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commentaryvorg · 4 years

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Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 6.12

Be aware that this is not a blind playthrough! This will contain spoilers for the entire game, regardless of the part of the game I’m commenting on. A major focus of this commentary is to talk about all of the hints and foreshadowing of events that are going to happen and facts that are going to be revealed in the future of the story. It is emphatically not intended for someone experiencing the game for their first time.

Last time as we approached the end of trial 6, everyone got to be the hero of their own story, just like Kaito once said! Shuichi used Kaede and Kaito’s words to encourage his friends to use their lives to end this, which then turned into Himiko and Maki making that decision for themselves, including Maki finally wonderfully reaching the end of her character arc and choosing to believe that her feelings are her own and they matter, just like Kaito’s efforts to help her still matter so much. Meanwhile, the audience were still being one-dimensional assholes, when it would be so much better if they’d been a reasonably relatable audience of fiction that could have been realising they’re the villains here and slowly becoming more and more on Shuichi’s side.

Tsumugi: “Does the outside world really want that!? Do they want Danganronpa to end!? Hey! What are they saying!? What’s your inner voice saying!?”

Heh, Tsumugi is starting to sound nervous. She’s worried that they really might want Danganronpa to end after all.

…Which would have a lot more of an impact if there was any kind of impression at all that a significant amount of them have started to want that. There’ve been a tiny handful here and there who have maybe started to realise Shuichi is right, which I at least appreciate, but it would be so much better if those people had become a really noticeable voice among the rest of them by now. Shuichi should be getting through to a lot of people at this point after everything he’s been saying, and it would be lovely if that was actually happening and we could see it happening through these comments and be able to root for that part of the audience who’ve turned to Shuichi’s side!

Keebo: “My inner voice doesn’t matter anymore! I’m going to end this game with my frie— …Hngh!?!?”

But instead. The audience. Literally. Just. Murders. Keebo. Just like that.

Tsumugi: “See? They don’t want that kind of ending! They want the killing games to continue!”

Tsumugi says it’s about them wanting more killing games, but it’s not even that. Now that things have become a narrative mess that isn’t anything like their precious hope-versus-despair storylines, the outcome of this vote isn’t going to magically fix their ending and therefore should have very little bearing on whether or not more games happen after this one. That should be entirely down to the outside world demanding more from Team Danganronpa anyway despite how much of a mess this ending became. They shouldn’t need to murder Keebo for that!

“CTRL+ALT+KEEBO”

“cya later, hope robot…”

“Life ends in a flash LOL”

They don’t even care that they just murdered their protagonist! Not one of these comments right now is even remotely sad about this! An actual real audience that had been going through this whole story through Keebo’s eyes and loved him like an audience of fiction is supposed to love a main character would never be okay with this and wouldn’t have even considered doing this to him, especially not for such a pointless reason!

“Maybe we’re wrong…?”

You! Someone sensible, again! People like you need to be working harder to persuade everyone else of this!

The problem is, even these people who seem to be starting to realise what they’re doing are only vague and tentative about it. There’s nobody who’s confidently saying, “No, guys, Shuichi’s right, this is fucked up, we need to stop this right now.” Even with these tiny hints of it, there’s just not enough support for Shuichi’s cause in the audience here, and that’s not realistic at all.

“Shuichi isn’t a character <3”

Nope, not you, you are not on Shuichi’s side here. You do not get to be someone who seems like they’re actually acknowledging anyone here as a real person, nope nope nope.

Keebo’s body: “Yes… My inner voice will not accept an ending without hope or despair.”

This is the only reason they killed him! Just so they can control his vote and get an ending which has arbitrarily has the word “hope” slapped onto it, even though it’s not! What’s actually happening right now is a far more compelling story than any of that bullshit would have been! It’s even a better representation of the word “hope”, because Shuichi and his friends are hoping that their sacrifice can end the killing games for good!

Tsumugi: “Like I said, you can’t defy the audience when you’re their surrogate.”

It’s kind of cheating when he’s only not allowed to defy the audience because you programmed in a kill-switch for if he ever decided to do so. This is still not how audience surrogates actually work.

Tsumugi: “Since Keebo kept defying the audience, they took a vote and decided… that troublesome personality of his should be erased!”

THEY JUST MURDERED HIM. This is the most infuriatingly gratuitous and pointless death in this whole game. If I cared more about Keebo’s character I would be even more annoyed, but I am still pretty damn annoyed at how unnecessary it is, when every other character’s death was given at least some kind of emotional weight and narrative reason to be happening. But this just happens because the in-universe audience is a bunch of one-dimensional non-people who’d apparently happily watch everyone die gratuitously without any meaningful story to it just to get their “hope” fix.

And since this happened as the result of an audience vote, that means that more than half of the audience right now wanted this and are still on the meaningless-hope bandwagon rather than actually being remotely persuaded by Shuichi. I wish I could say I was surprised, but with the way they’ve been babbling on in the comments, this is not surprising at all.

Shuichi: “His personality was erased!?”

Keebo’s body: “…”

Himiko: “H-How cruel can you guys be? How long are you gonna play with our lives!?”

At least Shuichi and Himiko are having appropriately horrified reactions of you just killed him for no reason what the actual fuck??? Maki’s jaded enough to not have a similar outburst, but I’m sure she isn’t happy either.

Tsumugi: “But that’s the decision of the outside world. ‘Don’t just end Danganronpa!’ ‘We supported you!’ ‘You owe us!’”

I get the feeling that the out-universe writers might have been venting a little bit here. And I do agree that this entitled mindset is rather sketchy – people paid to consume the media they’ve already consumed, but that doesn’t mean the creators owe them any more than that. Creators can make whatever content they want, and if they don’t want to make a thing any more because it’s lost its spark for them or they want to move on to something else, then that’s sad for the fans but it’s the creators’ right to do that.

Although, in-universe, we had that hint a few posts back that actually Danganronpa might already be on its last legs if this season took three years to come out. So at this point it’s probably only a handful of die-hard fans who are being this entitled, and maybe a lot of people whose comments we aren’t seeing because they don’t care enough wouldn’t be that bothered if it ended.

(Those people should still be realising if they’re watching this that Shuichi has a point and this is fucked up and be actively trying to get it to end, though.)

Keebo: “I’m… sorry… I could not fight with you… until the end… But… your choice is not wrong… The real… enemy… is… The outside world who is enjoying this… killing game.”

I’m glad that at least Keebo’s consciousness manages to fight back for long enough to get a proper final speech to his friends. But even so. His death is the most unfair and pointless death in this whole story, and that’s saying something when Kiyo was one of the murderers.

Keebo: “So please… use me… t-to change… To change… the… world…”

I appreciate Keebo’s willingness to still be helpful even in death, but… they shouldn’t need to use him for this.

Tsumugi: “He’s completely erased. That makes me sad too, y’know? He was a character I created.”

This could be true. Writers are the ones responsible for killing off their characters, but they can still feel bad about doing so in the same in-story sense that made them care about the character in the first place – the same in-story way that their audience would care and be sad, too. That said, Tsumugi really doesn’t sound very sad about this here, and clearly her audience isn’t either.

Tsumugi: “The outside world rejects your decision. So no matter how you use your lives, it won’t change anything.”

Shuichi: “Then… I’ll change it…”

Shuichi is finally realising that the audience isn’t going to suddenly stop wanting more killing games just because this one got a disappointing ending and therefore that he needs to change their minds entirely. It’s apparently the callous cruelty of Keebo’s murder that spurred him to realise this. This is one way in which the out-universe writers are trying to get us to think that Keebo’s death was narratively necessary – but man, it really was not. If anything, rather than letting him realise he needs to change their minds, Keebo’s murder should have told Shuichi that he shouldn’t be able to change their minds. But we’ll get to that issue in a bit.

Instead of Shuichi only realising it upon Keebo’s death, the fact that one single boring ending isn’t going to change things should, and could, have been made apparent to him much sooner, from the moment Shuichi declared he was going to abstain from voting. Tsumugi could have simply responded to that by gloating that one disappointing ending wouldn’t be enough to end the whole thing and it’d still keep going. That should be enough to make Shuichi realise that, damn, she’s right, or at least she’s likely enough to be that it’s not worth the risk of sacrificing their lives to achieve nothing at all.

(The fact that they’re willing to give their lives to end this is part of what Shuichi is using to make the appeal that this really is all real to them and they’re not just fictional characters. But that gets dampened a little when you consider that them giving their lives, on its own and without it then being used as part of these appeals for their own realness, probably wouldn’t actually end this and would be a meaningless sacrifice. This might be part of why the narrative kept trying to insist until now that them sacrificing their lives totally would end the killing game on its own: so that everyone’s willingness to do so could seem meaningful enough to be something that might persuade the audience now.)

Shuichi: “If Keebo is doing what the outside world is telling him, we just have to convince him… I know we can change the world! We owe it to Keebo to try!”

That doesn’t make any sense! This is blatantly the out-universe writers trying to make Keebo’s death seem actually necessary for the plot when it isn’t. The audience can hear what Shuichi is saying whether Keebo is dead or not! Shuichi persuading them to change should be hypothetically possible either way; Keebo did not need to die for this.

Tsumugi: “I said it’s impossible! For fiction to change the real world—”

Shuichi: “The impossible is possible! All you gotta do is make it so!”

But in other, better news, KAITOOOOO!!!!!

Even though Kaito’s gone, Shuichi would never have had the confidence to do this without him. He’d never have had the confidence to do any of this without Kaito. Team Danganronpa shot themselves in the foot by including a “weak” Ultimate Detective who grows strong, because they gave him way too much potential to end up this incredibly strong in the end. But they also shot themselves in the foot by including the Luminary of the Stars to help him reach that point, because no amount of nerfing could possibly have stopped Kaito from being able to bring out this potential in Shuichi. All he does is give his sidekicks a nudge, but that nudge is absolutely vital, and nobody but Kaito could have done it as well as he did.

Tsumugi: “…Kh!?”

Oh dear, Tsumugi, is your own writing backfiring on you? Wishing you’d nerfed Kaito even more than you already did? It wouldn’t have changed anything!

Shuichi: “You can even… change the world. No, we *will* change the world. For ourselves, and for everyone who died.”

I love that he’s able to genuinely believe this by holding onto Kaito’s words. If Kaito were still here then he’d absolutely be believing in Shuichi’s potential to do this, after all.

(And I am desperately trying to hold onto this uplifting inspiring feeling myself before I start thinking too hard about the fact that it doesn’t actually make any sense at all that Shuichi can do this, even with all the Kaito power in the world.)

Tsumugi: “You fought to survive this killing game! If you die now, it’s all over!”

Shuichi: “Even if we die, it’s not the end! Our friends who died gave us their love. And we changed because of that.”

This is so lovely! Everyone who’s died so far was fighting to survive, but their deaths don’t make their efforts meaningless, precisely because of the change they’ve inspired in the people left behind. Kaito was so so terrified of dying a meaningless death, but he didn’t, even without needing his role in trial 5. Shuichi and Maki are so much stronger thanks to him than they ever would have been without him, and they’re going to keep holding onto that and making Kaito’s life matter. The same goes for Kaede and Tenko and everyone else who cared about their friends and tried to help in even the smallest way.

Having Shuichi, Maki and Himiko be the three survivors here works so well for this, because they’re the three who’ve grown the most thanks to the efforts of some of the people who died. (Perhaps this is part of why Keebo was gratuitously killed – because he hasn’t had any kind of meaningful character arc inspired by a fallen friend like that. But geez, out-universe writers, the way to fix Keebo not being written well isn’t to kill him off now that he’s extraneous to the point of your ending, it’s to write him better in the first place!)

I also adore how Shuichi talks about the love that their friends gave them. Again, he’s not talking about romance! Platonic love is equally important and more than enough to change someone, and I love that Shuichi realises this!

Shuichi: “If we can inspire change in others, then that love will live on. That love will tear down the wall between fiction and reality, and it will live on… forever.”

This bit gets me emotional every single time I see it. Remember how I mentioned back during some of the training sessions that Kaito inspired me to start exercising every day? It’s been over a year and a half now (and again will be even more than that when this gets posted) and I’m still showing no signs of stopping. And not only that – since this happened to get mentioned on my main blog, I might as well mention it here, too – without Kaito, I’m not sure I’d have been able to finish my PhD. The process of writing up my thesis seemed terrifingly huge and impossible, but thanks to being able to imagine what Kaito would say, I refused to give up. I told myself that that impossible thing was possible and I made it so. All because of a work of fiction.

So Shuichi is so, so right, and I am living proof of that. On some level, I really wish I could tell him what Kaito’s done for me – I’m sure he’d love to know that (and Kaito would have done, too). But of course, if that was ever actually possible, then it’d mean that they weren’t truly fictional at all and would instantly make me a terrible person for having enjoyed this, so it’s better that I can’t.

And I know I’m not the only example of the world having been changed by fiction, either! Participating in fandom lets one see over and over again, at least at the best of times, that having characters you love that inspire you really can help make a positive change in your life! (High-five, training anon!) This is such an absolutely lovely sentiment and I adore that it’s the ultimate message of this trial and this game!

(I just wish so badly that this idea was actually represented in the in-universe audience’s behaviour, like, at all. That Makoto kid at the beginning of the chapter was more or less an example of someone whose life was positively influenced by Danganronpa, but nobody in this audience right now is acting even remotely like that. Man, if only we could see more examples in the audience’s comments by this point, agreeing with Shuichi about this, telling their stories of how they’ve changed because of Danganronpa – maybe even someone mentioning they’ve started to exercise because of Kaito! – it would be beautiful. Why would you ruin the opportunity for this by making this audience mindless assholes, writers. Why.)

Shuichi: “Even if this whole story is a lie… I will use that lie to change the world!”

This is also an absolutely lovely final use of the theme of using lies! It’s like Shuichi’s going to fire a huge Lie Bullet at everyone and use that to change them for the better! The whole concept of using lies in trials was always building up to this final message of how fiction can change the world!

There’s still somewhat of a distinction between lies and fiction that they’re not quite addressing here, though. Both are untrue, but fiction is something people know is untrue and aren’t being deceived by but rather choose to pretend is true and invest in anyway. It’s through that power that fiction can change people. If someone is changed by an outright deceptive lie that they genuinely think is true, then that’s just manipulation – and perhaps it can sometimes be the case that they were changed for the better by it anyway, but it’s not quite the same thing as this.

…Plus, there’s also the fact that Shuichi and his friends and everything they’ve been through in this killing game aren’t actually lies at all on any meaningful level, but, you know. I still appreciate the reprise of that theme here.

Himiko: “Th-That’s right! We’re not gonna just be fiction!”

You already aren’t! Your lives and your thoughts are already real; screw those assholes out there who don’t seem to be able to realise that! Shuichi’s whole speech just now is lovely because it’s so true in an out-universe sense, but it doesn’t even need to become true in an in-universe sense to justify their lives being real and having meaning.

The only level on which it does matter in-universe is with the fact that they’re going to die. By changing people and continuing to have an influence on the world, it’ll mean their deaths won’t have been for nothing, just like those of their friends weren’t.

Maki: “Shuichi, you can change this world. Because… you’re Kaito’s sidekick.”

It’s still adorable to see Maki putting so much weight on Kaito’s belief in people. She knows now that those weren’t just empty words of his and that he really did believe in people because they genuinely did have that potential to be amazing. It’s just, dammit, Maki Roll, you’re his sidekick too! Kaito believed in you just as much as he believed in Shuichi!

Also I love that she’s using present tense. Once Kaito’s sidekick, always Kaito’s sidekick, even after he’s gone! And even though Kaito himself would say that the people who don’t need him any more only used to be his sidekicks, evidently his sidekicks themselves don’t see it that way.

(They still need the memory of Kaito, though. They’re always going to need that. His legacy is never going to be forgotten.)

…

And now for a huge emotional whiplash from all this passionate positivity as we move into the worst minigame segment of any trial ever. Oh boy do I have a fucking rant for you about this Argument Armament and how absolutely terrible it is.

First off, let’s talk gameplay mechanics. I usually really enjoy rhythm games. I like to think I’m decently good at them. But this one? I equipped the skill which doubles my health at the beginning of this trial solely for this minigame, and I needed it to survive, even with all the other things I had on that also made this minigame easier. Is it because this is a really difficult rhythm game that challenged even someone like me who’s pretty good at them? No, it’s because it’s barely a fucking rhythm game at all.

Problem one: every regular Argument Armament has music that has a very clear, distinct beat to it, making the rhythm easy to keep up with and the notes easy to hit so long as you’re paying attention. But for some stupid reason, this one has completely different music in which the beat is very subtle and difficult to keep track of, especially when it gets faster and especially when those morons in the audience are yelling so loudly that it drowns out most of the music. So that’s thing one which makes it difficult in an unfair way that’s antithetical to the point of rhythm games.

Problem two: every regular Argument Armament also does a rather neat thing of making which buttons you need to press feel intuitive by having it so that the positioning of the words on the screen is always in relation to the position of the button you need to press on the controller. This makes things a lot easier to keep up with for people unfamiliar with their controller’s button layout (like me, as I hardly ever play any PlayStation games). The first couple of sections of this trial’s Argument Armament do that too, but around the point where those idiots all start mindlessly yelling “Hope! Despair! Hope! Despair!”, it deliberately throws that out the window, and the buttons you’re supposed to press on the controller suddenly have no positional correlation with where the words are on the screen. So if you’re not instinctively familiar with your version’s controller button layout, god help you.

Which means that at that point, I’m desperately trying to remember where each button is within a split second in order to press it in time with a beat I can barely even fucking hear. Suddenly, instead of being a rhythm game, this section has instead become a non-stop series of incredibly fast quick-time events. That is never a good thing at the best of times and especially not what I want in a Danganronpa minigame, which have all up until now required at least some level of actual skill that isn’t just reflexes and controller familiarity.

This is a completely unreasonable spike in difficulty that required me to both use the temporary easy-mode of Fever Time, which I never needed before, and have a health extension, which I never needed before, just to not get a game over here, having never even come close to getting one for the entire rest of the game. Who thought this was a good idea. Who playtested this section and decided this was totally challenging in a fair way and definitely not bullshit fake difficulty that’d have people tearing their hair out in frustration, suddenly hating the game whose story they were in theory supposed to be loving more than ever in these final moments.

…Which brings me onto the narrative side of things, because even putting the gameplay aside, even if this really was a fun and legitimately challenging rhythm game that I could get behind, this does not work narratively at all.

As I’ve gleefully talked about before for the actually-good Argument Armaments, the point of them is supposed to be that the subject already knows they’re wrong, either because they’re the culprit or because they already know that the person they want to believe in is the culprit and just can’t face it. The words that Shuichi has to shoot down in the rhythm minigame represent their desperate attempts to distract Shuichi and stop him from getting any words in edgeways to be able to conclusively prove what they already know is true. That’s why, at the end, once he’s pushed through all of that, all Shuichi needs is a single sentence of proof to break them down.

And that could have worked here, if this audience had been comprised of vaguely reasonable people! Like I’ve been trying to build up in the past few posts, a far better way to write this part of the story would be to show the in-universe audience behaving essentially like a relatable audience of fiction, albeit one that engages in some very fervent cognitive dissonance in order to wilfully ignore the fact that they’ve always been watching real people die. Which would mean that they already know what they’re doing is wrong, and those viewers that haven’t been persuaded by Shuichi yet simply still don’t want to admit it, even now that they’ve become the explicit villain of this story. After all, admitting that you’ve been an awful person, that all of those deaths are partly on you, and that to make up for it you first need to give up your favourite show for good but even then that would barely begin to be enough, would be difficult to accept for a lot of people.

I wish that was what this was. But oh my god, is it really, really not.

“I’m not here for a damn lecture!”

“Preachy characters are so annoying!”

Lines such as these could, potentially, if done right, sound like desperate deflections from people who know they’re wrong and don’t want to accept it. But in the context of everything else that’s being said, and with the way they’re delivered, these are clearly people who genuinely believe they are correct to say that Shuichi has no right to be trying to change their minds, because Shuichi’s not a real person anyway.

“Is Danganronpa really gonna end???”

“You can’t just end it out of the blue like this!”

“We want more of the killing game!”

“There’s no way they’d let it end like this, right?”

These comments from near the end are some that could vaguely sound like some kind of deflection – people trying to distract themselves from the knowledge that they’re being awful by clinging to the “no but I don’t want my show to end!” even though they know full well by now that it should. But this doesn’t seem to be how these are meant to be read in this context, either. Their tone just sounds rather too entitled, like they still genuinely believe they deserve to get more killing games after all this.

“Well, hopefully there’s another season…”

Especially with this. That should be the least of everyone’s worries right now! Try thinking more about the fact that you’ve been awful fucking people!

Which is really what this would need to be about in order for this to work. The majority of comments should be directly addressing the bigger issue: that they all know and just don’t want to accept that they’re in the wrong. A lot of people should be saying things like, “We’re not the bad guys, are we?”, or something like “But it’s just fiction so it’s okay, right?”, in a tone that makes it very clear they’re in denial and know that it’s not fiction and it’s not okay and they are the bad guys here.

“Who cares if they die, they’re not real!”

Instead, this is the only statement we get along the lines of “it’s just fiction so it’s okay”, and this is clearly not said out of any kind of desperate denial. Whoever said this genuinely thinks their lives don’t matter even now.

The rest of the audience here seems to think along the same lines, because the majority of the comments we get for most of this poor excuse for an Argument Armament is just stuff to the effect of “ugh I hate where this story is going, give me a better ending!”. That should not be the point any more! They should be perfectly aware by now, if still on a level they’re unwilling to properly accept, that this isn’t about their own superficial whims for their entertainment; it’s about people’s goddamn lives, and so who cares whether they get entertained or not!

(And have I mentioned that they still should be enjoying the story that’s actually happening more than any of their hope nonsense.)

So, since this audience that we’re being presented with here clearly does not know on any level that they’re in the wrong, we have a fundamental problem with our Argument Armament. Instead of simply shooting down desperate deflections in order to tell them something they really already know, Shuichi is trying to actively persuade them of something they don’t currently believe. That is not something that was ever going to be appropriate for an Argument Armament, because all Shuichi actually does in these is yell a single sentence – sure, this time it’s multiple sentences, but that’s hardly any better. And every one of the sentences you have Shuichi yell is something that he’s already said earlier in the trial. Again, they should already know this, yet because they evidently somehow don’t, this approach should not be able to change a thing.

Shuichi should have needed to do a lot more than simply yell a handful of sentences at everyone to be able to persuade them, at least as the audience is being presented here. If he is supposed to have canonically done something more than that, then really we should have seen that in order to be able to buy that he succeeded, rather than have it be swallowed up by game mechanics. (After all, it’s not like he literally played a so-called “rhythm” game.)

And another thing is, Shuichi in particular really isn’t someone you’d think would be more notably capable of persuading the audience than anyone else. He’s amazing when it comes to detective work, sure, but he was never established to be someone especially good at persuading people to change their minds on an emotional level when logical proof isn’t going to work. That’s a job that’d be more suited to someone like Kaito, or Kaede!

But… even Kaito knew when to back down from trying to get through to someone because it wasn’t going to work. He eventually gave up on getting through to Kokichi after having tried for the entirety of chapter 4, upon realising with the way that trial ended that Kokichi was never going to accept help and be willing to change. Kaito also never even tried in the first place to get through to Monokuma, or the mastermind, and talk them out of this killing game, because that was very evidently pointless from the start.

So, I think if Kaito was here, and if he was reacting realistically to this awful mess of an audience (which, let’s face it, no-one has quite been doing, because the out-universe writers apparently don’t realise how terrible their depiction of the audience is), he’d be able to tell immediately that this is a lost cause. Kaito could only ever use his luminary powers to influence people who wanted to change, and these assholes clearly do not want to do that.

The problem, going back to just Shuichi, is this: if the audience still doesn’t even see Shuichi and his friends as being real people with lives and worth, if they can’t even acknowledge that Shuichi is a human being with the potential to have a valid point, they are never going to even listen to his argument and consider that he might have a valid point in the first place, no matter how much of one he has.

“This guy shoulda died instead of Kaede!”

This asshole, for example, literally thinks Shuichi should be dead. Therefore Shuichi is not a person of any worth at all, therefore there’s no need to listen to anything he’s saying.

“Hey, what about little miss assassin’s punishment!?”

“Just kill each other already!”

“Death is the point of Danganronpa!”

And these idiots just mindlessly want everyone to die. (I am especially in-universely infuriated and revolted by the one that seems to combine this with the “hurr durr schoolgirl assassin hot” and would apparently enjoy watching her die for that reason, ugh no fuck off you disgusting monster you don’t deserve to even see Maki ever in your life.) Because the only fun part of this story to these assholes is everyone being horribly killed, apparently? Inhuman monsters like this are never going to listen to reason! They literally just murdered Keebo for their own pathetic one-dimensional whims of how this story should end! If they can’t even understand that death is bad, even fictional deaths, we have a fundamental roadblock to our persuasion here!

Keebo’s body: “… …”

Himiko: “What… just happened?”

What just happened is that Shuichi did something that should have been literally, actually impossible.

And, see, the thing about Kaito’s catchphrase is that he’s not really talking about things that are literally impossible. He’s talking about things that seem impossible to you, because maybe you don’t have enough confidence in yourself, or you don’t have the skills and strength you’d need just yet. But they’re not inherently impossible if you’re willing to put in enough effort to get there. And the first step of that is letting yourself believe that it could actually be possible after all, so that you can bring yourself to put in that effort and make it so.

I’d love it if that was what this was – it’s what it ought to be, to truly honour Kaito after Shuichi invoked his words for this – but it isn’t. This should not have been possible, at all. Not with this audience that we’ve seen here, and definitely not in the way that Shuichi apparently managed to do it.

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#danganronpa #danganronpa v3 #drv3 #ndrv3 #chapter 6 #class trial #commentary

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sombrz · 5 years

Note

Please imagine me just delivering these on a platter to ur sickbed: akira, minako, ochako, iida, (tries to think of a marvel comic person) uhh flash

thank you, thank you. who needs cough medicine when you have shipping.

(edit: i’m 99% healthy. it took me that long to finish this mess.)

AKIRA: okay, i think i remember telling you how i was pretty chill with akira ships. like, if done right, i don’t mind any of them, except for futaba (because they’re siblings, fu). besides our collective issues with atlus and their inability to not be weird when it comes to the girls. also, i feel like what makes the p5 kids feel the most like actual friends is also what makes it harder for me to fully invest in any individual dynamic - they all meet throughout the course of the game (even ann and ryuji aren’t close friends beforehand, and there’s definitely no drama between them) and they help each other heal and get past their abusers so that they can have a fresh start and feel free to be normal teenagers. so there’s little to actually grab onto when searching for….anything layered? like, compared to the p3 kids who have so much inner turmoil that they take out on each other - or the p4 kids, who can’t be completely truthful to themselves or each other. the p5 kids do have baggage, but not with each other. which makes for healthier bonds but also more boring ship dynamics lmao. all very cute and fluffy, but not a lot of substance.

point is, i don’t really have much to say? like akira/yusuke is fun and silly. akira is eccentric and cool enough to go along with yusuke’s antics, and even though p5 always gives us an option to be mean, i can’t imagine akira ACTUALLY thinking that kind of stuff? like, he’s a weirdo too so he just. gets it. yusuke basically takes akira out on dates during his social link. they lend themselves well to model/artist headcanons and aus. they don’t realize they’re dating until a few months into their relationship - one of the others had to point it out and yusuke’s like ‘oh? is that what this is??’ and akira’s like ‘thank god’ bc he was too awkward to bring it up himself. futaba makes fun of them a lot.

akira and ryuji are cute too. i’ve gotten a bit fond of the boner squad (br)ot3 too. just ann/ryuji/akira being dumbasses. or ann/shiho+ryuji/akira being dumbasses while going on double dates. there’s also not really much to it - just the usual persona teen boy ‘no-homo-bromo-but-it’s-actually-homo’ fare. ryuji’s less possessive and repressed about it than yosuke is, though. which is good (ie more healthy) bc it’s more like akira found himself a human puppy jock boyfriend, and it’s cute! ryuji instantly decided he liked akira and started planning their secret handshake and selecting their cool delinquent hangout spot. and akira just smiles through it all bc he’s charmed. morgana gives akira the most judgemental stare ever when he finds out though.

i like akira/haru bc she’s who i dated in my playthrough. they’re soft and sweet and i think a slow relationship built on patience is good for both of them. and they have the most obvious phantom thief couple aesthetic, tbh. they also have the ‘demure wallflower by day, trigger-happy hellion by night’ thing going on. i love the idea of them opening up a coffee place together (their futures align! this is the SO that sojiro approves the fastest lbr!) and akira being haru’s trophy husband (let this man be someone’s trophy husband).

akira/goro’s the one with the most depth lmao as our boy akechi gets the short end of the stick re: what everyone else got - to defeat their abuser and come out the other side a new and improved person. INSTEAD, it’s all about deep-rooted envy and what-ifs. when i replayed p5 for my friend’s benefit, she kept being like ‘wow ok akechi’s got….the most obvious crush on mc. why is he always here? why does he talk like that? omg?’ and my sentiments exactly. AKIRA’S thoughts exactly, tbh, bc what else is he supposed to get out of some of the things that come out of goro’s mouth. but it’s like….he DOES like akira, but he also resents his existence because akira gets to have real bonds and happiness despite the crappy hand dealt to him. and their own bond is based on careful lies and observing each other for any cracks in their armour. but there’s that undertone of wishing that they’d met in other circumstances, where they COULD have a normal relationship and get to know each other in a way that’s not ‘we levelled up our relationship when you shot me in the face with the intent of murdering me and framing me for my own death but really, i tricked you and you didn’t actually kill me & now we can defeat you and your dad! ha! checkmate!!’ but i love that that’s actually part of the dynamic so lmao.

MINAKO: you know, despite minako and minato being considerably different (both their external personality/appearances > emo boy/preppy girl - and the changes in their dialogue choices > again, minako is a lot more confrontational and energetic), i pretty much just ship them with the same people?

the only exceptions of this being i ship minako with shinjiro and yukari but can’t really fathom either of them with minato. (it’s bc yukari is a lesbian and shinji does not deal well with sullen people. like, what’s he supposed to do? pat minato on the back?)

i will also warn that it’s been….forever since p3 so i’m kinda fuzzy on details.

anywhoooooo, AIGIS. main protag ship is aigis. idc which protag, but i must give atlus my once-in-a-blue-moon compliment because they kept aigis’ social link and her blatantly romantic feelings for the protag the exact same in portable. so minako/aigis is just as canon as minato/aigis, buahaha. anyway. robot girlfriend who starts off being somehow programmed to feel protective/indebted to minako but then starts developing real genuine feelings as she explores her humanity, minako wanting to show aigis how to enjoy herself while putting the emphasis on aigis’ feelings and opinions but also being so amazed and grateful for aigis’ love and attention. also, the difference between protags here being that while minato is silently intimate, minako is loudly loving. the utter tragedy that is aigis not being able to save the person she cares about, the imagery of minako’s head in her lap while they wait for the end is….A Lot. i think in a lot of tragic robot/human romance fiction, the robot gives up its life for their human partner so i like the reverse here - with aigis having to experience the emotions of loss and depression and overcoming that because she truly loved mina(k/t)o and now they’re gone. it’s heavy! it’s a lot! i just remembered i never finished the p3 movies! i should do that!

there’s ryouji. again, don’t care which protag - just like the idea of our mc flirting with death. literally flirting with the avatar of death. the double sides of the ship: goofy teenage flirting vs warning of impending doom. ryouji just being like ‘yeah just kill me it’s for the best i’m actually here to destroy the world or w/e’ to his gf (or bf) out of nowhere on christmas eve lmao. it’s fun, idk.

yukari! honestly, taking out all the forced hetero ship teasing made me ship her with minako more lmao their social link was just better! no offense! and their personalities mesh better too - i feel like yukari would get way too frustrated with a closed-off partner and i love concept of: the huffy takes-no-shits girl being soft for her cheerful outgoing gf. also, i spent way too long imagining the answer with minako - the aigis/minako/yukari would be heartwrenching and we deserve it.

shinjiro! can i start off by saying it’s a good thing shinji was in p3, which did the best job of showing the characters apart from the protagonist and main plot (prob bc on the other hand, it did the worst job with social links seeing as none of the guys had them) - i feel like in p4 or p5, we wouldn’t have gotten to know him nearly as well before he died. anyway, his social link with minako is really sweet and a romance between them hits my ‘tsundere/flustered boy not knowing how to deal with affection from pretty girl he respects a lot’ checkpoints. and i need to talk about this: i feel like the decision to make him comatose instead of dead if you romance him was a double edged sword disguised as a blessing lol. because he was still DYING before he got shot, and also he wakes up just in time to find out his girlfriend died! fhdhfgdjd!

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uraraka……okay: i ship her with tsuyu, bakugou, iida, mina and toga.

oh, here’s a story. before i got into bnha, i stumbled on a bunch of deku/uraraka amvs and they were so precious. like, really, deku and ochako are the cutest goddamn things in this series. seeing them side by side makes me want to channel my inner grandmother and pinch their cheeks. it was, like, the only thing i knew about bnha at first, so i just figured i’d end up shipping it whenever i eventually got to watching it bc i’m easy to please like that. but ha. nah. it’s sad bc i love their dynamic when it’s focusing on their actual friendship but then the actual romantic hints made me want to roll my eyes so hard. it’s so BORING if you take it at face-value, and i’m so boggled by it if you look deeper bc i don’t understand what hori’s planning here. it’s irritating bc even uraraka admits that her borderline obsession (and that’s what it is, since it’s compared to TOGA’S CRUSHES…y’know, our resident yandere serial killer?) is detrimental to her growth as a hero. and i know it’s partially bc she’s a teenager but its blown so out of proportion. it’s a crush!! relax!!! like, compare to deku’s crush on uraraka where after he got over his initial anxiety of talking to girls, he - at most - just blushes a little when she stands too close or dresses extra-cute. every other time, he treats her no differently than any of his other friends. but then uraraka’s crush is treated like. this weirdly twisted admiration she doesn’t even WANT. she relates to a villain’s desire to imitate and become the person they like, she gets ridiculously jealous every time he looks at another girl, she keeps fucking up because she focuses too much on him and how to be like him. it’s weird. idk. typical fiction tropes lead me to believe i’m supposed to root for them to get together (and bnha will end with an epilogue where they have a child named after a food) but the story i’m being told makes me want to root for uraraka to succeed at getting over those feelings! idfk!!!

also, i have to laugh at the way horikoshi decided to tell us and uraraka herself that these feelings were romantic. by having aoyama just be like ‘oh you were thinking what would izuku midoriya do? could it be you love him?’ when we see multiple male friends of deku’s (iida and todo, in particular - hell, even aoyama himself) have similar WWMD thoughts and he, in turn, instantly imitates bakugou whenever he hits a roadblock (taking inspiration from to downright copying bakugou’s moves, trash talking his opponents, etc). am i supposed to see only uraraka’s feelings as romantic? why? because she’s a girl and deku’s a guy?

i like it better when iida’s involved. both iida and uraraka are so sweet and enthusiastic to counter deku’s more nervous personality, and they’re a very good trio! i tend to prefer them as a brot3 but as i said, i do ship iida/uraraka seperately! i don’t have any big reasons for it except i enjoy how contagiously energetic and silly they are around each other? dramatic too - remember the ‘REACH FOR MY HAND’ scene when all the UA students were freaking out? it’s just a simple best friend dynamic like what they have with deku but there’s no weird one-sided jealousy/competitiveness involved (luckily, iida got over it after the stain arc haha). they don’t end up feeling bad or unworthy of the praise they get from the other - which is great, because they’re very complimentary towards each other! iida is so understanding (his immediate reaction to uraraka being self-conscious about her reason for pursuing heroism) & uraraka is usually the one who vocalizes how cool and talented iida is (while also giggling her ass off whenever he gets all extra-dramatic)! tbh, curse their aborted moment after iida’s match with mei! let them praise each other!!! i like that their seats are so close to each other too - i wonder how horikoshi decided on the seating plan. but uraraka’s tendency to shake iida by the shoulders is precious & i bet you he breaks his staunch ‘follow-every-rule’ mentality when it comes to uraraka writing him little notes in class. also, maybe uraraka just deserves a sweet+rich boyfriend. it’s that easy. lmao.

i already talked about bakugou/uraraka. it’s great, dripping with potential, needs more canon interaction. i only trust a portion of its fanbase to do them properly. but this is the case for almost every big ship. (where’s that one fandom meme where one of the questions was like ‘what do you hate seeing in fanfic/content for them’ bc NOW THAT I’M ACTUALLY READING FANFIC AGAIN, LEMME TELL YOU. BEING A MULTISHIPPER IS HARD.)

tsuyu and uraraka are just genuinely a good match? i like the contrast between uraraka - who is emotional and upbeat - and tsuyu - who is calm and rational. but they’re both very perceptive? their first night at the dorms is a good indicator of how their dynamic works. the others are quick to accept that tsuyu doesn’t want to play along with the room competition, but uraraka both provides the excuse and lingers behind with worry. she probably had to convince tsuyu that it was okay for her to vocalize her feelings to the bakugou rescue squad, and volunteered to be with her during said confrontation. compare to the forest where tsuyu sweetly and calmly offers uraraka her hand because she sees her friend is scared, without actually needing to say anything else. they’re sweethearts. i absolutely adore them. oh, and i dig their earth/sky + pink/green aesthetic clash.

uraraka and mina are based on two things: 1) they’re always hugging and hanging out in official art/sketches (mina even has a selfie of them hanging on her wall of pics in her room) so i can only assume they’re super-close gal pals that should kiss, 2) i love shipping silly idiots together and it’s hard to find ships like this that are f/f but these two fit that specific chaotic mold!!! and 3) AESTHETIC DREAM!!! PINK SPACE GIRLS!!!! DO I NEED ANY OTHER REASONS? NO. NO, I DO NOT.

HOLY SHIT, CAN YOU BELIEVE IT’S OFFICIALLY CANON THAT TOGA HAS A ROMANTIC CRUSH ON URARAKA? again, i could write an essay on coding and how frustrating it is for characters like toga to usually be bi/pan. but no one’s claiming this a win for rep. and i’m FASCINATED by this dynamic. toga loves stain-sama for his ideals and how that enables her nature to kill. she loves deku-kun out of curiousity for his ideals and the fact they met when he was beaten to a pulp lmao. and she loves ochako-chan because she sees herself in her - she thinks that they share ideals. again, i have no idea what the long-term meaning for this development is but it’s clearly pitting them against each other? and adding a romantic element to that is hmmmmmmmmm. we’ll see, we’ll see. and like i mentioned above, it’s shocking and worrying and makes me ship uraraka and toga more that uraraka ALSO sees the similarity between her and toga. she’s horrified by the implications of it but she hears toga’s spiel and tries to fruitlessly deny that ‘yeah, she’s right. that’s how i am. we’re the same.’ if i were to ever write a traitor!uraraka fanfic (which i would if i could ever FINISH a writing project), it’d be uraraka/toga and uraraka trying to convince herself she’s better than toga, that she still has a moral code and her reasons for joining the league have more weight to it, and she doesn’t!!! care!!! what toga thinks of her!!! and expecting a rivalry but toga doesn’t meet that head-on because instead, toga wants to be close and connected to uraraka. toga has this kind of mature soft side we’ve seen before (with twice) that shows how she can see you at your core (her fight w/ uraraka also showed that) and i want to see uraraka to be on the end when she thinks she doesn’t deserve it and doesn’t trust toga and just being frustrated and confused over it all.

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iida…….i think deku, todoroki, uraraka and aoyama are my biggest ships for him. also, i don’t ship it myself but momo/iida/todoroki’s rich kid squad is A REALLY FUN DYNAMIC AND OT3.

LET’S BE REAL: IIDA/DEKU IS SO UNDERAPPRECIATED IN THIS FANDOM. ALL IIDA SHIPS ARE BUT….IIDA/DEKU. iida’s goddamn….tucked deku into bed. threw his hat in the ring of rivals. there’s official art of iida giving deku a shoulder ride. he punched him to make him see how his actions are affecting him - “haven’t you thought about how *I* feel [about you putting yourself in peril]?!” like. bro. okaaaay. i still laugh that they got on the wrong foot initially - deku was so scared of iida sjfhhf like he was equally worried he’d be stuck in the same class as iida as he was about kacchan. thankfully, iida’s a sweetheart who cares with all his heart, and he sees all that there is to admire about deku, so they became instant friends after that. and iida means SO MUCH to deku. i pay a lot of attention to how future!deku talks in his narration, because he normally interrupts the narrative to move the story along - by talking about minor time skips, the movement of the villains, etc. but he also tends to wax a bit poetic about his friends. like when he interrupted everything to give us a side-story about how and aoyama became bffs. so we can assume that aoyama’s friendship means a lot to adult izuku. or how comforting and important it is to me that even as an adult, he refuses to stop calling bakugou ‘kacchan’. it’s sweet. in that same vein, it strikes me that deku still holds an amount of guilt for not supporting iida better during the whole ingenium-stain debacle. it ended….much better than it could have, and that experience was what strengthened iida/deku/todo’s relationship. yet as an adult, deku still wishes he could have done more. offered iida the help he needed before he went rushing in. hoo. but anyway, yeah, they’re cute! wholesome nerd boys! cute height difference! also yeah, i’m glad that iida got over his sports-festival-era feelings of inferiority towards deku. deku loves competition, but you can tell that he didn’t want that out of his relationship with iida (compare to how he outright covets a rivalry with bakugou and accepted it from todoroki w/ his head held high). it wasn’t based on healthy feelings and they’re so much better as supportive bfs.

iida and todoroki have a lot of stuff in common as legacy heroes who were trained from childhood to be heroes - with the major difference that todoroki faced horrifying abuse that prevented him from having a close relationship with his siblings and made him want to reject his legacy, while the iidas are good folk and iida’s brother means the world to him and he’s so far one of the only heroes we know to reuse a superhero identity based on legacy. and even the painful bullshit (like the ‘take out your muffler and a new, stronger one will grow in’ thing) was something that iida went through on his own accord and with warning. and todoroki’s words of encouragement during the stain arc were based on his own life lesson! they both come off as very serious and abrasive elites at first glance, but they’re actually dorky and socially awkward! but i think they get each other - i imagine they have a very calming friendship, no need for pretenses and judgement, and they deserve that! they probably think the other is hilarious too even though absolutely no one else gets the joke! they had a lot of cute moments recently since they were paired in the same 1A vs 1B match. like iida can just…tell the minute differences in todoroki’s expression and demeanour apart and knows when there’s something wrong. and they’re just so humble and sweet and can’t handle the other being self-deprecating. they’re good boys, brent.

already talked about iida/uraraka. they’re cute, i love them.

AOYAMA THOUGH. knight boys! they were so good during the exam! it really got me that aoyama didn’t even consider the idea that iida might not abandon him, might want to help him and win together instead of just use him to get ahead himself - and iida didn’t even really get the emotional realization aoyama went through there but he was still like ‘YEAH WE DID GOOD! I’M GLAD YOU FEEL BETTER! THUMBS UP! :D’ they’re both very dramatic and - i don’t know how to describe it….they pose a lot, talk with their limbs. they’re silly, is what i mean. and maybe aoyama ALSO deserves a loving, rich boyfriend. MAYBE IIDA SHOULD BE EVERYONE’S LOVING RICH BOYFRIEND. but in this case, aoyama’s boyfriend who will carry him bridal-style everywhere, much to aoyama’s glee lol. except when he’s dragging him along via his cape. whatever works.

also, side note, i find it kinda interesting that fandom pairs him up with girls like mei and camie - when i just….feel like he’d be so out of his element and sooo overwhelmed? i’m wincing just thinking about it lol poor iida.

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i’m glad you specified marvel bc if you’d just said ‘comic’, i would have assumed you meant THE flash and i would be forced to sit here and think of every dc speedster ship…..well, it wouldn’t be as bad as spidey ships (honestly i’m very basic with speedsters - it’s just like ‘speedster/their spouse’ with the adults (even wally - linda or bust, tbh) and ‘speedster/their best friends’ with the teens), but we’d be here longer.

BUT FLASH THOMPSON? i already mentioned my two big ones, with venom and peter but i’m def willing to talk more about them.

flash/venom, a man and his gooey alien husband. i love that it’s a relationship based on self-growth and healing from past hurt and stopping destructive habits and cycles (both that cause self-harm and harm onto others). one of my favourite panels is still where flash pleads with peter to not let his anger seep into venom because venom’s gotten past all that. he’s a better person (being. alien. thing.) now and doesn’t want to turn to feeding on rage ever again. and that’s true for flash (a victim of child abuse who bottled up all that sadness and rage and took his aggression out on other kids) as well. it’s just so….nice. and venom credits all this to flash. and a thing i find about venom is that its unhealthy dynamics are all about control - you’re just its host, it possesses you against your will, you become an out-of-control villain. but with flash, venom sees a partner and home - they need and belong with each other, they communicate and cooperate, they became a superhero. also i love how they’re seriously affectionate and intimate - that’s just kind of a given with venom, i think, because you have to invite & accept it as part of yourself. but flash is so soft with venom - while he’s not as….hm, vocal about it as eddie ‘ooh my love my darling~’ brock is (he’s also a bit less obsessive haha sorry eddie), he’s so protective and likes giving venom headscratches and kissy faces to the point others react to it like they would witnessing PDA. i just want flash to be all cute and smooch his husband when they’re not like. one singular entity. CAN YOU BELIEVE THE HEALTHIEST DYNAMIC FOR FLASH TO BE IN IS WITH A SYMBIOTIC ALIEN GOO CREATURE? I CAN. AND I’M THANKFUL FOR IT.

i also ot3 them with eddie for the sake of my peace of mind where everyone’s happy. where venom’s not torn between two loves, and eddie doesn’t feel the need to think things like ‘it’s tough being someone’s second best’ and ‘i’d like to think he’d do the same for me but part of me knows that would be a lie. it’ll always be flash.’ and having those thoughts because he literally FEELS that pull towards flash? like he inherited those feelings, he KNOWS what it’s like to love flash thompson. LIKE, YO????? GIVE ME THAT SYMBIOT3.

then there’s flash/peter, the funniest super/civvie id love triangle in the world. flash having the biggest hero crush on spider-man in high school - so many superheroes to choose from but spidey is the best, because he’s an underdog, because he gets pushed down and refuses to give up, because he’s SO GODDAMN COOL - while simultaneously thinking peter is frankly, the worst? but in that terrible way where he fixates on peter even when he’s not part of the conversation. waiting for him to leave school so he can be mean to him, feeling frustrated whenever he tries to be nice to the guy and peter either ignores, rejects or insults him in return. peter just being like ‘Sigh’ whenever flash insults him by gushing about spidey, but that’s also why he can’t dislike flash no matter how bad their relationship is. how can he hate spidey’s biggest fan? and also he probably gets a good amount of pleasure out of flash’s gf liz allen having a crush on him. peter also does this to johnny and his gf, dorrie evans - they’re frienemies in high school and kind of obsessed with each other,,,,’heRE’S MY LIST OF 500 REASONS WHY I HATE THE HUMAN TORCH’ OK PETE RELAX. so yeah, peter, despite having genuine feelings for betty brant, hits on liz and dorrie whenever they cross paths and lets them use him to make their hot blond boyfriends jealous. (peter, maybe you ARE the worst. stop it.) and then when they get to college and end up in the same friend group, flash slowly realizes that peter is like. hot now? and like, kind of a cool dude who went through a lot! like, he thought peter was a jerk in HS but he’s actually really nice when he wants to be and is always in your corner! ‘wow, i really like and respect pete! i’m proud to be his friend!’ flash thinks while staring at peter’s biceps. meanwhile, peter has no idea what’s going on because he keeps expecting flash to turn back into a dick (and steal one of his girlfriends lmao) but instead, he just keeps proving he’s a great guy! and keeps confiding in him! and uh, complimenting him a lot? and still fanboys over spidey and that’s really endearing! and oh, he’s really gonna miss him whenever he’s on tour and the idea of flash dying is unthinkable and he really likes being his roommate and he’s who he wants to be his best man and he doesn’t get why flash doesn’t seem to realize how great he is, and welp, he just punched captain america in the face for not telling him flash was agent venom. anyway, bottom line: i like dynamics that are very….long-term and constantly changing? so i tend to fall for the enemies/rivals to friends to lovers thing. or friends to enemies to lovers. but this is a former situation for sure.

also, i’m convinced every corner of the college crew pentagon happened. flash and harry MUST have at least made out once and neither was sure how to deal with the aftermath of that for a couple of months. he’s kissed and casually dated gwen AND mj - but i find it interesting that it seems like neither girl really ever considered him a contender. gwen cares about him but sees him as a shoulder to vent to about her issues with peter, and mj has a lot of fun with him but also considers him the male version of her (outgoing and bright but unwilling to commit and act serious). and he interestingly backs down quickly when peter decides to make a move on the girls. like, compared to his love triangle with liz and peter where i feel he was pretty resistant to letting her go - especially to someone like puny parker, he responds to peter’s accusations re: gwen and mj with ‘hey, relax. it’s not like that. i wouldn’t do that to you.’ i take it as him growing up and not feeling the need to overcompensate to impress his dad and also maybe the fact that he’s a bit more aware of how closeted he is. but it’s weirdly different with harry (*cough* cause it’s the first dude aside from peter he had any romantic interaction with *cough*) so he just……..dances around those feelings (on top of both of their feelings for peter) until harry starts dating liz (BECAUSE EVERYONE DATES EVERYONE IN PETER’S CIRCLE OF PALS, I GUESS) and he’s just like ‘???????????? well okay then’.

i like his dynamic with felicia as much it also pains me - that felicia went into it thinking she could use flash to hurt peter (’i’ll break your heart like he broke mine!’) but then ended up legitimately falling for him and started hoping for a normal life with him. also that they liked hanging out in terrible workout clothes. nerds. (alas, it didn’t last bc….FLASH, BUD….BUDDY….I CAN’T BELIEVE MARVEL HAD FLASH SAY THAT AND THEN PROBABLY SAT BACK AND THOUGHT ‘YUP PETE’S BEST BUD FLASH IS TOTALLY STR8′) and i need to read more of him and betty to get a handle of that but. what i’ve gotten from the panels i’ve seen that it’s very dependant on the writer and has the same problem flash’s relationships with liz, gwen, mj and felicia had where there’s a lot of love there but the actual romantic element is….lacking? falls short? fizzles out? where he seeks out a connection to peter(/spidey) through his romantic relationship with a woman peter used to be involved with and pushes said woman away when she starts getting in too deep?

anyway, that just turned into an essay about how flash thompson has been gay since his conception and only like, 20% (maybe less) of writers in charge of writing him have actually realized it.

#persona 3 #persona 5 #ochako uraraka #tenya iida #spider family #sociallinkmax #questions #reply

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commentaryvorg · 4 years

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Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 6.9

Last time as we got even deeper into the fiction reveals of trial 6, I tried probably too hard to justify the auditionees’ nonsensical ideas of how any of this even works, those assholes were nonetheless not the same people as our friends in here in any meaningful way, Tsumugi’s claim that she scripted Maki’s feelings for Kaito was total bullshit but still hit Maki right in the issues about being her own person, her similarly bullshit claim that Kaede and Kaito were never real hit Shuichi right in his own dependency issues, the audience completely stopped being even remotely believable human beings in their reactions to this, and Shuichi broke down and needs to reboot.

While we’re waiting for that to happen, we’ll have to make do with Keebo.

BAD END

…

Keebo: “Is this the end? Please tell me. I’m asking you.”

I suppose we’re meant to believe that the Bad End message is something that Keebo sees? Which seems kind of odd. Or maybe it’s just something that the in-universe audience were shown through Keebo’s eyes.

But it also kind of reads as more of an out-universe thing, since we the players are the only ones playing this as an actual game that could potentially have bad endings. This kind of gives this the effect that Keebo is also speaking to us, the out-universe audience, and that we’ve been his inner voice this whole time. Which doesn’t actually make sense – if we’ve been anyone’s inner voice it’s been Shuichi’s, but that’s obviously not really an in-universe thing.

This is probably for the sake of trying to fool us into feeling like the in-universe audience is a force for good, just like Keebo is going to still naively believe for a while. Not sure how convincing that is after a proportion of the audience last time had absolutely zero empathy with Shuichi’s despair, though.

Keebo: “Whenever I was in trouble, my inner voice would always guide me. That guidance is what brought me here. I don’t believe that’s a mistake.”

His inner voice’s guidance has done fuck all to bring him here. He’s here because he was lucky enough that nobody happened to try to murder him, and sensible enough not to kill anyone himself. I would like to give Keebo enough credit to think that he didn’t need his inner voice to talk him out of murder (…well, at least until this chapter, apparently). All the voice has done is make his actions a bit more proactive and optimistic, but that has meaningfully affected basically nothing of note that’s happened here.

Save this situation?

- No

Remedy this situation?

- Yes

It is perhaps a little confusing that you’re meant to say no to the first prompt, because one might have already realised that it’s not necessarily a literal save-the-game prompt and is instead talking about saving Keebo’s friends. This probably works better in Japanese, in which the first word is the English loanword “save”, which I don’t think has any meanings other than the save-the-game meaning, and then it changes to an actual Japanese word for save/rescue/ etc.

Keebo: “My inner voice is telling me I need to… remedy this situation.”

Apparently this is very much not the same part of the audience that was just mindlessly and sadistically laughing about Shuichi’s despair last time. Since Keebo’s inner voice is an audience survey, it must be a majority that wants this instead, which means we have to assume that those comments we saw before were deliberately cherry-picked to be all the despair-loving ones.

At least this does a decent job of actually making the in-universe audience feel like the good guys, then, since they don’t want Shuichi and friends to be in despair. It makes them seem that way for now, at least.

Oh hey, here’s the music from Danganronpa 1 that was essentially Makoto’s “objection” theme. Of course that’s showing up in this game now. Keebo is basically supposed to be playing Makoto’s role, after all. (Emphasis on supposed.)

Keebo: “We can’t give up. No matter what, hope is always within reach. We must keep our heads high and search for hope, even in the deepest despair.”

Aaaaaand it’s meaningless buzzword time! You can’t search for hope itself. The act of searching is hope, but only if you’re searching for something that will meaningfully, tangibly make your situation better!

Shuichi: “Hope…?”

I wonder if Shuichi’s realising that what Keebo’s saying doesn’t mean anything and is wondering why he’s throwing this word around so eagerly for no reason. Nothing is going to give Shuichi hope without actually addressing the reason he’s in despair, encouraging him to believe that he’s not all just fictional and his friends weren’t just empty lies. Without that, Keebo is just spouting meaningless platitudes that won’t solve a thing.

Keebo: “…You said so yourself – this killing game is the Ultimate Real Fiction. If this is both real and fiction, then logically it can’t all be fiction.”

This is an actually useful argument he’s making, at least. But he really shouldn’t need to use logical deduction from Tsumugi’s words to realise that obviously they’re still real in the sense that they exist and have physical bodies and will really die – and therefore that all of that applied to their friends who died, too.

Tsumugi: “Oh, your inner voice? That’s the voice of the outside world.”

It should be a huge risk for her to be telling him this. Logically this should immediately lead to Keebo refusing to listen to anything his inner voice is saying to him. He won’t for a long while, though, because he’s apparently kind of an idiot. Or just very, very brainwashed. Or a bit of both.

Tsumugi: “I know cuz I wrote your plotline, too.”

That’s not a “plotline”, that’s just a neat audience-participation feature. The actual plotline that Keebo would follow based on that is entirely up to the audience.

Tsumugi: “You’re the audience surrogate.”

This might partly explain why Keebo’s character has always been rather vaguely defined and they never did much with all the interesting potential of him being a robot who’s trying his hardest to learn to be human: because he’s supposed to be a blank-slate self-insert for the in-universe audience to see themselves as. They’re obviously not going to be able to relate his thing of being a robot. Makoto and Hajime were both pretty ordinary guys without anything too overly distinctive about them because they were basically audience surrogates, too.

(And Kaede and Shuichi have far more distinct personalities and characters because they’re not audience surrogates like the previous two games’ protagonists were.)

“Hifumi”: “That function exists to keep the audience entertained.”

Yes, because clearly they’d all have been super bored by this whole killing game if they hadn’t been giving Keebo meaningless nudges to be a little more optimistic from time to time. Nothing else about this game has been remotely entertaining without him, right!?

The hints earlier that Danganronpa might have been getting stale and on its last legs by now do support the idea that this is something they did to try and keep people interested, but Tsumugi is still giving herself way too much credit here.

“Chihiro”: “It’s two-way communication that lets you participate in the program from home.”

Oh, boy, is this the line that’s supposed to justify how Shuichi will ultimately change the outside world by yelling at them a bunch – because he does it through Keebo’s nebulous “communication” feature? Yeah, because that’s totally so different from them simply listening to him because they’re watching this trial.

Tsumugi: “The outside world has been watching from your eyes the whole time! It lets them feel like they’re really a part of the Danganronpa world!”

This cannot be the whole truth. For one thing, if they’ve only ever seen through Keebo’s eyes, then outside of trials, the audience must have been really, really bored? All of the interesting character interactions – all of the watching Shuichi grow and develop which was in-universely meant to be one of the main plotlines of this story – happened nowhere near Keebo. The audience should have been poking Keebo to hang out with more people, maybe get closer to Shuichi, so that they could actually see any of that.

(Although the fact that Keebo apparently spent more of his time with Miu than anyone else is… unfortunately probably quite an accurate representation of what an audience would do. I have seen way too many LPers of this game hang out with Miu for reasons that completely elude me because why would anyone ever want more of her than necessary unless they’re shallowly taken in by the fanservice. I feel very bad for the sensible minority watching through Keebo’s eyes who were fed up with her but didn’t have enough of a majority vote to do anything about it.)

But that collage of illustrations we had a while ago that Tsumugi presented as part of “Danganronpa V3” rather proves that Keebo’s camera is not the audience’s only viewing option. Why would they want to limit the viewers to just that when they have Nanokumas everywhere and could be giving them the choice to follow whichever character they want? And since the Nanokumas are so invisible and mobile that they can get any angle, watching via them would also make one feel as though they’re really in the Danganronpa world anyway, even if it’s not literally through a character’s eyes.

Tsumugi: “That’s why I’m so glad you survived all the way through!”

What the hell were you planning to do if he didn’t? Did you not even have any kind of failsafe in place to try and make sure nobody happened to murder him?

“Junko”: “If the audience surrogate falls into despair, then the audience does, too. By making you fall into despair, I can make the entire world fall into despair!”

That’s, uh, not how audience surrogates work. The audience only feels the same thing their surrogate characters feel through the power of empathy and imagination, but that’s not the same thing as actually being in despair when their character is. If anything, seeing Keebo fall into despair should just make the audience cheer more for him to not give up and keep having hope. You know, just like they should also be cheering for Shuichi and his friends to not despair right now, if they were a halfway reasonable and decent audience.

“Junko”: “My despair will turn from fiction to fact and destroy reality itself.”

However, Tsumugi most likely knows that this doesn’t make sense and is really just saying this to try and pander to the audience and make them feel like this matters. While it’s kind of half her fault for practically telling them herself, the characters in this story have completely messed up her script by figuring out how fictional this all is. But hey! Never mind them (who cares about them anyway they’re not real, right), this is totally all about you guys in the audience! She’s trying to make everyone ignore the fact that her story has gone completely off the rails and is no longer remotely about what it’s supposed to be about by enticing them with the idea that it’s now the audience’s story. You’re the ones in danger now! You’re the ones who get to fight and defeat Junko! Isn’t that just so fun, you guys???

Which, A, doesn’t even make any sense in the first place and, B, is horrendously bad storytelling to suddenly abandon the characters this story was supposed to be about like they’re irrelevant. But it’s going to work on this audience, because apparently they never really gave a fuck about any of this story’s characters in the first place, even though that’s the exact opposite of how an audience should act!

Maki: “Is that why… you want the world to fall into despair?”

Maki Roll, don’t fall for it! That’s not what she’s trying to do and she doesn’t care about any of that! Maki has always been the most subsceptible to manipulation, and it seems like that one Flashback Light that brainwashed them into thinking that “despair” is always bad and that they are symbols of “hope” who must always defeat despair is still affecting her in ways she doesn’t realise are manipulation.

Himiko: “Th-That’s… messed up!”

Himiko also briefly comments on this here like she might be buying this. Shuichi does not. He’s just staying quiet and watching.

“Nekomaru”: “The outside world wants to see horrible setups and payoffs!”

That should be the case, because those are the kind of things that make a good story. But suddenly yelling about despair taking over the world in a way that makes no sense and is unconnected to any of the setup we’ve had this whole time? Not a payoff for anything. Should not be something the audience wants. They should want actual payoff for the characters they’ve been watching all this time.

“Nagito”: “What could be more horrible than a fictional despair eroding the real world?”

“Junko”: “No one could’ve imagined an end this hopeless.”

Yes, look, you guys, this is totally a super awesome plotline she’s come up with and it’s one that lets all of you be the heroes! please keep watching don’t change the channel just because things have gone off-script help

Keebo: “…No. I won’t give in to despair!”

Tsumugi: “Huuuh?”

Tsumugi has a gleeful “oh, I’m so surprised!” face here. She is making it quite obvious that Keebo’s reaction is exactly what she was going for. Keebo, no.

Keebo: “If that’s the voice of the outside world, then the outside world actually wants hope!”

At this point, now that Tsumugi’s veered things around to totally be about the audience’s despair because who even cares about these people who aren’t real, is Keebo even talking about “hope” for Shuichi and the others? Or is this just “hope” for the audience to protect them from the evil despair that’s totally going to be inflicted on them? Almost certainly the latter.

K1-B0 – Ultimate Hope Robot

This is so clearly trying to rip off the ending of DR1. Which the audience is going to lap up because they’re raging genwunners. But this doesn’t work anything like that, because that hope was used to inspire the rest of the characters that the story was actually about. This is very emphatically not going to be that.

“Junko”: “What is this?”

Keebo: “This is the power of hope!”

It’s really not. It’s one guy who doesn’t have a clue what’s really going on yelling a bunch of meaningless words.

“Makoto”: “The final battle between hope and despair!”

It was never a fucking battle! But no, of course it was, that’s definitely always been what those two words are about.

“Nagito”: “The class trial is in disarray because Monokuma broke a rule…”

Himiko: “You’re the one who broke the rule…”

Hah, I like that someone calls her out on that. Tsumugi’s still running away from all responsibility, because of course she is.

(“Smiling, putting on a mask, never saying what you really think. That kind of cowardice is just like Monokuma!” Kaito was really talking about the mastermind hiding behind Monokuma rather than Monokuma himself when he said that – and now she’s putting on even more literal masks than ever before.)

“Sayaka”: “How about we start over and have a special vote?”

Keebo: “…A special vote? But you’re the one who broke the rules in the first place—”

Keebo is quite right to point out that Tsumugi does not have the right to do any kind of life-or-death vote now that she’s broken the rules and messed everything up. Tsumugi, of course, completely brushes off his protest and does it anyway… and the audience lets her.

Trial 5’s whole premise of “Monokuma can’t do what he likes once he’s provably broken the rules” only works because the audience was supposed to agree that it’s unfair and cry foul, but… it turns out the audience is actually a bunch of mindless idiots who are totally okay with a meaningless vote and meaningless deaths to get them their hope fix. So… Kaito’s attempted best-case outcome in trial 5, which he was going for in the hope of saving his friends’ lives and ending the killing game, would actually have saved no-one and ended nothing anyway??? And what Kaito did achieve – letting Shuichi know that Monokuma can’t get things wrong because of the audience, which is why Shuichi went into this trial to prove Kaede spotless in another attempt to end the killing game – is also meaningless? Kaito faked his death and lied to his friends for a whole trial for nothing?

Out-universe writers, no. Why would you ever think this is okay? How can you just completely undermine the best case of the game like this?

(They’re also clearly not trying to go for a deliberate gut-punch of making Kaito’s efforts pointless, because the narrative isn’t acknowledging this at all. Apparently the in-universe writers are not the only ones who have no idea what they’re doing here.)

“Kazuichi”: “Let’s just do one last vote!”

Monokuma: “Cuz that’s what Danganronpa’s all about!”

The fact that DR1 and DR2’s stories happened to work fairly well with a final vote does not mean that it should be taken as a necessary part of a Danganronpa storyline to the point of shoehorning one in even when it doesn’t work.

The final vote in DR2 worked because that wasn’t decided on by Junko and was just a result of the way the world had been programmed. And the final vote in DR1 may have been also forced through by Junko when she didn’t really have the right to do so any more – but she was never entertaining her audience, she was forcing them to watch in order to make a point. Her vote continued that theme, because it was essentially Junko making Makoto stake his life on the belief that his friends would agree with his philosophy of hope (in her attempt to prove that they wouldn’t). Only Makoto’s life was on the line in it, and it was for a reason that was relevant to what had been happening and what he’d been advocating, so it didn’t feel especially unfair, at least not more so than you’d expect Junko to be given she wanted lives to be at stake for everything.

The vote we’re about to be forced into here is almost nothing like that. Oh boy.

Tsumugi: “Between Keebo and I… Which of us should get punished?”

If that was all, that’d be fairly analogous to the DR1 final vote, and fairly acceptable. Keebo and Tsumugi are (supposedly) having a clash of philosophies, so this would just be them staking their lives on that. If it was only their lives on the line.

Himiko: “To end in hope…?”

Maki: “To end in despair…?”

Shuichi: “We decide…?”

Yeah, why should these three get to decide? I thought this story was suddenly all about the audience now, not them! They’re not even real people, right? Why should they get to determine which out of hope or despair the audience wants to see?

But the vote they’re about to have doesn’t have anything to do with this whole deal of “bringing despair to the outside world” or about which one the audience prefers. Because Tsumugi doesn’t have a goddamn clue what she’s doing with any of this nonsense and might as well have not even done that whole bit in the first place. I hope this is out-universely deliberate at least, but at this point my faith in the out-universe writers is slipping.

Tsumugi explains that the “Despair wins” choice will result in everyone except Keebo continuing to live in the school, technically continuing the killing game but presumably never actually killing each other any more now that they know all the motives will be lies.

Keebo: “No! That’s no way to live! Imprisoned in this school, living lives of despair—”

How exactly would that be a life of “despair”, Keebo? They’d be stuck there, sure, but at least the three of them would be alive, and they’re friends (minus Tsumugi, who would hopefully fuck off and leave them alone), so they should be able to find some semblance of happiness in it. You’re only saying it’d be “despair” because Tsumugi has arbitrarily slapped that label on it and therefore it must be nothing but bad, because “hope” is always good and “despair” is always evil, right?

“Toko”: “E-Even if you went outside, there’d be n-no point.”

“Byakuya”: “As I said, all your memories are nothing but fiction.”

“Imposter Byakuya”: “Your hometowns, your families, your friends… they never existed in the first place.”

Wow, Tsumugi, you sure are making the option where they get to escape look more despairing than the one where they stay inside here and never have to face any of that stuff.

…Which actually is kind of analogous to the first game in that they’d be going out into a hostile world where they’re going to struggle to find their feet, and they’ll have to hope that they’ll be okay in that world despite everything. If the narrative was going to present it that way and have Keebo encourage them to still try and live in that world even if it’s scary because it’s better than being boringly trapped in here forever, this’d be acceptably similar to DR1. But nope, that’s not remotely what we’re going to be doing here.

Himiko: “Th-Then at least put us back how we were!”

No, Himiko! Admittedly we didn’t see Himiko’s audition so she didn’t see what she “used to be” like, but the auditions they did see should make it very clear to all of them that the people they “used to be” weren’t them. None of you want to go back to being those people, guys; you should be able to see that! The people that you are now would stop existing if you did that! For all intents and purposes, you’d die!

Tsumugi explains that that’s impossible because Flashback Lights don’t actually retrieve lost memories and can only overwrite existing memories with fake ones. But it being impossible should not be the point anyway. None of them should even want this in the first place.

Shuichi: “So… we can’t go back to the way we were?”

Shuichi, you saw the person who used to live in your body! You can’t possibly want to be him! You’d forget everything about Kaito and Kaede and become someone who wants to get executed in a killing game!

Apparently Tsumugi’s insistence that they’re all entirely “fake” has got to them so much that, despite all the evidence, they’re just clinging to the idea that “real” has got to be better, and nooooooo, guys, snap out of it!

Buuut it’s the “hope wins” outcome of the vote that’s the really stupid part. Tsumugi is punished and they get to escape, except…

“Taka”: “However, you must follow the rules! The game will continue until the final two!”

Tsumugi: “So only two of you can graduate.”

And why, pray tell, the absolute fuck, is this remotely necessary? The only reason that two-person rule exists should be as a minimum, because it’s not possible to hold a class trial with only two people left. If it’s also a strict maximum, then that means that this game is designed to kill fourteen people no matter what, even if there aren’t enough in-game murders for that. The point of this killing game is supposed to be that the participants brought all the deaths upon themselves (even though that’s not really a fair assessment at all when they were manipulated into it). Executing more people anyway even when it’s not prompted by someone becoming blackened in the first place is arbitrarily cruel and not in the spirit of the game at all. This rule should have completely ceased to apply any more, now that we’re in “endgame” mode where clearly nobody is going to commit any more murders. Killing two of them at this point just to adhere to this pointless rule is meaningless as fuck.

Plus, what right does Tsumugi even have any more to insist that they adhere to the rules when she broke them first? Oh, right, because the audience are mindless morons who don’t actually care if she breaks them despite the entire point of trial 5. (Geez, even Kokichi expected better from the audience than this.)

So, the bottom line is that this “hope wins” ending is… two of them get to escape into an outside world that doesn’t even see them as real people, after watching two more of their friends get completely pointlessly and arbitrarily killed. Such hope! Such meaning! Such narrative!

(Okay, they won’t get killed, as we’ll learn later on, but still. It is no less arbitrary.)

Shuichi: “… We got this far… and you’re telling us to sacrifice more of our friends?”

Shuichi is crying and I don’t blame him. Why? Why should he have to lose even more of his friends for no reason? This isn’t fair! At least Kaede and Kaito’s sacrifices happened because they tried to make a difference, but this would be nothing like that!

“Gundham”: “However… even if you do escape to the outside world, you will find it most unwelcoming.”

Keebo: “…No! As long as we never give up, there will always be hope!”

Keebo. Dude. If you were trying to reassure everyone to stay hopeful about things that actually mattered, namely the idea that the outside world wouldn’t welcome them, or the thought of losing more friends, then maybe this would kinda sorta work and be a bit like Makoto was in DR1. But you’re just spouting meaningless platitudes! Stop it!

Keebo: “If it will bring hope to everyone and the outside world, I will gladly sacrifice myself.”

You dying for completely arbitrary reasons is not going to make your friends hope for anything, Keebo! And you especially shouldn’t give a fuck what the outside world that’s gleefully watched your friends die wants from you!

I don’t hold it against Keebo, because he is genuinely well-meaning and trying to do a good thing here, but he is so, so deluded and misled.

“Makoto”: “In order for hope to win, there needs to be one more sacrifice.”

That sentence doesn’t make any sense! That’s not hope! In the real Makoto’s story, hope winning didn’t sacrifice anyone except the mastermind! Makoto himself would have called total bullshit on the idea that pointlessly sacrificing his friends would be for the sake of any kind of hope!

“Sonia”: “Do you understand now? Even if you choose hope, you will still suffer.”

Okay, so, look, I’m not saying that hope doesn’t involve suffering. Remember when I talked about my first-time experience of Kaito’s trial and how the rekindled hope that he might be alive was utterly terrifying? Yeah, hope is scary. But real hope is scary because it’s uncertain, because of the constant possibility that you might not get what you’re hoping for and fall back into despair. Being forced to feel completely arbitrary separate pain that has nothing to do with what you’re hoping for (in this context, they’d be hoping they can fit in in an outside world that doesn’t see them as real people) is not part of the reason that hope itself is difficult and scary and is completely beside the fucking point.

Tsumugi using Sonia here is the beginning of a sequence of her cosplaying almost all of the female characters (plus Chihiro) and having them be all “won’t you stay here with us~? *blush*”. Which is obviously deliberate pandering.

But, like… who is this pandering to? Isn’t she supposed to be persuading Maki, Himiko and Shuichi right now? There’s no evidence that Maki and Himiko are into girls, and while Shuichi apparently is, why should he care about these people that are, to his fake memories, historical figures and nothing more? Why would he be that shallow just because they’re girls? And if this is for the audience, first of all, why, they can’t influence this outside of Keebo’s one vote, and second of all… does she not fucking realise that only about half of her audience is even going to be into girls, and only a proportion of those people should be shallow enough to be swayed by this? Female characters are more than just objects of fanservice and romantic fantasy! There are plenty of people who enjoy this franchise who aren’t here for that, you know! Tsumugi is a girl, she should have more respect for her own goddamn gender than this!

Really, if Tsumugi was properly trying to persuade Shuichi, Maki and Himiko, then the best (cruellest) move would be for her to suddenly start cosplaying Kaede, Tenko and Kaito and being all like “hey, if you stayed here I could be them for you!” (the cospox thing was dumb and there should be no reason she couldn’t do that). Which would of course make all three of them do an immediate huge revolted NOPE, a lot like the time Maki thought Exisal Kaito was Kokichi pretending to be him except worse – but it’d be an impactful moment, at least. Honestly, Tsumugi cosplaying the dead V3 characters here would make this whole part of the trial far more viscerally uncomfortable, like it’s clearly trying to be, than just seeing the DR1 and 2 characters be the face of the villain when they’re not a part of this actual story.

(Man, imagine her doing the part last time where she reminded Shuichi of Kaede and Kaito’s inspiring lines by actually cosplaying them and reciting those lines in their voices, that would be awful, I would hate it and love it at the same time. It’d hammer home the supposed idea that they were always just lies even more.)

Keebo: “Despair won’t end this killing game! Only hope will!”

Keebo says this just before we get dragged into a Mass Panic Debate in which Keebo’s only available bullet is “Hope”. When the only weapon you have is hope, every problem’s got to be able to be solved with it, right? No, Keebo.

This Mass Panic Debate is the worst and the reason I equipped Librarian’s Glare at the beginning, because then all the loud voices get silenced automatically and all I have to focus on is firing. If you don’t hit every single statement’s worth of “despair” in one round, you have to do it all over again, and a bunch of them have loud voices getting in the way. It’s far, far more mechanically difficult than any other debate in the game, which is not at all deserved on a narrative level when what’s happening right now is such a ridiculous mess.

Story time: when I got to this Mass Panic Debate on my first time through, since I was watching not playing and therefore had a little break to let my thoughts flow without having to pay as much attention to what was happening… I was really upset. I had loved almost everything about this game up to this point, and I really wanted it to have a good ending worthy of the rest of it. But this was currently presenting itself as that ending, and this was just bad.

This is supposedly analogous to the part in DR1 where Makoto fired bullets of hope at all of his friends, and I liked that part. It was refreshing and inspiring after a whole game supposedly all about despair to realise that it was actually about hope as well. But here, first-time-me just felt vaguely insulted at the idea that I was supposed to like this as much as I did that. This is just a cheap imitation of that which completely misses the actual point.

The protagonist is supposed to be meaningfully inspiring his friends to not give up and to face the hostile outside world with the hope that things will work out okay. But this “hope” choice they’re being given here is arbitrarily cruel, and Keebo’s words are not even addressing his friends, let alone any of the actual problems that his friends are despairing over. He’s just shooting the “hope” at Tsumugi’s “despair” like this is some kind of good-versus-evil battle. This is exactly the kind of one-dimensional, meaningless hope the characters were filled with when they saw the Flashback Light in chapter 5 – empty platitudes that don’t even remotely address the actual reason for their despair and therefore don’t fix anything at all. And that reason for their despair right now isn’t just the thought of the outside world but also simply the notion that they’re not real, which was pretty compelling when it came up and first-time-me wanted them to get back to that and address that more and hated the fact that it’d apparently been completely forgotten like it didn’t matter.

Of course, I don’t hate this part nearly as much now, because this isn’t the real endpoint of this trial, and with that in mind, Keebo missing the point like this is very out-universely deliberate. This is showing the “battle between hope and despair” that the outside world apparently craves that is the reason they’ve been watching these killing games for fifty-three seasons. Shuichi is going to figure this out quite soon, and then things will get back on track with the characters we’ve actually grown to care about properly addressing the question of how real they are.

But I’m still not super happy with this. Keebo is so obviously failing at presenting any kind of actual hope or compelling story here that it’s a stretch to believe that a sensible in-universe audience would want this either. Shouldn’t they care about the characters they’ve been watching this whole time and be frustrated, like I was, when the story abruptly veers away from being about them into this empty nonsense? Shouldn’t they be calling bullshit on the arbitrary unfair sacrifices for the vote, especially after Tsumugi broke the rules and had no more right to even punish anyone at all? (That was literally supposed to be the point of trial 5, dammit! Kaito deserves better than this!) Heck, shouldn’t the characters be calling bullshit on the vote rather than accepting it? (I can let them off a bit more though, since they’re still mostly in despair and not quite thinking straight.)

This would work a lot better if it was still trying to be mostly about the characters, and Keebo was actually trying to inspire them with hope. Instead of shooting at Tsumugi’s despair, he should, like Makoto did, be shooting the hope at his friends and trying to reassure them that surely they’ll find a place in the outside world that’ll accept them, that surely whichever two of them survive will be able to overcome these last deaths as well and find happiness somehow. That would be a kind of hope that would be reasonably believable as making a satisfying if bittersweet ending. That way, it’d be a lot easier to believe that the audience wants this, and to therefore realise that this is why the killing game has gone on for so long and will still continue if they let this ending happen here.

The fact that this isn’t what happens when it easily could have been makes me wonder how much of this part’s one-dimensionality was deliberate, and how much is the out-universe writers not actually realising that the situation they’re presenting here isn’t “hope” in any meaningful or compelling way at all. My faith in them on this particular front is not very strong, I must admit.

“Keebo! Keebo!”

“Keebo’s on fire!”

“gooooo Keebo!”

The audience has been there in the background throughout all of this – probably as what Keebo’s hearing in his inner voice – but up until now they’ve just been saying “Hope” or “Despair”. As this debate finishes, they finally start saying something of more substance, most of them cheering Keebo on like so. It sure sounds like they care about him as a character, which is what you’d expect if they’d been experiencing this game through him as the protagonist. But they don’t; we’ll see that very clearly later. They only care about him representing their own voices and nothing else.

“i wanna see the color of shuichi’s blood <3”

Wow, fuck, geez, okay. That “fan” of Shuichi’s from before has gone from “somewhat realistic if rather creepy considering that he’s real” to “absolute sicko”. What the hell.

“Now this is Danganronpa.”

Apparently we really are supposed to believe that this kind of meaninglessness is what people have come to like from this show over the years. It so incredibly shouldn’t be, though. What about all the actual class trials before the endgame? The characters struggling with the pain of watching their friends die or realising that their friend killed someone? Isn’t that more compelling than just yelling about hope being better than despair? Apparently not to these idiots.

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