LogFAQs > #931220775

Like the other instances of the Decalogue, I think the 5th technically IS in Umineko, even if the game itself says it's "unused." Consider the spirit of the advice, rather than what it literally means.

I think Knox's inclusion of the rule was twofold. First, there were a lot of racist portrayals of Chinese people in novels back in his day and he felt it was damaging the integrity of a mystery novel for the culprit to be a racist stereotype.

But secondly, I think there's an essence of "your characters need to have comprehensible motives to your audience." Knox wants readers to have a chance at solving the mystery, but if the final "whydunnit" is something like "this foreign person believed that killing a virgin girl during a full moon and eating her pancreas will make him immortal", then no Westerner is going to figure that out on their own.

I think the reason the rule was excluded in Umineko was because no one was a foreigner to the intended Japanese audience (I would say Erika is Japanese, even in a witchy/fictional sense), but moreover because Sayo's reason for committing murder isn't culture-specific (to a culture unknown to most Japanese).

It's also possibly Ryukishi wasn't sure how to rewrite the rule to fit his story while also inserting it in any meaningful way. Trying to imagine any scene where Battler would come up with an idea, only for Dlanor to shoot it down with this rule, and I can't think of anything.

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