So – pre - killing game Ouma. I want to mostly base this off of a few observations about Ouma’s character throughout the game, but given how little information we have to go on regarding who he was before the killing game, it’s safe to say that most of this is, if anything, speculation rather than genuine meta. But going from that, I think that one of the most interesting aspects of Ouma’s character is his insistence that no one will care if I die, and that his motive video contains not a depiction of a family member or anything like it but rather people who were like friends and family, implying that Ouma had nothing even close to family to speak of, certainly nothing blood - related, and part of me wonders if that extends to the real Ouma’s life, too. I’ve discussed the theory of Ouma being an orphan, and it’s certainly one that I subscribe too, and considering the motivation that would cause Ouma to put himself forward for the killing game … I wonder if Ouma did it for the sole purpose of feeling as though he had nothing else to live for, and wanted to be a part of something important, that made him feel like more than he was.
We don’t actually see Ouma’s reaction to being selected for the killing game, the chapter 6 trial limits us solely to the reactions of Saihara, Momota and Akamatsu, without giving us the chance to know how the others felt about this – Shirogane says ‘ you were all so excited ‘ but … considering that the people involved in this killing game auditioned for it, one can assume that everyone was happy about it. But Ouma, I think, was given his confidence as part of his fabricated personality, and that the Ouma before the killing game was timid, and willing to die, and maybe didn’t even care that much about Danganronpa, seeing it as maybe a means to an end, or a way to die with the attention of the whole world upon him.
I will discuss at another time the theory I have that Ouma’s pretend mastermind plot was in fact part of Shirogane’s plotlines, and that she turns the group towards demonizing Ouma by chapter 4 / 5 is indicative of that ( as Harukawa’s feelings for Momota are, as well as Momota’s own illness ) but I do believe that Ouma was sort of destined to be killed off, or that Shirogane at least planned it in such a way and that the plot itself used Ouma’s desire to die as a fulcrum for it – Ouma makes several references to ‘ not wanting to die ‘ over the course of the game, but doesn’t / isn’t afraid to die, doesn’t even hesitate to put himself in the press in order to win the killing game by ending it / proving its rules to be faulty, and there’s an uncertainty there as to whether this aspect of Ouma may have changed between before the game and during it, or if he truly wanted to live. My personal belief is that Ouma did not think he’d live, that he predicted Maki would try to kill him and her method for doing so ( he familiarized himself with Saihara’s poisons, as one will note in chapter 4 when he tells Saihara the effects of the poison Miu intended to pretend to kill him with ) and that he planned on dying in order to end the game – and that the entirety of chapter 5, from his kidnapping of Kaito to predicting Maki would come to kill him to Kaito even protecting him and so on goes precisely as Ouma planned; he tests Momota’s willingness to attack him at the end of chapter 4, takes note of Harukawa’s reaction, and puts into final motions his own personal gambit, and I don’t think he at all intended to survive it. Given that he gives Momota a whole script for it ( one which couldn’t be prepared in the time between him getting poisoned and being put under the press ) I’m fully willing to believe that Ouma fully expected these events to lay out as they did, and either was willing to die, or wanted to die, and saw this as a death for the sake of everyone.
And I do think that Ouma’s beliefs about the killing game being sick or wrong are carried over from his past self, that there is something about his belief there that is ingrained into him so deeply that he was openly willing to villainize himself in the eyes of everyone else and die for it just to end the game – that his belief in it being bullshit, in everything being a lie ( his suspicion of the killing game’s layout from the beginning, one will note his rank 2 chat with Akamatsu where he questions what she thinks is common sense and how valid or real her belief on common sense is or whether it’s something just told to her ) is something his ‘ real ‘ self carried over, that his personality and opinions and beliefs are not wholly fictionalized, that his sense of self isn’t, either, and that he auditioned for Danganronpa not because he wanted to have fun with the game or even see it as fun, but because he was willing and ready and even wanted to die, and that seemed an interesting and unique way to go about it.
To top this off, pre - game Ouma strikes me as a person who feels looked over, and that the fabrication done to his personality takes what was a timid personality and turns it into a frighteningly confident one – one that can best utilize the intelligence that he has to a dangerous and almost lethal degree, but this sense of feeling looked over and isolated is something that also turned him towards Danganronpa, which would have put him in the spotlight, with all the world’s eyes on him – and would have made him and his life feel as though it mattered.
titsay
germansingergirl
prguitarman
jacobvanloon
discoholicmusic
areudirty
