#detroit: become human spoilers

[mataglap]

of all the plot holes in Detroit: Become Human, one bothers me the most. 

how did Simon escape Stratford Tower???

my imagination has thrown in the towel.

[harmonytre]

True Story: This found family story destroyed me in the best way possible. I didn't expect it, but the hug was the first time I ever happy ugly cried. My family was laughing at me because my face muscles couldn't make up their mind and I looked ridiculous. It was trying to grin ear to ear and sob like a little baby child at the same time. I've never felt so happy and it's funny to think about.

[happy74827]

So I haven’t watched the new boys episode yet, I’m currently working, but I saw a clip on tiktok and…

Spoilers ofc ↓

UHHHH?!? WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT FIRECRACKER AND HOMELANDER SCENE?!?

EXCUSE ME?!?

[atanx]

It's such bullshit that North's Revolution always looses, like she kept Josh and Simon alive until the last point of attack! Markus can't keep Josh alive!

Like I get that Markus is just a charismatic hot piece of ass and everyone's gay for him, but North got these people to come with her and fight with her. It's stupid that they just start running away at literally the last hurdle.

North's revolution should have been able to win is all I'm saying. North should have been able to fire that stupid grenade launcher. She'd look so badass doing it, too!

[sorryiliketoscreenshot]

[woodchipp]

OMORI and Detroit: Become Human's Plot Twists - How A Bad Plot Twist Ruins The Story Instead Of Enhancing It

In the 2020 game OMORI, the story's plot twist is that the main protagonist's sister, Mari, didn't kill herself as the player was led to believe - instead, the main protagonist himself accidentally killed her in a fit of rage after an argument they had and his best friend subsequently covered that up by staging it as a suicide.

In the 2018 game Detroit: Become Human, the plot twist of Kara’s story is that Alice, the seemingly human child Kara took care of after the two broke free of Alice’s abusive father, was actually an android all along. 

What do they have in common? The answer’s simple - not only are they emblematic of their respective games’ shoddy writing, they detract from the story they’re supposed to elevate.

First things first - both twists don’t make sense upon scrutiny. OMORI’s plot twist in particular hinges on a huge contrivance - the fact Basil just so happened to be present in Sunny’s house (for reasons the game leaves unexplained) at exactly the right time to witness Sunny committing manslaughter and come up with a plan to absolve him of any blame. Furthermore, the twist’s insinuation that Mari overworked Sunny and didn’t tolerate his mistakes comes out of left field, as Mari was consistently portrayed as kind and flawless (both in Sunny’s dreams and in the real world via the photo album)  throughout the game up until that point.

Alice’s twist only works because the story lies to the player: Kara finds a magazine with a picture of Alice’s model at the beginning of the game, but it’s conveniently blurred. While there are some hints that Alice is an android, such as the fact that she refuses to eat even when food is presented to her, this clashes with one of the main levels of Kara’s story, which has her looking for food and shelter for Alice’s sake. This implies that Kara deliberately ignored Alice’s true nature, for reasons that will be elaborated on later.

Alice’s twist, however, does have some solid hints at the very least. That brings me to a problem exclusive to OMORI’s twist - the game spends most of its runtime hinting at the red herring of Mari having hanged herself as opposed to the twist of her having been shoved down the stairs. The only tangible clues to the twist are the prevalence of staircases in the brief cutscenes before Sunny fights his fears and the hands motif, but they are not enough. If the point of the reveal is that Mari didn’t kill herself, what’s the point in hinting she did?

Secondly, the twists’ linchpin characters are flat in terms of personality. Alice is the quintessential “little girl” in videogames: cute, small, withdrawn, barely cries (she doesn’t even go into hysterics at a concentration camp), constantly needs to be cared for and protected, at most steers you in the right moral direction if you do something “problematic”, even if for her sake. This, allegedly, is supposed to stem from her background, as she was abused by her father, but even the android that Kara spots and that makes her confront the truth has the same quiet, demure, sad demeanor, implying that it’s simply how Alice’s model is programmed to be. Alice is not a character: she is a pet you are supposed to find adorable. The twist that she was never a “real” human, therefore, falls flat on its face: she doesn’t prove anything about the depth of emotions androids can experience. For all intents and purposes, she is the doll racist humans see androids as.

Aside from a brief interaction with Hero in the first several minutes of the game (which is promptly forgotten as soon as it ends), Mari spends most of its runtime only as fuel for Sunny and his friends’ grief. She is given no personality beyond being the Team Mom, isn’t fleshed out in any objective flashbacks (as in, flashbacks not colored by Sunny’s perception of her), and if the vision Sunny experiences on Two Days Left is her ghost, she isn’t plussed in the slightest by her dear little brother profaning her memory by deciding to keep up Basil’s lie. The one flaw the game tries to give her - perfectionism - has no bearing on her character until the moment the game uses it to give Sunny a reason to lash out at her, and the negative impact said flaw had on her life before the argument is glossed over. OMORI’s point that her desire to be perfect was the reason for her downfall, therefore, falls flat on its face: for all intents and purposes, Mari is perfect. 

Finally, both twists are detrimental to the stories they are in.  Supposedly, the twist of android Alice is meant to make you question whether or not you, the player, are going to love her all the same even after learning that she’s not human (although the question should be moot since all three protagonists are androids and the most popular one in the fandom is the most machine-like one). What the game fails to answer, however, is why Kara refused to accept reality and deluded herself into thinking Alice was human to the point of endangering both of them for the sake of playing pretend (this, on top of everything else, makes replaying the game much more frustrating, as you no longer care to give Alice proper shelter as she doesn’t really need it). The implication is that she, herself, believes an android child is inherently less deserving of love as a human one, an interesting concept of internalized bigotry that is never explored. Even worse than this, what before could be seen as a touching relationship between an android and a human, who despite the hatred surrounding them can form a family out of natural love, is now nothing more than two androids following their programming: Kara keeps being a caretaker as she’s supposed to do, and Alice keeps being the perfect little child as she’s supposed to be. While they both rebelled against their abusive master, it means that, at their core, they didn’t even deviate in the first place, and instead forced themselves back into their pre-programmed roles. This is the complete antithesis of the message of the game, which is that androids are more than their programming and they are, instead, people.

Similarly, OMORI’s plot twist turns what could’ve been an interesting story about such topics as teenage suicide and suicide bereavement into a farce. It’s one thing to play this game under the impression Sunny and co. are struggling to live a life their beloved sister and friend unexpectedly removed herself from, but it’s very different to replay it with the knowledge that all the pain Kel, Hero and Aubrey went through was pointless since Mari never killed herself in the first place and stemmed from one of their friends desecrating her corpse. Without warning, the story turns from being about overcoming the grief of losing a loved one to suicide into being about grappling with the guilt of a manslaughter and a huge lie that destroyed multiple friendships - a lie Sunny directly facilitated by lying to his friends by omission to save his own skin. The only character in the game to call Sunny out on this is his suicidal depression (!!!), and its arguments are framed as irrational self-loathing so they’d be easier to dismiss; the game’s best ending, meanwhile, has him conveniently avoid the consequences of his confession by moving town, not caring anymore about the feelings of his friends (or the well-being of Basil, whom he leaves to bear the brunt of the consequences). None of this would’ve been a problem if the game simply focused on Sunny moving on from blaming himself for his sister’s suicide instead.

So, this brings me back to the post's title - not only should a good plot twist be properly foreshadowed, but it should enhance the plot when experienced multiple times. The twists in OMORI and DBH fail to do so, and create the impression they were haphazardly inserted into the plot for the sake of subverting the audience's expectations, with little thought given to how they retroactively affect said plot.

Unfortunately, the only expectation they manage to subvert is the expectation of a completent story.

[stiwfssr]

Detroit: Become Human

[navysealt4t]

oh my gosh i’m finally making a post about this because. it’s so annoying to me. i don’t think it’s been *explicitly* said in jrwi, but it’s very heavily implied (mostly in the episodes where gillion was missing in the pearl) that jay was scared of losing gill because she lost ayva. that was very heavily implied. that does NOT MEAN she sees gill the same way she saw ayva, as a sibling. THAT DOES NOT MEAN THAT. you can relate ur relationship with two people together and those relationships aren’t automatically the same

i’ve seen that used so many times when ppl r like ‘gill and jay are sibling coded’ THEY ARENT. THEY ARENT. STOP TRYING TO NUCLEAR FAMILY EVERYTHING. they can be close in ways except familial and romantic oh my goodness. like i guarantee you jay is just as scared to lose chip and queen and ollie etc etc as she is to lose gill, mainly in LARGE PART to her trauma from losing ayva

[mataglap]

@lacrimalis replied to your post “I may have to write this ship just to offset the...”:

oh??? i love when people buck longstanding fic conventions in fandom... i would like to see it/would love to hear ur thoughts 👀✨

the desire to give favorite characters some domestic comfort transcends fandoms and I get it, I do -- but it bothers me that people seem to forget that Connor is a literal murder machine housing a freshly unshackled AI. if you neglect to disable the camera in the elevator in CyberLife Tower, he kills five armed, armored and prepared guards without a scratch. his original programming is focused on investigation, forensics, negotiation/interrogation and pursuit. his contribution may have tipped the scales of the revolution, and in the wake of it I sincerely doubt he would abandon his people or his skillset to focus on performing housekeeper duties for a friend.

I love Hank like everyone else and I do want to explore their relationship, but Connor is just too much to be reduced to a domestic bliss facilitator.

[lioniheart]

No but I just started playing Detroit Become Human for the first time (I know nothing abt this game, I'm playing in my sibling's console) and the fact there are actual female droids in the hands of male owners definitely scared me lmao

Like the whole concept of human like servants in general is definitely fucking insane to me, I rlly don't trust humanity

Am I too traumatized by the world or is this a fair anxiety to have? Who knows

[thatwolfnamednyla]

A character with issues regarding his humanity pairs up with a grizzled old cop still grieving the loss of someone important to them and they end up forming a father-son relationship...hmmm...

[atanx]

So I've been playing a lot of DBH and I have stuff on my mind. For this post: why is the Revolution written Like That??

This has probably been rehashed a lot when DBH actually came out but I'm playing it now and want to add my mustard to this all.

What bothers me about the Revolution route is that it's portrayed pretty negatively. Characters like Rose say that they don't like what Markus (or North I guess) is doing and overall there's not a lot of acknowledgement of the fact that there kind of isn't another choice.

Like yeah, in game there is, but if you look at things from a realistic perspective the humans are putting androids into concentration camps and systematically genociding them. The peaceful demonstration is the naivest shit ever and they can count themselves lucky it succeeds in game. Like yeah, let me just march to our deaths and let countless androids in the concentration camps die while I get myself killed instead of trying to save as many lives as possible by launching an attack.

Like I am convinced that the only reason the demonstration (or revolution for that matter) wins is because Connor pulls up with a fucking army and the authorities go like oh shit. I guess it goes differently on machine!Connor runs, I haven't done one yet, but I can't really see how. Like at the end of the demonstration less than thirty androids remain standing. If Connor didn't bring the thousands of androids from the Cyberlife tower they would have been crushed.

Like, I did a playthrough of: steal truck without being detected. Stratford tower with no human casualties and "calm" message. Pacifist strong message during store raid, sparing the cops. Freedom march with running away. Like from Markus' POV he tried everything. He's been peaceful and the humans are still set on genocide. Doing the same thing over and over expexting a different result is the definition of insanity or whatever. Here, public opinion changes but public opinion is already pretty much useless in real life.

And the Revolution ending... maybe it's just because I failed to save Simon and also Kara was at border control and not in the camps, but it felt unfulfilling. Like it had the same result as the demonstration but also Josh is guaranteed dead because he's really bad at fighting but still comes with to launch a fucking attack.

Maybe it's also that the Revolution has a pretty different gameplay section. It's not just all QTEs you also have to look around and shit, and I don't think it's bad?? It was just so different that I felt overwhelmed and like I didn't really know what was going on. When I'll play it again I'll prob like it better. Like you have to look at a fucking grenade or some shit to save Simon what the hell.

North's revolution was more fulfilling, since it was just epic cutscenes, (and Josh died in Jericho for some reason Connor can't save him even though Markus can and Connor can save all the same people BEFORE-) but unfortunately not enough people were alive so North ended up dead and then Connor was alone and yeah suicide time because Amanda sucks.

Uh. Spoiler warning I guess.

Yeah idk I feel like you should be able to get a best ending with the Revolution. Because the demonstration is the most naive ass bullshit and if that can succeed so can fighting.

Also I know Connor is busy corralling thousands of newly awakened androids into walking in a perfect grid formation for dramatic effect and intimidation factor but I still feel like he deserves a piece of the action!!

[critique-masochist]

These plot twists are killing me and I hate this game 😭

[itsgonnagetinspiringsoon]

It has changed me I fear

[kamari2038]

Now that I've *mostly* cleared my head, A FEW THOUGHTS:

(1) Hank is really frickin’ passionate about the deviant cause. When Connor LETS HIM DIE to try and save the deviants, he’s mildly pissed but they’re still friends. But when my man is just DOING HIS JOB AND TRYING TO SAVE HUMANITY, Hank is not only aggressive, but so hostile that Connor can BEG FOR HIS LIFE, try to reason with him, point out the irony of believing all androids are alive yet still denying Connor’s personhood, but if Connor doesn’t have the heart to murder Hank first, then Hank will DANGLE AND THEN DROP HIM OFF THE EDGE OF A BUILDING EVEN IF HE LITERALLY SAVED HANK’S LIFE MULTIPLE TIMES EARLIER IN THE GAME (which is that much more traumatizing for my head canon of this Connor, which is that it took him an unusually long time to die after falling from the rooftop in hostage)

(2) Hank must fully expect that Connor is secretly a deviant and send him to Jericho with the full expectation that Connor will join the deviants, because otherwise this scene makes no dang sense.

Y’all, I still love Hank, but I am PISSED OFF about this. Just a reminder that he’s still only human and kind of messed up, I guess. Clancy Brown scares the SHIT out of me now. That look of helplessness and betrayal on Connor's face as he's held on by his coat above the ledge will haunt me forever.

[stiwfssr]