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shroomyifiy · 2 months ago

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Hello DRDT fandom! Here’s yet another person throwing their hat into the ring about the Chapter 2 culprit.

Spoilers for Episode 14 below.

Yeah no Ace is probably the killer.

Now before anyone comes for me, hear me out!

We know that, currently, the culprit is between Ace and Eden. One of them definitely took the tape, no doubt about that, and is most likely the killer. You could argue the existence of a third party culprit, but currently, it has to be one of them. So we are going to ignore that for now. I will now break down why I believe Ace is the killer.

Step 1: Tape

Okay, first off, the tape. That motherfucking tape.

The tape is located directly in front of Ace’s feet, and disappears the moment he gets up and exclaims he’s alive. At this moment, he also knocks Eden to the ground, making it just a small amount of time for either of them to grab the tape.

Now, we don’t know where anyone directly is besides Ace, due to the way the series is presented. Meaning, we have no idea where either Teruko or Eden were standing relative to Ace revealing he was alive.

A big point for the Eden truthers is that when she was knocked over, she picked it up. Now, it’s possible that she could do so without either of them seeing her do this (Ace was currently bleeding and Teruko wasn’t paying attention to the tape). But, I feel like we need to look at the crime scene.

Teruko specifically tells Eden to “Not touch anything”, so we can assume that Teruko wouldn’t have moved anything around too much during her original investigation. So then that leaves us with an interesting thing.

Teruko and Eden both have to be standing by Ace’s body when he gets up (Eden because he pushes her and Teruko because she is mentioned to have touched his neck, and realized he was still alive). But one thing to note is that the area around Ace is rather messy and cluttered. Meaning, there are likely two spots that Eden could be standing at (3 for Teruko, but we will ignore that one for now).

Visually speaking, Eden needs to be standing in spots 1 or 2 to fit the criteria. If she’s in spot three, she’d have been pushed over the bench, and most certainly couldn’t have gotten the tape, and also would have made more noise. (side note: Teruko is either in spots 1 or 3, but currently, her position isn’t as important. For Culprit!Eden to work though, she cannot be in spot 2, which is the most unlikely spot anyways)

If Eden was standing in spot 2, she would have been more likely to be able to grab the tape without issue (as it would be right in front of her feet). While spot 1 could also work, Eden would have had to reach a much farther distance to grab it, and given she’s not knocked down long, I feel like Teruko would have noticed Eden crawling to grab it more than spot 2.

For Ace to grab the tape, we already know where he is relative to the tape, so we don’t need to explain that.

Now, when either of them got up, it’s likely they would have used their hands to push off from the ground near their feet, which is what they would have to do to grab the tape without being noticed. Otherwise, it would be impossible to grab it without being noticed.

You might be asking yourself, “Shroomy, why the fuck does it matter where Eden (and by extention, Teruko) were standing? That’s such a weird and minor detail!”

THE FUCKING TAPE DISSAPEARING WHEN ACE GETS UP/KNOCKS EDEN OVER IS SUCH A MINOR DETAIL TO START WITH!!!!

Ahem… I mean, clearly, the crime scene of Ace plays a part in Arei’s death. And since such a major piece of evidence comes from such a scene, doesn’t it make sense that eventually, body positions would come up? Especially considering just how cluttered the area was. It’s so minor, but it might be the smoking gun to solve the case.

Now, why would either of them pick it up in the first place?

With Eden, she has to be actively making a decision to grab it for whatever reason. Same with Ace, although you could make more of an argument that he grabbed it either a: help his wound or b: by accident, grabbed it and didn’t realize due to the whole murder thing. Also option c: to murder Nico with it, but that’s less likely.

Honestly, despite being what ties them both to the crime, I really don’t see why either of them would grab the tape, especially since, given how fast everything went, I doubt it was either of their first thoughts to recreate Nico’s murder attempt for their own murder, at least in the moment.

Moving on!

Step 2: The murder method

One of the big pieces of evidence against Ace right now is that, “Oh, he was just attacked. There’s no way he would have realized how he was attacked and would know how to replicate it, he’s not that smart!”

First off, let’s address Ace and his stupidity. Okay, yeah, he’s not the brightest person, but saying he’s not smart isn’t accurate. There are no truly “dumb” characters in drdt, at least in my opinion. And Ace has been shown before to have some intelligence.

For one thing, he is on Teruko’s side during the scrum debate in episode 8 of Chapter 1. Which might be weird to call out, but seeing as a lot of the “smarter” characters were on the other side (namely David [being a xander simp as per usual] and Veronika), Now while this isn’t enough to prove it and he did argue with her before in this same trial, it’s definitely noteworthy to mention.

And also, the carousel thing. The fact that it keeps being Ace that corrects Teruko on what it’s called is funny, but it’s also heavily linked to the murder.

Also also, it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for yet another person in this cast to have been keeping a mask up. Someone is making a heel turn between these two, so realistically, this could be Ace’s. And also, despite being shown as “dumb”, Ace at least has some understanding of shit, considering his whole monologue about Levi. I’d have to rewatch a lot of episodes to further confirm this, but I doubt Ace is as stupid as some people think.

Now, the second problem. Ace being almost murdered and then using that same method to murder Arei seems like a bit much, doesn’t it? How could he have figured it out the second he woke up?

He didn’t. He would have fully figured it out AFTER he went back to his room and stopped trying to murder Nico, when he calmed down. (Which is what I think happened with Eden if she is the culprit, mind you)

Because, logically looking at the crime scene, ain’t no way either of them figured it out just by looking at it for like what? A few minutes? No way, I don’t buy it.

But here’s the thing. Ace does have an advantage over Eden here. That being, he woke up during the murder attempt, as confirmed by Nico in the latest episode. Huh. After Ace had claimed to not remember the method because he was unconscious the whole time? Hmmmmm?

No way that little piece of info isn’t going to be important. Especially considering this is the first time we’re hearing about it.

“Shroomy, that’s still not enough to prove Ace over Eden!” I hear you cry out.

Time for the smoking gun.

You know why Nico’s drop hanging attempt failed? It’s not because Ace was too heavy for the fan? No.

It’s because Ace was able to fight back when he woke up.

And what is one of the big differences that hasn’t been brought up yet in this case?

The fact that Arei’s wrists were bound at some point, to keep her from fighting back.

Nico and Ace are the only people who would know about this. Because, again, no one knew Ace woke up during the attempt. So, if Ace were to recreate the murder for Arei, he would know to bind her wrists so she doesn’t fight back. Because it’s why he survived in the first place.

Moving on, using this method would work for Ace, because 1: frames Nico who he hates, 2: Ace is probably a little weakened from almost dying, using a pulley method would be easier than risking Arei escaping.

Now rapid fire mode!

Why use fish from the relaxation room? Frame both Nico (primary) and David (secondary).

The killer probably used the ball of clothes to get the rope up and broke the lights doing so. Eden is the weakest one there, and Ace could have the strength to do so.

Why target Arei? Ace probably didn’t care who he killed, he doesn't care about anyone there.

How would he know about the conversation in the infirmary? We cannot deny that someone could have overheard it. Also, Ace has already been established as eavesdropping earlier in the trial. (this happens the same day as his murder attempt, btw)

Ace has spent most of the trial pointing fingers at others (even in the investigation, he’s the first to draw attention to Nico trying to kill him and Arei dying; knowing the cases are connected, this is interesting).

Wow, that's crazy. Loose connection but still.

He’s also the whole reason David had his magical girl transformation, giving the smoking gun evidence that he and Arei met up.

Which, you know, derailed the trial a lot. Like, 2 or 3 episodes worth of time that could have been used to solve the trial faster?

Huh. Now it's that something.

But, what does this mean for the story?

Step 3: Arei and Ace; Teruko, Eden, and thematics

Both start off as unlikable assholes. But Arei wanted to change, and both Eden and David gave her a hand to begin that change. But she’s murdered before that could happen. Ace rejects anyone’s hand, not trusting anyone and causing more issues. One who tried to be better, and one who got much worse. In a way, they’re parallels in this instance. Two parallels getting killed in the same chapter? Where have I seen this before?

Yeah Min and Xander (i miss you both ;-;)

This is the part where I talk about Min and Eden parallels.

Ain’t no way drdtdev is going to make the same repeat of the last trial’s conclusion. The hugs!!!! The crying!!! Teruko, who points out when Eden tries to investigate with her in this chapter that Min did the same thing to deceive her. Eden, who was crying for someone to believe she didn’t kill Arei. Teruko, who decides to trust Eden, the same way that Eden was the only one to believe in Teruko in the last trial.

Eden, who would be able to prove David and Teruko’s points wrong. Who believed in Arei, that she could be her friend! Eden, who if was revealed to be the killer, would likely send Teruko down a worse path, being betrayed for the third time now.

Ace, who shares Teruko’s views that no one can be trusted, and who isolated himself from everyone. Ace who, despite how much I love him, would show Teruko how isolating herself from everyone else would lead to her death. Ace, who would be a dark reflection on what Teruko could have been, had she continued down that path. Both were almost killed, but one who tried to murder everyone to get out and the other who saved everyone from getting killed.

The narrative themes of trust and distrust.

Teruko’s secret quote for god's sake!!!!!

It’s too much to not go anywhere guys!!!

Okay, I think that’s it for now. Sorry if this sounds like I’m rambling too much, or if it doesn’t make much sense. First time posting something here lol. But this series makes me sick!!!!!/pos

I like both Eden and Ace, and don’t want it to be either of them, but I doubt it’s a third party at this point. And between the two, I think narratively, it makes more sense for it to be Ace.

And also, guys, we NEED more positive characters going into chapter 3, after how many mentally ill people are around rn. We have enough asshole men now (cough looking at you, Mr. David Chiem cough). Whit is too sus and is either dying or about to get hit with a truckload of emotions to stay stable long enough.

Also, Teruko learning to trust while Eden learns to distrust!! Teruden!!!! YURI NATION SWEEP GUYS!!!!!

If I’m wrong, I might die on the spot (please Eden I need you to stay alive!!!!)

#danganronpa despair time #eden tobisa #ace markey #drdt #drdt theory #can you tell I'm so normal about this series?#Might post more theories and other stuff because boy oh howdy do I have thoughts about this series #I am open to criticism. This is just a theory and my own (delusional) thoughts about themes and parallels and gay people #this chapter really is about to bury one of these gays #rewatching the investigation episode is crazy because both Eden and Ace are so sus in it now with context #I didn't even mention how Ace is the first to volunteer to guard the crime scene and Teruko points out how he could be the killer #like he does it so causally wtf?#Teruko called them both out within seconds and that's crazy to think about

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whetstonefires · 1 year ago

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The thing about the Shazam! (Captain Marvel but they don't have the rights to call him that) movie is that overall it's pretty good? Even if I question the pacing choices made in terms of screentime breakdown for '14yo boys making mortifying life choices and humorously failing judgment calls' vs. 'character development wrt to literally anything else about this fairly large cast.'

It's hokey; it should be. It's got some decent themes and fun character bits and set up good solid hero/villain parallels to subvert.

But.

But it massively clotheslined itself with a major storytelling fuckup connected to the opening hook mystery, whose resolution is meant to be the emotional inflection point of the whole film.

Because the thing is, this movie chose to be slightly interesting in how it approached its 'family' themes. In a variation on 'family of choice' (since your foster family are in fact assigned by the government and Billy not having a choice about living with them only about trusting them is a major story element) it went for the more nuanced and kind of interestingly grimy take that the people who are actually in your life giving a shit about you matter, if you let them, and that you need to stop giving the people who failed to love you power over your happiness.

Which is not a bad premise at all! As messages for a movie about a kid being sent to a group home go, that's the most upbeat you could possibly get and still be tied to reality.

The Vasquez couple are written and played well in these terms too because they really, genuinely care, and are making so much effort, but as system graduates themselves they never had competent parenting modeled for them and god does it show.

And the mental health problems of the kids who got enough characterization to have them were similarly...realistic in a best-case-scenario sort of way.

But! Still with the but! Even though they pulled off a lot of this fairly touchy premise rather well, there's a crack in the foundation that makes the whole movie kind of collapse on a thematic level.

Because the movie (following the prologue introducing the villain's backstory) opens with a juicy emotional hook where small Billy is separated from his mother at a Christmas fair and never sees her again.

Cut to some years later, establishing status quo scene, he's a Troubled Youth rebelling against the system in an endless quest to find his mother and go home. He is committing minor felonies to get access to police information about women surnamed Batson so he can go to their houses because eventually one of them has to be his mom.

His case worker after he's picked up again refers to his mother as 'someone who clearly didn't want you,' which Billy rejects as bullshit, and he's valid! Because that is not what you say when you have actual information. That's a surmise. That's a sentence that says Child Protective Services and the police couldn't find her either.

Especially because you don't immediately chuck a kid into foster care because he's found unattended. Maybe you do that later, after a lengthy period of oversight, depending on his mom's reaction to having him returned and her race and socioeconomic status and apparent mental health and so forth. But you don't just not contact her, and you definitely don't refuse to tell the kid about the result once you have.

The only normal situation where an accessible record exists of a kid's original parentage but it's denied to the kid is in sealed adoptions, which are a formal procedure that clearly didn't happen here. There is every indication in this opening sequence that his mom was never found.

Which means she's a missing person. Either because they located the correct Billy Batson and his adult never came back to their house (which would suggest foul play or some other drama) or because despite being old enough to be in school and knowing his own name, no one could find evidence that Billy existed prior to turning up at that street carnival.

Which would constitute a very mysterious situation! What is he, from a cult? Another dimension? Did someone (in the social worker's proposed scenario, Billy's mom) erase all record of her kid somehow? Was magic involved?

So: the way we're introduced to this scenario, there's a legitimate weird mystery here that none of the adults in Billy's life care enough about to do anything but tell him to write it off, the way they have. That his missing person clearly did it on purpose.

Billy's being ridiculous because if what he's trying would work then he wouldn't need to do it; his social worker could have arranged a meeting years ago. So it's a useless self-destructive behavior he needs to let go. But he's valid, in that he's being very obviously failed by the system and is doing the only thing he can think of to try to address his situation for himself.

And then! The Big Reveal is that his mom has been living under her maiden name in the same city as him this whole time.

Which the Gamer Kid Who Turns Out In This Scene To Be A Hacker (he's about 10) learned by. Breaking into a federal database.

So he goes to her house and it turns out. She'd been a teen mother and her babydaddy walked out after marrying her, and her parents cut her off, and she was depressed and felt like a bad mother so. When she saw the cops had her kid, she just walked away. And she wants to believe he's been happy and better off without her.

And the emotional arc of the film rests on how Billy comes to terms with this. With the fact that his past will never take him back and he has to learn to find joy in himself and his present situation and his future.

Having let go of that idea, he's able to emotionally commit to his gaggle of foster siblings and realize that unlike the villain, who was obsessed with punishing the people who never loved or accepted him, or the wizard who was focused on finding The Perfectly Worthy Champion, what you needed to be good and not lost was to be part of a mutually supportive group, like the wizard Shazam was before he and his siblings were betrayed. And then they can be a superhero team, woo!

And that part is actually depicted fairly well, all things considered!

But the problem is that the audience, to vibe with this properly, has to roll with the revelation that Billy was wrong to cling to the mystery of his vanished, beloved mother and the fantasy of going home again.

We have to be willing to participate in the idea that the Resistant Child Subjected To Foster Care was in the wrong.

And he wasn't! He wasn't wrong! His understanding of the situation was flawed but it should not have been flawed in this manner.

Because this scenario as it's depicted doesn't make any sense. The cops do not just keep your kid without following up if you fail to collect him from the baggage claim. CPS does not fail to provide a kid with the readily available evidence that he's been voluntarily surrendered to them, when he keeps running off trying to go home.

Why would they do that, after all? Billy's misbehavior was a huge hassle for them. They gained nothing by denying him access to his mother and the information about her that was, you recall, sitting totally available in a government database that could be hacked by a random 10 year old asian-american orphan. They just...made their own lives harder for no reason, while extending the suffering of a child in their care.

If the cops tried to return him back when and she said 'no i left him with you on purpose please keep him' maybe she gets prosecuted for child abandonment and maybe not, but either way, billy would know about it.

But if the screenwriters had made it clear early on that this information had been offered to him and he'd chosen not to believe it, they couldn't get a proper Reveal at the end because it would just be Billy being unable to continue pretending something the audience had known not to believe all along.

And they couldn't cram a good reason for the scenario they'd set up into the space they'd accorded it.

So they were just like, it's fine, if we cram enough cliches into this space people will react to the familiarity and go 'ah yes i know this one' and go along with it, and not notice that this isn't an actual coherent reply to the question that was set up an hour ago and therefore is emotionally unsatisfying somehow.

Anyway this is an important storytelling guideline: if you put in a mystery to control either the actual plot or, even worse, the emotional storyline, that mystery and its resolution have to make internal sense.

If you pull the Real Situation out of your ass, and it's not a matter of red herrings or That One Fact you didn't have that makes all the rest fit together differently, but in fact no one involved could have figured this out and especially if the people who did say this in the first place had no good basis for it, but still get narratively awarded the Correct trophy in a way that contributes to the thematic climax so the audience has to care. Then that will not get good results. It will make it hard to deliver on your intended themes.

Some people will not notice or care! This is true! But a lot of people will, and you'll get enough of a better punch even with the other folks, if the setup and denouement fit together properly and don't require reaching, to matter.

And when people do notice at all, rather than their naturally flowing along with the climax you're steering toward and experiencing A Story, there will be a tendency to notice you standing there placing roadsigns toward the Intended Emotional Response, and call you a hack.

People call out plotholes way too vigorously sometimes, so I want to be clear: it's not the lack of supporting logic I mind. It's that the active presence of illogic, of what's presented as a chain but is broken along its length, means the central character arc intersects with the core theme in a noticeably forced way. Which is bad craftsmanship on a meaningful level.

There is a loss of cohesion where you cannot satisfactorily resolve how the scenario we were initially shown came to be superimposed over the revealed truth, because that relationship between elements is very important to making a 'revelation' storyline land, you know?

In this case it's particularly vexing to me because the last-minute asspull and its thematic weight reaches back around and at the last minute moves the whole movie thematically to the other side of the line wrt whether it's approaching Billy, our protagonist, as a subject with whom we're supposed to identify or an object whom we're supposed to observe.

It makes all the high-school-freshman-posing-as-adult gags retroactively less funny because we were now more explicitly laughing at him, and takes a lot of the depth out of the emotionally sincere moments.

Up to that point I had really appreciated how, despite wavering that way, Shazam! hadn't actually fallen to the MCU Spiderman temptation to dehumanize its protagonist. Which seems to arise out of this weird tendency I've noticed to assume the natural sentiment of adults toward adolescents is bemused contempt, and that therefore if they ask their audience of paying grownups to empathize too closely with a teen hero instead of setting him and his Immaturity up as a clown for our amusement, they'll get themselves banished to the Children's Fiction ghetto.

And, of course, if they'd been fully committed to one side or the other of 'Billy is a protagonist the viewer relates to closely' or 'Billy is a protagonist the viewer relates to distantly,' they wouldn't have gotten snarled up about how much information to hand over when.

Committing to either option (giving us only as much information as Billy had and constructing a story that was solid from a being-Billy angle or giving us more information than Billy and operating confidently in the realm of dramatic irony) could have worked quite well. But because of the mixed signals and unstable narrative distance, they wound up with a distinctly weakened finale.

#hoc est meum #in real life things happen that you have no good reason to expect all the time #but in real life we know they happened for some kind of reason as in #causality exists and even in situations where we can't dig into the chain #we have cause to understand that it's there #in fiction they happened because they'd be convenient #so the rules of what information can be available and how you frame new information being revealed exist #to keep the audience from feeling jerked around #you have to earn people's trust and if you lose it #that limits the kind of results you can get #when writing fiction one of your tools is the reader's mind #if you give them reason not to allow you free use of it your composition contracts #screenwriting #shazam #and like in this case there's a profound betrayal of the protagonist and thus of the audience who connected with him wrapped up in it

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