#but it bugs me because it’s such a fundamental misunderstanding of the game

[verdantmeadows]

One thing that bothers me is how people treat Hollow Knight characters somehow separated from in-game context or ideas. I'm going to be using the Pale King as an example, so this post is Pale King-centric. Like, people usually make out the Pale King to be a complete asshole (which I mean, I do not disagree), but portray him as acting asshole-ish, especially in ways that are very much not how he'd do so. Which is alright with comedy, but a lot of people have a very fundamental misunderstanding of a LOT of Hollow Knight characters. I totally think it's okay to make a character OOC and there is a lot to be argued on what counts as OOC. But going back to the Pale King, there's a few things I think people miss about his character pretty often.

He feels incredible shame over his mass infanticide from the moment he had to do it. Does this excuse it? Absolutely not. But people do not ever seem to grasp the context of which he does this, in which case there are more bugs who will die than the amount of children that would die. He created the vessels as an absolute last resort and felt he had no other choice than to do so. Again, this does not excuse the cruelty, but he was in a situation where (even if he can be argued to be at fault for causing it) bugs were going to and currently were dying, and he had to stop it.

The White Palace has a nursery, likely intended to be his and the Pale Lady's child. It uses the theme of the Knight's shade, but much happier sounding. It has a chair where the White Lady likely sat, as well as a crib. Yes, this would be her room, but it isn't incredibly hidden (unlike what the Path of Pain hides), but considering it was not greatly hidden, this means he likely did not feel it needed to be more hid than the rest of the White Palace and possibly that he wished or hoped he could have had normal children.

The Path of Pain exists solely to hide a single shared memory of the Pure Vessel and the Pale King. You can interpret it in many ways, but the two of them clearly are sharing a moment and look at each other. It is very easily inferred that the Pale King is what "tarnished" the Pure Vessel by instilling an idea and causing it to view the Pale King as a father. Considering he hid this memory so deeply within the White Palace, but it is there in the first place, it likely had great significance either as an event or emotionally. The moment is not exclusive to the Pure Vessel. It is the Pale King who looks at the Pure Vessel first. It's very likely he cared for it, even if he did not want to. This makes it even more cruel, because he had to have treated it (to the best of his ability) as hollow and empty, despite the fact that it wasn't, not entirely at least.

There is a LOT to be said about him and the Radiance that I don't think I could easily get into. I do think that he did things that were cruel to her and inevitably had a butterfly effect to causing the Infection. (I am trying to be neutral here, but I am definitely a Radiance sympathizer.) And, again, this doesn't excuse it, but contextually, it is down to his very nature as a Wyrm to draw bugs into his thrall and create societies/kingdoms. This nature of a Wyrm is repeatedly emphasized as if its to them as breathing is to humans. As a Wyrm, he must bring bugs into his thrall.

There are many, many other things I could mention. But as a whole, I think he is a really good example of how many people heavily mischaracterize or misunderstand Hollow Knight characters. I don't think it's inherently wrong to do so, but many people who are doing so are not doing it on purpose. There is a great level of nuance and much context to (many) Hollow Knight characters. The Pale King, like I explained, is incredibly nuanced and, in my opinion, is a very morally grey character. Many of those in Hollow Knight's world operate on moral ideologies or functions that do not fit ours and cannot fit ours, but I think people try to apply to them anyways. Not really sure what the point of this post was other than it bothers me.

#book of kells #hollow knight #i'd like to be clear that i do hate the pale king's ass but also he's one of my fave characters #because i think he's really well written and is incredibly interesting #to the four hollow knight fans who follow me. do i sound insane. feel free to tell me my opinions are shit (genuine)

[cormorantcolors]

Ok something admittedly small that makes me really mad is when people act like OMORI is a DDLC type of game where it’s *secretly* horror. It’s not and if you think it is you’re missing the point.

#OMORI #like I said I know it’s not actually a big deal #but it bugs me because it’s such a fundamental misunderstanding of the game #like the point of the horror isn’t to scare the player because it’s spooky #it’s to scare the player because Sunny is scared #the dream world isn’t meant to be some kind of base game that the horror and emotional elements deviate from #headspace is a deviation of the real world #anyways I’m going to cut off my rambling here

[khdiscussions]

Sleeping Realms Theory Rebuttal

Somebody was kind enough to leave some SparkNotes, so let’s get started on discussing the Sleeping Realms theory since I still don’t really have the time to read it. Might as well.

Since this is based on SparkNotes, I might be missing several key pieces of evidence, feel free to discuss my agreements and disagreements, maybe prove me wrong, now that I have some idea I’m at least more open to discussion.

Edit: Read the Liveblog here now that I have read it.

The guardians died in the real timeline, which we all saw

No comment. Definitely happened in KH3. Nothing to say.

Xehanort succeeded using princesses (and thus Kairi) so Kairi survived and used her power to keep Sora together in the afterlife (which we saw) 

So far you got me on this. Didn’t know this needed clarifying but the Final World stuff was a bit ??? confusing.

Sora, from the afterlife, got everyone together and brought them not to life, but to The Sleeping Worlds, cause death and sleep touch. 

Okay so now you’ve lost me for a few reasons. While yes it is the case that sleep and death touch (Re: Chirithy) I don’t necessarily think that’s what happened. In order to be in the Realm of Sleep, a world must have fallen to Darkness, not just one, but every single world that Sora and co. visited after being revived. Since Xehanort would’ve needed to find and gather the seven new princesses and then challenged them (a task I’m sure Yen Sid would’ve made as difficult as possible by summoning and moving around the princesses) this could not be an immediate process, meaning that he would not have been able to send the worlds into the Realm of Sleep in the brief amount of time Sora spent in the Final World gathering himself up and rescuing the others from the Lich (Which would have had to have been brief because otherwise their souls would have fully passed on). 

Furthermore, the Keyblade Graveyard isn’t in the Realm of Darkness yet, I know it looks pretty dark but like...it can be accessed by the Gummi Ship. As Goofy said, the Gummi Ship is only required for access to the Realm of Darkness.

The final point of question is Aqua herself. Rescuing Aqua is a huge deal in the game itself and you do it in the Realm of Darkness. The Realm of Darkness cannot be accessed in the Realm of Sleep because the location cannot fall into the Realm of Sleep It doesn’t make sense for them to be able to go there to rescue Aqua if she’s in the Realm of Sleep. Which I guess wouldn’t be necessary if they only come back in the Keyblade Graveyard, but we’ll address that point later when the timing of the drop comes up.

Because Kairi is still in the real world, the Kairi we see is a dream version - it's why her hoodie has Chirithy ears.

First of all, I do not like this idea. It means we haven���t had a game that actually had Kairi in it in four games. And that’s offensive on so many levels because it means she literally doesn’t matter and no.

But even from a non shitty standpoint like that, there’s still evidence against this, in KH3, we see Kairi in her KH2 attire.

When she’s talking to Lea. Furthermore, we know her outfit was designed and given to her by the Fairies and Yen Sid. Yen Sid even tells Riku to bring the outfits they designed to Lea and Kairi in the cutscenes prior to this.

And we’ll talk about why the drop doesn’t happen in the Keyblade Graveyard later. Because yes, in technicality, the drop could have occurred in there, hell it’s hard to notice her cat ears in the outfit in the scene where her outfit is first revealed (at least in the trailer), but that’s not quite what claims the theory is making.

Riku "drops" early on, which is why his hair changes to his Dream Eater hairstyle. 

And here’s the first conflict of interest. I’ll compare the renders in a minute, but if we assume Riku drops before the scene he interacts with Sora (which he does, he has the haircut very early on) then that means he should already be in the Realm of Sleep when Kairi has not yet received her new outfit. In fact, we should never see KH2 Kairi design in the same timeframe as KH3 Riku if this were the case, but we do. Furthermore, the drop occurs in the Realm of Darkness, is again physically impossible based on how the Realm of Darkness and Realm of Sleep respectively work. Worlds in the Realm of Sleep are not in the Realm of Darkness, therefore those in the Realm of Sleep cannot visit the Realm of Darkness and can certainly not visit the Realm of Darkness. As for the renders:

The hairstyles are similar, but not identical. There are minor differences but they’re close enough I’d call it the point. However:

Riku’s hair in KH3D looks almost identical to his nonsleeping self’s version, showing it’s more likely it’s just the transference of the short hair onto the KH1 era RIku model.

Anyways model references aside, there’s one other huge flaw with Riku dropping at this moment and that’s how? We watch Riku die in what would likely be “Alpha Timeline” or an exact replica of Alpha Timeline, so if that’s the case, how do we have Riku dropping in the Realm of Sleep for the Beta timeline. It shouldn’t at all be possible, given that Riku is one of the people Sora rescued, or alternatively, the Alpha Timeline Riku never showed up in the Keyblade Graveyard, so who’s the seven lights. Given that they must be Keyblade Wielders, they’d only have six of seven (Sora, Kairi, Lea, Mickey, Aqua, and Ven) and so they wouldn’t have approached the Keyblade Graveyard in the first place.

We also see Riku in his KH3 hairstyle in the ending, which implies we’re still in the Realm of Sleep. So if that’s the case, does it even matter if we aren’t in the Alpha Timeline if the happy ending’s only in the Beta Timeline. Which for the record this would also imply that Xehanort is still out there in the Alpha Timeline (aka the real timeline) and make the claim that this is the end of the Xehanort Saga directly false. Which also means we’d never see the real Kairi ever again which again, is incredibly shitty way to treat the female member of the Destiny Trio. A lot of really bad implications for how the series would continue, even if it doesn’t bring up the problems in general with a “It took place in a  dream” theory. Don’t like.

Everything after Kingdom Hearts II.9 is when the drop occurs, and when real selves land in the dream world. 

This is my biggest (well one of my biggest) issue in the theory. The timing of the drop. If the theory were presenting the drop happened in the Keyblade Graveyard, I would one hundred percent agree with it. Because there’s a lot of weird elements, but we have several things to run against this in earlier evidence. Which on that note.

This scene here is when the game shows the KH3 logo, meaning KH2.9 is over and KH3 has officially begun. (Please ignore commentary finding resources is not easy for this.) This scene happens before we see Kairi in her KH2 outfit, meaning that scene takes place in Kingdom Hearts III, not Kingdom Hearts II.9. If it’s in Kingdom Hearts III, then that means the scene takes place after the drop, meaning we should only be seeing Kairi with Chirithy ears on her hoodie after the scene. But we see the KH2 design.

Furthermore, Sora and co. visit the Realm of Darkness several times, which should 200% be impossible if they’re travelling sleeping worlds, as it’s a world that cannot enter into the Realm of Sleep and be a sleeping world.

Finally, why is Xehanort sending his Org Members? It’s one thing in KH3D, that’s a part of the plan in 3D, but by this point in the theory, there’s no reason for it. Xehanort can just use his backup plan and win, what Sora and co. are doing in the sleeping worlds literally does not matter, but in the sleeping worlds, characters who are there as echoes of the world and not actually residents of them don’t talk, as seen with the odd Riku who never talks or does anything. Just silently fills the roll and leaves.

(In hindsight, it’s also possible this could be a time travelling Rikunort. This Riku’s purpose is still unclear) 

Regardless of the above note, the Organization XIII members are actually there, and there would be absolutely no reasoning for it if Xehanort had already won.

It's not so much "everything is a dream" as it is "KH3 is just KHUX." Because everyone forgot the destruction of the real world and is living in a copy 

This is my other big area of issue because it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of KHUx. KHUx does not take place in the Realm of Sleep, while there can be an argument for it, we have seen through the creation of the first Chirithy in KH Backcover (Which is not a dream) that Dreameaters do not only spawn in the Realm of Sleep. 

Meanwhile, there is much more evidence that KHUx takes place within the Datascape or something similar. “Darkness”, in his conversation with Maleficent, mentions that the worlds are made of data. Brain, in his traitor reveal, calls himself the “Virus that will rewrite destiny” which is an allegory more fitting towards data. Finally, in the most recent KHUx update, we see glitches in the system, manifesting in phantom Strelitzia (In the Brain traitor video), a staticy conversation between Ava and the MoM, and the appearance of Bug Blox, which are synonymous with errors and darkness in data.

But in order to be in a Datascape, somebody has to open up a path first. And even then, it destroys huge elements of this theory.

Young Xehanort knows, and that's why he's all, "You're doing it again" with Sora during the Lich fight

No, that’s not it. Young Xehanort is specifically referencing KH3D, when Sora’s willingness and desire to help his friends led him to drive his heart deeper and deeper into the darkness to the point of him nearly being norted.

With different final results, that’s exactly what Sora is doing now.

It wouldn't invalidate the events as much as recontextualize them - there's more behind the scenes, but just because we're seeing dream versions of events doesn't mean they didn't happen 

This shows a fundamental lack of understanding in how the Realm of Sleep works, but the long and the short is yes, it still does.

The Realm of Sleep holds records of events as they happened, yes that is true, but that only holds true to the worlds leading up to the Keyblade Graveyard.

In order for this theory to be true, while the events of the Alpha Timeline may have played out similarly to the events of the Beta Timeline, they would need to still be in the Realm of Sleep after Sora saved them from the Lich, otherwise the Beta Timeline literally does not matter since the events of the Keyblade Graveyard occurred in the Alpha Timeline too. So while some scenes are largely unaffected, any scene after the Lich rescue did not actually happen in reality because again, Xehanort would be an idiot to enter into the Realm of Sleep after Sora when he won since Sora does not matter to the grand scheme of his plan since the new seven Princesses work just as well. This means the Sea Salt Trio and Wayfinder Trio never reunited and makes not only the scenes we did get absolutely useless, it takes away the emotional weight of these scenes in the future because we’ve already seen them and feels like a waste of time. It would remove all investment in their future arcs (or leave them dead and that’s even worse tbqh) and if I’m not invested in these characters, why should I keep going when they make up a majority of the important cast? It would drive away fans (myself included) by the boatload and is a terrible idea.

It explains a lot of things like Kairi's murder not releasing a heart, why Kingdom Hearts is the wrong color, why Roxas can still wield two keyblades with only one hearts, etc.

Kairi’s murder not releasing a heart is not the first in the series to do that. Sora’s in KH1′s does not when he stabs himself to save Kairi, and neither does Eraqus’s death. If we are to believe she wasn’t actually killed, it would be a much more simple explanation to assume she was a replica than to assume she’s a Chirithy.

As for Kingdom Hearts, it’s not the wrong color. Of the games we see it in, KH1 (box art), KH2, Days, and KH3 all show Kingdom Hearts as orange/yellow. Only BBS shows it as blue as far as I am aware (I can’t remember if it shows up in KHX. I don’t think it does but?) so therefore you can’t really make that argument.

Roxas being in the Realm of Sleep would have absolutely no effect on Roxas’s ability to dual wield without two hearts in him.

So at the end of the day, the theory as a whole explains very little and what it does can be explained more simply, unless these portions are explained separately from the “It’s all a dream” concept it wants to sell.

So the conclusion in all this? The Sleeping Realms theory is a theory that seems to cherry pick evidence to reach a conclusion and while it proposes some ideas that others might find interesting, it throws out an idea without fully taking into account how some of the ideas thrown out might outright disprove later parts. It’s fairly contradictory to itself while ignoring the idea of Occam’s Razor and character motivations as well as how the two timelines interact properly. That being said, it could very well have had some truth if, instead of trying to apply to the whole game, it focused only on the last portion of the game (Keyblade Graveyard and beyond), though if it were to become canon I still think it would drive me from the series.

Why are people declaring this as what actually happened again?

#Kingdom Hearts #KH3 #Kingdom Hearts III #kh3 spoilers #So yeah I really don't think this theory was made for me sorry for all of you who like it

[pengychan]

Something always bugged me about how Ernesto killed Héctor for his songs. If you really think about it the murder was incredibly stupid. If he needed Héctor’s songs then killing him prevents him from writing more, Ernesto basically killed off the golden goose. You’re one of the Cocolocos out there that’s delved into Ernesto’s psyche the best and one of the first ones I came across that had Héctor basically ask Ernesto why he couldn’t have just hired Héctor to write more, what are your thoughts?

I think a lot of it was impulse and anger, even if Ernesto later did an excellent job at telling himself that he had a logical reason to do what he did, that he had been left no choice but to do whatever it took seize his moment and make his dream come true and blah. I am sure that, by the time the movie happens, he was absolutely convinced of it. It was a convenient narrative; it allowed him to frame himself as the good guy, the hero of the story, who made a sacrifice to get where he was.

But really? His plan was so stupid it wasn’t even a plan. It was impulse with very little logic to it. If they had talked about it a minute, there was the obvious solution - ask for permission to keep using his songs, for one. Héctor could have written him more songs and sent them by letter. There were ways that would have been nowhere as risky as murder. 

But the thing is, Ernesto was not thinking logically: he was too angry. From his point of view, he was just about to reach his dream when Héctor suddenly threw a hurdle in his way. It probably used to be their dream, back when they were kids together, dreaming of a bigger wold outside their town - until Héctor got married, had a child, found his own dream at home and Ernesto, while a dear friend, was no longer part of it. 

He followed Ernesto in the tour, but he grew weary. His heart was not into it and that must have been a reason for friction for a while before things boiled over; I bet it wasn’t their first discussion on the matter, but I also bet Ernesto never thought he would really go back without him - or else they would have talked over some solutions that did not, again, involve murder. Neither of them was stupid. They could have figured that out.

Except that at one point Héctor does the unthinkable: he decides to go back home and leave him on the road on his own. From Ernesto’s very warped point of view, he’s abandoning him. His best friend is threatening everything he has ever achieved and hoped to achieve and for what? Because he cannot stay away from home for a few more weeks or months. Was that it? Did he and his wishes matter so little?

To make matters worse, there is this:

“This was your dream. You’ll manage.”“I can’t do this without your songs, Héctor!”

For all of his ego and bluster, Ernesto lacked confidence. He didn’t think he stood a chance at reaching his dream on his own. He said as much, and when Héctor said just ‘you’ll manage’, he probably meant it. I think this was a fundamental misunderstanding that snowballed into a very impulsive murder: Héctor believed Ernesto could make it on his own. Ernesto did not. Héctor said those words meaning to be encouraging, despite the heat of their argument. Ernesto took it as dismissal. 

Without realizing that - and maybe also fed up with Ernesto trying to tell him what do to with his life when he had a family to go back to - Héctor said the words that sealed his fate.

“I’m going home, Ernesto! Hate me if you want, but my mind is made up.”

So in Ernesto’s mind, that was it. It was betrayal. His best friend would rather go back to his family than stick with him when things got hard? Returning a little earlier to his wife and brat was more important than everything he and Ernesto had ever dreamed of? Did he just not care anymore?

Very well. He could choose not to care, too. And he’d win at that game.

… So yeah, I think that was about how it went down. He was angry and acted on that anger. He took the songbook, because of course he had wanted that songbook, and told himself that was the one and only reason why he’d done what he had done. He had not enjoyed doing it, but he had, and there could be no going back. 

And of course, he had to keep thinking that death was necessary for him to achieve that dream. It was what allowed him to come to terms with it. It was how he justified it, reconciled it with the good man - the hero - he believed himself to be: it had to be done.

Because how can you justify killing a man essentially for no good reason at all?

#Anonymous #ernesto de la cruz #pixar coco #coco #well this got wordy #sorry about that #i just have a lot of thoughts about that scene okay #it essentially boils down to Ernesto being fucked up

[maddmuses]

The huge fucking misunderstanding because of YJ

I’m not the biggest fan of that particular cartoon. After Kansas pointed out the general disservice they gave to Superman and Superboy’s relationship, then just cucking him in S2 so that they could pretend there was drama, I can say that I haven’t much cared for the generic teen hulk story arc.

But that’s not even the biggest thing that bugs me. My largest issue is the fundamental misunderstanding of Conner’s powers and abilities.

So people assume that Conner is going to somehow be less than Clark because he’s half Kryptonian in this world (as opposed to the comics where he’s a human clone with kryptonian DNA overwriting his human DNA basically making him..... A kryptonian) despite the fact that human alien hybrids in comic media are rarely weaker than their parent, Gohan and Jon Sam Kent both as prime examples, the latter actually being canon.

“But Waffles” I hear you whine in your nasally voice “why can’t Conner fly? or use heat vision?” Well you can still take your cues from Jon Sam Kent, and heck even Clark himself. Not all of their powers presented at once, and a number of origin stories indicate Clark couldn’t fly until adulthood. So it’s only logical to assume that when Conner matures a bit more he’ll develop more powers.

“But Waffles” I hear you say yet again, voice still annoying to me “what about Match? Why could he do those things? And what about those patches?” Well I’m glad you brought Match up. He’s an in-canon example of what happens when you entirely clone a kryptonian in continuities where Lex doesn’t have a full understanding of the kryptonian genome. A flawed clone, not only did they try to completely clone Clark, but tried to give him all of his powers too. In order to do that, they likely had to try to manipulate the DNA as well, to have all of these powers. And the shields? Well, since they were designed to bring out Conner’s kryptonian powers, it’s likely it is just meant to cause a reaction in Conner’s DNA which was, gasp, known to make him emotionally unstable and irrational..... HMMMMM -sideyes Match- “BUT WAIT LEX SAID HOW THEY WO-” Are we really taking our cues from Lex on what things do? He neglected to mention Conner would develop a dependency on them, or that they’d make him rage monster even more. He could simply be lying about their means of bringing about the function, or could even just be simplifying the issue. Lex Luthor is a known liar, don’t believe what he says.

“Okay Waffles fine, you make some cogent points about those misunderstandings, but he still doesn’t age, so he won’t ever get those powers” Wow you really like to be wrong don’t you? Conner ages, he even says so, it just doesn’t express on an outward level, he knows he’s going to die of old age someday, if he ages in the same way a human does on that internal level. Now last time I checked, except for absorbing solar radiation (which he clearly does since kryptonite affects him), your outsides don’t affect your superpowers in a kryptonian’s case. So it’s probably a reasonable and save assumption to make that when his body reaches the right point, and he’s absorbed enough solar radiation, he’ll get things like heat vision and flight. As well, who’s to say that Conner’s aging outwards isn’t somehow staggered. After all, he didn’t age normally in the tank, his DNA may have been manipulated for him to live longer by aging more slowly, as that would certainly add longevity to your superweapon.

“Fine Waffles, but he’s still weaker tha-” WRONG AGAIN MY PRECIOUS FOOL!! There’s no reason to believe that Conner, pound for pound, will be weaker than his dad. The only basis you have to go off of is that he’s weaker than Clark right now. Well that’s literally a grown ass man against a fifteen year old. Much like in the comics, it’s likely a game of waiting until Conner catches up in size.

In summation..... Er...... Yeah idk how to end posts like this.

#young justice #DC #DCU #Rants #Rants about young justice

[oumakokichi]

Regardless of Ouma's ""good intentions"" which were more for himself than anyone else, he's hurt, manipulated and gotten people killed. There's nothing morally grey here. He is emanating malice because he's a hateful person who lied and manipulated Gonta. Saying he's not evil is like saying Komaeda did nothing wrong because he believes in hope or that Junko isn't bad because she truly believes despair is wonderful and wants to share it. If you cause bad shit intentionally, you're a bad shit.

There is a huge difference between saying a character is flat-out evil and saying that they “did nothing wrong.” There is really no getting around the fact that Ouma is set up within the game as a single mystery of, “Is he 100% good or is he 100% evil,” and then he proceeds to act in a way that can only be considered morally grey.

You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of exactly what happened in Chapter 4, so I’ll go ahead and clarify, but please tone down the confrontational tone if you ever want to ask me anything else. Considering I’ve been literally nothing but polite and understanding to every single person who’s come into my inbox, there’s really no explanation for your tone here other than that you intentionally want to start up a fuss, and if there are any more asks that can be construed as confrontational rather than just wanting to ask a question, I’ll just be deleting them.

Ouma certainly is self-motivated and manipulative. These are things that neither he nor the game in general ever tries to hide or disguise. Many characters in DR act out of self-motivated interest, and these range from the unspeakably bad characters to the good but well-intentioned characters. But again, I maintain that there is a world of difference between being vying for one’s own self-preservation and being literally evil.

Trying to hold Ouma entirely accountable for Miu’s death shows that you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the way in which Chapter 4 went down. Miu literally set up a plan to murder Ouma herself, very methodically, not to put him into a “survivable coma” or anything of the sort. She set up Momota to take the fall and make it appear as if the murder had occurred in the real world, thereby ensuring that yes, she wanted to have everyone guess the wrong culprit at the school trial.

She looked everyone in the eye and she lied to their faces that the VR world was “a world without killing” and a world meant to relax and have fun, and she planned a very calculated, very methodical murder. I’ll talk more about her motivations later because someone has already asked me that (much more politely) in my inbox, but this is what happened. Literally, if Miu had not tried to put this murder plan into action, almost all of the conflict in Chapter 4 would not have occurred, and she would not have been killed instead as a result.

As for Gonta, yes, Ouma manipulated Gonta. Yes, it was a horrible thing to do. But while you and many other people seem to be under the impression that Gonta was “brainwashed” or mind controlled” into the whole thing very similarly to the sdr2 characters’ brainwashing in dr3′s Despair Arc, I can attest that that’s really not what happened at all.

The bug in Gonta’s VR helmet where he plugged the cables in wrong did not affect his free will, or cause him to act or think like a different person inside the VR world. All it ensured was that when he logged out of the game, he wouldn’t remember what happened there. And he and Ouma found the remember light within the VR world, Gonta used it, and discovered something essential about the “secret of the outside world.”

While he was horrified and distraught, Ouma told him it would be best to “save everyone” by killing them, and Gonta agreed with this proposition 100% willingly within the game. Trying to say that Gonta had no autonomy in the matter or that he was stupid, brainless, and used as a tool for murder is a huge disrespect to his character, like trying to say Peko actually was a tool and not a person. Gonta logged out of the game, forgot that he had ever completely, willingly agreed to commit murder due to the headset bug, and that is what happened.

Had Ouma actually wanted to get everyone else killed, it would have been extremely easy for him to cover up evidence and take credit during the school trial as the “one who engineered the whole thing.” Had he actually, truly wanted everyone dead, and had Gonta been completely under his control or free of choice in the matter, Ouma could easily have put on an act and influenced everyone else to vote for the wrong answer in the school trial, thereby getting the rest of them executed (including Gonta still) and graduating from there scott-free.

In sdr2′s Chapter 2, Monokuma (and Komaeda, iirc) specifies that a culprit getting away with killing by using someone else as a pawn is possible, if the person in question was actually, truly being used as a tool with no autonomy. Kuzuryuu’s refusal to refer to Peko as a tool or an object, and the fact that he never actually wished for her to commit such a murder, is precisely the reason she winds up being held accountable as the true culprit instead.

The same applies for Gonta: had he actually been brainwashed and used as a weapon to kill Miu, then he could never have actually been held accountable as the true culprit, because he would only have been an object. The fact that he was held accountable for his decision abides by the same rules that Monokuma presented for what constitutes as a “culprit” with the Peko and Kuzuryuu case.

He didn’t do this, and again, that brings us back to him being morally grey. Just because he is a character motivated out of self-preservation and wanting to strike back at the mastermind for personal reasons doesn’t mean that his actions never have consequences for the group at large, or that he doesn’t go out of his way to drop huge hints, including many things that later become essential to their survival in Chapter 6.

Ouma is a bad shit and does bad shit, and that’s part of what being a complex, well-written character is all about. You most definitely do not have to like him as a character. No one does. He does do awful, manipulative things, and if that makes you uncomfortable, you do not have to like him as a character at all.

But you also aren’t obligated to come into my inbox intentionally trying to be confrontational. Considering I’ve never once, at all, made a case that Ouma “did nothing wrong,” you’ve either clearly dropped a message to the wrong blog, or I can only assume that you wanted to be confrontational for the sake of being confrontational.

I’ve made my points on why Ouma isn’t evil and why his actions are most certainly left ambiguous and confusing, both to the characters and the players, and I’m going to leave it at that. I hope I’ve clarified matters on Chapter 4 more for you. Have a nice day.

#ask #opinions #ndrv3 spoilers // #okay to reblog #i had my entire response to this typed out and then tumblr glitched and deleted it right before I could post it #anyway i answered this one for the sake of talking a bit more about chapter 4 #but i'm serious about deleting future asks that are meant to be confrontational like this #anonymous