milgram's definition of murder VS your definition of murder
Often, people go 'but it isn't murder!' when discussing the innocence of certain Milgram characters. I think that's missing the point, though. Here's a small analysis for why prisoners don't need to commit legal murder in order for them to appear in Milgram.
TL;DR: Milgram (the prison) is structured around what the prisoner considers murder. The Milgram Project itself did this to intentionally expand the range of moral dilemmas that us voters can discuss about.
For Yuno, they may say that it's considered murder because Japan has a negative view on abortion and argue against the framing of it as murder because abortion isn't murder.
For Mahiru and Kazui, they may say 'but being in love isn't the issue!'/'but it's the partner who killed themself!'
People are less generous for Fuuta because he's indirectly killed a middleschooler to satiate his boredom, but it's still surprisingly different compared to the definition of murder - Yuno, Mahiru, Kazui, and Fuuta are being considered murderers by Milgram, despite not aiming to directly kill their victims.
Milgram doesn't care about the indirectness of all these crimes. This much is obvious. But, if not about the legal widespread definition of murder, then what does Milgram consider murder?
These past 3 trials suggest that it's dependent on what the prisoner considers a murder.
Yuno has already said multiple times that she considered her abortion a bad act because she feels like she should have been punished for taking life for granted (as many women like Mahiru aren't able to have that happen in their lives). This doesn't make her logic right, but it explains why she might see it as murder.
Kazui feels guilt about not having been open about his attraction with his wife and considers him coming out of the closet as what pushed her to do it.
Mahiru, even if she's confused and can't understand what she did wrong, feels as though her love for her boyfriend had played a part in how he died.
Fuuta felt guilt even from T1 - the end of his MV shows it, regardless of how much he hides his feelings to Es and to himself, and then T3 confirms that he has the habit of running away from his problems. Even if he refuses to acknowledge it as a murder at first, his emotions were firmly set on considering it a murder.
'But then, why was it written this way? The Milgram Project writers could have used a legal definition of murder instead.'
The confusion surrounding their definition of 'murder' is evidently on purpose by the time Trial 3 started. These characters consider their actions to be murders, which adds to the amount of discussions that voters can have. For example: The discussions for Yuno's trial had helped some people to understand that abortion isn't murder and Kazui's may have led people to re-evaluate why they thought he should've stay closeted/told her sooner.
To create discussions like these are a significant win on Milgram Project's part. After all, this project was designed to have people deal with moral dilemmas.
EXTRA DETAILED meta analysis & character analysis behemoth on:
the Milgram Project voting system's possible commentary on rehabilitation issues
how Es was written
why I think Kotoko is the perfect prisoner to go last in the voting
Featuring quotes from Fuuta, Amane, and Kotoko's voice dramas, and Kotoko's 2nd MV.
This analysis seeks not to persuade the voting but to inform it. Nothing in this judges you for any vote, I only want to share the connections I've made. Thank you if you read.
TL;DR: There's some reason to believe that Es was written partially to reference/challenge the real-life issues surrounding rehabilitation. Kotoko's uniquely positioned as someone anti-rehabilitation, which makes her a good final round of voting because her difficulty generates the most conflict for the plot if it's a pro-rehabilitation story.
Rehabilitation can be a testy subject. There's always the chance of someone never changing. There's always the chance of someone hurting others again.
Likewise, there's always the chance of someone growing. Someone who could realize their wrongdoings, try their best to atone, and then live their life with minimal harm. It's a fact that this duality is possible in everyone, regardless of whether people like or dislike the outcomes.
That tense duality is exactly why it's such a testy subject. In law, there's even large variances in how wrongdoings handled. People hurt people sometimes because they were in pain, sometimes because their mental health was shaky, sometimes because they thought they were right, and so on. How long should someone be imprisoned and for what reasons? Is it right to be overly cautious and cast away the potential for redemption? Or, is it right to give people the chance to prove themselves helpful to society?
It makes sense to be concerned. Depending on the gravity of their wrongdoing, it could lead to worse outcomes if someone is let off the hook without scrutiny. Someone could say they'll do better without showing it.
But if you (general you) somehow take the wrong turn and do something bad while thinking you were right, it would be good to have an opportunity for growth. There can be nuance, where someone isn't outright denied redemption yet can only be given leniency if they show they're willing to change. That nuance is what people would strive to understand if they wish to minimize harm.
From T1 to T3 so far, Es' character growth seems to reference this rehabilitation view to the point that I feel convinced they were written with that in mind. They started off defensive and violent because they consider the prisoners to be equally harmful - then, as they got to know the innerworkings of the prisoners' minds, began to feel hesitant about being in a place of power because they don't feel equipped to judge or exact violence.
The Milgram Project prisoners have been swept off from their lives and placed into an unknown confined area with strangers. On top of that, they've been told that everyone there is a murderer without any details. When Milgram shows their MVs / voice dramas / interrogations, the details of their murder & life are often muddled with their own coping mechanisms and projections. In all cases, you and Es are only viewing snapshots of their life trajectories.
Some prisoners had been let down by a society that doesn't support their issues enough. Others had been let down by not growing up in a loving environment. A few had been let down by their own perceptions of themselves.
Kotoko's a strange case. She has done vigilante work against harmful people in the real world, yet she attacked these prisoners without knowing their stories in Milgram. I'm not one to judge anyone for voting any way, so don't take this to persuade the reader in either direction, but I think she's a good example of a final prisoner precisely because she's hard to vote for with regards to rehabilitation.
She possess a similar attitude to T1 Fuuta, except stubborn enough to physically assault people in Milgram. Her logic had been flawed from the get-go: "if it's okay to attack Milgram prisoners because they're all murderers, then why does she think she's exempt from her own judgment?"
Kotoko immediately assumes (1) that she must be the special exception to murder out of self-defense, and (2) that Milgram's judgment of the prisoners is all she needs to follow. She tells Es that she is worth forgiving due to murdering out of self-defense'¹', yet in T2 she admits she had plans to attack all prisoners deemed Guilty.
These assumptions serve her ego: T2 both implies and outright states she liked the power she holds when she's morally right. She likes black-&-white thinking because it gives her a way to hammer so-called justice onto others deemed lesser. Her logic being flawed is not something she cares about.
While it's true that she once targeted people who were harmful in society, her black-&-white view led her to attack even people who were harmless within the walls of Milgram. Kotoko's views put her on the side of anti-redemption - she doesn't believe in examining nuance, as she believes that being overly cautious about the prisoners prevents more harm. She implies that violence towards those who have enacted violence is always justified. There is no room for weighing the pros and cons, truths and lies.
Granted, the audience doesn't know much about Kotoko's past. In the Trial 2 voice drama, she mentions having felt like Es before. She states that she knew what it's like to be guarding alone. It's possible that she has her own traumas and such, yet Kotoko having her own reasons for attacking people doesn't mean she's in the right for her actions. She had still physically hurt and indirectly killed other prisoners, never trying to understanding their perspectives before acting.
In fact, her T2 MV lyrics state that she seeks a reason to start attacking the prisoners who'd been deemed innocent by Milgram as well. She rattles off pejorative titles, despite not laying a finger on them before.
Yet again, Kotoko's actions aside, she's not exempt from potential redemption herself. She has a tendency to sidestep nuance and attack others without asking questions - but Es & the audience are only seeing a snapshot of her life so far. Violence-seeking does not define a person as a whole.
Violence-seeking does not define a person as a whole. I wanted to repeat that for emphasis.
There are many outlets for violence that does not involve what she does. Martial arts, boxing, and so on - there are activities that involve violence consensually and with safety nets. Having a desire to hurt others is not harmful in of itself, as it's only a desire. It did not need to be acted on. Thoughts and feelings are not crimes to have. Many people, especially those who have trauma, have had states of rage wherein they felt like they wanted to hurt others... but that doesn't mean they always need to go through with it. There are resources for dealing with rage. Kotoko has had anger issues and there are ways to circumvent anger into productive means.
But is it okay to bank on a possibility that she could change?
That's a hard question that the voters and Es must face. If Es was partially written to explain the reasons for pro-rehabilitation, then Kotoko's refusal to believe prisoners can be redeemed is there to be the foil for Es.
The way Milgram Project is written so far has led Es to question the views of people like Kotoko who believe in a black-&-white justice. They hadn't yet made a decision on whether to destroy Milgram, yet all-throughout T1 to T3 has Es seeing the ways that anti-rehabilitation has led to Milgram prisoners suffering without changing their ways. The large conflict of stances between Es' budding understandings and Kotoko's stubborn closemindedness is likely to influence their final decision.
---
¹(Which is not yet shown in either MV 1 or 2. What we know of Kotoko is that she tracked down and attacked someone out of a sense of justice, not that she did so out of self-defense. This may or may not come to light in her T3.)
I wanted to point out the possible Japanese pun in Non-Demonium (なんでもにうむ).
If you listen to the way Amane sings it, she pronounces it as "nan-demo-nium". The "-nium" is said faster than the parts, the most notable sound being the "i". The effect is that her phrase sounds similar to なんでもいい (nandemo ii).
Additionally, the phrase nandemo ii is often written in hiragana and Non-Demonium itself was written in hiragana:
なんでもにうむ / Non-Demonium
なんでもいい / nandemo ii
Typically "nandemo ii" is said by a speaker who has either no huge preference or is going with the path of least resistance. In English, it's similar to someone saying "well, whatever" or "anything goes".
If this pun was on purpose, that can mean multiple things. My two main guesses are:
This can reference the fact that Amane's been losing a grip on her sanity. She's long-since harbored doubts about her religion, as Es pointed out in her T3 voice drama, but still goes ahead with it because she can't bear facing the fact that she'd been abused all her life and killed her mother for that same abusive religion.
"Whatever, I have nothing else."
Or it's calling to fact that Amane's parents are hypocrites. They were okay with bending the rules if they benefit, despite not giving her the flexibility with the rules. It meant her mother could have chosen to rebel against the religion and save Amane from abuse at any time, yet Amane's mother only chose to rebel once she herself was suffering for it.
"Anything goes if it's me."
---
Unrelatedly, I drew this doodle of Amane with the cat she tried to save. It was a fun doodle. Thanks for seeing it.
Looking at the comments in Fuuta's 3rd MV is baiting me into posting some analysis of him but it's been 9 months and every last drop of Fuuta-essence had been captured and stored in Fuuta-vials by now, probably.
Still. I want to put out something for him sometime. Perhaps there's a piece of Fuuta left uncharted.
Notice the wooden stick that was used on Amane and her mom - this means the wooden stick was indeed used in the doorway. Through this we can determine that the MV's order of punishments was likely linear.
Amane's raised fist was the first act of punishment by the cult (the corporal punishment), so it must have happened in the doorway as well.
The electrocution punishment is too vague to be certain where it happened. It could be in the doorway due to the scraps of paper littering the floor, but the living room could have been littered as well.
The water punishment happened in the living room, as shown by the change of scenery and the poster at the back matching the poster in the living room.
The verbal punishment is the last punishment, so it had to have happened in the living room after the water punishment.
After Amane was done exacting the cult's punishments, she was in the living room.
There is no smeared blood path. If there were, you could make the argument that Amane somehow dragged her mom to the living room. There isn't any because her mother herself found the strength to move herself into the other room.
She could have tried to escape, somehow, in the timeframe between Amane getting the bucket filled with water and returning to her mother. Either she wanted to escape through the window or she was struggling to go someplace even in her delirious pain-adled state. In any case, there was no way of escape.
... a serious but lighthearted theory + character analysis.
Fuuta himself had been ashamed of the haircut. He knew that it looked unkempt, wasn't well thought-out, and had been uneven. For a child whose whole life had been controlled by her parents, Amane must have been used to her haircuts being proper.
However, so far, nothing in Fuuta's interrogation questions indicate that Amane punished Fuuta for messing up.
Q14: Do you forgive Amane's actions?
F: I understand what you want to say. But I alone will forgive her. Even if she's wrong, I'll still forgive her
Q18: What does Amane mean to you?
F: Well, I wonder. It's not something that I can say in a few words. She was salvation, at least.
Q19: Do you truly believe in Amane's doctrine?
F: Believing in it or not, it doesn't matter. Still, I have to believe, I will not let that person be on her own.
It's possible that Fuuta was scolded, yet based on Amane's MV it's unfit to say she consciously hated his attempt.
Importantly, Amane stayed with this haircut even in her MV. She wears it as the factory operator and she's controlling a toy factory that produces toys in her likeness:
Her casual blue clothes
Her T1 MV magical girl uniform
Her T2 MV parade uniform
Her T3 Milgram uniform and Fuuta's haircut design (with the surprise addition of Fuuta's eyepatch)
Given that prisoner MVs are metaphors for their psyche, this can imply that there's a part of Amane who identifies with the haircut Fuuta gave her. Somehow, it is given the same identification has all her other 'selves'.
The reason is simple: She has had her whole life controlled for her. Fuuta's botched haircut is likely the first time she's ever had her hair messed up that badly.
In Amane's T3 Voice Drama, Es notices that she's had uncertainties about her religion + parents' practices for a long time. So, long before her T3 MV, Amane has harbored doubts about her controlled life. Her coping mechanism is typically to stifle her emotions, but her doubts were there regardless.
That's why Fuuta's haircut stays with her in the MV. He may have done it wrong, but he was also her first follower + supporter outside of her parents. She's the operator behind the toy factory—in charge of controlling her own life for once—and having an imperfect haircut from someone she saved was an extension of that.
Something as small and funny as a botched haircut was emotionally significant, whether she consciously admits it or not.
I remember listening to all his songs on repeat, years ago. Salamander & Backdraft were my favorite. Then, I listened to Appare March on repeat last year.
Of the frames + lyrics at 1:23 - 1:38, specifically.
1:23 - 1:30
005 He just can’t be saved / Artificial life extension is taboo / Dear dear, so much work for such uselessness
Despite the lyrics on screen scorning medical help, there's imagery of Amane factory-producing medicine. Her hands are shaking as if she's hesitant and doesn't know what to do.
It's clear she's desperate to help her mom. Amane froze up, knowing that medical assistance would help but also knowing that the doctrine forbids it. Her trashtalk of Shidou's profession can be interpreted as her own hopelessness about how her mom can't receive medical help because "artificial life extension is taboo" - she projects her shame onto Shidou.
1:30 - 1:38
003 Well you’ve really got it / Glad to see you’re a good smart boy / Lookin’ more alive than before, I’ll let you stay by my side
Amane's mental imagery shifts into her trying to stop the production of medicine. Her hands stop shaking in the next scene, as if realizing something. She then clasps her hands together and prays.
Once again, she is showing how much she wants her mom to be saved. This sequence is similar to the Magic MV wherein Amane is told to pray the cat's injuries away. Back then, she was punished for trying to heal the cat through medical practices - here, she remembers her 'lesson'. She streamlines her anxiety through banking on faith and this steadies her hands.
Amane, in the present, praises Fuuta for seeing the light of her teachings - to her, he appears "more alive" once he'd refused medical assistance. It's evident that she's trying to cope with the idea that medical assistance is punishable in her religion. By "more alive," Amane could be referring to Fuuta's increase in mental clarity + peaceful outlook.
"If the spirit feels capable and soothed, that is all that's needed. The physical body may live or die, may hurt or heal - what matters is that you continue to believe. Only then will you be saved."
There's parallels to her Milgram life through this. Despite trying to keep following the rules, Amane went through emotional turmoil and hesitated. It could be that Fuuta's belief in Amane had calmed her just as she once calmed her shaking hands. Seeing proof that her religion could benefit someone had been the proof she may have wanted during her murder/life - that there is good in following the rules.
kaledo-art
stormborns
tangentwithtanner
kianamaiart
baratheonpilled
origamiaround
pixelskylines