#pretty much all of the main cast. possessed and almost killed will... nearly killed max and el etc

[finnickodaiir]

Not the same ppl who are against Bi Mike and act like Bi Mike truthers are illiterate being Henry Creel apologists 😭

[oumakokichi]

So what exactly happens in chapter 3? I know that Angie started a student council, but I dont know what the motive was or why the culprit decided to kill at that moment.

Chapter 3 is, as per the usual DR tradition, kind of a hugemess. It has its fun moments, of course! But motive-wise it’s definitely theweakest, in my opinion. The given motive is interesting in theory, per se, butit’s actually not the reason the culprit killed at all. In fact, the culprit’sreal motive for killing is really just… oh boy, how do I put it.

I can explain what happens a little more in-depth, but I’llgo ahead and put it under a read more, just in case!

Basically, Angie’s Religious Student Council started takingshape as early as Chapter 2, but it didn’t really fully form until Chapter 3.In Chapter 2, Angie began showing a lot more influence over Himiko about midwaythrough the chapter, taking her under her wing and “converting” her to herreligion. The word change is so sudden that the word “brainwashing” is actuallybrought up several times, and Angie always avoids the subject whenever anyone asksher what she did to Himiko.

This, combined with the strong implications in her FTEs thather art talent works in a similar way to Mitarai’s, seems to suggest that shedoes “convert” people to her religion by showing them her artwork andessentially “painting” them the picture of god that they want to see the most,as she says her god has a different form for everyone. Himiko is the first onetaken under her wing in part because Himiko herself is seeking an escape from reality,because she doesn’t want to confront either the horrible things that arehappening around her or her own grief and trauma, and in part because Angieprobably saw her as a relatively easy target.

By Chapter 3, Gonta, Tsumugi, Kiibo, and Tenko also “convert”to Angie’s religion, giving them enough members to declare themselves a “ReligiousStudent Council,” whose interest isn’t in trying to escape outside but insteadis in a “peaceful school life.” Tenko only joins in order to keep a closer eyeon Himiko, because she’s worried about the amount of influence Angie has onher, but she pretends to be on pretty good terms with Angie for the first partof the chapter.

Gonta and Tsumugi, meanwhile, seem to have been taken in bypretty much the same methods as Himiko was. Where Angie told Himiko that hergod was young and handsome, she tells Gonta that his is like a kind and nurturinggrandmother. As for Tsumugi, her god has “black hair and red eyes” (a possiblereference to any number of DR characters, but my money is on Kamukura).

There are a few reasons I doubt Tsumugi was taken in nearlyas much as Gonta or Himiko, but I’m not sure how far you want to be spoiled, soI won’t go too far into depth. As for Kiibo, I’m pretty sure he joined mostlydue to wanting to feel more “human” himself. By taking an interest in humanreligion, it was a way for him to show that he was also an “ordinary student”like the rest of them.

In any case, Angie’s Religious Student Council takes theforefront in Chapter 3. With so many people backing her up, Angie feelscomfortable enough to say that they’re going to start enforcing some measuresto ensure that they all have a peaceful school life. No one is forced to jointhem, per se… but it becomes clear very early on that non-student councilmembers won’t get the same benefits as the student council themselves.

They set up a curfew, much like Celes’ own suggestion backin dr1 that no one leave their rooms at nighttime. But student council membershave full privileges to walk around whenever they want, at whatever hours theywant. It’s only non-student council members who are told to stay in their rooms,the reason being that they haven’t actually agreed to cooperate with everyone’s“peaceful school life.”

This sort of authoritative behavior gets taken up to the maxwhen the Monokumerz come by later on to deliver another remember light. Therewas one earlier on in the chapter which the group did use, but upon thedelivery of a second one later on, Angie actually takes the light and crushesit underfoot, saying that “they don’t need memories of the outside worldanymore because they’re all going to live peacefully in the school.” Despitethe fact that her motivations are largely driven by self-preservation, thisscene was actually quite interesting since it’s true that the desire to getoutside is the main motivating factor for most of the murders, not only inndrv3 but in DR as a whole. Not using the remember lights isn’t actually such abad idea in itself.

As for the actual motive presented in the chapter, that’swhere things start to get weird. While most of the motives in ndrv3 feel morestrongly paralleled with dr1’s motives, I’d say Chapter 3’s feels more like ansdr2 motive. The Monokumerz tell all the cast that there’s going to be a “transferstudent”—then tack on the fact that this “transfer student” is actually goingto be one of their deceased classmates. They say that they can pick whoever theywant to resurrect, but only one person. Then they give them a ritual handbook,to tell them how to carry it out.

All the characters express their disbelief, but theMonokumerz assure them that it’s 100% possible, and that they really canresurrect someone. Whether they mean it in the literal sense of the word, orwhether the meaning is a little trickier (which I think is the case, judging bysome of the later chapters in ndrv3 and some of the foreshadowing with theMonokumerz themselves) is hard to judge. Either way though, Chapter 3 as awhole deals a lot with very occult and religious motifs and themes.

Angie, of course, takes the decision of who to resurrectinto her own hands, as the leader of the Religious Student Council. Of the fourpeople who’ve died, they choose Amami, and Angie begins holing herself up inher research lab shortly afterwards in order to prepare for the ritual. Her labis one of the only ones which actually can be locked even though she discoveredit while she was still alive, because she specifically asked for a key in orderto work, stating that she can’t “work as god’s vessel” while other people arewatching usually.

And then we have… why the murders actually took place. As Imentioned earlier, they happened for reasons pretty much entirely unrelated tothe “resurrection” motive, or even the Religious Student Council itself. Themost that can be said is that Korekiyo’s personal motive are religious innature—but that’s about it.

Mostly, he kills because he was always a potential threat,and in Chapter 3 he finally saw an opportunity. He wanted to kill one of the girlsunder the guise of the kagonoko ritual, a ritual specified in a book from his researchlab which supposedly allows for communication with spirits. He set up all thepreparations in advance to make it possible to kill someone in secret duringthat ritual, and Angie walked in on him setting it up while walking through theschool at night. She heard the sound of him sawing and grinding at thefloorboards, walked in on him, and he realized that he needed to silence her ifhe wanted to get away with the murder he’d originally wanted to commit.

Basically, Angie was collateral damage in the same waySaionji was in sdr2. After knocking her unconscious with a plank of wood fromthe floorboards, Korekiyo taped up her head injury, carried her back to herresearch lab, and killed her there with the katana from his own lab. He thenused it to create a locked room by thrusting it into one of the wax figuresAngie had made and tried to make it look as though the murder could only havebeen committed by one of the Religious Student Council members.

Later on, during the investigation for Angie’s murder, hebrings up the suggestion of “trying to talk to Angie’s spirit,” in order to goback to his original plan of killing during the kagonoko ritual. Originally,Himiko volunteers for it, but Tenko steps in, saying she wants Himiko to have achance to say goodbye to Angie as her friend. During the course of the ritual,once the lights are out, he jumped on the floorboards that he’d prepared andslammed Tenko’s body up into a sickle that he’d taped to the top of the cagecovering her, which jammed its way into her neck and killed her instantly.

His reasons for this are… uh, well, because he wanted to “reunite”with his deceased sister. And it goes a lot darker than that. He wanted to sendher “female friends” in the afterlife—by killing them. As long as they werepolite enough, any of the girls would do (the only girls he says weren’tqualified at the end of the Chapter 3 trial were Maki and Miu). He’s confirmedin the Chapter 3 trial to have killed almost100 girls for this reason, saying that he was “almost there.”

He wanted desperately to reunite with his sister because hewas in love with her. It’s gross and it’s not portrayed as some romantic ormisguided thing by the narrative, thankfully. Pretty much all the charactersare shocked and disgusted when they find out. But it’s still really, reallymessed up. He says he and his sister “swore their love to each other,” thatthey were “like lovers,” and that their “forbidden love” had “nothing to dowith being siblings.” So it’s pretty undeniably just incest.

It’s not really clarified whether he was in love with hissister or if the feeling was mutual. All that’s really mentioned is that hissister was older than him. Also, during the trial, he definitely seems to believe he’s being possessed by herspirit. While I doubt such a thing is actually possible considering there’s noforeshadowing for it or indications, I will say it seems like Korekiyo isdefinitely somewhat unstable near the end of his trial, as he begins to “communicate”with her more and more often whenever he takes off his mask. By the end of the trial,he’s a screaming, shaking mess, and he and his “sister” yell at the group to “apologize”repeatedly, like a mantra.

This brings me back to… well, Chapter 3 being a mess. Ithas parts that are a lot of fun, and I will say the actual case this time wasprobably the best one in terms of actual mystery-solving out of all threegames. But the motive given by the Monokumerz is shaky and not expanded upon,and Korekiyo’s actual motives are horrifying and disgusting, and I know a lotof people (myself included) are uncomfortable with Kodaka even touching on thesubject at all. Again, it’s good that nothing about Korekiyo was portrayed in aforgivable or understandable light, but it’s still territory I’m not sureKodaka should’ve really written about since it’s a very, very sensitive matter.

There’s really not much reason as to why Korekiyo pickedChapter 3 specifically to kill, other than that he saw an opportunity and hewent for it, much like Celes in dr1. Just like Celes, Korekiyo was always apotential threat—he just laid low and bided his time until he felt like hestood a good chance of getting away with it. His own research lab opening up inChapter 3 was probably what he had been waiting for the most, considering thekagonoko ritual book gave him the perfect pretense for committing the kind ofmurder that he wanted to.

That’s… really the gist of it. It’s still a pretty confusingmess no matter how I explain it. Again, I feel like it’s probably the weakestin the game, though that’s pretty normal for DR games, but Korekiyo’s motivesin particular were really, really awful, and it’s one of the few instances I canthink of in which a murder (a double-murder, actually) had absolutely nothingto do with the actual, given motive.

I hope I was able to answer your questions, though! Thanks forstopping by!