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ananalyses · 4 years ago

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I re-watched all the DRV3 trials a couple months ago and found a whole bunch of piping hot HCs/theories in my drafts, so buckle up friends, here we go

In a handy Numbered List, for your viewing pleasure:

Number 1: The ending of DRV3 is kind of about our experience as players in relation to the fiction, however the 'audience' in the Chapter 6 trial are not meant to be a literal stand-in for the player or even the fanbase in general.

The ending (at least as far as I can fathom) speaks to an imagined future's cultural relationship with its past. It is a fictional story about the problematic nature viewing history like fiction. Don’t worry, this is all still extremely confusing.

Here’s how I saw it. The audience of DR3 are people of the same universe, but a future well distant from DR1+2, and treat the very real* violence and tragedy of their past as a sort of fiction. They see the people involved in those events as characters, and derive entertainment from re-imagining the horror of said events. Tsumugi, as an individual obsessed with the 'fiction' of Junko and the Tragedy (encompassed by her chosen talent being cosplayer, a fan of actual events) cultivates a cult-like audience who spectate on war-reenactment-like performances of the killing game. She takes on the role of the Ultimate Cosplayer, signifying her perception of herself as a fan - only the story she is a ‘fan’ of happens to be the actual history in the world she lives in, and the darkest, most unpleasant parts of said history at that. As the game presents it, her approach wrongs both the victims of DR1+2, as well as the participants of DRV3, and however many other killing games Tsumugi might have orchestrated previously. The horror of this situation lies in the fact that the 'Danganronpa Company', however many people it actually consists of, be it one, two or a hundred, is kidnapping real teenagers and manipulating them into participating.

*(in context, obviously)

Number 2: The memories of pre-game are fabricated, just like the other fake memories that are restored, quote unquote, via the flashback lights. Otherwise the very beginning of Ch1 doesn't seem to add up. In the moments after waking up and exiting the lockers, they haven’t yet been hit by a flashback light. Why, then, would the students recall their kidnapping, but not the reason they were taken in the first place, being that they signed themselves up for the killing game?

Thematically speaking (as I am so wont to do), the game frequently addresses delusion, including how, if we become obsessed enough over the distant past, we might, ironically, become detached from its reality, and begin to treat it like fiction. It cautions against the wanton romanticising of horrific events which actually happened and their consequences. Hence, this moral the game pushes in Ch6, that the students in the game may have been cultivated into 'characters' for entertainment purposes, but they still experience real emotions, and real trauma which the audience has handily forgotten.

Number 2.5: Keebo is apparently the 'eyes' of the audience, fitted with cameras through which they can witness events as they happen. However, we also experience the story through Kaede and Shuichi’s internal monologues. We, the player, are not limited to the perspective of surveillance footage, nor do we have unfettered access to the Keebo’s video feed or his decision-making process, so the audience we see in Ch6 cannot be a facsimile for the player.

This builds even further upon the theme of detachment. The audience tuning in to watch Tsumugi’s game are only capable of spectating events from outside, through live-streamed video. This means they are unable to experience the internal thoughts and emotions of any of the participants. Combine this with their warped perception, and they are disconnected from the humans behind their characters in a way we the player are not.

Number 3: The pre-game versions of the students shown are parodies of their role in the game; Kaede is a cruel nihilist, exaggerated from the fact she was the first student willing to kill another; Shuichi is a child-like fanboy who dreams of emulating past greats, mocking his lack of self-confidence, constant need for outside validation and failure to meet expectations.

Number 4.1: DeluUuUsions! This thematic thread fits much better with the Big Duality of the game - truth vs. lies. All of the murderers, Tsumugi included, if not the entire cast, are deluding themselves in some way. Kaede is horrified when the shot put she threw blindly in an air vent hit the innocent Rantaro and not the unidentified mastermind. She seems to fail to realise that she has fallen into Monokuma’s logical trap, being persuaded to ‘stop’ the killing game by committing a murder. The cycle of death had not started yet; she commits the first crime. Rather than stop the cycle, she sets it into motion. She is painted a heroic, almost saintly figure after the trial, but her persistent concern over what the others will think of her leads me to wonder if her motivation was purely misguided altruism as she appears to believe. Although she managed to set them on the right track and prevent the executions of her other classmates, she did ultimately put them at risk by participating in the trial. Her original plan was so complicated (needlessly so) in order to deceive them, Shuichi in particular, because ‘no-one would want to be friends with a murderer’. If her setup had succeeded, Kaede believed she could get away with a murder carried out under the detective’s nose. Her end is tragic, and one of the game’s more deft twists, so I feel rather mean right now. But some form of self-delusion or another is at play in Kaede’s trial.

Number 4.2: Kirumi is the best case study of delusion in V3. I love it because it works both ways, whether you assume the students’ talents, and therefore the motive videos, are genuine or not. Here’s my theory. Although working for the prime minister, Kirumi was not actually lined up to take his position of authority should he die. Rather, she knew that her job was important to the running of office, she knew she was darn good at it, and that the man very much appreciated that. And she filled in the gaps herself from there, warped by her overwhelming sense of self-importance. To her mind, the world revolves around Kirumi. That, or we could assume the motive videos can be pretty freely fabricated, and Kirumi simply weaved the entire backstory from the ground up in order to frame her selfish behaviour as selfless.

I find the language used in the motive video quite suspect, with only a few direct quotes from the prime minister. "Only Kirumi could save the country from impending doom"...the "secretary secretly running the country"..."the future of the country rests entirely on her capable shoulders". Extremely high praise, and a heavy weight of responsibility, but at no point does the prime minister actually state that Kirumi has been made next in line to take over as prime minister. In fact, these lines read more like slightly humorous hyperbole to me, the sort of thing dropped in casual conservation. And yet she claims, "everything you just saw is true, though I only remembered it upon watching that video." A flimsy explanation in itself. Then to meddle with our brains even further, Monokuma comes out with this line: "If you can't believe it...then you're terrified for no reason. Why do humans lie?"

Number 4.3: Korekiyo’s identical twin ghost sister seems to be entirely a figment of his mind. The presence of her spirit is one delusion, and the idea that murdering young women is achieving anything for her is another, as she relishing in finishing him off at the end of his execution. As an extra twist of the knife, even if his version of an afterlife was real, his evil actions denied him access to such a place. Whether or not he ever had a sister in the past is a different matter. Their disturbing relationship could have been a source of terrible trauma, and the cause of the spirit ‘sister’ that appears to posses Kiyo at the height of his delusions. Though she is deceased, her presence in her brother’s mind is a vice-grip. This could somewhat explain why he speaks of her both in the past and present tense, as both dead and alive..."I was so distraught, I nearly went mad." ‘Nearly’, huh. Alternately, a mind so delusional so as to believe in a sister he never had, could also perform the mental pole vault to justify a romance with her. I think I favour the former theory, but to be honest I think my feelings on this chapter will never be anything less than murky.

(this plotline is still dumb, creepy, and should have been dropped for a more interesting conflict surrounding religion, spiritualism and belief, angie and kiyo had so much potential and kodaka flopped at the first hurdle my god i’m so mad)

Number 4.4: Gonta...oh, Gonta. His form of self-delusion is probably the most benevolent of all that we see, and the cruellest for himself to experience. Gonta is manipulated, and taken advantage of by Kokichi. But he does ultimately agree, and acts upon the delusion that the best, kindest action he can take is to ensure none of the remaining students ever learn the truth of their situation. He cannot forgive himself for killing Miu, despite her own plans to commit a murder, and apologises endlessly for what he knows he is doing. And yet he believes this is the kindest thing he can do for the friends he has left, and he sticks by this assertion to the end. Interestingly, Gonta only appears ignorant to the immorality of his choice because his memory of committing the crime has literally been erased from his mind. For once, when he behaves confused and says he does not understand what he is being accused of, he means it. He is twice-deluded. And when confronted with the truth - by another version of himself, no less - he fully admits to his own guilt. Gonta, they did you so dirty...Tarzan voice included.

Number 4.5: "People can lie about how malicious their secrets really are. [...] It's impossible to know for sure what others are thinking. ... If you get betrayed, it's not their fault! It's your fault for believing in them!" Whoa nelly, Chapter 5, nah nah nah, I can’t do this today. Maybe on another post, this one’s too much. You get delusion, and you delusion, and YOU get a delusion, and YOU--

Number 5: "Well, we come from different backgrounds." DICE, if they existed at all, were a juvenile group of petty criminals, most likely kids from disadvantaged backgrounds banding together. Maki notes that Kokichi's locking picking skill is more suited to your common thief than a ‘supreme leader’. This fits with Kokichi's whole attitude of 'pretending the game is fun in order to survive' and clown motif. It’s all pretence; he and his allies really do live in a lie, but it is the only way for them to live in a world that probably wouldn’t mind much either way. This attitude carries over to the killing game, naturally. Kokichi’s smart, really smart, but the only way he sees that anyone is getting out alive is to dress himself up as a sacrificial lamb, but super twisted, like. And that’s why I hate that this plot tells him he’s right; I feel like he lived his life hated, and dies hated, just as he thought he would have to, and that sucks ass, thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Number 6: Kaito had a genuine underlying health condition, possibly terminal, possibly exacerbated by training for spaceflight, or the stress of the killing game itself. His sudden decline genuinely threw off the course of the game in an unprecedented way, leaving Tsumugi to improvise. Kaito at least seemed to be aware of it, and that it was slowly killing him - "No way am I gonna die here. I haven't even gone to space yet.”

Number 7: Tsumugi not only perceives the previous victims of DR1+2 as fictional characters, but the students she has kidnapped too. This is why she hates Kokichi so badly by trial 5; imagine a writer presenting a series of 6 books, and snatching away the 5th one so you can never read it in its entirety. "Living people shouldn't have to suffer because of the dead! The living are more precious than the dead! No matter what.” This is what Tsumugi simply cannot understand. In this way, Keebo presents a sort of ideal since conversely - regardless of whom - he "works really hard to understand".

For the students of V3, their past equals death; it is practically built upon the death of the first killing games. The need to face up to the reality of death also recurs consistently*, whether on an individual character level (Shuichi struggling to accept that he is alive, and Kaede was the one executed; the Necronomicon and seance; Himiko’s guilt and anger over Tenko; the constant switching back and forth between who is dead in chapter 5, be it with the poison arrows and antidote-drinking, or the Exisal voice-changer) or the need for this world’s society to accept the reality of their past and stop treating it as merely a gruesome fairytale. Tsumugi’s strategy of fictionalisation may be a means to process the horrific reality of her story’s terrible, tragic beginnings, but the game concludes that it prevents recovery at best, and causes exact repetition at worst.

*(a message almost entirely undermined by the DR3 anime, whoopsie)

Number 8 (last one, I promise): The Neo World Program (in its V3 state) is a cutesy misunderstanding of what the SDR2 Program was actually like. If Miu's Neo World Program is, as Maki suggests, an experiment to see how a killing game might work if Ultimates didn't have access to their physical talents, Tsumugi's killing game is the opposite, in a way. It is, to her mind, an experiment to see how people react when told they do have a special talent. It is extremely mind-bendy to try and work out how the Neo World simulation changes the students’ abilities; it cannot simply be an equaliser in terms of physical strength, as the programme seems to selectively negate abilities depending on the Ultimate in question, including fine motor tasks. For example, although he still knows perfectly well how to do it, Kokichi claims, "I couldn't pick locks with my avatar body." Assuming, of course, that this is the truth, what are the limits to Miu’s programme?

Or, all of this could be an essay-length attempt to string together bad, mean-spirited writing into something thematically coherent. But if you’ve made it this far, that means you’ve humoured me anyways, so cheers for that.

#this is so long good lord #dangranronpa #ndrv3 #drv3 #new danganronpa v3 #ndrv3 spoilers #drv3 spoilers #ramblings #me reading my own writing: wow someone has way too much time on their hands #all of this brainspace i should be using to pass my degree is just full of dangangrampa #meta #ndrv3 meta #is it Gothic?

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