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No. 217
I would really like to believe that it was anyone except Yasu at this point. Yasu was never in my pool of possible culprits, nor in my pool of impossible culprits when I started the game, as we had absolutely no way of determining this "character's" existence until far later into the game. Nevertheless, I suppose Ryukishi's attitude toward his culprit might be called trollish; His response to an accusation that he violated specific commandments might be to say, "Well, Yasu was actually here all along, in the forms of Beatrice, Shannon and Kanon! Clearly, nothing has been violated," and the writing on the wall is essentially stone-carved with the revelation of Our Confession regardless. Thus, any theory germane to what is written in that document likely satisfies what you are asking for, which is the answer to what really happened, despite that the existence of Yasu grossly violates not only Knox's 1st, 5th, and 10th respectively, but especially Van Dine's 5th, which reads:
"The culprit must be determined by logical deductions — not by accident or coincidence or unmotivated confession. To solve a criminal problem in this latter fashion is like sending the reader on a deliberate wild-goose chase, and then telling him, after he has failed, that you had the object of his search up your sleeve all the time. Such an author is no better than a practical joker."
We were invited to solve the mystery using a human culprit and solutions other than magic to the specific riddles. Instead, we are essentially told that the culprit was a witch all along, and that she used human tricks. Hilarious, really. Not.
Now, with the acknowledgement that "Yasu is what actually happened" out of the way, what I prefer to believe happened is that members of Eva's family were behind the murders. The biggest piece of evidence for this is the "Book of the Single Truth" itself. For starters, why the hell is it a complete book? Eva never would have had the time to fill an entire journal in three days whilst arguing with the relatives on Rokkenjima. As such, it is likely that the journal contains not only the events of "What happened on Rokkenjima," but also the details of how the murder was intended to be carried out. Hideyoshi, an outsider to the family, and a character whom we have little knowledge about aside the fact that he is in need of money, would most likely be the one to solicit Eva's assistance, using his knowledge of her resentment to his advantage. Loyal to her loving husband, and enthralled by her inner child's idea of getting revenge, she agrees. George would likely be left out of the crimes altogether, or alternatively, perhaps he turned on his parents upon deducing that they intended to kill Shannon, a witness to the crime, resulting in the eventual death of Hideyoshi, and George's accidental death in the explosion. Because Eva finds the gold on her own in the story, and we are led to believe she is nothing if not a cunning, intelligent woman, it is likely that the journal also contains her attempts at solving the epitaph, her account of solving it (which occurs prior to the events of the first game,) and her knowledge of how the mechanism on the clock works. I wouldn't even be surprised if all the gold had been moved prior to the three days encompassing the Rokkenjima Explosion Incident, and the killings were either a ruse to distract people from attempting to find the gold, which was no longer present, or else a response to a joint effort by the siblings to attempt solving it (a Plan B of sorts, also premeditated in the journal.)
TL;DR - No fun explanation: It's Yasu.
Fun explanation: Eva-Hideyoshi Culprit Theory, with a dash of George for flavor. Eva's book contains a pre-written mediation of the murders, as well as the accounts of what actually happened.
Last edited at 14/09/16(Tue)21:41:45
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