Recap / Umineko When They Cry Episode 3

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

Prologue

Unknown princess breaks a vase and Beatrice, who looks nothing like her (later identified as Virgilia), fixes it with magic. Virgilia notes that she's still in training to become an Endless Witch, but takes the princess as her apprentice. At present time, Beatrice, implying she took her teacher's name, reminiscences being praised for achieving that title and now she has nothing to earn for. Battler gets revived so he can be torn apart by the Seven Stakes again and again, until he solves Jessica's murder. Beatrice is ready with the next game.

Younger adults discuss Eva's gender role. Eva is talking to her future self about wanting to be the next Family Head. At present, implying she was sleeping, Eva hates herself. Skipping through Episode 1 events, Maria searches for her rose again. Beatrice shows up and restores the rose for her. Kinzo throws away the family ring, which is caught by Beatrice's servant Ronove, who with Beatrice, talks to Meta-Battler directly. Beatrice clarifies that with her recent victories she can use demons more freely.

After Maria reads the letter, Eva starts to have some sort of personality disorder. Adults discuss if there is a secret manor in the island's forest and if Beatrice may be bribing her way into the family head's position with gold. Battler feels reassured that there may have been unaccounted humans elsewhere on the island.

Beatrice shows Battler a flashback from 1967 of her being trapped by Kinzo in a secret mansion in an artificial body with amnesia, and that Beatrice has committed suicide before. Battler takes it as Kinzo grooming previous Beatrice's child to become a Replacement Goldfish, and that she may be alive even today. Rosa brings up she has met current Beatrice as a child after running away from home and they've befriended quickly. While on a walk, Beatrice falls off a cliff, and Rosa blames herself for it. The ghost recovers her witch memories. Beatrice finally confirms to Battler there is no 19th human.

The Second Day

After being called, servants notice the scorpion seal to Kinzo's study has been erased, and find Beatrice and Ronove inside, and Kinzo is burned alive. Beatrice makes Kanon challenge The Seven Stakes. Genji kills Shannon and Kanon with magic so Beatrice wouldn't, which they agree to, then Ronove gives Genji a Mercy Kill out of respect. Unlike the last Episode, Beatrice shows this to Meta-Battler explicitly. Gohda gets killed as well. Kumasawa reveals herself to be Virgilia and puts a fight. Virgilia talks to Meta-Battler directly and he really can't process. Virgilia loses.

Adults find the same magic circle at five locations, and the keys to each room are missing, so they break the windows and find the servants' corpses. Meta-Battler runs away and chats with Virgilia about Clarke's Third Law, that even with most incredible magic display, it is never certain it's actually magic. Battler calms down and using the fact that the garden now has no signs of battle, states he can't trust what Beatrice shows him.

The adults take four rifles after finding Kinzo's body. Kyrie brings up that Kinzo could have prepared a body double with 6 toes. The second letter directly asks to focus on the Epitaph. Meta-Battler with Virgilia's help goes over six locked rooms with keys locking each other, and concludes the culprit was among the victims and died by accident.

Kyrie goes over the Epitaph with everyone, guessing the entire thing is a word riddle. Beatrice realizes that if Battler is willing to suspect the 18, she has wasted the last Episode's trump card. Eva notices something in the Epitaph and after sneaking to the library, finds an underground bedroom with a lot of gold bars. Rosa finds the room as well, verifies the gold and handles the victory to Eva, despite the suspicion she'll keep everything to herself. Beatrice shows up and gives specifically the younger Eva the family ring and also her powers. Everyone from the demon side celebrate the birth of EVA-Beatrice, but she needs to finish the ritual game first. Battler believes it's all in Eva's head.

The Successor

Eva keeps quiet about the gold, though she is afraid of what's inside of her, and suddenly has a fever. Maria shows up and worried about her rose, leads Rosa outside, and both get attacked by EVA-Beatrice. Meta-Battler just leaves in disgust. Beatrice has a Heel Realization that her successor is actually insane and attempts to guide her. Adults find the corpses of Rosa and Maria with mundane injuries. Disheartened by Battler's treatement of her, Beatrice leaves the game to Renove. Two Evas have a telepathic fight.

Rudolf, Kyrie and Hideyoshi leave to get food and get ambushed by EVA-Beatrice. Due to poor planning, Belphegor and Leviathan get shot, but EVA-Beatrice summons new furniture from a different set who finish the job. EVA-Beatrice rebels against Beatrice. Battler shuts Beatrice up and she leaves in tears. Krauss and Natsuhi get strangled by a magic rope that teleports their corpses to another room. Beatrice in apology teaches George some magic and revives Shannon. Then EVA-Beatrice's forces shoot Shannon and George, then aim at Beatrice but Virgilia takes the bullet. Battler zeroes in on human culprit theory.

Battler, Eva, Nanjo and Jessica find "07171129" alongside George's corpse. Eva accidentally injures Jessica in the eyes when she tries to take the gun. EVA-Beatrice takes out Nanjo. Beatrice brings Kanon's ghost to rescue Jessica. Beatrice gets shot and tortured to death by EVA-Beatrice's servants.

Meta-Battler drags EVA-Beatrice into the Meta world, as him acknowledging her as his enemy puts her behind the chessboard. Meta-Battler goes over the murders and indicts Eva as her alibi for Kyrie's murder is fake. EVA-Beatrice in red says Eva, alongside everyone, has an alibi for Nanjo's murder, which Battler can't resolve. Beatrice performs Taking You with Me by denying witches with red, but Battler closes his ears out of courtesy. The demon side implodes.

Battler formally indicts Eva, who confirms it and shoots him. Dying, Battler calls Beatrice the real witch, which nearly completes the ceremony. Everyone praises Battler in the Golden Land. At the very last moment, Battler notices everyone is pushy about him signing defeat, after which Beatrice and Virgilia state the entire thing with EVA-Beatrice was a farce. Suddenly, an unnamed guest (heavily implied to be Ange) barges into the Golden Land and saves Battler, accusing him of enjoying the situation.

Tea Party

Beatrice accuses Bernkastel of bringing Ange from the future, which she confirms. Lambdadelta confirms that EVA-Beatrice is Eva and treats it like a big secret to otehr two's disappointment. Lambdadelta says she's the one who gave Beatrice her powers, and threatens Beatrice to not play sloppy.

12 years later, October 4, 1998. Eva at the deathbed calls Ange to discuss Eva's massive inheritance. Even more Ax-Crazy from paranoia Eva decides that giving Ange all the money would be the biggest torture for her, along with the Beatrice name. Ange almost jumps off the building, but Bernkastel takes her into the past.

---

Tropes:

• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Beatrice feels like she's running out of ideas and becomes a sobbing mess trying to get Virgilia sympathize with her. Virgilia admits that for as much as she hates her, she's been helping Battler a lot in what supposed to be a match between the two, and hints that Beatrice can win if she lets go of her pride and makes Battler like her. At the end Beatrice says after that she came up with a very convoluted Wounded Gazelle Gambit.
• Alternate Character Reading: Episode 1 goes out of its way to provide the names of all characters in Japanese as well as in English. Kyrie proposes that "take something from the sacrifices" implies an anagram. The adults speculate what their names could relate to, but don't get anywhere.
• Ambiguous Situation: Beatrice reveals that everything from EVA-Beatrice taking over to Enemy Mine with Battler was a very long Wounded Gazelle Gambit, but her Heel Realization could still be likely and her tone after the confession is still mixed. Virgilia similarly has been too much of a help to Battler if she's been on Beatrice's side the entire time. How much autonomy EVA-Beatrice had is also questionable.
• Anti-Magic: Apparently, guns as scientific weapons inherently can block magic weapons.
• Arc Words: Renove introduces Hempel's Raven as the reverse fallacy of Devil's Proof. Instead of proving if a statement is true, people use the inverse of that statement to reach a conclusion, even if it's not accurate. Battler refuses to suspect any of the 18 and bets on the 19th person. Beatrice points out that he now has to prove the 18 innocent or catch the 19th red-handed, while she can either give the 19th person an alibi or make them not appear at all to send Battler to square one. Hempel's Raven is used again in the final debate.
• Back from the Dead: Shannon is revived by Beatrice after she realizes how horrible she's been. Until EVA-Beatrice's forces kill her again right away.
• The Bad Guy Wins: The culprit is identified as Eva who got mad with greed, who in the end remains as the Sole Survivor and lived till 1998.
• "Balls" Gag: Rudolf brings up a word puzzle "remove 'a' and 'r' from 'sucker merry barrels'", and praises Natsuhi's dignity for not getting it right away.
• Beam Spam: Beatrice summons towers that barrage Virgilia with 720 beams. Shortly later, she casts 18900 thunderbolts.
• Big Damn Heroes: Right when EVA-Beatrice is about to crush Beatrice's heart, Battler steps in and calls EVA-Beatrcie as his opponent, which summons her to the Meta world where she has to fight on his terms.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: Beatrice throws Battler's "no good, no good at all" back at his argument.
• Caged Bird Metaphor: Young Beatrice lived in luxury in Kinzo's mansion, but the man himself refused to answer her questions about her amnesia or let her leave. She considered herself more like a decorative bird than a friend or a lover. The house she lived in also has an extremely tall fence.
• Chekhov's Gag: The "spears falling from the sky" is an odd way to call rain but has been used repeatedly, until Beatrice summons actual flying spears when fighting Virgilia. For extra irony, Rudolf brings up this metaphor again in the very next scene.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Kyrie brings up Ange several times and she appears in the Episode's last scene.
• Clap Your Hands If You Believe: EVA-Beatrice summarizes Beatrice's modus operandi. Witches only have power when someone believes in them. Lack of faith is what drove witches to extinction centuries ago. Murders are done in seemingly impossible ways to increase the fear of witches, which eventually lets witches manifest themselves. Rokkenjima being surrounded by generally superstitious population, Kinzo's obsession, and the sibling's paranoia is what allows the murders to happen in the first place. Unlike Beatrice, EVA-Beatrice doesn't care about the game and focuses on the fear part to get stronger.
• Clarke's Third Law: Battler discusses with Virgilia that all religions and traditions are either eventually disproven or are revealed to be practical from scientific point, but to anyone without technical knowledge literally anything can look like magic. She asks why doesn't he believe modern devices are run by gremlins if he has never checked.
• Combat Pragmatist: Rudolf challenges Belphegor to Ten Paces and Turn, during which the latter realizes EVA-Beatrice is put on the line of fire and she has to be Taking the Bullet.
• Constantly Curious: Young Beatrice has spent her entire life in an empty mansion, so when Rosa led her outside, she kept asking all sorts of trivial questions.
• Crocodile Tears: All the several instances of Beatrice repenting? Apparently all a plot to make Battler side with her.
• Death Is Cheap: Beatrice and Virgilia get killed in physical world at least twice each, but they can rematerialize themselves at the cost of some power.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: After killing Kyrie and Rudolf, EVA-Beatrice shows she's no longer afraid of guns. Hideyoshi walks up to her, slaps her in the face and monologues about the importance of life, even though he dies for it.
• Do Not Spoil This Ending: In-Universe. Bernkastel threatens to reveal the culprit of Higurashi: When They Cry and Lambdadelta asks her to stop because she hasn't finished it.
• Double Entendre: Lucifer says to Battler that she can't wait to "thrust her stake deep into him". He replies that the feeling is mutual.
• The Dragon: Ronove is Beatrice's head furniture and acts as Battler's secondary opponent during the Episode.
• Driven to Suicide: The last scene shows Ange standing at the very edge of a skyscraper, wanting nothing to do with the life Eva has created for her. Then Bernkastel takes her "where her family is". Implications from either interpretation aren't pleasant.
• Drunk on the Dark Side: The first thing EVA-Beatrice does it to repeatedly drop Rosa from the sky and to revive her, laughing off that human morality no longer applies to someone who controls life.
• Enemy Within: By the middle of the chapter, a vision of her younger self Eva has talked to when she's in trouble, becomes a new Beatrice herself, separate from Eva, and represents her entitlemetn to everything Ushiromiya owns. Battler is confident EVA-Beatrice doesn't exist and is just Eva trying to justify her insanity.
• Evil All Along: In the very last scene, Virgilia gets really forceful trying to make Battler sign his admission of defeat, and shows the entire incident with EVA-Beatrice was a plot to make it look like Beatrice is in danger and admits her fault, when Beatrice just needed to give Battler some motive to continue playing with her.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Beatrice is upset that Shannon didn't die quietly like a good furniture should and speaks as if romance is something that would give her strength. She is further shocked that Kanon decides to sacrifice himself instead of giving up his life quietly. When EVA-Beatrice kills Rosa, she is confused when Battler isn't celebrating the new witch's joy.
• Evil Feels Good: Compared to Beatrice, who is a sadist but still tries to keep up the elegance of the game, EVA-Beatrice's only motive is to make deaths as horrific as possible to make herself stronger, and she enjoys every second doing so.
• Exact Words: Beatrice promises Kanon he can choose 5 survivors if he defeats the Seven Stakes of Purgatory. Not one of them. After barely defeating Lucifer, he has to fight all 7 at the same time.
• Fatal Flaw: Lucifer is a demon of Pride and naturally doesn't take Kanon seriously, and even announced where she'll strike. Kanon proves himself to be more than capable to keep up with her with such handicap.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: Rosa keeps bringing up that young Beatrice wouldn't know how dangerous climbing a cliff would be. She slips off the cliff shortly after.
• Foreshadowing:
  • In the finale Chiester Sisters address Maria as "Lady MARIA". This gets relevant in the next Epiosde.
  • When Eva inspects the gold, she notes that the Eagle crest looks worn out. This is contextualized in Epiosde 7.
• Gainax Ending: At the very end Beatrice and Virgilia say they've been lying the entire Episode. And then Ange shows up at the Golden Land and challenges Beatrice.
• Genghis Gambit: Since Battler is too tired of Beatrice, as it turns out, EVA-Beatrice was intentionally invented as a Viler New Villain so Battler would form an Enemy Mine with Beatrice.
• Gilded Cage: As her only live relative who could inherit her Fiction 500, Eva made sure Ange is under supervision since she was 6. Even if she can go to school, she couldn't talk to anyone and nobody could talk to her for 12 years.
• Good News, Bad News: Beatrice tells Kinzo the two news. First is that he will surely reunite with her. Second is that he is the first sacrifice.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Lambdadelta calls Beatrice as her servant who is used as an assistant to defeat Bernkastel.
• Halfway Plot Switch: At the middle-point, EVA-Beatrice takes over the witch's position and Beatrice goes into depression, until joining with Battler and sabotaging EVA-Beatrice's revival.
• Hearing Voices: Throughout the Episode, Eva has been communicating with a vision of her younger self, who later identifies herself as EVA-Beatrice.
• Heel–Face Turn: Looking at EVA-Beatrice's actions and Battler's disgust with both of them, Beatrice realizes how petty she has been and joins Battler's side. Which gets subverted in the end as it was a plot to keep Battler motivated with the game.
• Here There Were Dragons: Beatrice brings up that just like Battler denying witches prevents her from fully taking over, human science has caused witches and shamans across the world to weaken.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Beatrice steps in to get mutilated by EVA-Beatrice to give Jessica and Kanon at least some time together, though that doesn't kill her. When Battler challenges EVA-Beatrice, Beatrice makes a heartfelt goodbye before confirming if the murder had no supernatural elements, which would cause her to disappear. In respect, Battler praises Beatrice which brings her back, which she reveals what she's been aiming for from the very beginning.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Both Battler and Beatrice make arguments that seemingly don't help their case. Battler comes up with the idea that there is an unaccounted human culprit, which turns out to be Beatrice' bait as if they are not the human culprit, then either they are not a human or are someone Battler trusts. Upon consideration, Battler notices that the latter means he wins, and he can always assume there are more people on the island he doesn't know of. After threatening Battler with Red, she is unwilling to confirm there are only 18 humans. But later does so, shattering Battler's main comeback, until he gets over not suspecting people he knows. Virgilia comments to Beatrice that she really could have kept this train of thought until after Battler stops thinking clearly.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Natsuhi is offended by Kyrie's suggestion that the siblings may sell off their family name for gold. She's not observant that others really are that desperate.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Virgilia at one point pierces Beatrice with a spear that is described to go all the way through vertically.
• Interface Spoiler: The credits list Genji's full name, which gives away who is he related to.
• I Reject Your Reality: Battler goes from denying magic until he sees it, to denying it even after he sees it, as there's always a non-zero chance Beatrice is somehow deceiving him in a way he's not sure of.
• Locked Room Mystery:
  • For the first twilight, five servants and Kinzo are found dead, each in separate locked rooms, with master keys being unavailable and room keys being inside a previous room forming a loop. There's been so many locked rooms in the past, Beatrice even standardizes the definition to speed things up. Battler goes through different ideas, but the one where the one of the victims is the culprit is the one Beatrice refuses to validate.
  • Krauss and Natsuhi got their bodies shot and taken away by EVA-Beatrice, while George flew away from the window with Beatrice's help. Assuming magic isn't real, this means three people have escaped the barricaded guesthouse with everything still locked. Battler easily pinpoints this means the culprit is still inside and who.
• Lonely at the Top: Beatrice remarks that being one of the strongest witches ever, there's no achievement for her to strife for anymore. Later she falls into depression because Battler doesn't want to a have battle of wits with her. Her successor also has no respect for her.
• Master-Apprentice Chain: Beatrice has learned her magic from Virgilia, the previous Beatrice, who had a master of her own. In present time Beatrice tries to take Maria as her apprentice (and feels sorry for not keeping the promise this time), but the name Beatrice is passed to Eva, and in the finale to Ange.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane:
  • Kinzo creating a homunculus body with Beatrice's spirit can easily be interpreted as him raising their actual child as a Replacement Goldfish, something that was considered in Episode 2 and Battler theorizes here as well. Young Beatrice has no memories of her past and there was a completely different Beatrice who has committed suicide. Ronove even explicitly says that at that point Beatrice was a normal human. When Battler wonders if she survived after falling off the cliff and holds a grudge for 19 years, Beatrice confirms that "it (body) died", which isn't exactly what he asked, and in the first place the flashback was a mix of Beatrice's narration and Rosa's narration.
  • Virgilia makes an argument that television is operated by little gremlins who display pictures with magic, as far as she cares. At first Battler finds it ridiculous, but realizes that her point is that until he checks something in person, both magic and science explanations are equally probable.
  • After witnessing the duel between two witches, Battler jests that he'll have to find invisible laser mechas and needs to go so far into Sci-Fi, it's more rational to just say it's magic. After some pep-talk from Virgilia, Battler instead claims it's only Beatrice's interpretation of events and he can ignore it unless she validates it. Later, Rosa is found dead in the garden pierced by a fence, and Maria is found dead by strangulation. Battler saw them being killed by EVA-Beatrice and Beatrice, but choosing to disregard that, assumes Rosa strangled Maria and then either slipped or was pushed. Battler leans towards that all scenes with EVA-Beatrice are delusions from Eva's perspective.
• Mercy Kill:
  • As they'll be killed anyway, Shannon and Kanon agree to get killed by Genji, who in turn is killed by Ronove, leaving Beatrice with no satisfaction.
  • As EVA-Beatrice plays with Rosa's and Maria's corpses, Beatrice interferes to give them a quiet death.
• The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: Because Beatrice's spirit got bound to a child homunculus, she has allegedly lost all of her memories and started treating Kinzo like a father.
• Morton's Fork: Beatrice spins Battler's argument that the culprit is an outsider, as if they'll have an alibi, it means the culprit is someone Battler trusts or is a witch, bad either way. He makes a spin in turn, even if the culprit is someone in the mansion, he still wins, placing Beatrice in a position where anything she says could implicate a human culprit. She later confirms there is no 19th human, so he has to go with the traitor theory.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Virgilia teaches Battler... to deny what Beatrice says until she directly states it's true. Which is what he's been doing already to a degree. Beatrice and Renove react with This Cannot Be! as if Battler is using an Anti-Magic Multi-layered Worlds Reduction Technique.
• Noiseless Walker: Genji and Kanon are able to walk without making a sound, while Shannon is still training to do so.
• No Sense of Personal Space: Battler remarks that Renove talks closer to him than he wishes even girls would.
• Obliviously Evil: Beatrice really thinks nothing of killing people as she can simply revive them. When Battler gives her a Bitch Slap, she is shocked he's not enjoying the game. Even Renove calls her thickheaded.
• Obviously Evil:
  • When Rosa says she'll do anything if Maria stops crying, she suddenly shifts to Evil Laugh and asks Rosa to look for her rose. Rosa takes it as just an annoying habit of hers. Meta-Battler realizes they are in danger right away and both get killed by EVA-Beatrice shortly after.
  • Eva has been getting episodes of Split Personality throughout the Episode and survivors can't tell a difference between EVA-Beatrice and Eva despite distinct appearances. Assuming EVA-Beatrice doesn't exist, there's only one possibility left from the start.
• Or Was It a Dream?: In the beginning, Eva has a dream of her younger self trying to compete with Krauss, and she encourages her younger self who says she'll succeed with her magic. It's a dream, but Eva continues to hear her younger self's voice which grows into a separate personality. It's implied Lambdadelta had something to do with it.
• Our Homunculi Are Different: Beatrice says years ago Kinzo has created a body for her from a test tube, but because it was a baby that grows normally, her powers and intelligence were restrained. All of the mansion servants are implied to be born this way as well. Battler is curious if it's not much different from how normal humans grow up, they're probably just not homunculus.
• A Pupil of Mine Until He Turned to Evil: In the past Virgilia has taught Beatrice to not use her power for selfish reasons. She is now incredibly disappointed Beatrice is using Black Magic for her own amusement. When Beatrice gets own successor in EVA-Beatrice who turns on her, she realizes just how petty she has been towards her teacher.
• Readings Are Off the Scale: Battler's magic resistence is said to be at least above 999999999.
• The Reveal: Battler deduces that after finding the gold, Eva has been faking her alibi for each of the murders where EVA-Beatrice is involved. He can't solve the last murder, but Eva kills him after confirming the rest.
• Schrödinger's Gun: Virgilia tells Battler that just like with the Schrödinger's Cat, both mundane and magical explanations do occur at the same time, but when the truth is revealed one of them will disappear.
• Serial Escalation:
  • Battler finds it very difficult to say anything after witnessing two witches bombarding each other with progressively larger and larger summoned weaponry, and Beatrice even brings up that for the third round "something from an anime" surely would convince him. It doesn't.
  • Seven Stakes, already Elite Mooks, prove to be not up to the job and EVA-Beatrice summons the Chiester Imperial Guard, implying there are several hundreds even stronger demons available.
• Semantic Superpower: Leviathan states that Envy gives her speed. Kyrie shows Hidden Disdain Reveal to Battler's mother Asumu, and with magic in effect across the mansion, Kyrie obtains Speed Blitz.
• Shadow Archetype: Beatrice realizes that EVA-Beatrice follows the only thing she knows witches for: cruelty. Beatrice quickly starts disliking watching a monster everyone has been kept calling herself.
• Shout-Out: Rosa calls young Beatrice an Alice and herself a rabbit guide.
• Smarter Than You Look: EVA-Beatrice acts just like a little girl who was given godly powers and is so Ax-Crazy that even Beatrice finds her unpleasant. Yet she deduces how Beatrice's powers work immediately and that her predecessor may be having a change of heart that is a threat to her. She also comes up with a plan to split the survivors party without the knowledge of mystery novels, and switches from impossible murders to impossible behavior of surviviors Battler needs to invalidate.
• Split Personality: A childish side of Eva starts growing inside of her. Even after she becomes EVA-Beatrice, it's ambiguous if she really is Enemy Without.
• Spooky Painting: The smile on the portrait of EVA-Beatrice is very subtly wider after her jump into villainy.
• Stay in the Kitchen: Kinzo and Krauss believe a woman's only purpose is to cook and to bear children.
• Summon Magic: Beatrice calls Battler's logic of making up unaccounted people as potential suspects a mundane counterpart to demon summoning.
• This Is Reality: Rudolf comments to Eva that breaking doors only happens in movies and it'd be faster if they look for the window.
• Treacherous Advisor: Virgilia is Beatrice's former master, and when she dies she joins Battler's side in the Meta world, giving him countless hints on how to proceed. She specifically picks her name as a counterpart to her evil pupil. The ending heavily implies she's been on Beatrice's side the entire time, as Battler was unwilling to play if he saw all witches as unreasonable.
• Unreliable Narrator: Virgilia tells Battler that he can deny what he's seeing as well, with a natural implication that the scenes where magic is present may not have actually happened. This reaches a logical conclusion that each of the murders are either symbolic or the culprit's delusions, and only the aftermath matters.
• The Unsolved Mystery: EVA-Beatrice confirms in red that Nanjo is killed by the human culprit, and also says in red that everyone has an alibi. Battler doesn't win automatically because he can't provide a rational solution to this contradiction and it's the only murder Battler fails to answer.
• The Watson: Despite being on Beatrice's side, Ronove is Battler's to-go guy when he needs to monologue about his theories.
• Wham Line:
  • There is no 19th human, the murderer has to be among the people Battler knows.
  • (Beatrice to Kumasawa) "The name Beatrice itself is hers. I only inherited it from her." Followed by a massive magical duel that Battler has no idea how to even comment on.
  • In the Golden Land everyone encourages Battler to sign a paper saying that "all 18 accept Beatrice as the real witch". Right when he reaches for the pen, Battler realizes Beatrice and Virgilia have been playing a Good Cop/Bad Cop with him for two whole days.
• Wham Shot: Eva finds the gold and Beatrice grants her magical powers to Eva's split personality instead. And the game isn't over.
• With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: Virgilia notes that fixing things with magic is difficult, and destroying things doesn't take a lot of effort, but those who go on such easy path aren't proper witches. Beatrice later realizes that EVA-Beatrice's destructive habits is what her teacher has been warning about.
• Wild Card: Ronove of the 72 is the head furniture from Beatrice's army and is her personal butler, but often assists Battler during arguments and doesn't appreciate her behavior, then helps Beatrice when odds lean not in her favor.
• Wolverine Claws: Lucifer's fingernails can extend like blades.
• Womanchild: Virgilia calls Beatrice a child compared to her. Across the Episode, instead of trying to prove herself superior to her teacher and Battler, she gets desperate to appear impressive and sulks when her tricks don't get the praise she expects, and also feels jealous when Battler talks to someone besides her. She even pathetically begs Virgilia to give her ideas.
• You Are Already Dead: It seems Virgilia has won against Beatrice, only for Beatrice to show that Virgilia got killed by the first attack and her ghost was put into an illusion.
• You Can't Fight Fate: In the flashback Virgilia fixes the vase, but says she's not powerful enough yet to cause it not to break, so it gets broken by a cat shortly later.
• You Didn't Ask: Rosa saw the lady on the portrait 19 years ago in person. She only mentions it in Episode 3 when it becomes the topic of conversation.
• You Monster!: When Beatrice approves EVA-Beatrice's torture of Rosa, Meta-Battler calls her out and leaves in disgust. It takes quite a while for Beatrice to realize why would Battler take offense to it.
• Viler New Villain: Beatrice handles her title to EVA-Beatrice, then quickly regrets it as the successor couldn't care less about her predecessor's elegance, motives, or the game, focusing solely on killing people for fun while trash-talking everyone.

---