#Harukawa and Kaede are always being stripped of their moral complexity and sheer strength

[beehiveofblorbos]

well, ok. this is (as you know OP) an oversimplification

the V3 fandom did exactly two things. half the fandom believes he Did Nothing Wrong and the other half of the fandom thinks EVERYTHING is his fault

and it doesn’t help that the game itself treats it weirdly. like the devs understand that Momota is carrying the part of the narrative that shows what it means to choose the truths that you like and the inevitable death of those comfortable lies you’ve been telling yourself, even though yes absolutely they do have their uses. the devs… seem? to understand that Saihara is undergoing a radical character development across the story where he is evaluating Momota’s and Kokichi’s philosophies and deciding that both have worth, both have value.

but he certainly doesn’t decide that anything Kokichi did was for the right reasons, the way it’s immediately clear with Harukawa and Momota that for all the bad things they do in the latter part of the game, they’re people who are failing against their natures. my point is, the narrative isn’t kind to Kokichi. not the way it is with Momota, or Harukawa (no idea how Keebo is on your list there lol presumably out of no fault of his own and more faults relating to the Ultimate Robot). the narrative isn’t forgiving, when it comes to Kokichi.

Of COURSE it’s bad to set aside all of his moral ambiguity and greyness. that makes him so much less interesting. but, I know that, yknow? I can go find a “why Kokichi actually caused every death in V3” essay if I want to, I assure you it’s out there. And it’s not like this level of character hate or polarization is unique.

But the game works so hard to shine a light on the most evil parts of him. As a Kokichi fan, I try to show the good parts of him, to illustrate why he’s morally grey instead of morally black.

it's really funny how ouma was pretty explicitly written as a morally grey character who often did shitty things for a good reason and was ultimately as much of a victim of the killing game as everyone else

and then the v3 fandom went "ah, so this means ouma actually did Nothing Wrong Ever, and the True Evil Irredeemable Villain was maki or kiibo or kaito or everyone BUT ouma" when a big theme of V3 is about, like, moral grayness and characters doing bad things for good reasons