#on a side note: i also believe that Nagito's desire for a talentless world

[fala-alfredo-pasta]

One of the most weirdest things to me about the fandom is the idea that Nagito would be extra-warm towards Hajime upon waking up, due to Hajime retaining all of Kamukura's talents. To me I think it would be the total opposite. I think there'd actually be a lot of angst deriving from just how alienated Nagito feels around this Hajime, who's not quite the same person he fell in love with anymore. Taking into account what 2.5 implies about his true feelings about talent (that deep down he's always resented what talent has done to the world and his life), I think it could be especially aggravating if Hajime tried to act as if there's no power imbalance between the two.

"...Stop pretending like I'm still your equal. I'm a talentless freak with a brain that's falling to bits, and I'll be gone in a few years. You're the most talented ingenious human being on Earth, and you've probably got a life expectancy of like 250. You don't get to reap all the benefits of being the Ultimate Hope, and then act like you're still an average joe just because you had some profound revelation in a computer world about how okay it is being talentless."

Yeah I feel that. Though it's understandable fandom would run with the "Talent-sexual" Nagito joke given how much he fawns over those with talent and to then apply the logic to "the more talents = the more Nagito will like you". The moment in the anime when he's overwhelmed with adoration simply being in Izuru's presence for the first time also doesn't quite help in this regard, though pretty sure that was put in there more so for fanservice and comic relief.

Funnily enough, as you mentioned, the anime also brought into question how much sincerity Nagito's love for talent truly is. So then it makes you think--if Nagito actually resents talent, then applying the earlier logic: wouldn't the more talents = the more Nagito resents you? Both things are somewhat of a flawed logic, but it's interesting to explore that side of Nagito because it really paints a picture of how deeply entrenched his delusion with hope and talent are. How many layers of denial and repression do you have to be in order to act so sincerely and consistently with your fake ideal that talent=hope and the Ultimates are destined to bring forth that hope? To the point that you circled back around and gaslight yourself into believing it to be a fundamental truth?

At what point did that resentment arise? Did it grow alongside his admiration for talent? Every time he felt his resentment towards talent did he push it back down with positive thoughts of talent instead to try to "look on the brightside/find the silver lining"? Did it get to the point that his resentment was so incredible that he had to think talent positive thoughts 24/7 just to keep it at bay? Is he doing this because otherwise all he'll have left will be hatred, despair, and a bleak view of the world being cruel and unfair? And he'll constantly be wondering why some are blessed with advantage and prodigy while others are seemingly born to suffer and stay stagnant despite their best efforts? Why does the world continue to favor some and crush everyone else? What has everyone done to deserve the life they have?

Honestly, this just further proves that Nagito's obsession with hope and talent are his last ditch attempts at giving himself purpose in a world cursing his existence. Ironically, this unhealthy coping mechanism is the better of two mindsets he chose to follow. Really goes to show that Nagito, despite everything he says, has not given up on himself if he's trying THIS damn hard to keep up the facade and have a reason to keep going everyday. And this is the reason why that OVA is my favorite episode from all the anime as that one line adds so much more nuance to Nagito's already complicated ideology.

Sorry, I sorta derailed things to ramble about Nagito but what did you expect from a Nagito simp after all? He's been rotting my brain for over four years now. But to come back on topic, this post-game Nagito with his looser chokehold on hope and talent would most likely have to contend once again with that resentment, but now with a weaker shield. As such, I do think he'd have mixed feelings about Izuru/Hajime. Part of him would probably sympathize with Hajime's pain from the surgery and the fact that he'll never quite be only Hajime anymore. Izuru is and will always be there. Learning to live with the permanent changes to his body and mind is something Nagito knows intimately--way before he became a remnant. That being said, well....Hajime did get the best case scenario for his outcome. Even some of his emotions returned despite the physical improbability of it happening. And yeah--he gets to keep all those useful talents now too. He's also in better physical health than most of their other classmates and his real name isn't inherently associated with Ultimate Despair. He could go back into society looking the way he does with his legal name and no one would even know he was ever involved with Hope's Peak.

So yeah, that sympathy Nagito has would not be enough to squash down his resentment. I can't imagine him fawning over Hajime post-game given everything that's happened and especially after finding out how Izuru was created (as I talked about in a previous ask). There will definitely be an adjustment period where in Nagito may even be passively hostile towards Hajime. But I think a part of Nagito--the part that white knuckled that silver lining for talent---would try its best to look past that and accept Hajime as a sincere friend. It's just going to take a while for him to get there. But he'll try. Doesn't mean he won't be a snarky passive aggressive guy through out it though. I do think he'll be more blunt about his honest feelings towards others whether they like it or not. Talent be (slightly) damned.

[hcpefulmarshmallow]

Misconception: he seems to dislike "normal people" (without talents), but I think deep inside he wants to be normal too.....

Sore Wa Chigau Yo!

Strap in, kids, because this one’s kind of a doozy. I’m about to tell you two entirely opposing accounts of what goes on inside Nagito’s head, and rest assured, they’re both mutually exclusive, and one as valid as the other. 

 Let’s start with the side of him that absolutely, definitely puts Ultimate Talent above all else, just because it’s the side we see more. I’m going to be quite short about this because I think about every other user, as well as the game itself, has covered this more concisely than my drivel machine of a brain.

 Obviously, Nagito absolutely values hope above all else. (What is hope in his eyes? We’ll come back to that later.)

 He would die to bring about a little more hope in the world. 

 He would also let others make the choice to die for hope. 

 In almost every scenario, he would put the wants of an Ultimate above the needs of someone who is talentless, as he sees Ultimates as being in a class of their own, far above everyone else. He has a deep, devoted, platonic love for such people. 

 He wants to see “hope and despair collide”; and for a stronger, more shining hope to come out on top. 

 He believes that strong hope will overcome weak hope and despair.

 He believes that anyone who is talentless should be honoured to do anything for an Ultimate, as that’s assisting hope by proxy, in a sense. 

 He’s no hypocrite, and upholds these tough standards for himself. 

 Nagito considers his luck to be the only special thing about him; and even that, he doesn’t consider a talent. 

 At absolutely no point to I want to minimise the importance of this particular part of his characterisation, so please keep all this in mind as I bring up some lesser-acknowledged stuff. 

 We start with his character music. As much as Nagito claims talent is all that matters, Megumi Ogata, his Japanese VA, is out here spilling all his tea and I love it. She refers to the song Zettai Kibou Birthday as how he feels on the “outside”, and Zanzakura -Zanka- as how he feels on the “inside”. 

 ZKB is about meeting a mysterious someone on campus who he was “born to meet”, and the situation gets quite sexual from there. However, the entire song is metaphoric (remember how I referred to him as a great, big virgin?) It nods to his deep love of hope, and desire to be close to another person, seeing the two as one and the same - it doesn’t necessarily mean he has a literal hope fetish. You have to look pretty close, however, to see anything besides that. 

 Zanka is a much sadder and simpler song. He compares himself to cherry blossoms, which are, in Japan, symbolic of mortality and the ephemeral nature of life. The flowers themselves only bloom for about a week, sometimes less depending on the conditions around them; but cherry blossoms are seen as being at their most beautiful, not in full bloom, but as they begin to wither and die. He also sings the line, 

“ To live an ordinary life, and die together with you / Oh, if that could come true ”

 Call me crazy, but that doesn’t sound like someone who is desperate to die, even for hope, at any given minute.

 There’s also the matter of the OVA to consider. This disaster of canon may be more intentional than we first considered. In case you missed it, here’s the full episode. Otherwise, I could harp all day on various things people have acknowledged before, so I’ll narrow it down to two key points:

 1 - This doesn’t have much to do with the question at hand, but it’s good to note. In a world where he’s supposed to be “untalented”, Nagito retains a somewhat warped version of his luck, where he experiences bad luck so that others can experience good. My takeaway from this is that this points back to him feeling like his luck is the only thing that makes him special; but also that he still carries a lot of guilt for the hardships his luck has caused others, and if he had a say in the matter, he’d be the only one getting hurt, and would find a way to harness it to help others. I could do a whole other thousand word essay on this, to be honest. 

 2 - Due to the traumatic nature of his death in the Neo World Program, Nagito’s mind creates a world where he can feel safe and comfortable. You’d think that, for someone who supposedly was willing to kill to become Ultimate Hope, he might make a world where that dream can come true. But what does this incredibly intelligent, creative young man do with a whole world at his fingertips? He goes to high school. 

 He. Goes. To. High. School.

 And it’s not even some super special high school on the moon or whatever. All the faces we see are familiar to him. He gets to be with the people he’s already come to know, except this time around, they like him. These people he felt he could only look up to before have become his friends. He even expresses a desire to live in a world without talent, presenting it as some kind of barrier between people; as something that, without, no one would be better than the other, and there’d be fewer roadblocks to happiness. 

 After that world is destroyed, Nagito expresses a little bit of worry that perhaps somebody saw it, and when put at ease, says something to the effect of, “That’s just not who I am.” If that’s the case, however, then why did that world exist in the first place; of all the things his mind could have made? Granted, not everything in it is necessarily literal. He implies in-game that part of the reason he was drawn to Hajime was because he feels as if they’re alike. It’s later revealed that Hajime didn’t have a talent originally. To Nagito, he had found someone he could be on the same level with; someone with actual potential to understand him. That seems like perhaps one of the most likely meanings behind the world his mind created. 

 Now, look, if you’ve been on this blog for more than two minutes, you know exactly where this is going next. Nagito’s finally confided in someone that he’s dying, and what does he say to Hajime about it? Insert screenshot I bring up at every given opportunity because it breaks my heart and I like to suffer, I guess.

 There’s nothing in this world to bring out a person’s priorities like the Grim Reaper himself. When you don’t have much time left, you want to spend it on what truly matters. While Nagito has made it very clear that he wants his actual death to be meaningful and contribute to a greater good; he also makes it clear in his own, roundabout way just what he wanted to fill the space between now and then with.

 You’ve probably noticed a bit of a disconnect happening here. The docile doormat who would suck hope’s dick for a kick in the face, the Laugh™ with dreams of becoming Ultimate Hope, and the smol cinnamon roll who’d live in a library if he could and would sell his soul for a hug. What is truth? What is acting? What is fanservice? Is Mun reading way too into things? How can so many different things exist inside one character?

 Answers: all of it; none of it; some of it tbh; probably; the same way anyone else is capable of feeling extremes. Nagito is a very cleverly put-together, very complex character. It isn’t right or fair to say that one side of him matters more than the other. It seems as if there’s nothing to tie together his many personas, and I’ve spent a long time thinking about how a someone could want both life and death, and I don’t think my answer will shock you. 

 Hope. 

 Before you roll your eyes at me, just listen. Ask about anyone what hope means, and they’ll probably say, “a positive outlook for the future” or “a feeling of excitement and expectation” or they’ll start crying and that’s how you spot a DR fan. Nagito, however, has a very specific yet very vague definition of the word, and that’s the key to how I play his character. 

“ Hope is a positive force… Everything created by it is an absolute good! ”

 I couldn’t find my screenshot of this bit oops. An absolute good. In my mind, the only way to make sense of everything he says, is to break down a few barriers here. Hope is good, but you know what else is good? Love. Honesty. Companionship. Joy. Laughter. As soon as I started looking at them as different forms of hope, I started to really find my way with this character. Remember how I mentioned that, in Zettai Kibou Birthday, he feels absolute hope from getting intimate with the certain “someone”?

 Does he want to see hope and despair collide in a magnificent show of fireworks? Yes. Does he also want the pedestrian pleasure of just holding someone’s hand and watching fireworks? Also yes. He wants the splendid and the simple; and while certain circumstances may bring out one side over the other, who honestly couldn’t say the same? That they’d react extremely to an extreme series of events, and calmly to a calm one?

 Remember, Nagito is deeply traumatised, was raised without proper guidance or parenting, suffers from more than one illness that messes up the body and mind, is facing down the end of his life, and has no family, friends or support system. Yes, he dislikes talentless people. Yes, he kind of wants to be one. Yes, he’d rather die than be one. Nothing he feels is going to be straightforward. He has a painful past, a messy present and a future he’ll never have all going on in that mind of his. Of course he wants it all. 

TL;DR: It’s not enough to say absolutely one way or the other. Nagito is a very complex character with opposing views and strong core values he clings to in order to make sense of a senseless world.