#then i had a fuckin epiphany and realized “hey why don't we just have Kinji attack and knock out Kanata the same way he does to Kizuna?”

[laugtherhyena]

Other than being a waste of what could have been great character development and making it so that Kanade still won in her eyes despite not winning the trial is that this actively worked towards making case 3 even more detached from the narrative because no one who was largely affected by it survived for those horrors to retain relevancy in the middle of the chaos that is the Utsuroshima killing game.

Yeah, Kanade's reveal as a disgusting serial killer was a shock to everyone in the trial, but that's about it. None of the remaining cast was largely affected by that and so once both twins and Setsuka are out of the picture the entire case and Kanade's real nature as a whole is barely mentioned again through the rest of the game, at most you see Iroha saying "wow Kanade was sure scary" and that's pretty much everything.

Everything that Setsuka's brutal BDA, that enormous trial and insane reveal that Kanade was a manipulative serial killer with a kill count of over 60 people that managed to break her sister's mind to the point she became an obedient puppet amounted to in the grand scheme of things was the remaining cast thinking back to it every once in a while and going like "damn that was crazy"

It's just, a huge fucking waste no?? If you're going to go all out and make an insane case and plot twist like that at least make it so that it doesn't fall into obscurity the second Ch4 rolls around.

If Hibiki had survived then this would have solved the problem a bit because while case 3 still would have been completed detached from Sdra2's storyline it would have retained relevancy since Hibiki was largely affected by all that and actively going through a character arc healing from all the trauma, and really, she was the only character that could have done that because if anyone else suddenly became really depressed over the twin's or Setsuka's death that would be jarring because those 3 weren't very close to anyone else even though Setsuka was generally liked by the rest of the cast.

But alas, Linuj decided to sacrifice that route in favor of a double execution which although undeniably memorable, was it really worth it when it ultimately meant nothing in the game's overarching story?

Concept that could probably improve Chapter 3:

So, we all know how much Kanade loves to lord her superior intellect and competence over Hibiki.

Well, imagine this for me: during the twins' "synchronized" stabbing of Setsuka, imagine Hibiki's stab lagging a couple of seconds or so behind Kanade's stab, thereby making Kanade the sole culprit behind Satsuka's murder.

Kanade could only despair, upon Monocrow explaining the truth, and learning that the incompetence of her older sister is allowing her to survive, while she, the better twin, is going to die alone, for the same reason.

YEAH, I've seen some anons talk about this idea with the Mod of ASOOT (A Student out of Time) in the past. And honestly, I feel like a lot of Chapter 3 could've been vastly improved if Hibiki was allowed to survive or even just given the spotlight for her role in killing Setsuka, even if it wasn't of her own free will thanks to Kanade cause come on, that would fuck her up pretty badly to find out that your own sister, whom you trusted the most, was actually abusing you and killing everyone you ever cared about to the point that she uses you like a literal puppet. But no, it has to be all about Kanade and Hibiki gets almost zero exploration in her character and how she feels about this even before her own death. Hell, Kanade even dies getting EXACTLY WHAT SHE WANTED, watching her sister die in Despair right before her eyes even when they got caught and punished as the blackened. Like, fuck that, that gives Kanade zero sense of Despair when the point of the killing games in Danganronpa is that NO ONE wins if you actively partake in it or don't rebel against it, whether you die as a victim or a killer. As a victim, you die and lose any chance of escaping with the people you've gotten to know, and as a killer, not only would you have to live with the rest of your life that you killed someone and sacrificed everyone else in the process to survive, with the truth of the Tragedy, many motives would be moot cause it may not even apply in an apocalyptic world so surviving as the blackened can literally just be For Nothing. And seeing a POS like Kanade get everything she wants no matter what just fucking sucks to see as a player. And not in a good, angsty way but in a, "Well that pissed me off and ruined everything this character was and could've been, I feel robbed!" Bonus points if it wastes another character process!

Which is why this simple change would have at least salvage SOME of the original trial, even though I personally think it'd be best to scrap the whole chapter entirely and start over since this chapter has little to no connection to the overarching plot, which became a detriment to how the rest of the story is told. Not only would it be more cathartic to see Kanade get her comeuppance without losing Hibiki, who was starting to have some great character development that all went down the drain thanks to this trial, but the idea that Hibiki not being perfect and yet surviving is a great "fuck you" to Kanade's egotistical "I'm better and talented than ALL of you" bullshit that "should've" let her win. Her so-called incompetence saves her from getting executed while Kanade, who was under the belief that she would've won either way up to that point, slowly realizes that she's going to die without getting any sort of satisfaction in having her sister be all hers, in life and in death. Not to mention it adds a bit of evil to Monocrow for purposely lying to Kanade's face all for the sake of giving her Despair in her final moments, tricking her into being the only blackened of this trial and that the so called double-blackened option was just to keep the façade up until the final moment. It would piss her off SO much and she'd curse everyone out as she's finally dragged off to her execution and killed, losing her life to Despair and her own hubris in thinking that this plan would ever work.

Chapter 3's trial is stupid but at least if this fake out twist happened, I could've had some catharsis in Kanade's death AND Hibiki would live for another chapter, with everyone hopefully helping her heal and support her (although since it's Chapter 4 and what happens next, it'd be a miracle if the group got their shit together to keep an eye on Hibiki).