#yttd dummies

[doonalli]

The Dummies, Midori, The Banquet, and what it truly means to "be human"

And here we are at the finale. if you haven't seen my previous analyses on the Dummies I recommend you read them before reading this one since i am going in assuming you have. But if not here they are in order; Why Anzu is Important Hayasaka and how humans change Kurumada and trust in your allies Ranmaru: Doubts in Humanity, and Humanity in Doubts Mai and Humanity in Autonomy Hinako; Humanity in Affection and Connection

With that said, let's start talking about the Banquet, Midori and what that says about the dummies' humanity.

At first the Banquet seems like a strange choice for the finale of the chapter, after all, we just went through a whole chapter about proving the humanity of the dummies, yet here they are all killed of one after the other here for the sake of Gin, a human. It comes off as a bit jarring, even seeming like YTTD is going back on its message a bit.

But I’m here to argue that isn’t the case, that the Banquet not only doesn’t conflict with the messaging of the chapter and the game as a whole, but instead works to push it even further to culminate in a perfect ending.

And to start with that, let's talk about one of the key players in the banquet, Midori. In a way Midori is everything it means to not be human, and he himself revels in this inhumanity. Midori has thrown away his own humanity, and this is shown to us in so many different ways, but the main one is the way he treats his own body.

What's particularly interesting about Midori is how unclear the line between what's real and what's fake is when it comes to him, from his relationships with the participants during their pasts, to the constant lies and half truths the tells over the chapter, to his death itself, it's hard to get a grasp on the reality of the situation when it comes to him.

And this of course extends to Midori himself, as he is presented as a mystery ever since Alice told Keiji about his murder, and in the way we don’t quite know if he is human or not until the banquet itself, and even then we don’t know exactly how much of his body is human.

During the Banquet Midori reveals that he has slowly been replacing parts of his body with doll parts, 

And to Midori this is equal to no longer being human, this mentality can only be achieved if you equate humanity to what you physically are, and it's through this that Midori acts as the opposite of what the dummies all stand for,

Where the dummies stand for Humanity not being tied to the physical truth, Midori stands for the opposite notion, that the physical truth stands above all. In his eyes humanity is a weakness, and we see that in how he treats them and the traits that prove humanity.

And so Midori tries to escape it, to escape his own humanity, no need for allies or connections or doubts or fears, all those "human" traits when you can just stand above it all, as some unstoppable force.

Midori is the perfect example of this because he constantly rubs it in your face just how inhuman he is, he does so when he starts spinning his head and when he rocket punches Yabusame and literally asks

And he furthers this mentality with his actions too, because Midori is denying his own humanity, he denies his fear of death, he constantly berates and betrays his allies like Maple or Hinako, he denies others of their choices and autonomy, laughing at their despair and refusing to connect, and even his “affection” for Sou is a twisted, messed up version of what affection is. All of it to dehumanise himself and others.

It's honestly hard to call Midori human after it all, and that's just what Midori wants. That's why Maple’s last act of defiance near the end of the chapter was so important, because it shows us and to Midori that that's all it is, a facade.

Just one small moment where Midori wasn’t in control and that's all it took to show us that he isn’t invincible, and with that the image of a fearless unstoppable force is shattered, and it shows us that he isn’t as above humanity as he thinks he is.

It's important that this happens here because it allows the cast to fight back during the next section, both himself and his ideals.

Midori’s mentality of humanity being defined by what you physically are goes head to head with the Dummies in the banquet, and that's what it's about, it's a battle between Midori, and the Dummies, who are trying to prove their own humanity, with all the ups and downs that come with it.

The banquet itself plays into this too, the hint system draws a straight, clear cut answer on who is a doll and who is a human, using exclusively what they are physically.

And the cast isn’t exempt from doing this too, with many of the first discussions being centred around “who is human?”, whether it be figuring out what the lights mean, questioning whether Midori himself is human, or questioning who among the Dummies is a human.

And it's only when Mai’s hands are revealed to be Midori’s human hands, that the lines start to blur. 

Does Mai having human hands make her "more human"? What if they aren't even hers? Plenty of people use body parts from others in real life too right? It gets you thinking about the line between human and doll and just how fragile and unclear it can be.

And sure we designate Midori as the human here, but later we find out we were wrong, because trying to designate a human through physical traits is wrong. But before that…

After picking a coffin and killing either Hayasaka or Kurumada the next hint reveals a human, Sara tells Midori that he must be afraid as hypothetically there is a 50% chance he dies, but Midori denies he is afraid of dying and picks the coffin anyways, revealing it to be Hinako

This just blurs the lines even more, since up to this point we thought all the dummies were dolls, yet a human was able to sneak in there entirely undetected. Can you really say they're that different if you didn't even realise it at first?

And importantly, as we discuss who Hinako really was, we confirm her humanity, but not through any physical traits like many people tried to do during the banquet, but through a painting and the connection between Alice and the real Hinako.

During the next section we figure out the truth about Midori, and about how he has more doll parts than human, spinning his head all the way around to prove it. Obviously this isn’t something that any human could do, but more importantly it shows us Midori’s inhumanity in an undeniable way, it's so flashy, bold and in your face, that you’d be hard pressed to call him human.

When Sara then stands firm and states that this proves Midori is a doll and Gin is a human she is agreeing to the line that Midori drew and separates Humans and Dolls even further. This goes as far as to picking a red coffin, picking a doll, just to keep Gin the human safe, Midori even calls Sara out on it if she is really alright with picking one of the dummies, and notably Sara’s internal monologue doesn’t question that fact, but instead wondering why Midori is so confident, and why he doesn’t seem to be scared.

Sara is being pushed even further into believing Midori isn’t really human anymore at this point, Questioning if their logic was even correct. Until…

The surviving dummies inspire Sara through their words, and with that, prove their own humanities in their own separate ways, showing Sara and the player that their lives have purpose, have value, and that they are truly human.

On the surface it seems like Sara is simply making a choice to sacrifice the dolls for the sake of a human, and the tragedy of that is the fact these scenes show the truest form of their humanity. There is a reason these scenes are such a focal point in my analysis of each of those characters (Mai, Kurumada, and Hayasaka) and it's because it shows that they are able to make their own choices, for the sake of their allies, despite their contradictory emotions, and that's something that's inherently human. 

We see this when characters like Mishima, Kai, and Kanna all do something similar, and it all just works to prove that fact the dummies aren’t separate from the humans.

So why does this happen? Well to me it shows that despite their efforts, Sara still couldn’t shake her bias, playing right into what the Banquet and Midori want, by dehumanising the dummies.

But it isn’t over and the dummies still have a chance to show their humanity.

Tragically, Sara misses, not knowing at this point that Midori isn’t even in one of the glowing coffins, and Midori now has a free shot that's basically guaranteed to hit Gin, but Midori gives her a chance to talk to Gin, and that confidence ends up being his undoing.

While talking to Gin he mentions Keiji, reminding Sara of her wish she got from signing the consent form. She demands Midori to change it, and after some arguing, he does. Only he picks the #2 coffin, killing Anzu, and it's here where we reach our lowest point, where Sara herself admits that she undeniably sacrificed a doll for the sake of a human.

However it's always darkest before the dawn, and that's true here too, this is the Dummies’ last chance to prove themselves, and they won’t go down without a fight.

Through a discussion the cast figures out that Hinako swapped coffins with Midori before the banquet even began, meaning he is actually in a non-glowing coffin, and through this they are given an actual chance to fight back, because, as Sara rightfully called out, this proves Midori is afraid of death.

Despite his claims otherwise, Midori is scared of death, and because of that he swapped coffins with Hinako out of a fear he’d die outwise.

Midori claims that this doesn’t matter though as no matter what all 3 of the non glowing coffins have dolls inside, meaning the hit will be red no matter what. 

Regardless Sara presses the hint and it ends up blue, meaning that there is a human inside, much to everyone’s surprise.

The fact that Midori believed so strongly that the coffins would end up red only for it to be blue just blurs the lines between these two options even more. The fact that the contents in this coffin are unknown is just the first step in this counterattack.

Before that however, Ranmaru’s coffin is picked, sending Sara to give up, but Q-taro tells her that it's not what she thinks, as Midori is revealed to be struggling with his next choice.

This goes into the war of words against Midori, and the thing about this one is that compared to the other war of words our goal here is to confuse Midori as much as possible. First we refute his claim that Keiji isn’t in the coffin, despite it being blue. Then when he brings up the victim videos we tell him that the Hinako in the video isn’t even the Hinako of the dummies. He reasons out Maple must have told Keiji about the Banquet, and reveals that the coffins designate between human and doll through the collars, as both dolls and humans would be ashes after being cremated.

All these contradictions are designed to blur the lines between red and blue, real and fake, human and doll.

The way Midori doubts a human is in the blue coffin, or the way we bring up how not all the dummies are dolls of people who died, or how he admits that the coffins don’t even tell the content apart by physical traits but instead by the collar put on them.

And by the end we’ve blurred the lines so much that Midori thinks the coffin contains his collar, despite his own claim that he himself would be counted as a doll. All due to Q-taro's trick.

As if Hinako being a Human among the dolls wasn't enough, there has been a doll among the humans the whole time, and no one could tell, not even Midori, who dies before he ever learns the truth.

The fact that a doll of someone could so easily fit in just shows how vague the lines really are. We see just how much a doll can seem like a human, how they can feel and learn and grow like any human, how they laugh and cry and shout like any human. And at that point... was there ever really even a line at all? And this all culminates in the final act of the Banquet, Midori and Sara’s last choices. Midori is now doubting himself,

struggling between the 2 options he has to target, struggling with his conflicting feelings,

 and Sara thinks to herself that Midori has no allies to rely on now,

because he denied that connection, and killed them all himself.

She tells him to choose, to make his own choices now,

and he does, he picks the non glowing coffin… Missing Gin and ultimately dooming himself.

Sara ends up making her choice, choosing Midori’s coffin, and as the drill goes through Midori, he realises just how scared of death he is, but it's too late for him.

We prove his mentality of humanity being decided by physical traits is wrong in this moment, because here, in his final moments, Midori is undeniably human, and even he can’t run away from that.

"I'm a human. Which is why I don't wanna die..."

Unlike somebody such as Rio, who also spent his last moments as a human, Midori doesn’t deserve any sympathy, because he did that to himself. Just like how he denied that connection to his allies like Hinako, and killed them, Midori essentially killed his humanity, or at least tried to, so when he’s backed into a corner he doesn’t get to rely on his allies, and while we’ve proven that his mentality of humanity isn’t right, Midori himself he only realises this right as he is about to die, when it's far too late to go back now.

Through the Banquet and its final choice we prove to not only Midori, but to the cast and ourselves that humanity can’t be defined with just the physical truth, and that's what victory means for the dummies, because if someone who actively threw away his own humanity, with all his rocket punches and spinning head can still struggle with contradictory feelings, can try to rely on his allies, can still be forced to make his own choice, and can truly fear death, then humanity  just can’t be defined by something as simple as how much of your body is a doll, and the lines that seemed to divide that, ceases to exist at all.

================================================================================================ Afterword: So that's it. This set of analyses is finally done. Some of you all might have noticed that this is being released exactly one year after my first Anzu analysis, and I just wanted to thank everyone for reading this with me, the fact that there are people who like and agree with what I have to say is still unbelieveable.

I started this series because I thought the dummies were an underappreciated part of YTTD and 3-1 was underappreciated in general. To me this chapter is just incredible, my favourite bit of fiction ever, and I just wanted to put it into words why I love it so much, and as I wrote this series I only grew to love it more!

I hope I was able to share that love to whoever took the time to read any of my posts, its been an incredible time, thank you so much! and i hope you're able to love it a bit more too.

Sorry this one took so long to come out, I've been working on a few projects that i'll hopefully be able to drop soon, and if you're a fan of the dummies I think you'll like what I have in store.

Lastly I want to thank Crazy Sunshine for being such an incredible friend and for helping me so much with the latter half of these analyses, they were improved so much with their help!!!!

And I'll try to be more consistent with these posts but uhh i said that before and that hasn't exactly worked out, regardless this isn't the end, i have a few asks to catch up on still and i am not even remotely close to saying all there is to say about this incredible chapter, so I hope you'll be there when it drops. I hope you've enjoyed this era of my blog and moreso I hope you look forward to the future.

Thank you for reading!!! I hope you enjoyed! and I hope I got you thinking about this incredible chapter even just a little bit more.

[daily-yttd-something]

Day 148: one of the dudes is real

[brattyshipping]

ho ho ho Merry Christmas

self ship art if you even care

[catified-yttd]

yttd dummies cat pile please I beg- /lh

tower

reminds me of this

[goodnightnova]

Usually I don’t like posting old art so things stay consistent, but I originally drew this in like, 2021-2022 yet I feel it’s held up so well over time. So I decided to repost it here. I also uploaded it to my old instagram in case if anyone even remembers me from then… (which I doubt bc nobody followed me)

[i-lost-my-last-blog]

Randomly remembered yttd and the fact that I loved the human- doll pairs and their funny little dynamics .

Obv Sara&Ranmaru have an entire messed up one sided codependent relationship going on , very fascinating character writing there . Qtaro&Mai is a sleeper pair when starting that part of the game but I love them? The bond that forms ?? Q-taro being the first to bridge the gap between the humans and the dolls by choosing to spare and forgive her ??? The way she grieves him afterwards ???? UGH . And then you have the funny ones like Gin making Hayasaka his personal carrier because he knows that man cannot say no , Kuramada and Kanna are objectively funny because a big buff man gets told off by a tiny middle schooler but Kuramada and Shin are also amusing because again you pair the boxer with the weakest person in the entire cast . Yeah they are both in their 20s and what if they both had blue(ish) hair and pronouns . The Yabusame siblings and Anzu kinda get safted because of Anzus lack of plot relevance but also because the Yabusames are inherently fucked in logic but it is still rather fitting ironically ? (Just don't think of it from the pov of Alice , a brother who just lost his little sister ) I mean it is interesting how Anzu , the clown with the ridiculous get up , is paired with the people that also dress up in rather … outrageous outfits and makeup in their professional environment .

Then you have Keiji and Hinako lol . Small spy trapped in a mentally ill preteens body

" why am I the one paired with the fucking dude that could potentially figure out my identity "  " don't worry about it I'll throw him in a furnace for most of it you don't have to do anything " " doesn't that make me useless if I have to also remain in the same room you dumb motherfu-"

And Keiji " Middle schooler? My condolences " Shinogi . That man cannot be real

How do you think Hinako spend her time sitting next to the grave like could she hear Keiji going through it inside and just had to stay :| the entire time ? Why would Midori do this to her lmao 😭

[rwmsicle]

ITS YTTD’S 6TH ANNIVERSARY TODAY YAYYY

[sweetartaglias]

I love her

[incorrect-your-turn-to-d1e]

Midori telling the dummies about the banquet: Some of you may die, but that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make!!!!!!

[daily-dummies]

Day 46:

Colored outline!!

[koronbain-tenshidere]

Mai Tsurugi but with a lipstick

I was curious how she would look like with a dark red lipstick sooooooo here it is!

Watcha think?

There is 3 more under but be careful, it contains spoilers!!

[doonalli]

Hinako; Humanity in Affection and Connection (Hinako Character Analysis)

Hinako was probably the character analysis I wanted to write the most after Anzu, She is such an amazing character to me, but i just don't see any discussion on her at all, most of the time all I see is people just claiming she is only a plot device and not much of a character, or otherwise underutilised, which to me couldn’t be further from the truth. So I want to write an analysis on who Hinako is, and how she plays a part in YTTD.

To me all the dummies represent different aspects of humanity, Anzu represents it through her fear of death, Hayasaka represents it through his contradictory emotions, Kurumada represents it through his connection to others, Ranmaru represents it through his doubts, Mai represents it through her own autonomy, and I would argue that Hinako represents the physical aspect of humanity.

But over the course of the previous 5 analyses on the 5 other dummies one point that comes up again and again is that humanity isn't about the physical truth and it never was, and Hinako is no exception. Being an agent of Asu-naro her mindset is informed by theirs, you can see this is the way she talks about being used and the emphasis she places on "value" in general. Almost more like a tool than a person

And it's clear through her actions and reactions too, for example when Q-taro was stabbed and all the dummies went out of their way to help even though there was no benefit in this for them and Hinako just didn't get why, or a little beforehand when Ranmaru takes the tag from Sara (during the logic route). 

Hinako in those moments doesn't get why they would do these things for no real reason, when these actions don’t bring any value to them. 

Even from first meeting Hinako talks about information she can't share on account of using it as a safety net for herself: 

Right from our first meeting we can see glimpses into her ideology and it's easy to see where this mindset could have come from.

And later when finding about the secret information everyone has she claims that it gave them all new unique value, which no matter the choice, Sara denies as they have value anyways.

It's clear Hinako's mindset comes from Asu-naro, Kai, who's the character most similar to Hinako in this regard also shows this mentality off in how he pleads for his life with his “vital information for escape” during the first Main Game,

However, unlike Hinako, he was actually lucky enough to be able to escape the Asu-naro bubble. And we see the effects of that in his note to Sara on his laptop. 

The only chance Hinako gets is during the sub-game on the 4th and 5th floors, the Murderer Game, where she is placed along with the Dummies after she taking the place of the real Hinako. And while at first she seems to play into Asu-naro’s mindset, over the course of the chapter these beliefs are broken down for her, starting with Q-taro’s words after he got stabbed.

When Q-taro asks the dummies to work with them, Hinako is the most reluctant at first, asking him if he heard the rules, reiterating that one or the other has to die before she is cut off by Q-taro asking her an important question.

Hinako is shaken by this response, and as all the dummies start to help Q-taro 1 by 1 she is left behind with her protests. This acts as the first step to Hinako’s eventual willingness to connect however as of yet she isn’t convinced and that's shown during Keiji’s fight with Midori and its aftermath. 

During the fight she is the most actively detrimental to the humans, stopping Keiji from shooting the gun and grabbing Gin’s shovel to stop him from attacking midori, stating that:

And after Keiji is pushed into the coffin Hinako stubbornly states “Hmph… It's not our fault…��� and after Ranmaru rips up the consent form that would have saved him Hinako reminds everyone that the dummies would have died if Keiji won and he still decided to fight despite that fact.

However once Ranmaru actually makes his intentions to save Keiji themselves clear Hinako immediately refutes it, asking:

And sticks to her sentiment by stating:

This mindset of hers is reinforced when the cast tries to move to the security office where Hinako tells them:

She physically can’t help Keiji even if she wanted to due to the red string of fate and she likens this to being a slave robbed of her freedom, something all too similar to what Asunaro’s mindset has been shown to us to be before.

However this mindset is proven wrong to Hinako once the collar pairings are turned off and she is freed from them. Still in disbelief, Mai then asks her to make up with everyone which she tries to fight back against by asking:

She is shut down once Anzu Hayasaka or Mai ask if she could really kill them. Anzu and Hayasaka specifically callsout their kindness while Mai fights back against it by claiming she’ll stop them herself.

Hinako still struggling to connect claims that:

Before finally breaking down and helping the cast by telling them about Midori’s ID card, giving up that “one or the other has to die” mentality from before and now starting to actually help find a new option. She agrees when Ranmaru asks her to come along and it is from this point forth Hinako starts to truly connect with the rest of the group.

And this is in a way shown off during the Maple fight where she can try to strike up a conversation with her:

Once Maple starts chasing after the group Kurumada gets injured, Hinako tells everyone to run to the 5th floor, and when Qtaro struggles to keep up she actually shows concern saying:

Rather than the refusal to care she showed before as the dummies all went to help Qtaro and when he just got stabbed on the monitor she shows him concern.

Then, when Gin tries to run back she reminds him that he will die, him and Qtaro both, and if Sara hesitates to close the elevator doors she will force them closed herself.

While Hinako isn’t outright showing affection in the same way others would, (likely as a result of how Asu-naro raises their agents without it according to Kai’s letter,) she still is concerned for others and that's an important difference to the Hinako from earlier who rarely did so.

This also shows again with her interactions with Kurumada. In the Logic Route, Hinako stays outside of the locker room during the puzzle alongside Kurumada, similar to how she stayed outside the lava puzzle in the boxing room earlier in the chapter. 

This could imply that she purposely protected Kurumada from entering, as her staying out isn’t mentioned in the emotion route, where Kurumada is staying behind with Kanna.

And when Kurumada attempts to deny the charger, if Anzu and Hayasaka died earlier in the chapter the action of telling Kurumada to use it on himself goes to Hinako:

Here Hinako is telling Kurumada to live, notably however, the way she goes about it is different to Anzu or Hayasaka who argue that they’re “allies”, instead Hinako argues from a more logical angle, telling him to just give it up and finally asking him a simple “...Why not live?”. It's clear that she does care for Kurumada and wants him to live, even if it's expressed differently to the others.

Hinako makes fun of him as he berates the dummies for not thinking things through by asking “Should the guy who got himself injured like this be saying that?”, a fun parallel to how Hinako protested against the dummies helping Q-taro by calling them idiots where Kurumada made fun of her instead.

Originally Hinako refuted when the dummies were helping Q-taro and now Kurumada attempts to refuse help from the dummies himself.

Kurumada then goes on to tell Sara his secret info, in his eyes removing the last of his value, a mindset Hinako herself operated under earlier when first finding out about the secret info, but Sara proves her words from back then with how she makes a promise with Kurumada to protect everyone, dummies included.

The next scene I want to talk about is a very important one, not only is it a major example of Hinako truly opening up and connecting with her allies, but it's also the first example of Midori taking that away from her, in a small way at least.

When Ranmaru stands over Kurumada thinking about possibly tagging him Hinako walks in stating

She reveals a collar reset device, specifically with the intention of protecting her allies.

It's also interesting that the device she reveals is specifically one that needs cooperation, just another note to add to Hinako’s newfound willingness to connect.

However after Hinako turns on the device and is about to explain how it works Midori walks in to take that from her and explain it instead, even using her (and Kanna/Sou) as an example for the shocking system, almost like a tool…

It's just a small example but nonetheless it is an example of Midori dehumanising Hinako in a way, by taking away her spotlight from helping the others for himself and using her. And this will eventually lead to a much bigger example later…

On a totally and completely unrelated note, once the cast gets back down to the 4th floor and are searching for answers as to where Keiji could be they find Mai alone instead, after giving her the ID card they all decide to follow her into a new room. Here Hinako takes the chance to use the hot drinks machine to carry a bunch of hot cocoa, and soon after asks if she can go to search the cemetery, when told it would be dangerous to go alone she decides to take Ranmaru along with her, further showing her affection for Ranmaru in some form.

Later we find out her goal here was to actually spill the hot cocoa on her coffin to protect herself during the banquet,

While it's unclear how much she knew about the banquet, she still seems to have done it for that purpose, not knowing she would later swap with Midori.

But its still important to add how she also spilt cocoa on Ranmaru’s coffin. At first it’s thought to be done as a distraction but if Hinako knew that unglowing her coffin with cocoa would save her then she would have had to know what spilling cocoa onto Ranmaru’s coffin would do too.

Ranmaru then leaves to “check up on Kurumada”, leaving Hinako alone, and an announcement from “Keiji” is heard, leading Sara to go into the classroom alone and get stunned.

Once Sara regains consciousness in the Kanna lives route Hinako will return without Ranmaru, and once the topic changes to Kurumada’s whereabouts Hinako makes a joke about Kurumada possibly being dead, however her expression quickly changes to a worried one once she realises no one actually checked, showing her concern for him yet again.

This joke is also similar to the types of dark jokes Kai, the other Asu-naro member of the cast, would make, furthering that connection.

The Logic route however has a much less… lighthearted scene… Instead Ranmaru ends up killing the remaining Yabusame and Hinako reacts to this with a hatred for Ranmaru, one only beaten by Kurumada’s. She calls him out for wanting to save himself and Ranmaru berates her, asking when she decided to switch sides, to which she can’t respond.

This bitterness continues to the pre-banquet where Hinako asks Sara if it's alright to leave Ranmaru free, something awfully similar to how she talked earlier in the chapter about being not being free, she goes on to state her want for revenge against him before playing it off as a joke. Finally she remarks that they could just leave Ranmaru powerless once the banquet is over, asking Sara if she really is going to forgive him for killing Yabusame and ending with the notion that there isn’t any point taking it out on her with a dour expression.

If Ranmaru died she is less vengeful on account of there being no one to take revenge against, instead she remarks that if it weren’t for Ranmaru’s “stupid betrayal” she could have been a bit happier with everyone alive, then she tells Sara is a shame about Yabusame, before telling her to keep her head up with the banquet ahead.

It's important that she yet again shows her newfound concerns for others, even admitting that she would be happier if more people were alive, but it's also important that it was Ranmaru who betrayed everyone as Hinako was shown to be close to Ranmaru when she saved him and she explored with him, so to have him do this and sort of act like a tool for Sara goes against everything she’s learnt.

In the Emotion Route though Hinako is much happier, even admitting as much when Sara asks, remarking how amazing it is they were all able to make it in one piece if all the dolls survived then playing it off as “better than being torn to pieces”, she then makes Sara swear to bring the dummies back after the banquet.

If all the dummies survived Kurumada will request for a song, Hinako listening in will confess that it's pretty nice even at a time like this. The song itself is named “Tunagu” literally meaning “to connect”, and its here is the truest form of connection between everyone in the cast and with Hinako. In this moment, Hinako can truly say she is human… but it doesn’t last long.

When entering the coffins for the banquet she is always first or second to enter, likely as she believes she will be safe due to her coffin no longer glowing after being hot cocoa’ed, but as the coffins are buried under the ground Midori calls for Hinako, and while it’s unknown the exact circumstances they end up swapping coffins, and this choice ends up dooming Hinako, as she is later betrayed by Midori and killed, seemingly unexpectedly.

This action ends up dehumanising Hinako, relegating her to just a tool for Midori, despite all the growth she displayed, it's all taken away from her at this moment. She dies, not even having her own choice in the matter, unlike the others (excluding Anzu) and in turn she dies, still under Asunaro's grasp. Midori being in a non glowing coffin also puts Ranmaru back in danger, when he should have been safe, taking even that part away from Hinako.

Hinako’s relationship with Midori also works as a dark parallel to Sou and Kanna’s, Kanna’s claims of not being useful matching Hinako using her usefulness as a safety net, the care Sou inevitably has for Kanna versus the lack of care Midori has as he kills off his allies. It's what Sou and Kanna would’ve been without the affection they had for each other.

The effects of that are seen throughout the rest of the Banquet, Hinako ends up being presented as possibly an enemy when Q-taro claims everyone who's died so far has been an ally, however, Hinako’s last words end up exposing Midori and give the participants another fighting chance.

Despite Hinako physically being a human she isn’t treated as such because that's not what humanity is about, and that's the tragedy of Hinako, but even so, for those few moments where she truly connected with the dummies and the survivors she was really “alive”, and she was able to, in some small ways, truly be free from Asunaro.

And in a way it was all because of the connection the real Hinako Mishuku and Alice shared, which gave our Hinako the chance to connect with others too, and with that, just like Kai did before her, she finally learnt one aspect of what it meant to be a human, to connect with others and to show affection and have that same affection given back to you.

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Hinako undergoes a drastic change from the Hinako we saw at the start of the chapter, but recounting what she has done over the course of the chapter you can see the natural progression she takes to get here. It can be easy to disregard this aspect of her when we find out about her connection to Asunaro after she died, but I think that's a disservice to Hinako, and I think she is so much more than the banquet twists.

There is plenty to Hinako, from her growth as a person and her learning to connect, to showing the effects Midori and Asunaro have over her, to simply showing off another aspect to what makes a human, and it's why I think Hinako is genuinely such a great character that i can’t wait to see more of. Not to “fix” her or give her something but to expand on what's already there, because she is a character like any other.

I don’t think Hinako’s character is over yet of course, i’m certain there will be more from her in 3-2 and in her Minisode but I do think that Hinako is already a full character, albeit a tragic one, I don’t think she was misused or killed off to early. Hinako’s character exists for reasons and those reasons were genuinely fulfilled, she shows the effect Asunaro and their mindset have on their agents, and just how trapped they are, in a way no other character really could, and she adds yet another layer to the themes of 3-1 and humanity as a whole.

I think calling Hinako a waste of a character or to simply write her off as a plot device is unfair to who Hinako is and her purpose in the story, I think that there is a lot to here already in game that people don’t see because they insist Hinako exists solely for the twists during the Banquet and thats sad :( So hopefully at least this post will get you to appreciate Hinako a bit more and see her as more than just a tool, in universe and out of it too.

Short part 2 type thing -> Here!!!!

but this has gone on long enough, I hope you enjoyed and thanks for reading!!

[strikenine]

"yeah, i like hinako mishuku the normal amount" i say, as i froth at the mouth at the mere thought of her, the need to know her backstory and how i wish she had more screen timw and nankidai i am on my knees PLEASE I NEED A BONUS EPISODE AROUND HER

[brattyshipping]

hello ranmaru nation

[ask-the-dummies-midori]

what’s everyone’s opinions on snails?

Midori: "hehe what a silly question. Are you a snail? It's alright quite frankly, I like and enjoy snails company"

ANZU: ooh! I love snails! One of my favorite animals!!•∆•

Mai: ugh.. well snails are.. okay I suppose. I like them although a bit icky.

Kurumada: -ew-

Shunsuke: huh?? What's with this question? Why? What does this mean? They're.. okay ig

Hinako: uh? Wow. No response.

Maple: *happy mood* "Hehe. What a silly fun question! Snails are.., uhm lets see, essential to the environment so I like 'em!"

Ranmaru:"h-huh?!I-idk! Snails.. eugh? Gross man?"

Ooc: we're afraid of snails but love slugs. I'm fine with snails ig -M.

[goodnightnova]

“Even clowns get tricked” [1/2]

Me when the ship of Theseus