#hell nah Tsumugi you aren't special for successfully framing someone to avoid execution

[louisetteschuunishenanigans]

(Apparently y'all liked when I posted about Danganronpa and I got this hc I want out there so here comes the food guys)

Is it likely we'll ever get another Danganronpa game? Nah

Do I want this nonexistent game to be about Rantaro's killing game and do I know exactly how it must end anyway? Hell yeah

Of course it's entirely possible that the Ultimate Survivor thing isn't a unique case in the in-universe DR franchise and it's just a way of bringing back a fan-favourite candidate like they probably do on reality shows.

But wouldn't it be MUCH more fun if Rantaro alone got that title bc he really was the sole survivor of his game, in what could have been a first in the series?

The thing with a series being as formulaic as DR is that the same structure becomes expected. NDRV3 Trial 1 worked so well bc according to The Formula, everyone can die EXCEPT the protagonist, so throwing that out the window is an instant shocker so long as it's decently executed. And while I have my issues with Kaede's plan and her just jumping to killing the mastermind like that (idk it just felt ooc for her to resort to killing so soon), I can't deny the twist was very well prepared and all that stealth foreshadowing HURTS on second watch.

So when all the shit in NDRV3 Chapter 5 happened, no one, not a single mf believed that could be it, because according to The Formula, all the actually important lore shows up on Trial 6 alongside the Mastermind, and the game can't end before that reveal. No one believed in the unsolvable case, because The Formula says there is always one culprit and there can never be a wrong answer. This, even when actually having more than one culprit would actually make a more interesting story as previously stated.

But with Rantaro's game? The fact that he survives isn't too bad a foregone conclusion when we still have to discover HOW he survived, who else was with him and how they died. But what of Trial 6, when everything about the Mastermind (Tsumugi/Junko) and the meta aspects is foregone conclusion?

So... How about we just skip Chapter 6 entirely? What if we overthrew The Formula by stopping at Trial 5, if there is nothing more shocking a Trial 6 could possibly do?

So if Rantaro really is the sole survivor of his game. Okay, the idea of the protagonist soloing a trial against the Mastermind is actually pretty awesome, but isn't there a more plausible explanation as to why only one person would walk out of a killing game alive?

Imagine going through an intense trial, but finally coming close to the truth and uncovering the killer's plot, and getting to the vote... Only, for the first time in the franchise, to see the result be WRONG. To realize the game pulled a little unreliable narrator on us and the "truth" was just the narrative the very character we play as wanted us to follow. To witness what a mass execution is like at last and for it to unveil Rantaro as the first blackened to have successfully gotten away with it.

And for the game to just. End there, without the expected Trial 6.

Now imagine replaying through that chapter knowing the end and picking up on all the subtle hints of what Rantaro was doing behind everyone's back, even ours. Worse, replaying the game and following the Ultimate Adventurer's character development along the whole game now knowing it all culminates with him finding the resolve to betray all the other students.

Oh how cruel and utterly beautiful that would be </3

(Bonus headcanon I got while reviewing this before posting: What if that game introduced red herring truth bullets, as in clues you collect that are never meant to be used at all in the trial and just here to misguide the player, so an added difficulty is now picking out the right clues that will lead to the truth. But in hindsight, the final trial turns out to have been about picking your clues to derail the trial and push YOUR narrative when some of the "red herrings" were clues that could've exposed you)