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accirax · 10 months

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Charles Tawaki: a DRDT Crack Theory

(Spoilers through DRDT Chapter 2 Part 1. Also for Star Wars Episodes 4 and 5, somehow???)

So… I know this sounds crazy (it is), but hear me out, okay?

After rewatching all of DRDT for a second time (as you do), I was left puzzled by Teruko’s final conversation with Veronika before the Chapter 2 motive reveal/body discovery. Y’know, the one about prosopagnosia.

Because, under my current understanding of the case, Teruko’s possible face blindness is completely irrelevant.

Now, I know my comprehension of the crime is nowhere near perfect, and that many popular theories include a culprit either dressing up as or swapping places with Arei. The person who makes the most sense for this is obviously J. She’s the same height as Arei, they’re both girls, and they have similar eye and skin colors. Additionally, J has one extra advantage that no one else does: her talent. J is the Ultimate Effects Artist, specializing in practical theater effects as opposed to digital post production.

Out of everyone in this cast, if someone was going to disguise themselves as Arei, J would have the best chance at being able to use makeup to disguise her face. Maybe her history with actors would even give her a better shot at acting like Arei, if worse comes to worse.

However, there’s a major problem with this premise at its base: even if Teruko is face blind, not everyone in the cast is. If Veronika can see the similarities between Teruko and the actress, wouldn’t she also be able to tell the differences between J and Arei? Moot point, Veronika could notice and still choose to conceal that because it would make the trial more interesting. But, Whit is still a pretty observant guy when he wants to be. Arturo has a particular eye for people’s faces, and has spent a lot of time with J specifically. Rose has a photographic memory. While it’s possible that Teruko wouldn’t be able to see through a disguised killer, between the twelve-or-so other innocent students in the rest of the case, it feels like it would be impossible for the killer to actually get away with dressing up as Arei for any meaningful amount of time, or in front of a meaningful group of people.

But this conversation with Veronika is so suspicious!!! The fact that DRDT’s creator chose to give Teruko prosopagnosia, or at the very least to suggest it, means that it has to be relevant to the story in some way, right? That’s, like, mystery writing 101.

So, I have an alternate theory as to how it could come up: if Teruko has failed to notice that her long-lost missing brother is amongst this cast.

And, that that brother was someone who was present for this very conversation: Charles.

Sound unbelievable? Well then, let me start off with some of my best evidence to get you more on board. That being, their character designs.

Charles and Teruko have pretty similar faces, all things considered. Their eyes are both pretty narrow, and upturned at the end. They also have really similar hairstyles: two bang spikes in the middle, with two longer pieces framing the face. The side opposite their long ponytail has a tuft of hair overlapping the side of the hanging piece, while the other side is more plain. Charles and Teruko also have really similar skin tones, with Teruko’s skin only being slightly redder and darker than Charles’.

Obviously, the two of them have different eye and hair colors. However, as Veronika already pointed out, that doesn’t matter:

(Teruko brings up skin color too, but it’s treated as secondary to eye and hair color.)

Inadvertently, Veronika is telling us that if two people have different eye and hair colors, they can still look similar as long as they have other similarities. Thus, while having different coloration can throw us off the scent, Charles and Teruko can still look similar, and remind us of the other.

Speaking of which, the personality similarities between Charles and Teruko have been highlighted in the story multiple times before. The most obvious one in my memory occurs at the end of the scene where Charles entrusts Teruko with the secret he received, right before Teruko decides to use a Monocredit to get rid of him.

Here, he calls Teruko out for her hypocrisy, directly pointing out that Teruko holds the same apathetic attitude that he displayed in Chapter 1. Beyond that, I think it goes without saying that both Charles and Teruko have displayed some majorly antagonistic qualities throughout the story. Both are intelligent, guarded, and a little sassy. When they banter, they’re able to trade similar insults.

Also, they both have a particular fondness for cacti.

Obviously, siblings do not need to have the same personality, especially if they didn’t even grow up together. I bring this up more to say that these are ways in which the author is intentionally drawing parallels between Teruko and Charles, showing us that they are similar and connecting them in our minds.

Now, let’s take a look at what we know of their backstories. As previously shown, Teruko was an orphan who lived at an orphanage with her brother. When she was five, her brother was adopted, and she was not. She had a pretty rough life after that, with “no family to speak of” while sneaking into schools to get an education, forced to choose between food and rent. Very unlucky, but not particularly relevant to this theory.

Charles’ life, on the other hand, seemed a lot easier.

Charles claims that both of his parents are alive. Additionally, while I don’t think it’s been confirmed, the fact that Charles doesn’t know how to cook or do his own laundry implies that either his parents are very caring and attentive to his needs, or he comes from a rich enough family that they have some sort of housekeeper to take care of their chores. My money is on the latter based on Charles’ overall demeanor, but that’s just speculation.

However, anyone who’s read Charles’ secret knows that his past wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows.

While Charles believed he had no siblings, in truth, he actually had a brother who died when he was young. Many characters, including Charles himself, also connect his forgotten past to his fear of blood and dead bodies. That means that whatever happened to his brother, it wasn’t pretty.

So, that’s great, right? Another similarity between Charles and Teruko: both of them have a brother! Except, really that’s more of a problem than anything. If Charles and Teruko are siblings, then Teruko should remember having two brothers, and Charles should believe he has a sister. However, there is a way to get out of this.

Here’s my proposed theory for Charles and Teruko’s intertwined backstories. Charles and Teruko Tawaki are born to the same parents, likely as twins, given that they appear to be in the same year in school. While it’s a little odd that Teruko only said she had a brother as opposed to a twin brother, it’s possible she doesn’t remember the details herself, as she doesn’t cite the brother as older or younger, either. Anyways, at some point, their parents die, and the two of them are sent to the orphanage.

Then, when Charles and Teruko are five, Charles is adopted by the Cuevas family– a mom, a dad, and an older brother. I can’t speculate as to exactly why the family would adopt only Charles and not Teruko, but considering that Teruko getting left behind is a canonical plot point no matter who her brother is, clearly the author believes it’s possible. Once Charles is adopted into the family, tragedy strikes, and his new older brother dies in a terribly bloody accident. This event forges Charles’ phobia of blood and bodies. And, in a desperate attempt to save itself, his brain wipes his memory of his older brother… as well as his adoption and his twin sister, too.

Even if Teruko seeing a dead body happened after she left the orphanage, it’s clear that her past was pretty bleak. Having your parents die and being sent to an orphanage at such a young age must have been a traumatic event. So, if Charles was already in the process of developing childhood amnesia about the trauma of his brother’s death, I think it’s possible that his brain could have decided to shut out the trauma of being adopted, too. It’s childhood amnesia. Obviously he didn’t forget enough of his childhood to concern him or tip himself off that something was wrong, but who has super crisp memories from age 5 or prior anyways? And, if Mr. and Mrs. Cuevas simply hadn’t chosen to tell their son that he was actually adopted (possibly for fear of triggering him by reminding him of his adopted older brother), Charles could grow up thinking he had an exceptionally normal childhood.

Thus, while it requires a bit of creative interpretation, I think it’s possible for Charles and Teruko’s backstories to fit together. And, once you clear Charles’ brother dying, the two of them never saw each other again until the killing game began, so anything that happens afterward can still fit under the siblings theory.

This includes their secrets, as well. While we don’t know Teruko’s secret, I’ve gone on the record saying that I believe that hers is “How could I even select what secret to make your motive? Just about everything you’ve done in your life is worth killing for. The killing game is all your fault”. This secret isn’t specific to one event, so Charles being her secret brother would still totally fit. It’s a little weird for Charles that they wouldn’t roll the other half of his forgotten siblings into the secret. But if they wanted to limit it to one secret per person for the sake of fairness (for instance, not having Whit’s secret be that he omits the death of his mother AND that he’s bisexual), I could see them cutting it out.

And that’s not even operating under the theory that Teruko could be the mastermind. In that case, she could have A) chosen to not talk about that secret because it mentions herself and her past, or B) not known it herself, and therefore not have been able to make it Charles’ secret.

From a meta writing perspective, I don’t know how the creator would tell us that Teruko and Charles are twins now that the secrets motive has passed, but I believe they could come up with something.

So, have I convinced you at all that it’s possible yet? I would hope at least slightly, if you’ve gotten to this point in the theory. Sadly, however, that means it’s time to discuss some of the… large potential holes in this theory that almost prevented me from writing it in the first place. Here we go.

Let’s go back to Charles and Teruko’s similar appearances, my “strongest point.” Well, Google tells me that the last name “Tawaki” is most commonly found in Japan, while “Cuevas” is Spanish in origin. Thus I, as well as likely many others, have assumed that Teruko is Japanese, and Charles is Hispanic. If Teruko and Charles are twins, that would mean that Charles’ ethnicity is actually Japanese, and he only gained the Hispanic last name “Cuevas” after being adopted by the Cuevas family. Through the magic of anime stylization, Charles and Teruko might look the same to us. But, in reality, if Charles was the only Asian looking member of a Hispanic family, wouldn’t it be pretty easy for him to realize/remember he was adopted?

While it’s a bit of an uninformed cop out, I did come up with a solution. If Charles and Teruko are both mixed race, specifically Asian/Hispanic, it’s possible nobody could have remembered. Charles could have been born a Tawaki, taking his Japanese parent’s last name, but when he was adopted, his Hispanic heritage amongst his new fully Hispanic family caused him to forget his Japanese roots. Like any child, some mixed race people look more like one parent (or therefore, one parent’s race) than the other. For example, as a mixed race person, I believe this is true of myself. I also think this is true of Whit, who appears to be Asian and white, but passes more as a white person.

(Obviously, it’s a little hard to tell exactly how white passing Whit is when he dyes his hair and we live in multicolored anime land, but the point stands.) So, this theory could be especially viable if Charles happened to look more like his Hispanic parent, while Teruko looked more like her Japanese parent.

Additionally, this could be a bold (mis?)characterization of the Cuevas family, but it is an explanation of why Charles could have been adopted while Teruko was not. If the Cuevas family was Hispanic, they may have wanted a child that “looked more like them,” so they only took the more Hispanic looking kid of the pair. If true, that would also potentially be another reason why Charles’ parents wouldn’t tell him he’s adopted.

For what it’s worth, I also do think Teruko is an American. While she was initially wearing a Japanese school uniform, and MonoTV confirmed she’s been to Japan, the fact that she “hasn’t been in years” makes me think that she currently lives in the US, where it really seems like the series is based. It would make sense if she now resides in the country in which she was born, and she’s never mentioned being a foreigner. She also speaks perfect English with no accent, which implies that she grew up in an English speaking country. If Charles is Teruko’s twin, and Teruko was born as an American, it would make it much easier for Charles to wind up in the United States.

Again, I don’t love this point, as it is extremely speculatory (what about this theory isn’t), but it is an answer. If Mr. Ultimate Chemist could take a DNA test for me real quick, that would be extremely helpful.

Point of contention #2: the existence of Charuko.

Speaking of which, please please please do not let this stupid theory stop you from shipping Charuko. There’s a 99.9% chance it is not true.

Anyways, Charuko is a big problem for this theory, given that I doubt the creator wants to incorporate incest into their story. While it obviously isn’t canon, Charuko is a decently popular ship, and that’s likely because of how their relationship is presented in the story. What was previously cited as sibling-like banter could easily be read as flirtatious teasing, and their similarities could be showing how compatible they are. But obviously, it could be totally platonic as well!

…Okay this is kind of a problem.

Even as more of a CharWhit enjoyer myself, I can’t deny that this is a particularly shippy moment. If you don’t recall, in this part of this scene Charles details how he likes talking to Teruko because she’s never pitied him, blushing all the while. The biggest blow to the theory is the sprite choice in this particular scene.

He has a version of this sprite with no blush. And yet, the creator chose to use the blushing version.

Now it is true that blushing can just be a sign of being flustered, which Charles often is. He could be embarrassed by merely complimenting Teruko at all, especially to her face. However, as any Owl House fan could tell you, blushing is often used as a shorthand for one character experiencing attraction to another. And, if Charles and Teruko are secretly siblings, I can’t understand why the creator would decide to imply the possibility that Charles could be crushing on Teruko. If the creator is a fan of… well, anything, they could probably expect that two of their most relevant characters have a possibility of being shipped together. They wouldn’t need to add any fuel to that fire– if anything, they would need to be throwing the firewood into the trash.

To be honest, I don’t really have much of a defense for this one. More than anything, this is what convinces me that this theory couldn’t be true. Really, all I can come up with is another example of something like this happening before, point at it, and say “if it happened there, it could happen here too.”

Said example is found in Star Wars, with Luke and Leia. At the end of the first movie, they kiss, but in the second movie, they learn that they’re actually twins, and cease romantic relations. Especially if this theory is true, I doubt Teruko and Charles would get to the point of sharing a kiss, but it would be a similar plotline to Star Wars.

Of course, I’m not the biggest Star Wars fan, but I’m pretty sure that when George Lucas wrote the first movie (in which Luke and Leia kiss), he didn’t know at the time that the characters were siblings. Meanwhile, if Charles and Teruko are twins, I would have to assume that it was in the creator’s plans the whole time, similar to Charles’ phobia of blood.

On that note of confidence, the final issue I could come up with: so what?

You’ve just spent 2.8k words+ trying to convince me that Charles and Teruko are siblings. Who cares? What does that actually have to do for the story? How would it ever become relevant?

Good points. Truly, I struggled with this myself. Like many others, I fear that Charles will die in Chapter 3 (after all, he was already pronounced dead at that time). And, given all the other drama that’s already going on with the other characters, and all the additional drama that the end of the second trial may cause, I wasn’t sure that a Charles/Teruko sibling reveal could really fit in that time. Even if Charles makes it past Chapter 3, I wasn’t sure how or why it would make sense for the story. But I did come up with a couple of ideas.

First of all, it could give Teruko another character to trust.

Charles is probably already the character that Teruko trusts the most (yes, even despite the above knife), but if she learned that he was her brother, she might feel even more connected to him. Or, she could pull a classic Teruko, and back even farther away from him in fear that she would come to trust him. At the very least, it would give Teruko an interesting dilemma. It would be interesting for Charles, too– he just learned he had a sibling that he lost, so how would he feel if he had a second sibling who was trapped in this killing game with him?

If Charles dies as an innocent victim, too, Teruko would have to face the loss of another person who’s important to her, but in a situation where he did absolutely nothing to betray her. This could happen even if Charles isn’t her brother, too, but I digress.

Secondly, it could force Teruko to talk about her past.

Given this scene, we know that there are aspects of Teruko’s past that she’s hiding from us, the audience inside her head. And, if she’s not telling us, then she definitely doesn’t want to tell other people.

But if Charles somehow learns that Teruko is his twin sister from a past he has no recollection of, after just receiving his dead brother secret, he would almost certainly want to start pressing her for answers. Although Teruko puts up a tough front, she has had moments of breaking down and showing “weakness” in the face of things that catch her off guard. It’s possible that if Charles genuinely came to her seeking answers about his own life, she would feel obligated to at least tell him something. And in that something, we could find some info relevant to the plot at large.

That is, if she actually knows anything about the situation. If she doesn’t and, say, MonoTV is the one who had to tell them about their siblinghood, part of Teruko’s backstory could also be rolled into the way that MonoTV would tell them that fact. That could be interesting, too, if Charles alone is privy to extra information about Teruko’s life beyond what happened when she was 5.

And, that’s about all that I have to say. As I’ve hinted at throughout this theory, despite being the one who came up with it, I really have my doubts that this theory is true. However, with the apparent lack of face blindness in this case, I can’t help but speculate as to how it could apply to something in the story in later chapters. I feel like I might be onto something, even if “Charles and Teruko secret siblings” isn’t it.

I would love to hear what anyone has to say to bust or support this theory, or if it inspires any other similar crack theories in its stead. Despair Time is a crazy enough series as is, so I wouldn’t be surprised if one of our shots in the dark makes it close to a target.

#drdt #danganronpa despair time #charles cuevas #teruko tawaki #drdt spoilers #fanganronpa #please don't bully me for this one like i said i almost didn't write it #but what if i was correct. would that be wild or what #the fact that none of the character songs seem to have anything to do with this either does not fill me with confidence #but again!! part of the point is hopefully inspiring people to look at the prosopagnosia conversation from unconventional angles!!!!#so it is all worth it even if i become a slight laughingstock!!!!!!!#my theories #if I had a nickel for every time I connected drdt and Star Wars I would have two nickels #which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it’s happened twice

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