welcome to wild theories with bagel
this one is… quite unlike the other posts as this is almost entirely speculation and probably has a lot of room for rebuttal
(it’s a theory after all)
this is mainly about teruko and her (possible) connection to the killing game.
take this with a grain of salt as always
//drdt prologue, chapter 1, and chapter 2 spoilers
// blood warning from about the second half of the post.
also i go on a giant tangent here. so quick warning about that as well
i’m just thinking back to this motive secret:
“How could I even select what secret to be your motive? Just about everything you’ve done in your life is worth killing for. This killing game is all your fault.”
as of now, we’ve been told (by David) that this was Xander’s secret, but I highly doubt it. for me, this is mainly because when everyone was sharing who’s secret they had at the 2nd trial, David hesitated and asked to go last—there’s really no reason to do that unless David wanted time to think about what to do and/or fully process the situation before taking action (plus going last would give David the added benefit of knowing whose secrets are already revealed).
not only that, Xander’s bonus episode and secret quote seems to imply that his secret is actually the one Min has (“You’re constantly blaming yourself for the death of your parents and siblings. It doesn’t matter that it’s not your fault, just that you didn’t go with them”). Xander’s survivor’s guilt seems to be a major motif for his character, so logically it would still be plausible for his secret to be related to the Chariton incident and his guilt.
in that case, who’s secret does David actually have?
unfortunately, it would be quite difficult to try to deduce this through that last sentence (and i don’t think i have to explain why), so i decided to go back to the first sentence—which implies that whoever this motive is about has too many secrets that they don’t want to remember and/or discuss.
i can clearly recall one character that explicitly mentions this:
i don’t recall anyone else saying something like this, but please correct me if someone did actually say something similar
additionally, each one of Teruko’s accidents that she’s survived as a result of her luck can become “secrets” that are worded to incriminate her and give her a motive to murder. after all, whoever wrote these secrets have done so in a way that paints the other characters in a bad light—there’s really no reason to exclude Teruko’s “secrets” from that treatment.
but if that were the case, is there a proper explanation as to why “this killing game is all [her] fault?”
as i’ve mentioned before, the secrets are specifically written in a way to incriminate the participants and taint their image. even Hu mentions this at one point:
and to be completely honest, if someone were to explicitly write that a killing game was a specific character’s fault, it would probably be to throw the cast off. it would be extremely imprudent to specifically implicate someone as a potential mastermind otherwise. after all, that’s essentially putting the entire killing game at stake.
however, despite the fact that these secrets are written to implicate the cast, most of them do have factual evidence to justify some part of it.
here’s where i get into wild theory territory:
what if Teruko is indirectly responsible for the killing game, just not in the way that we’d think?
let me elaborate on how this could actually happen (and this is gonna get long):
think back to the opening scene of the prologue. whoever it was that was injured here, they seemed very… determined to end the killing game “all by [themselves].” or kill teruko.
// (pink) blood warning from here on out
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from here i’m going to pay a lot of attention to specific wording and such so please take this with a grain of salt
oh also this is gonna go on a tangent lmao
as seen here it seems that Teruko and the killing game are directly correlated to each other. this person here says that even if the killing game doesn’t end, Teruko must die—which seems to imply that her death could be a possible solution to the killing game, even if it is eventually revealed to not be one. after all, in a situation like this it wouldn’t make sense for this person to mention two seemingly separate things one after another if they weren’t related to each other somehow.
also this might just be me, but i just wanted to bring attention to this line:
“all by myself… i must end this killing game.”
this implies that whoever this person is, they want to end this killing game independently, by their own effort. specifically asking Xander to kill Teruko with no justification or reason why, in that case, doesn’t really make sense as it’s entirely dependent on the decision and whims of another person.
and besides, this may again just be me, but Xander mentions how he needs to “trust in [him]self” that killing Teruko would be worth it:
this may imply that Xander attempted to murder Teruko out of his own instinct, and/or Xander deduced that the person who wrote that note to kill Teruko was himself. whether that’s because that note was in his own handwriting, or something from his memories told him so, i’m not sure.
also, recall the fact that some of the cast’s memories have been removed. for example, Xander doesn’t actually recall when he lost his eye.
someone else said this in a YouTube comment (that i unfortunately cannot find, but i’ll see if i can find the screenshot and put it here later), but—in that original prologue cutscene, there’s a fork under the person’s hand.
Xander’s eye injury, as we saw in chapter 1, has indents on it that look similar to claw marks. but based on those indents, it is actually plausible that those injuries were done by something similar to that fork (the fork in the prologue cutscene has four prongs, and the injury seems to have been caused by something that had four,,, uhh, prongs/claw bones). however this is purely speculation so this may be entirely wrong.
if this does happen to be correct, though, this could possibly imply that Xander was the person in the prologue cutscene. in that case, it is possible that Xander himself wrote the note to kill Teruko.
trusting “himself” to kill Teruko would, in that situation, actually make sense.
but as we know, killing Teruko is a challenge in on its own, whether that’s by attempting to incriminate her or attempting to directly murder her. she even declares this herself.
actually, little side note: “no matter what” is seen in both this scene and the prologue cutscene—and they’re highlighted in both cases. just thought it was interesting because it gives off “unstoppable force meets immovable object” vibes lmao
though this could definitely be more important than it seems right now
this has been kind of true. in the first chapter, we saw Teruko almost getting killed multiple times, and her surviving all of them. first with Xander attacking Teruko, second with Min attempting to frame Teruko to ensure her own survival (and don’t forget about the detail of two people voting for Teruko for some odd reason—not sure why, but this could suggest that someone other than Xander was aware of this situation? that’s the current weak point of my theory, unfortunately). so as far as we can tell, attempting to kill Teruko proves to be very difficult as her luck carries her though each incident, even if she didn’t want to survive them. it almost seems like an impossible feat with the amount of luck she has.
the thing is, the fact that killing Teruko is nearly impossible adds to my personal theory: “what if the killing game is only running because Teruko is alive? what if killing her effectively ends the killing game?”
look i can explain it okay
as far as we can tell, Teruko actually has a lot of advantages compared to the others in the killing game:
her distrusting nature makes her less vulnerable to being lured into a trap
her luck. that’s all i have to say
MonoTV is giving her some advantages himself, which seems a little… suspicious.
okay on second thought let me elaborate on that last bullet
think back to ch2 ep2-3. MonoTV is the one that asked Teruko to do some chores for him in exchange for MonoCredits—which are essentially tokens that allow Teruko to get others to leave her alone.
what’s interesting here is, MonoTV doesn’t set any restrictions on when she can’t use them (although that could be just because Teruko cut him off). in that case, couldn’t she theoretically use one if she’s about to get murdered or something?
and I also find it weird that MonoTV asks Teruko specifically (as well as follows her around) to do that chore. since there were so many other people that Teruko talked to when MonoTV was still following her, he technically could’ve walked up to anyone. therefore, it could be a possibility that MonoTV intentionally did that to give her an advantage.
just me? okay
anyways what i’m trying to say here is that the series itself seems to be gradually giving Teruko more advantages and opportunities that prevent her from being killed. although that could point to her being the mastermind, i kind of explained with the secrets why that seems unlikely.
but if my theory of “killing Teruko will end the killing game” proves to be correct, the true mastermind actually benefits from giving these added advantages to Teruko—it makes it harder for Teruko to be killed, which effectively keeps the game running.
which indirectly makes Teruko responsible for the killing game—by literally just being alive.
this. uh. was a lot of small speculation and details. that could probably be proven wrong.
besides we’re only mid-ch2 at the time of writing this
so feel free to refute me on ANY of these points—i will listen. for all i know i could be wildly wrong
and as always, take this with a grain of salt.
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