#divine tree arc DOES stuff to me RAAH

[thekagepro24]

MP100 Divine Tree Arc analysis (yet again): Dimple and Honesty

ok so divine tree arc is my favorite mp100 arc bc of the intricately-written miscommunication and understandable character motivations on both ends, and it's written in a way where i've watched its episodes easily 20-30 times and STILL notice new things!

(long analysis under cut)

So I've noticed that there's a mistranslation in a line in episode 5. Mob asks Teru to "snap out of it" / "come to your senses", but Dimple's response got mistranslated to this:

When I'd initially watch this, I wouldn't listen to the spoken line closely enough to notice the translation was faulty, and would always think "but...you ARE controlling him with brainwashing. why lie like that?"

What he says would translate more accurately to, "Unfortunately for you, Hanazawa is sane." I'm fairly sure he says it this way in reference to his previous line about how "Their personalities won't be any different". He's telling Mob that Teru's acting in a way he normally would, which is then emphasized by Teru insisting 'this is just another important thing in my life'.

And you might wonder why I'm so particular about this mistranslation! It's because making Dimple say "I'm not controlling him" would be a lie! Even if he's not controlling him as if using a remote control, he is brainwashing him, so that would still count as control! It would be a lie for Dimple to say this!

And that specific distinction made me realize something!!!!!

Throughout the conversation Mob and Dimple have in episode 5, Dimple never flat-out lies. What puts Mob off is that Dimple isn't being entirely honest, but Dimple never lies about things, instead he omits the whole truth.

Despite the 'carried away' conversation in episode 3 ending poorly, Dimple makes the offer again within the broccoli that he and Mob should achieve this godhood goal together, but Mob is so focused on getting Dimple to stop that he doesn't notice that this is Dimple's attempt at working together with him. (Mob himself notes this in ep 6: "You could've achieved it by yourself, but you asked me to join you. You trusted me before i trusted you")

The problem here is that Dimple is overly prepared for things to turn into a fight. He knows that Mob could easily erase him because of the difference in their powers, so he specifically waits within the broccoli and uses its powers to his advantage in this encounter. Even when talking to him, Mob's upset that they aren't talking face-to-face, unaware that Dimple's hiding specifically because he's scared of Mob's rage. Dimple even ASKS "If you don't agree with me, won't you resort to force in the end?" to test the waters, and when Mob replies that he will, it turns into a fight.

And when Mob realizes this after more of Dimple's hiding behind powers, he asks if Dimple's scared of him only to be met with silence.

Dimple doesn't lie by saying he's not scared of Mob, he instead just conveniently doesn't talk until he thinks he has the upper hand. Only when Mob finally collapses and notices his powers are being absorbed by the broccoli does Dimple chime in, because now he thinks he's winning this fight.

He brings up Tsubomi and tells the truth about his perception of her, that she seems like the type who wouldn't accept a confession from Mob if he were to try it. It's a genuine observation from him, it's Dimple's honest thoughts, he's not lying. The problem is that he uses this observation to segue into the Psycho Helmet point, and offers a faulty solution to Mob's worries by suggesting he just rely on power. (Similar to how back when Mob ran the marathon with the goal of confessing to Tsubomi if he got at least 10th place, Dimple offered to cheat and possess him when he wounded his leg.)

This then causes more tension and the two start fighting again. And yet again, Dimple is omitting some of the truth. He thinks to himself about how powerful Mob should be at this point, and how to win a fight against him if things have to come to that. Usually Dimple will give his thoughts on a risky situation out loud, but here he keeps it to himself.

Just like earlier when Mob asked if Dimple was scared of him, Dimple conveniently stays silent here instead of being upfront about his apprehension.

Mob is offput by Dimple's insistence on the Psycho Helmet goal, and says that 'this isn't you, it doesn't suit you'. Dimple realizes later on that he doesn't feel fulfilled by this goal, but in the moment he's horribly upset by the way Mob jumps to the extreme of saying 'everything he's doing is fake'. Dimple has wanted this godhood goal this whole time even if it started waning, so to be told something like that feels like an insult to his efforts and ambitions. ("Don't go casually denying the thing I've been wanting this whole time!")

Dimple attacks, but on instinct tries to ask if Mob is ok, but upon seeing Mob's rage flare up again, shrinks back and says that he's been trying to use Mob this whole time.

It reminds me of the conversation Reigen and Dimple had when Mob was in the Mogami mindscape. Reigen was able to identify that Dimple is not the type to openly admit that he's starting to care about Mob's well-being seperate from the ulterior motive of the long-term godhood goal, so he spoke to Dimple on his own terms, by implying that he'd miss out on the chance to selfishly manipulate Mob from the shadows if he left now. Even though Reigen briefly points out that he knows Dimple feels odd about being trusted (a wink and a nod kind of way of saying "I know you care about Mob's safety"), he focuses the main point of his persuasion on this dishonest "yeah sure but you want to manipulate him right?" question.

Dimple fucking SUCKS at admitting he cares for people. The closest he gets by this part in the story is hyping Mob up, but that's because he can easily hide that behind "Well I'm just thinking of the long-term godhood goal, if I hype him up, he'll want to be a god more!". Even in the Mogami mindscape, Dimple reminds Mob of how much everyone ELSE cares for him! He'll worry for Mob's well-being and advise him against getting into dangerous situations, but will never flat-out say "It's because I care about you as a friend, I genuinely have gotten to the point where I want you to be safe outside of this goal". And so in this scene, he lacks the insight to realize he cares, and falls back into "...Well I've been manipulating him, I know that much.".

And so then we finally have the monkey shirt insults. It can be easy to misunderstand this as the first instance Dimple's 'been honest / stopped lying' since Mob entered the Divine Tree, but that isn't right! Dimple has been honest about his godhood goal and his intent to team up with Mob to achieve it, but he had also been omitting the truth to get to that goal. He stays quiet about how scared he is of Mob's powers, and Mob's realization that Dimple's being dodgy about something makes Mob doubtful of Dimple's true intent in turn.

When Dimple offers to team up with him, the fact that it has this immense power attached to it deters Mob.

When Dimple says that Tsubomi likely wouldn't be interested in him, it's followed by the offer of this immense power as a solution.

But when Dimple insults the monkey shirt, there's nothing attached. He's JUST disgusted by the shirt. Instead of something that can give him some sort of power, he speaks honestly about something mundane. (If anything, it's something that risks him getting hurt due to Mob's bad mood.)

And THIS is why Mob says this line:

What's threatened to drive this wedge between them, what's caused Dimple to become dodgy about his thoughts is this potential immense power the Divine Tree can give, as well as Mob's immense power he wields being seen as a threat by Dimple.

Mob entered the broccoli with intent to force Dimple to stop this plan entirely, and so it took him a while to notice that his power and anger had made Dimple feel like he had to prepare for a fight.

Dimple hid behind these new powers and tried to persuade Mob that they're amazing by doing things like showing off his new God form and its powers. But his initial refusal to ask himself why his godhood goal had been feeling empty made it so he tried to insist to Mob that these powers are great (Basically like a sunk-cost fallacy. It's what he wanted this whole time and what he'd put so much effort into, so it has to be worth it, right?).

So it's only when Mob realizes that powers are in the way of the conversation they're trying to have, do they begin to both look inwards and realize how their miscommunication had gotten so extreme.

And so from then on, Dimple is able to speak honestly without any ulterior motives.

(From here I'm tempted to get somewhat side-tracked and mention how the Divine Tree is a perfect symbol for immense power, and how it perfectly represents how Dimple had been trying to persuade Mob to abuse power initially in the series. He kept insisting powers are all-encompassing and can do ANYTHING in the beginning, and then his abuse of the tree's power leads to the Psycho Helmet entities trying to EAT everything and turn EVERYTHING into fuel for its own power. Power for nothing but power's sake. Some translations + the ENG dub somewhat skews their dialogue, but the Psycho Helmet entities speak in a very fragmented way, and don't ever refer to Mob as a person or with any person-related pronouns! They ONLY refer to Mob once and it's as "that." And so there's a horror there that this tree will consume ANYTHING for power. It's the epitome of the flawed ideology Dimple had at the very beginning of the series turned physical, so Dimple has to fight against it, and realizes the error in his ways in the conversation after said fight. So he is then sacrificed in a way to use his new immense power for a GOOD cause, to get rid of this threat. It perfectly puts that flawed ideology Dimple had at the beginning of the series to rest.)

...but this post was meant to be about observing the specific point that Dimple never flat-out lies in episode 5's conversation. A really subtle touch to the character writing in this arc, the fact that he's not just "evil again", but rather feels the need to prepare for a fight with underhanded means. He's not lying, he's omitting more of the truth than he usually does.