way.
None of the people in the dining hall knocked on the door.
At 24:00, only Erika, George, Jessica, Maria, Nanjo, Gohda and Kumasawa existed outside the mansion.
The letter never touched the serving cart or the ceiling.
It was impossible for anyone outside the mansion to influence anything inside the mansion around the time of the family conference.
No character misidentified a knocking sound.

The First Twilight
The victims were George, Jessica, Maria, Rosa, Krauss and Genji.
George, Jessica, Maria and Rosa were found in the cousins' room, where Battler was sleeping. Their throats had been cut. The crime was discovered on the morning of the 5th.
Genji was found in his own room. His throat had been cut.
Krauss disappeared.
After Kumasawa and Gohda returned to the guest house, they never went to the second floor until morning.
At midnight in the guest house, George, Jessica and Maria were alive and in the second floor cousins' room. Nanjo, Gohda and Kumasawa were on the first floor.
George, Jessica, Maria, Rosa and Genji died.
At midnight, Natsuhi, Krauss and Genji were in a corridor on the second floor of the mansion. All the remaining people were at the family conference in the dining hall. Of course, at that point in time, no murder had occurred. Genji was also alive.
From 1:00 AM to 3:00 AM, Erika, Nanjo and Gohda were in the lounge on the first floor of the guest house.
Nanjo was with Erika the whole time from midnight to 3:00 AM. He didn't leave his room between 3:00 AM and morning.
It was impossible for Battler to commit murder or damage the corpses.
It was impossible to reach the second floor of the guest house without passing through the lounge, and impossible to reach it at all without Erika, who was in the lounge, knowing about it.
Of all the people in the dining hall, not one of them left the dining hall until 1:00 AM.
At 1:00 AM, Eva sealed Genji's waiting room, and that seal was broken by Kanon and Kumasawa in the morning when the crime was discovered. During the short break at 1:00 AM, the first two to leave the dining hall were Rosa and Eva. Until Eva returned, everyone in the dining hall remained there. After seeing Rosa off, Eva went to the waiting room and sealed it.
Genji never left the mansion after 24:00.
Krauss was killed right after his phone call with Natsuhi.

The Second Twilight
The victim was Hideyoshi. He was found in his room, with the door locked and the chain set. A stake was stabbed into his back.
Natsuhi was hiding in the closet when the crime took place.

Beatrice's Heart
Beatrice has nothing to gain from solving the epitaph.
There is no need for her to get anyone else to find the gold.
Beatrice's goal is not to get revenge or cause fear.
Beatrice never enjoyed killing somebody.
Beato wanted Battler to solve the game, so she made its riddles solvable.

Additional Clues
The mountain of gold is real. There are no replicas or fakes.
Erika and Eva's seals are perfect, and deception is impossible. They were not tampered with in any way.
All deaths were homicides.
No examination of the corpses could have been mistaken.
No corpses exist except those of characters who have appeared in the story.
Ushiromiya Natsuhi is not the culprit.
Ushiromiya Battler is not the culprit.

Game Result
The game ended prematurely, and was declared a draw. Ushiromiya Battler will succeed Lambdadelta as the Game Master for the next round.

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