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anticutes · 1 month

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character rant: junko enoshima isn't a sociopath/psychopath/narcissist. (a symptomatic analysis of junko's dysfunctional personality + bpd junko analysis)

over my course in the fandom i've seen my fair share of psychoanalyses of the danganronpa characters, especially of junko enoshima. what i most commonly see is the immediate relegation of junko as someone with aspd/npd because they perceive junko as being pure, unfathomably and methodically evil. i commonly see people say that she's heartless and has no empathy for others- that her interest in others is feigned, her manipulation is a trait, and, most annoyingly, that she's "narcissistic" in the pop culture sense. which, if you take a look at how she behaves- almost bathing in the empathy elicited by the distress of both herself and others, the way she takes a legitimate interest in izuru kamukura, nagito komaeda, yasuke matsuda and naegi makoto, junko's consistent emphasis that she wants people to surprise her and prove her wrong and that she wants a fair challenge, which implies manipulation is not necessarily something that brings her pleasure/done for her own benefit, and her very evident suicidal, self-loathing tendencies, those interpretations, to me, just come off as very inaccurate.

putting this disclaimer in big red font: i don't believe that headcanoning junko to be aspd/npd is wrong fullstop. first of all, you can headcanon whatever you want! i don't actually mind the headcanons and i also do believe she presents a number of traits, but personally, i don't think she shares enough traits with either personality disorder in my opinion. my problem with this general consensus is how fandom often pathologizes a typical villain's motivation and behaviour as something innate- which more often than not perpetuates social stigma around those already stigmatized cluster b personality disorders.

under the cut is my own psychoanalysis of junko enoshima, and an alternate interpretation of junko's behaviour. i am not a professional, so please take all this with a grain of salt.

in cross-cultural psychology there are two types of behaviour to take note of: pathological behaviour displayed by a person, behaviour that is seen as dysfunctional across cultures, and culturally-sanctioned behaviour displayed by a person, which is behaviour that are cultivated by cultural background (socialisation, cultural beliefs, societal norms).

firstly, let's talk about boredom for a little bit, shall we? we love talking about boredom. it's enriching! also, a lot of people do not take her boredom into account when psychoanalyzing her, which pisses me off!

boredom on its own indicates a lack of engagement or interest in the world and oneself. chronic boredom requires a higher level of stimulation in order to become engaged. in a lot of psychological research about boredom- specifically, one's susceptibility to boredom, many call a chronic susceptibility to boredom a pathological trait, evidence of a disordered way of thinking (here and here for example). particularly, many who deal with an extended period of boredom are more willing to hurt themselves or others, engage in risky behaviour, and may even result in hallucinations and depression (here).

junko's boredom is a rather extreme manifestation of that susceptibility. what i find interesting, though, is that junko's susceptibility isn't really a pathological trait- in fact, junko's susceptibility, in context with the story and her talent... is actually understandable. it's not unusual to the world- she is essentially a human processor, able to take in large amounts of data and come up with a sizable number of predictions. to put it in an understandable comparison, she is reading a book in which she knows everything that is to happen in the plot. emotions such as surprise, anticipation, fear, she cannot feel at all because she knows what is coming. in conclusion: boredom is a behaviour that is influenced by the way she interacts with the world.

in a particular non-academic article (here) i was reading while researching on boredom as pathology, a social worker talks about how her client's apathy is a defense mechanism against emotional pain and discomfort. however, for junko- i believe that this i don't care defense, as hendel puts it, is not against emotional pain, but against boredom itself. because to junko, it's easier to not be affected by your lack of interest to anything; lack of emotional pain, by distancing yourself from it. this is why ryoko holds onto that mantra that "[the current situation] has nothing to do with her".

so, now that we have laid out boredom, i want to talk about junko's talent.

i think what intrigues me is that junko's talent as the ultimate analyst is not compared to other talents as much as it is compared to izuru's talent as the ultimate hope. not even yuto's talent as the ultimate spy is compared to ryoko's talent in the same way junko's is to izuru's, which gives me the impression that junko's talent is not like anyone else's. her talent is unnatural, to the point that the only comparable talent to hers is one that humans tried to make themselves. furthermore, the backstories of other danganronpa characters often talk about the character's hard work and meticulous cultivation of their inborn talents. junko stands out among the rest by having her state that she was born with this talent. she didn't need to cultivate it in the same way many people needed to, in an institution with teachers and instructors. most probably, this was something she had to learn how to yield herself. this gives us the narrative that there is no one else similar to her.

so, having defined a major cultural syndrome and pathological symptom, i want to display my table of both behaviours. the pathological column lists traits that remain consistent between junko and ryoko's characterisation, the culturally-sanctioned behaviour column lists traits that are only seen in junko enoshima. the uncertain column lists certain traits that could be either pathological or culturally-sanctioned, but have no clear origin.

having this table set-up, i want to talk a little more about her hyperintelligence- although this isn't an accurate, one-on-one real-life representation, i find that it shares some similarities to savant syndrome: a phenomenon where a socially/intellectually impaired person (as a result of a traumatic/congenital brain injury/defect, central nervous system injury, or a neurodevelopmental disorder) has incredible talent in specific domains, such as art, linguistics, knowledge/memory, maths, music, and visualisation, due to an extraordinary declarative memory. this phenomenon is commonly detectable in one's childhood. in junko's case, i think her ability to memorise and organise observable data such as speech patterns, body language, mannerisms, and be able to accurately predict what people will do next and future chain of events resembles incredible talent in the knowledge/memory domain.

in psychological research, savant syndrome is associated with a loss of function in the left anterior frontal lobe or the left temporal lobe that is compensated by activity in the right brain. and, interestingly enough, in this article (here), the negative emotions that one feels in state boredom is associated with activity in the right frontal brain area. although her boredom is environmentally-influenced, the level of her boredom could very much be influenced by overactivity in the right brain.

something that is also relevant in this meta is the fact that children with savant syndrome eventually began to 'live in a world of their own', spoke 'in the third person' [...] and had a lessened response to all endearments of friends (here), which brings danganronpa zero to mind and the constant reiteration of ryoko/junko 'living in [their] own world'. furthermore, despite the dubious canon state of danganronpa 3, junko's brief obsession with narration in both the anime adaptation and her referring to herself in the third person throughout the series also matches up with this observation. from this, we can infer that junko's brain dysfunction existed since childhood- and with junko stating she had felt this way from the moment of her birth, that it is very likely this dysfunction is congenital.

so, what are my own headcanons? personally, i believe that she has a frontotemporal brain defect (unspecified for the time being) which manifests as savant syndrome, and her response to that fits bpd more than aspd/npd. the rapid changes in not just personality, but self-esteem, the persistent pattern of unstable, intense relationships in her life, risky behaviour and impulsivity (especially suicidal behaviour), self-sabotaging behaviour (self-harm), chronic boredom and feelings of emptiness- all these specifics fit her to a t.

you could even argue that she has a fear of abandonment- although i feel that junko's reaction to abandonment and her attempts to isolate very unique due to her ideology of despair. i think she might fear it, and she might try to isolate by lashing out, but because of her belief in despair, that might make her feel good instead of scared.

i feel that most people perceive fear of abandonment as behaviour and beliefs in response to the tangible concept of being abandoned, either to prevent it from happening (excessively clinging onto others, the idea of 'leaving before they leave you') or protect one self from the idea of it happening (leading to preemptively avoid the concept by not creating connections altogether or pushing others away)- however, while researching on bpd, i found that this fear of abandonment can manifest as an obsessive preoccupation with (not) being alone- which can also result in paranoia. research also shows that being in familiar people's company limits the severity of paranoia (here, here)- and i think that junko is extremely obsessed with the idea of loneliness. in fact, i think she abhors the idea of being alone. i mean, she tried to connect with izuru kamukura, the person that the narrative constantly compares her to, through sharing her ideology and beliefs with him! one of her reasons for starting off the tragedy in the first place is because she wanted the world the feel the same way she always felt! which has always felt like an attempt at connecting with a world she had always felt distant from to me, a manifestation of her frustration with being so stuck in her mind all the time. i'd even argue that the killing game she put class 78 too was a twisted attempt to foster a genuine connection with them through despair! junko hates being alone. she has always been alone, and her vehemence for isolation and solitude is something that i believe also drives her character.

that's something i'll have to expand on in another meta, though! this is already 1.7k words lmao. in conclusion:

#BECAUSE THE ULTIMATE KNOWN AS JUNKO ENOSHIMA... (THINKPIECE)#brain injury cw #self harm cw #i've been reading the whole day while working on this so i hope i managed to synthesize the information into something comprehensible??#i don't have experience with anything mentioned here so it's possible that i could've worded a lot of things better or got things wrong #consider this as just a proof of concept #my thoughts and opinions are open to change with new info/corrections

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