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cuantumq · 2 years ago

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The urban legends meanings (plus headcanons about fourth iteration at end)

Shuuen’s urban legends are meant to reflect the occult club members’ negative traits to help promote the demise game. So how does the series handle them all? This will look at the meanings for each character in each combination, not just the original iteration.

Iteration 1 -Paradigm-

The first iteration’s urban legends are the most accurate to their characters overall.

A-ya’s Lonely Hide and Seek: Hide and Seek Alone is the only urban legend that requires prior knowledge to know how to set it up, indicating A-ya’s interest in urban legends and rumors. The game being played by one’s self also helps show A-ya’s isolationism, only having C-ta as a true friend and That Guy that he just uses to help spread rumors. This game is also the only urban legend with a definitive ‘win state’ with whether you win or lose being determined by whether you are brave enough to confront the doll and whether you’re smart enough to confront it at the correct time and A-ya ends up being highly important in realizing the truth of the Demise Game in the second iteration just in time to stop anyone from being hurt. Also, minor, but it must be played at either midnight or 3AM depending on which interpretation of the game you follow, which ties into A-ya being constantly tired (and also just general spooky).

B-ko’s Imposter Advisory: This urban legend is by far the most explicit in the series. B-ko is a girl who forges a completely fake personality in an attempt to maintain a specific appearance with everyone. The doppelgangers represent her mask which can kill her if she’s caught by them. It’s not stable for her to keep pretending all the time. Though, there is something notable about them: B-ko is always associated with doppelgangers regardless of iteration due to A-ya’s rumors. It’s something always known about B-ko regardless of circumstance, potentially implying that B-ko’s mask is already at least partially publicly known about- again, likely due to A-ya’s rumors. It could be that it wouldn’t take too much longer for her mask to fall apart in one way or another, though this is just speculation on my part.

C-ta’s Perfect Crime Love Letter: Mearry-san is a parallel to C-ta’s stalking behavior with A-ya. She constantly follows C-ta and contacts him about how close she is to him- just as he is constantly either around A-ya or watching him and he constantly tries to reinforce how close their relationship is between them. This does create an insight into C-ta- Mearry-san does not kill unless you acknowledge her in the wrong way. In Shuuen no Shiori, you are allowed to text Mearry-san, but you aren’t allowed to answer her calls. Similar to how A-ya and C-ta were perfectly okay together until C-ta thought A-ya was starting to acknowledge others in the way he was supposed to think of C-ta and A-ya started acknowledging C-ta in the ‘wrong ways’ (going to C-ta second and naming the bunny after C-ta before starting Hide and Seek Alone).

D-ne’s Monkey Musical Chairs: The monkey’s paw with D-ne I feel is less reflective of D-ne and more catalytic of her personality. She becomes obsessive over those who she aspires toward and the monkey’s paw give her the means to act on her desires. The monkey’s paw is the only urban legend without inherent danger to it- as long as you use it in a smart way you won’t be harmed. However, D-ne’s unhealthy obsession with B-ko doesn’t let her be smart with the monkey’s paw. There is some reflection between the paw and D-ne in that D-ne is a character that likes having control over particular things- notably things involving her relationship with B-ko and things that reflect that relationship. She is very confident in herself and tends to be the least paranoid beside maybe A-ya, she just sticks to herself all the time. A perfect person to accidentally cause her own demise with the Monkey’s paw.

Iteration 2 -Paradox-

The second iteration of urban legends seems to be the most ideal set up for denying the game.

This iteration truly doesn’t heavily align with anyone and causes just the perfect alignment of variables that causes no one to want to kill anyone. There are maybe a few possibilities similar to this one that could allow them to survive, but it’d not be as likely.

D-ne’s Hide and Seek Alone: There’s the similar idea of D-ne being isolated as A-ya and she continues to be the least paranoid, easily being able to start her game of Hide and Seek Alone. There isn’t too much characterization I can gleam from the game for D-ne beside that- but it does show one thing: D-ne being isolated seems to be one of the better ends for her character. She is the least likely to harm B-ko in this version of the story since she has little stress in comparison. Plus, I believe that if we were to see another full iteration of the Demise Game, we would see that once again the Hide and Seek Alone person would be the one to cause the letter death. I think the Demise Game always has this participant cause the letter death to help push them past the initial hurdle of setting up the ritual for Hide and Seek Alone. If that is a correct assumption then that means that with this ritual D-ne is further less likely to hurt others because D-ne being responsible for the death of another student makes her the most paranoid we ever see her in the series. She doesn’t want other people to die in this iteration because of this. So she continues to be even less likely to kill.

C-ta’s Impostor Advisory: Other than the surface level C-ta putting on a mask like B-ko, there isn’t much to be said about how doppelgangers reflect on C-ta. And it kind of shows since C-ta mostly just seems to have a worried confusion during this iteration. In this iteration he sees A-ya interacting with his impostor but he doesn’t assign A-ya too heavily a negative perspective. He does worry that A-ya is interacting with the impostor C-ta, but it isn’t nearly as heavy as the witnessing of bunny stab. It doesn’t demonstrate too much but it isn’t too heavy either.

B-ko’s Love Letter: Nothing about Mearry really reflects onto B-ko. In fact, she has the opposite: people who obsess over her. B-ko generally is the most anxious out of the group, meaning she usually ends up hiding away. However she does leave her room when she has something she needs to get away from her (the book of demise in the initial iteration, Mearry in the second). Mearry stalking B-ko gives her motivation to leave her room since she’s just a sitting duck in there. Since she always has someone following her, she is also more likely to call A-ya for help since she knows he knows about urban legends. Of course, B-ko did have extra paranoia due to seeing D-ne’s letter kill, however I think that just expedited when she would call A-ya. She was going to do so regardless, I think. Which is the best move since it builds trust between the participants and the game is built around eliminating trust- and that trust is what allows them to evade the demise game in the second iteration when paired with:

A-ya’s Monkey Paw: A-ya does not actually use his monkey paw. He doesn’t even get it until the very end, after he pieced together things from what he noticed. Regardless, A-ya tends to be the most skeptical despite being the most heavy into Urban Legends and Rumors, so he’s not likely to use the monkey’s paw regardless of timeline. It does reflect onto him through his Underdog Supremacy dreams, wanting to be a hero, but at most the monkey’s paw is a tool that could help him with that decision. If he did believe in the monkey’s paw he would be pretty careful about using it unlike D-ne. He also doesn’t have too many selfish desires to trick him into using it for himself- he’s bored with life, but it’s not really enough to make him want something else.

Film Iteration -Paranoia-

The film iteration is,,, complicated. It’s very uncertain how accurate the behavior of the film version of the occult club is to the real film club. They are explicitly represented as the first bookmark of demise holders and the urban legends are explicitly paranormal in a way that complicates the message. I’ll reference the film version of the occult club but will put them in quotes (”A-ya” is film version played by B-ka, A-ya is the real version).

C-ta’s Monkey Paw: In the film, “C-ta’s” Paranoia gets the best of him, his unintentional wishes on the Monkey’s Paw arguably leading to the deaths of “B-ko” and “D-ne.” C-ta is the other most paranoid person in the occult club so it’s likely something similar would happen with the real C-ta. C-ta has tendency to want to be in control and seen as important, so even if the monkey’s paw didn’t lean into his paranoia it’s still likely that he would start abusing it- possibly in such a way that he would make A-ya more dependent on him (assuming he isn’t being paranoid over A-ya). Either way, the Monkey’s paw is able to exploit C-ta’s paranoia and obsessiveness in multiple ways by perverting the control C-ta wishes to have.

D-ne’s Love Letter: In the film, “B-ko” dies early on from Hide and Seek Alone, which causes “D-ne” to panic about her identity and setting her up for high Paranoia, enough so that she stabs her mirror. This is an important part of this iteration even if it isn’t D-ne’s fault at all and I see a similar fate falling the real B-ko (as will be explained later). But even if B-ko wouldn’t really die early on, D-ne would likely still fall victim to high Paranoia from Mearry-san. D-ne is the most observant occult club member (it’s not a coincidence her perspectives tend to be the most detailed). And Mearry-san preys on her eye for detail- Mearry-san constantly lurking nearby, just out of view would drive D-ne mad regardless and the confirmation she receives from Mearry-san would further compound on it. D-ne isn’t an occult snob at all, but she is consistently shown taking it seriously once the game starts. Usually she is one of the least paranoid, more so falling from folly, but being constantly followed by someone feels like one of the few things that would bother her (ironic given her status with B-ko. This will be brought up later). And since there’s been a pattern where the Mearry-san member tends to get their letter quite late into the iteration, D-ne would know something is following her without any knowledge as to what to do to stop it, making it reasonable to think she would die from her own Paranoia from accidentally answering Mearry.

A-ya’s Impostor Advisory: In the film, “A-ya” feels,,, off from A-ya. “A-ya” seems to have more friends than real A-ya does- but it is possible that it’s just a thing we don’t get to see that often in the main iterations. Either way, “A-ya” gets told by his friends about the impostor that he sees around, which I do think would fuel real A-ya’s paranoia. This is perverting A-ya’s rumors- he doesn’t want to be in the spot light, he wants to manipulate out of sight. Watch as his rumors grow- but now rumors surround him necessarily. Plus, unlike all of the other urban legends, it is impossible for A-ya to truly counteract doppelgangers, he is unable to use his knowledge of urban legends to help him. This by far would be the urban legend to truly make A-ya truly Paranoid. It doesn’t have much dramatic irony other than being replaced by the urban legends he loved so much and having his replacement be more sociable than he ever was.

B-ko’s Hide and Seek Alone: In the film, “B-ko” gets her letter to play the game quite early and she plays soon after, dying quite quickly. There are some oddities with this for real B-ko since as far as we’re aware B-ko does not have a stuffed doll. She could but we have no idea what’d it be. This causes an immediate rift between real and film B-ko. This is further compounded by film “B-ko” not really having a letter mishap like the two real iterations with the hide and seeker. “B-ko” would definitely have her paranoia spiked by the Kokkurri-san going wrong, but it feels odd to say she would jump directly onto playing Hide and Seek Alone unless she would have the additional nudge that causing a letter mishap would’ve caused. But,, assuming she would have that! This iteration would obviously cause B-ko’s Paranoia to rise. She’s the most paranoid about horror and in this situation she has to set up the horror herself. She knows that something will be in her house immediately, she must immediately confront her fears, and she must do it alone. No A-ya to help her out like in the second iteration. She must isolate and face her fears head on.. But she isn’t ready for that. I see real B-ko either rushing into the game if she was shown the rules, underprepared like in the film. Or she would be too Paranoid to start, watching everyone else die around her from their Paranoia and legends, eventually being one of the few cases where someone would die because they waited out the week without fulfilling Kokurri-san’s orders.

Unused Iteration -Parallel-

This iteration is unused, meaning I can’t use text for reference. However, I think I can give an in depth discussion regarding these, especially considering the Parallel nature between this and the first iteration. I feel like it’s very likely for the occult club to win this iteration- whether that means successfully wait the week out or dismantle the demise game is uncertain, but I lean more toward the former than the latter. This section in particular leans more on my headcanons for how I think a fourth iteration will go and how the urban legends represent the bonds made during the experience rather than purely character discussion. (i am also ignoring how E-noru plays into this iteration even though it’s clear E-noru would’ve had a big effect on it)

B-ko’s Monkey Paw: I feel as though B-ko would be one of the more responsible Monkey Paw owners, though it’s more likely to cause B-ko to continue building up her mask. She would still be quite paranoid over the events of the game, so it’s very likely that she would use the monkey’s paw in some way to try to stop the game like “C-ta” did. It’s quite possible she would be followed by D-ne’s impostor and she could end up accidentally harming the real D-ne from her wishes on the monkey’s paw. However, I think that character development from D-ne’s end could cause the two to work together and truly Defy Fate by using a wish to truly neutralize D-ne’s impostor. To be expanded on in D-ne’s perspective. Maybe, depending on the circumstances, B-ko may wish to lose part of mask as she sees what she wants to have backfiring on her. B-ko wants control, but the monkey’s paw will distort it each time. It could cause her to look in a mirror and face her desires.

A-ya’s Love Letter: In this iteration, A-ya gets Mearry-san. He would get paranoid from it, but he would be smart enough to know not to answer the calls. However, Mearry-san’s constant watching of A-ya would likely remind A-ya of C-ta- this realization could technically end up negatively, but I don’t think it would. A-ya is more likely to reach out to C-ta and talk about the security cameras in this iteration- it’s possible A-ya finds the cameras by looking around for Mearry in his room or something like that. Mearry-san does tie into A-ya’s habit of constantly typing on his phone- it could be that he would text Mearry back since there’s no rule against that, try to investigate her though not get far (and he’d likely need to get amped up for that). It would, however, represent a message getting through despite a missed call.

Assuming the hide and seek letter pattern exists here, A-ya would’ve likely seen C-ta accidentally show someone the letter. This could make A-ya suspicious of C-ta rather than more neutral like I wrote it. But I’ll expand on this in C-ta’s perspective.

D-ne’s Impostor Advisory: This time, D-ne becomes the talk of the town with her exploits. Only, D-ne isn’t doing any exploits, her doppelganger is. D-ne experiences the fear of having someone pretend to be her, which of course- she does not like. She hates C-ta because of how he mirrors her and she would hate her doppelganger far more. I don’t see D-ne being quite as paranoid as agitated (though she still is paranoid). However, as she hears about everyone talking about her and feels the fear of someone trying to replace her.. It is possible that D-ne will connect the lines that she is acting like a weird stalker with B-ko. Either way, D-ne would try to reach out to B-ko while avoiding her doppelganger, the two eventually meeting up. The two could maybe have a more healthy discussion now that D-ne has been forced to think about how scary it is to have someone who wants to be you follow you. They could end in amicable terms (that or one of the two kill eachother from paranoia or on accident, more likely B-ko with the monkey’s paw.)

C-ta’s Hide and Seek Alone: C-ta (assuming the hide and seek letter reveal pattern holds outside of the weird film iteration) would be the most distressed out of anyone. But he also learns that A-ya saw him, perhaps seeing something from the security cameras, perhaps not. C-ta would likely be desperate to show A-ya that he’s not the traitor and would contact A-ya quickly about the game. Hide and Seek Alone with C-ta would likely be a subversion of the game, the game will likely end up being a collaboration, just as the two will likely become more open in communication. A-ya would confront C-ta about his behavior most likely and the cameras, so there would likely need to be a conversation between the two about their past. And it could be represented by C-ta doing the game in A-ya’s house, A-ya watching from C-ta’s cameras. Sacrificing the bunny plush, C-ta hides in A-ya’s room while A-ya calls him to help C-ta know and prepare for the plush. And, depending on how supernatural you think the story is, A-ya would find either the plush or the traitor entering the room to look for C-ta and A-ya is able to tell C-ta when to strike to deal with the threat.

Bonus: The Dream’s Conclusion

E-ki: The Dream’s Conclusion clearly lines up with both literally with E-ki’s coma constantly dreaming the same thing over and over and figuratively with E-ki’s dream of hanging out with his friends making movies. He never truly deviates from his dream in the manga, it’s implied he acts the same every time he dreams everything. His coma is being perpetuated at least in part by him not wanting to let go of his dream about his friends, but most likely for E-ki to wake from the coma he must decide that it’s time to move on, don’t follow his friends just to appease the loop. He needs to run the other direction, perhaps in the direction he thinks the killer is in. Run in the direction that will let him figure out who the culprit is. And even if he dies in the process, he will likely wake up (or die lmao).

I would like to expand on E-noru’s version or even Novel 2 Narrator’s version (whether that’s E-noru or E-ki or You, the Reader),,, But it’s somewhat hard to lean into character analysis if we don’t know much about the characters. You can consider the dream’s conclusion a paradox for E-noru I guess?

#Shuuen no Shiori #Shuuenpro #a-ya #b-ko #c-ta #d-ne #long post

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