#archsimp science

[archsimp]

Surely those who've played Danganronpa 2 Chapter 5 remember this part:

And while there's a lot we can say about the entire time Nagito speaks here, I'd like to draw everyone to these lines in particular:

Here, Nagito appears to be responding to Akane as if he is the one who's sane here, comparatively to everyone else. It looks very straightforward, right? What else could we possibly extract from here?

Well...

What if I told you there could be an alternative translation considering the overarching context of Chapter 5? What if Nagito isn't pointing to someone, but something?

("No... That's not it... That's... Wrong...")

("I'm not the one who's crazy... What's truly crazy is...")

Technically, the sentence here in Japanese doesn't outline whether what's being compared is something or someone. It could be either one, so that does beg the question: why would I assume that Nagito isn't referring to someone? Well, I actually have a basis. After a lot of thought from the first time I noticed this, I believe there could be a purposeful parallel between the this set of lines from Nagito and the last words Hajime says before Chapter 6, when the Ruins are open and reveal this scenery:

Watch:

("Something's... Weird...?")

("Is something wrong with me...?")

("No... That's not it...")

("I'm not the one... who's crazy...")

("What's... truly crazy is...")

("................................................................ This world?")

If we notice, the sentences here are almost the exact same between Hajime and Nagito here, with the exact same wording. The only difference is that Hajime doesn't That's Wrong anyone, only skipping that part, but everything else is the exact same when referring to how he feels as he enters the Ruins. You don't have to take my word for it, when visual comparison between the lines can lead you to note that the same characters are there between each other, but they also mean the exact same thing, just that both are denying being crazy within different scenarios. However, Nagito's scene leaves the matter unanswered. Naturally, the player is primed to think that Nagito is just saying that everybody else is crazy, but if so, then there's no real need script-wise to cut Nagito off. However, if that cutting off of Nagito's words is actually meant to leave ambiguity so that it connects to the end of Chapter 5, it starts to serve narrative purpose. It starts to serve the purpose of having Hajime answer to the ambiguity placed in that scene, where it turns out that what's truly insane is this world, which isn't real to begin with.

In other words, it would point to the implication that exists in the OVA where Nagito had found out this world was a simulation, so when Akane asks if he's gone insane, to him, the surroundings would be the true insanity and everyone else hasn't reached this stage of the truth. It would recontextualize how he feels about his classmates, and about how heavy the burden of truth actually is to him. It remains in the realm of theory, but I figured that it made sense to give people the food for thought to make their own decision on the matter, whether it's to disregard this similarity or contemplate it when thinking about Nagito in Chapters 4 to 5.

Incidentally, I found that I had to point it out because the English script didn't notice, which is why Hajime's lines are different there:

(that isn't what the original means but okay.png)

"Crazy" and "weird" are the same word here that can have different nuance under different contexts. Here, the English script did not associate the lines from Nagito's scene, and I suppose in that very same vein, you can believe it's different or even that there's a deliberate contrast if you'd like, where Hajime's answer supposedly differs from Nagito's. However, I think my point's been made in that it can be worth considering that there's a parallel here, and that because of the way it's been translated, it would be impossible to catch, even though honestly, on rewatch and on thinking about it, I feel like it would be notable. Either way, make of it what you will my friends... Thank you very much for your time and I hope you're having a nice day <3

[archsimp]

Okay so since I started it let's sit down for a hot second and talk about the one magazine spread promoting Danganronpa 3 and how it supposedly results in a canon confirmation of two characters dating. Behold:

In its cutie glory, and while Nagito's bedroom eyes must be terribly enticing, I have to unfortunately pry you away from them to go over what apparently is common sense information enough that it gets its spot on the wiki:

The explanation from the wiki outlines the main text in this magazine spread to talk about eating cookies full of hope with "him", as well as that "him" can also mean "boyfriend", ""depending on context"". Dare I say that it's convenient this passage itself is lacking in the context for which its reading would depend on! So I'll do the honours and translate the line as well as yap about this general context:

"How about a bite of him and fortune cookies overflowing with hope?❤️"

Unfortunately it's not truthfully with him that we're eating cookies, but more like also him, yeah... Delicious! But let's take a step back: what does this even mean? Instead of just looking at the book cover, let's think about the book itself for a bit: this is a magazine spread promoting Danganronpa 3 and asking bite-sized Autumn food-related questions to male characters that featured in Danganronpa 3, namely Hajime, Nagito, Makoto and Byakuya (Makoto and Byakuya are also being asked to compare each other to Autumn foods, same with Hajime and Nagito but disclaimer no they aren't expressing the desire to eat each other in the process)... And this is a spread from Otomedia magazine, which is released for a primarily female demographic and known to feature male characters that are popular with women. The passage I just translated is not a line of dialogue from any character or towards any character, but the catchphrase tying the magazine spread content together, both content and art, and the reason I translated the passage this way by putting "him" before the food is to separate the "him" from the concept of being eaten literally a bit more, since it's more likely that what we are being offered is not a plate of man meat to eat, but the lil fun factsies about the boys that associate them with food, making the sentence witty (because they're assigning foods to each other woah!!). Wait a second though... Where did Nagito and Hajime go? Nagito is surely handing the cookies!

Well, you see...

No no not the Nagito bedroom eyes. Down in the corner, those tiny letters below...

Yeah there it is! What a curious text this is! I wonder what it translates to!

("On the ship's deck, Komaeda hands Hinata Hanamura's handmade cookies. Sweets time is sure to be more fun together with friends ⭐")

Oh...

Friends is if anything me picking that over comrades for the softer vibes by the way! Our good old nakama is what's right there!

In other words, we can surmise that

is doing a bit of heavy lifting, because well... This sounds like context to me! Nagito handed the cookies from Teruteru to Hajime for him to eat alongside his peers. As for whether Hajime and Nagito can potentially be more than friends here, I think that's up to your cute Komahina scenario of this scene, but it can be understood how this is not explicit part of the material, to the point "boyfriend" would be a stretch of a translation here.

Tldr let's all thank Teruteru for being the catalyst to the cutie art

[archsimp]

Nagito Komaeda and Makoto Naegi

So, we all know that part of the concept behind Nagito's character is the idea of a Makoto on the wrong path, as per the official setting book:

[Another concept is "a Naegi who took the wrong step". It serves as the catalyst to the idea that "extreme hope becomes despair" which is the main theme of this work. Much like the Mobius strip and how both front and back are connected, Komaeda and Naegi are complete opposites but very similar. In order to clearly convey these kinds of themes, he exists. The reason why the two look similar is the natural conclusion to the thought that those who think similarly would have a similar appearance, too. By the way, as for the purposeful-looking name, it coincidentally turned out an anagram while trying to think of a "cool and suspicious name". (Kodaka)]

Now, I don't normally rummage for things like side interviews and the like so if there's actually more that was dug up on the relationship between Makoto and Nagito, it could be somewhere outside of my scope of research, but this above is essentially all the facts we have on how Nagito was based off of Makoto conceptually. Since we know this to be true, it stands to reason that there will be parts of Nagito reminiscent of Makoto, but which would those be? What does that mean for Nagito?

Well... That's up to us to figure out, since there's no official statement on which exact things were taken from Makoto. This means that whatever I'll be saying here isn't complete fact, and just the result of interpretation of the facts I showed above. However, the reason I believe the sharing of these dastardly headcanons is important lies in trying to reach for Nagito characterization that goes beyond surface level, taking inspiration from what supposedly would be the source: Makoto Naegi and his own insecurities.

Though, one may protest, "Nagito is his own blorbo! Even if based off of Makoto, it shouldn't be mandatory to understand Makoto in the process of researching Nagito!"

And I understand the sentiment. Long ago, I used to think that, before I was forced by circumstance to research Makoto. Still, the difference between Makotoful and Makotoless is night and day to me in terms of how to accept the nuance of Nagito, even it'll end up being based on my utterly devilish headcanons. Nagito is someone who is made mysterious throughout Danganronpa 2 so that figuring out what he's thinking is difficult on a first playthrough, let alone even multiple, especially considering the different things at play happening in real time as you advance. Thus, when it comes to research, it's important to have anchoring factors that don't distract one's perception from what's being shown in the source material. Considering it's a central aspect of the themes of the game, I think that even if Makoto isn't Nagito, that looking through Makoto would naturally shorten the steps required to reach conclusions about Nagito and the themes he represents.

As for how that's gonna be done, we first need to talk about Makoto.

1

Makoto Naegi

Makoto is the protagonist of Danganronpa 1, and was designed to be a reflection of the player, someone who we can project ourselves into. I see sometimes people having a big aversion to this notion, but this is a fact that's stated in the same official book:

(Representation of the Player's Self-Insertion) (In games, protagonist=the player, so at first I was aiming for a "normal high schooler" with a strong lack of individuality so that everyone could insert themselves in him. I think I also put the order for the character designer Komatsuzaki to "just make him normal". But as I wrote him, he kept growing and coupled with Miss Megumi Oogata's acting, he became a much more appealing character than I imagined. It was a very wondrous thing to experience, like life was literally being breathed into him.)

Basically, the initial plan was for a main character from which the player could be inserted into the story, and the more unique aspects came in later. Of course, this does also mean that there's more to Makoto than just a self-insert for the player, but we all already know this. My point is just that the aspect where Makoto was also meant to be a protagonist for the player to feel themselves in can still be observed from the script of Danganronpa 1, from how little we get to know about him to how interactions primarily focus on getting to know and reacting to other characters, etc. Makoto is also angled as the single ordinary person in the middle of extraordinary people, seemingly to become the common sense perspective to look at the events of the game.

However, this supposed everyman origin is also the starting point of Makoto's individuality and nuance as a character. The bits we see of Makoto's perspective on himself reflects on how average he finds himself to be:

As well as what he finds to be his only strong point, the fact that he's more optimistic than average:

Naturally, the breakdown of all aspects of Makoto's personality, in particular how Makoto's optimism reflects on his actions in the game could be worth its entire text wall post, so I'm not going to spam everything that makes up his character. Instead, I'll offer an example of the parallels between Nagito and Makoto from my perception already based on Makoto's introduction and Nagito's experience entering Hope's Peak Academy to ease into our actual main topic:

Bonus:

Both parties feel out-of-place and undeserving to be in Hope's Peak Academy, as both believe themselves to be completely average in comparison to the Ultimates. However, Makoto ends up accepting to go to Hope's Peak because of the promise of guaranteed success, whereas Nagito refuses them at first, leading them to insist based on the contributions research of his talent would have to the school. Essentially, both have the same self-perception, but whereas Makoto saw the potential in the future based off of being able to attend Hope's Peak Academy, Nagito didn't consider that potential and rejected out of principle. This shows that the same basis is reaching different results on a matter of perspective: Makoto had hope for what would become of himself from attending the academy because of his optimistic nature, while Nagito immediately figured he didn't deserve to be there, focusing on how out-of-place he is because of his pessimistic nature. This puts them in a position where indeed they oppose each other and yet are very similar.

There are other similar parallels such as how Makoto's idea that nobody could have been the killer only to pivot to considering that the real killer is the despair caused by the killing game is sincere from his part, while to Nagito the existence of a killer is only natural and can serve as a trial for the Ultimates to see who comes out on top from the despair laid out by said killing game. Makoto refuses to take the deaths of his classmates as meaningless, claiming it made them stronger from Chapter 4 onwards, while that same principle is echoed by Nagito but in such a way as to find this happenstance to be a good thing rather than something to be stopped regardless. I'll run into the iconic image limit by naming each thing that essentially references Makoto out of Nagito's dialogue and what opposes him in turn, so I'm going to skip to juicier parts of Makoto's personality to make my point.

Namely, the extent of Makoto's inferiority complex. It shows itself in the game proper, particularly in Chapter 1:

Where he's cheered up by Sayaka, who sees him as much more reliable than the rest of her peers. However, I find Makoto at his most exposed and consequently interesting in free time event content, in particular Chihiro's. Chihiro is a very rare instance of someone actually wanting to know more about Makoto personally, mostly because Chihiro is interested in finding reference points to become manlier. In the process, it's asked of Makoto about whether he has an inferiority complex, and he answers the following:

By feeling inferior over the fact that he's average and talentless, Makoto is implying the desire to have been as impressive as his peers in the academy. Rather, this principle is sensible to assume because the context hinges on Chihiro feeling weak and trying to understand how to be strong. The same way Chihiro truthfully wants to be strong, Makoto wants to be special. In expressing himself for himself in the game, he basically admits that he doesn't like how forgettable he is. In other words, he would have wanted to be remembered and appreciated as impressive.

However, he sees this as an unsolvable concern that he has to distract himself from by taking action in life:

So in the end, while he does feel inferior, he brushes that aside in a fittingly optimistic fashion, simply trying to make do with what he has (will now be taking from Byakuya's free time events):

And also feels like if it isn't him achieving things in life, that there's no point:

There's a lot to unpack here, so I'll try to synthesize it before we move on:

Makoto has an inferiority complex where he believes himself insignificant in comparison to the Ultimates who have talent;

Makoto however has accepted that he really is ordinary and decided to make do with his own circumstances;

In so doing, Makoto strives to find happiness within his own means and has the hope that the effort he puts towards this will bring that happiness.

We yet again see the same starting point reaching opposing conclusions altogether. After all, Nagito feels completely differently about his own prospects. However, like I said, the starting point is the exact same: the idea of being worthless and ordinary, unable to make any impressive accomplishments in life compared to the Ultimates.

2

Nagito Komaeda

One thing that's easily noticeable from how Makoto spoke about himself is that he not even once mentioned his own luck. Rather, Makoto doesn't acknowledge that he has luck as a talent to begin with. He believes he has no talent to speak of, and that his enrollment into Hope's Peak Academy was true pure coincidence:

Basically, Makoto does not rely on his luck, and always tries to do things with his own power as he doesn't believe he has a talent like luck to begin with. This is part of the reason why Makoto simply makes do with what he has, instead of lamenting his standing in life.

The same however cannot be said of one Nagito Komaeda and his luck, as well as how he perceives being the lucky student:

Nagito acknowledges luck as his talent to begin with, and while he here talks about how it doesn't make him do anything impressive and can't come from hard work, that's just how it stands compared to the talents of the Ultimates. Of course, by barring him from making actual achievements, Nagito perceives it as unremarkable, but it also just so happens to be the central reference point for how Nagito navigates his life:

In other words, to him, even if that thing is unremarkable, it's still the one thing he's good at, to the point looking towards something else doesn't matter. By being the one thing that stands out, it's essentially his identity altogether.

It stands as the complete opposite of what Makoto would think, since he would never leave his life to chance or find that luck would determine his value. Nagito however sees that as the most value he can squeeze out of himself in his attempts to support the Ultimates, and relies on outcomes produced by luck for the success of his plans on every instance he's applied any in Danganronpa 2. To Nagito, the fact that random chance granted him something makes it much more certain that he got it than if he attempted to just get it fully from his own power, because he knows he'll always get good luck at the end. Luck is in fact his life line:

Without being able to depend upon the principle that good luck will always come, Nagito would see no reason to live. In other words, he doesn't see hope for what he can do with his own power, only finding eventual luck to be certain. It's the hope he clings to which in the end actually implies a deep despair, and is emblematic of the contradictions that define his character.

(this first line is actually mistranslated by the way, workable alternative I can give you is: "I thought that I'd finally be released from this life where faint hope is my only guiding light through neverending bad and good luck...")

That's why the ending of Island Mode has so much meaning: by saying he found hope in his heart, he is implying he had none to begin with. Instead of making the attempt to make do with his life by his own power, he seeks out hope from the outside, and when he eventually found himself in the island, he thought that would be his resting place. From the beginning, Nagito did not hold hope for himself.

And as we know, Nagito doesn't care for the hard work of people who aren't worthy.

So, the effort he can make is useless to him. He doesn't believe his accomplishments mean anything even if he attempted. It's very interesting because the speech Nagito has in the beginning of Chapter 2 is technically another case of same starting point:

Because like we addressed before, Makoto truthfully believes the same thing: that he can never become special, because he's not talented and there's absolutely nothing he can do about it. In other words, even without the same words, Makoto's inferiority complex involves inherently believing himself less valuable than those with talent, and that he can never get the same success they do. However, the difference in nuance is as clear as day: where Makoto believed the effort he put in for the life he could have in his own standing was worthwhile, Nagito finds the entire attempt to still be meaningless because the unworthy are unworthy no matter what they do, and that will never change. So, Makoto has an optimistic view about the same premise, while Nagito has a pessimistic view on it.

It serves to contrast with the points made about Makoto before:

Nagito has an inferiority complex in which he feels himself insignificant in comparison to the Ultimates who have talent;

Nagito however clings to his only stand-out trait to find a modicum of meaning to life, since his own efforts are worthless;

In so doing, Nagito takes to searching for a strong hope outside of himself unable to realize that it won't give him the meaning he's searching for, since he remains in despair at himself.

This sheds a lot of light into Nagito's character, in my personal opinion. Discourse about Nagito tends to focus on the tragedy behind his chaotic environment and his self-esteem, and while these are two important things, I find that this inferiority complex, and how Nagito is someone who is essentially in despair at himself is a crucial part to his character in how he acts throughout the games. His hope is a desperate one, because he doesn't think he can do the things he wants to do. He wants the world to feel hopeful around him, and for himself to feel that hope. And more than that...

3

Nagito Komaeda and Being Special

Makoto Naegi is someone who never expected to become special, despite having wanted to feel like that deep down. At the end of game, he becomes the pillar of support for his friends and Kyoko deems him Ultimate Hope. Thus, when Danganronpa 1 ends, Makoto achieves being valued by other people more than what his average standing would have had him believe, and this burden is something that he has to come to terms with in the anime.

In the end, this is something that happened because Makoto was as optimistic as he was. He pushed people forward sincerely, and wanted nothing but to overcome the despair in front of him regardless of what could be waiting for him outside. He could simply believe that he could try his best to live out life, and this makes him suitable as the protagonist of the story in how he resolves the conflict and themes of Danganronpa 1.

The same doesn't happen for Nagito Komaeda. No one ends up warming up to him at all (I'm sorry to say to all shippers out there that the free time events aren't canon in the linear Danganronpa timeline), especially since he spends most of his time disregarding their feelings for the sake of a greater good that involved plunging them into despair, and in the process instead of pushing anyone forward, he would bring them more fear. By Chapter 4, the information he gains compels him to believe he can erase despair and become Ultimate Hope, but that vision results in his own death. Though his final message accounts for both sides, his actions were tragic in the end regardless, and he wasn't able to see the resolution of the game all the way through. In other words, Nagito wasn't able to be valued in the same way as Makoto despite wanting to.

Of course, these are just the diabolical headcanon words of one arch simp, but it's the reading I have based on the idea that Nagito had the same complex as Makoto: that in the end, Nagito wanted to be special. However, what is to be special? Makoto didn't enjoy being ordinary because it made him forgettable, essentially implying a desire to be remembered. For someone to remember another, they would have to leave an impression, so it's never based off of indifference. It means that following this logic, Makoto would have deep down wanted to have been valued by people, rather than just being a nobody. And this, likely in his view, sounded most achievable through having talent.

From his words in Chapter 5, my thought is that the same applies to Nagito.

This is the note that Nagito ends his final message with, which would intuitively mean to me that it's that important. And that something is to ask for recognition for his contributions to hope. It's a plea to be a target of respect and admiration the same way he felt the Ultimates were, shedding light to the fact that it's what he would have wanted to be if he had the chance, and at the end of Chapter 4, he perceived he had that chance. It stands as the opposite of Makoto, who never acted in the game for the sake of this recognition for the results he got, as in his mind, he was just doing his best to escape the killing game. Nagito, however, had from the start clung to the idea of contributing to hope whenever possible.

People who aren't talented can only serve as stepping stones for talented people to become stronger, and Nagito actively wants to be that stepping stone. He acknowledges Hajime to be "the same stepladder" as him in Chapter 4, but while it's not said explicitly, it certainly would be his understanding that instead of acting as one, Hajime feels that he could be an equal to them, meaning thus that not all people who can be said stepladders necessarily want to be. Nagito, however, wants to become part of the reason why true hope is born, making him trigger the killing game as soon as he got the chance. Nagito says his goals are selfless, but the idea is rooted in the contradiction that he truthfully wants his life to be used meaningfully. The interpretation here is that by being part of something valuable, Nagito can get the closest to having been worth something.

This is why I also personally consider the concept of value to be very important to Nagito. Nagito focuses on value in how he perceives other people and himself, and has concluded that he doesn't have value by default, so he resigns to methods that from the beginning imply no hope for himself. However, just like Makoto, part of his insecurities lie in the idea of being forgotten. The final message has him wanting a statue erected of him, and for his accomplishments to be spoken of so that he can remain in the memories of others. In his final free time event, he laments the fact that no one will "inherit his soul":

It implies the same concept that he doesn't want to be forgotten. He'd want someone to validate his existence, and finds it lonely that there isn't anyone who would care about him specifically. This breaks down the idea of being special to a very primal component: the idea of being loved. Being extraordinary is basically the means to be appreciated by other people. This inferiority complex thus is about having nothing to be appreciated for, and that resulting in a meaningless and lonely life. This is being compensated by the idea of success, that those who succeed at life and do great things would be accompanied by recognition and be valued for their accomplishments.

I don't wanna go into huge detail about the nuances of Nagito's desire to be loved since I feel like that'll be part of another installment of these text walls but the clarification I want to make when it comes to how I interpret it is that just because he says he wants to be recognized in the sense of being famous, doesn't mean that this is his primary goal and what he wanted deep down. To me, the idea is that this type of appreciation is the most he could muster from his standing to have meaning to someone (which to me is the core desire here but that itself is its own journey), and to be remembered. But being remembered doesn't necessarily mean to be famous, so we can have a reading that takes these goals as misguided, that from the perspective of someone who believes his core self is entirely worthless, that appreciation for contribution to something greater would be the most he could imagine out of it. That surely he wouldn't be appreciated for himself.

However, this is a slope from which people can slip in many ways, so while this thesis in particular is already basically in the realm of devious headcanons, I can't in good faith guide people to the idea that there can only be one interpretation to the things laid out here. What I believe is certainly likely is that Nagito does share in Makoto's desire to be remembered, but that Nagito manifested it in a misguided and self-sabotaging way. And this is the main point of this part: the fact that by reading into Makoto's insecurities, we can have more nuance in the discussion of Nagito's own because they seem to have a clear commonality, and lead to understanding that Nagito's actions are probably rooted in how inferior he feels compared to people born with talent, and how that makes him feel like he will never be in someone's mind.

4

Conclusion

Like I said before, there are actually multiple parallels between Nagito and Makoto scattered throughout Danganronpa 2. However, going on a goose hunt about all of them would not only have me run into the image limit and bloat this post, but it would also miss the point I truthfully wanted to make while constructing this. Of course, the more one can know about where Makoto begins and ends, the better, but calling attention to it isn't so much to get the cool trivia parallels but for the sake of further broadening discussion on Nagito based on the feelings of inferiority, which to me are the most interesting about him.

While researching Nagito, I took a long time contemplating concepts like absolute hope, value, and exactly what's packed into his feelings of not wanting to be forgotten. Researching Makoto led me to see Nagito's shadow in where Makoto was acting, and this helped me have a bit of a guiding light on how to potentially view Nagito. Naturally, because there's no clear indication of what is a conscious parallel to Makoto and what isn't, I can't state absolute facts here, but I do believe that there is a clear effort to make Makoto be a way to expand on the nuances of Nagito's character by exploring the duality between hope and despair, where Nagito's extreme faith in hope is also something based off of a deep despair. I believe there are multiple paths you can take these parallels, so the point of this post is to basically show a take. For anyone who has their own take, I would be happy to see it and consolidate.

However, I think I did rest my case in how looking at Makoto can help and be important in trying to understand Nagito. It's not a mandatory endeavor, but seemingly does make the process faster. If it could serve to broaden discussion about Nagito and Makoto, I would be happy. I felt like this was something I needed to post also because I'll eventually have to move on to other posts of a similar hellish headcanon nature where I have to offer my two cents of concepts about Nagito that I derived from research, where this background knowledge would probably help. Thank you again for reading ilyyyyy and while my opinion isn't holy you can ask me anything!!

[archsimp]

Does Nagito's Luck Truly Kill Everybody He Loves? Ft. Canon Facts

So I ruminated over my post breaking down facts and possible interpretations of how Nagito's luck works... And when I was talking about the impact of his luck, I dedicated one paragraph to addressing what may be (because honestly I just entered the fandom space so I can't tell) a common interpretation about Nagito's luck: the fact that it killed everyone Nagito loves and caused him to lose his self-esteem and to become isolated as a result. There, I wrote the following:

Now, one thing that may pop to mind for this category is the idea that Nagito's state of having no friends or anyone in his life was caused by his luck killing them. It was certainly his luck that resulted in the deaths of his parents, but as for whether the same happened to any classmates, friends, other relatives... There's no real evidence of this in canon, and Nagito doesn't say anything to that effect, either.

This isn't to say that it's impossible to assume people he loved got killed by his luck, but just that it isn't actually explicitly backed by canon. Basically, I just wanted to give people who'd wanna write Nagito hope about navigating his luck because if luck was such a constant killer, the ending of the OVA would've been that when Nagito hugged Fuyuhiko and Kazuichi at the boat, they would've all fallen into the ocean and while Nagito survives, the other two get eaten by sharks and now he's a sad boy with two less friends. So, the point was that there's more of a room for possibility than it's generally talked about when it comes to Nagito's luck, that indeed people who are in his vicinity can potentially last as per the flow of actual canon. But, it did make me think that people could ask, 'What do you mean, there's no real evidence?' because if the interpretation may be popular, you'd think it'd come from somewhere. And it does come from somewhere, since Nagito talks about his parents' deaths in the fifth free time event, and Island Mode continuously implies different ways people would die (including naming acquaintances dying as a potential trade off to how much fun he had on a best date) to allude to the experience Nagito's had around these risks. There's also the manga (though how reliably in-line with canon it is I'd say can be debated at this point in time, but I'm accepting it for now), and how it shows imagery of various people dead in the final chapters as we get to see what are meant to be flashbacks implying a turbulent past. I think it makes sense to assume that there were multiple casualties in Nagito's life, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they had to be for everybody Nagito knows and loves, or even that all risks mentioned by Nagito led to deaths necessarily. I didn't address it in detail in the original post because well... If there's no real evidence, then I can't post any quote about it, since I can't prove the negative. I mean, I can if I just showed all of Danganronpa 2's script, but that's not feasible within the scope of a tumblr post and would just be me telling you to play the game again. I don't want to inflict over 100 hours of Danganronpa 2 on steam on anyone else, but I do understand the sentiment that may doubt my lenience on Nagito's casualties. So, I'm going to use the free time event content to give my two cents on why I believe that Danganronpa 2 does not necessarily say that Nagito's luck kills everybody he loves, that it's not why he's alone and also not all the reason why he has poor self-esteem. Through this, I'd like everyone to consider factors other than deaths in how they would've been just as impactful to Nagito.

I'm gonna start by establishing that any material that aids in the specifics of interpreting Nagito's luck and its impact is only in Danganronpa 2. I did mention the manga, but I don't think the manga is going to be necessary to strengthen my point as what I said above still applies. My point isn't that people don't die to Nagito's luck, but that his loneliness isn't necessarily caused by people dying from his luck, so I don't need to address casualties that occur. I just want to address that there's no evidence that Nagito is all alone because everybody around him died. In that sense, the only material that specifies or gives implications at all is Danganronpa 2.

Talks of things that happened to Nagito out of his luck begin in Free Time Event 5 (as 4 explains luck and how it works for Nagito), where Nagito talks about two things: 1. His parents' deaths

Whether you interpret this as Nagito coping or that he didn't like his parents I'd say is up to your headcanon, because it's made ambiguous in the game. This isn't the 'How Much Did Nagito Love His Parents' post so I'm not going to address the two other mentions of his parents here, and I'm going to just hope that you can indeed agree that it's ambiguous. What isn't, though, is that they did die from an event that Nagito considers lucky. 2. Getting kidnapped by a serial killer

This lucky event doesn't involve anyone other than Nagito himself.

Right after, Nagito alludes to the contents he'll say in Free Time Event 6...

And Free Time Event 5 ends. So, we have two stories, of which one is about the death of his parents, and it's ambiguous how Nagito thought of his parents to begin with.

Now we advance to Free Time Event 6.

I've seen people believe that when Nagito says, "Like I said before, my parents are dead. Since I had no other relatives, "it" took direct action against me," he's talking about how his luck targeted him because there was no one else left. I'm very sorry to say that this is not what's being said in this conversation. Hajime asks what Nagito means, and he says, "My diagnosis." And he really means it. The reason it sounds so weird is because for some reason, the line was translated as "it took direct action against me." But what's actually meant is:

Nagito Komaeda: I don't mind. It's no big deal anyway. Like I said before, my parents are dead. Since I had no other relatives, I had "that" done to me directly.

Hajime Hinata: "That"... As in, what?

Nagito Komaeda: The announcement of my diagnosis. Stage 3 malignant lymphoma, and to top it off... It's accompanied by frontotemporal dementia.

This is very important because what he says here is 病名告知, which means the act of announcing an illness to a patient, and for illnesses that were very serious (like terminal illnesses or illnesses that would compromise brain functioning), this used to not be necessarily done directly to the patient. If you search this up, you'll immediately get results about announcing cancer to someone, the exact situation applying to Nagito. What Nagito is actually saying here is that because he has no relatives, he got told directly by the doctors that he had cancer and frontotemporal dementia, rather than it being told to his parents or someone taking care of him first. In essence, it's a way to emphasize that he was alone throughout that daunting process. So, this line doesn't actually imply that because his loved ones died around him necessarily, luck took action against him. It doesn't explicitly mean that at all.

But anyway, the free time event continues:

This has nothing to do with luck and just me proving I'm not skipping anything that could explicitly back the interpretation. Here, Nagito is just talking about how he's still alive because of hope, and about how he believes Hajime is similar to him.

Here is where it gets juicy. Nagito, about how lonely he is, says the following:

It seems there's no one who's willing to inherit my soul. I have no parents, no siblings, no relatives... Not even friends or acquaintances... Because of my self-righteous thoughts, everyone distanced themselves from me.

And this is translated accurately, Nagito says that they all distanced themselves from him. Not that they died. Nagito's explicit statement about why he's alone is because of his "self-righteous thoughts", meaning that he attributes his own opinions to why he is alone. He feels that no one wants to keep him in their memory, and feels lonely as a result. Then, he says that it was all something he read, to make it vague on what part was true or not. Us people who analyze Nagito all like to think that his illnesses are true, and if we're going that far, I think it makes sense to assume that everything he said was actually true, and that by the end...

When Hajime feels like he can at least figure out some of his honest thoughts from how Nagito believes he would be living a normal life if not for his luck, the event ends. Well to be fair to all shippers out there, the real ending is the komahina bait of all time:

(and while I find any ship to be valid, I would like to add for those who apparently find the ship to be canon and the only valid ship to consider that Nagito also said he loves the Ultimates with all his heart for the talents they possess but I guess Nagito/Teruteru doesn't have the continuous story involvement pizzaz)

But you know, my point is no more luck mentions to be seen here! In other words, like I said, there's no tangible explicit proof that the people Nagito loves are killed by his luck systematically. This means that you're free to interpret it as you see fit, and that you don't have to worry about about the logistics of how to avoid any supposed inevitability. Instead, you can get angsty and write about how the people he loves die if you're into that, or just not if you're not into that. I hope that this can clear anything up and can also open up more nuanced discussion about Nagito's luck, as well as, and I find this most important of all, about Nagito's insecurities.

[archsimp]

Nagito Komaeda and True Hope also known as Nagito Komaeda and Chapters 4 and 5

The long-awaited...! Kind of. Chapters 4 and 5 of Danganronpa 2 are rich with Nagito Komaeda content such that not even two text walls could address it in full, so I decided to just focus on what I personally find the most juicy:

How did we get here? What could have Nagito Komaeda been thinking? What was his deal here anyway? What about all the lingering mysteries from Chapter 4? How does hope develop to this point?

It should go without saying I wasn't the only person posing these questions at that point of the game. There are questions here that even to this day have no real concrete answer. I generally operate under the belief that no one should feel dumb for not knowing Nagito Komaeda: his is a character founded on contradiction as per official source, and the game presents him as elusive and mysterious throughout. This is why, for a topic as important as this one, I'm not here to tell you about the "obvious" truths of Nagito's character arc here. I'm here so we can all think about Nagito, what happened to him from Chapters 4 to 5, and about the role of Ultimate Hope in all of this.

The Ultimate H-Word, dare we even say--

1

Nagito Komaeda and the Ultimate H-Word

Let's rewind away from the end of Chapter 5, and establish our baseline one chapter prior, by the end of Chapter 4:

It's the first time in the game Nagito mentions the Ultimate H-Word, but that's not the only reason I'm putting the spotlight on the end of Chapter 4. These scenes are also important because Nagito does not have a single classmate in his vicinity. The first scene has Nagito alone in his own cottage, meaning he has no need to lie or pretend. It can be reasonably surmised Nagito's words inside his cottage are all true, unless you'd like to make space for a theory where Nagito is deceiving himself. While a choice one can make, in the interesting of diving deeper into the content presented, I'm going to have to align us into the idea that generically, Nagito is probably saying things that to him are true, and just his own thoughts.

The next scene, meanwhile, features Monokuma, someone who Nagito perceives to already be aware of the whole truth. If we notice, the lines he tells to Monokuma aren't very different from what he said to himself: he can't rely on everyone else, so he has to do it... And then, he completes this by saying he could become Ultimate Hope. We see Nagito trying to see if he can deceive Monokuma, but it fails, leading Nagito to reveal this content and continue onwards with deductions he's made about the truth. I'd want the credibility of Nagito at this scene to be pondered here, too: what is the practical benefit to tricking Monokuma into the idea that he wants to become Ultimate Hope? Either which way, Nagito is already planning on sacrificing his life, and this angle won't net him the identity of the traitor, one of the key things Nagito was trying to extract from Monokuma. In other words, I also want to posit the likelihood that we can trust Nagito's words in this scene pre-Chapter 5.

Which might all sound a little pedantic here, but the reason I feel like this has to be established is because Nagito doesn't tell the cast the full truth post-Final Dead Room, as evidenced by the fact he lied about only having found information about Hajime. Personally, I don't dabble in easily saying that x or y words were a lie, since the moment we throw that ball out there, it'll be hard to pick it back up: we could start saying everything could be a lie, the same way it could turn out you and I aren't real oh no-- However, because there is indeed deception at play in these chapters, as well as multiple instances which are vague and elusive, there's the chance someone could say, "Archsimp, can we even trust Nagito wanted to become Ultimate Hope?" And now, for the fanfiction we write whether physically or in our heads, we can fill the blanks however we want. In the end, I'm just a lil guy. But basically, if I want to offer something that can constitute as food for thought for other people, I'd have to give out something more or less credible, which is why I'm covering my bases for this question and introducing the framework this way.

Thus, Ultimate Hope is real here, and we're going a step further thinking about this premise. After all, next to this mention of the Ultimate H-Word are two sets of h-words which normally plague the Komaeda mind: absolute hope and true hope, which are actually synonyms so they mean the same thing. Nagito equates the status of Ultimate Hope with that of true hope, and it's no secret that true hope is exactly the thing that Nagito has been looking for this entire time:

I included an extension of this scene in Chapter 4 that's pre-class trial in case it could be argued that Nagito here changed his mind from the Nagitos before him that I just gave out as an example. We can see here that Nagito is saying that this killing game is not actually one of hope, and that's why it's wrong. Not that true hope is not attainable necessarily. Throughout the game, Nagito is observing and trying to be in support of this true hope, to the point the individuals at play could all be sacrificed for it, regardless of who they are and how Nagito feels about them. This by itself might be countered by the idea that Nagito in that very scene is wondering why he cares about Hajime, but that to me is the point I'm trying to make: he doesn't go out of his way to make an exception for Hajime in his head when picking sides in the investigation, meaning that if someone else were true hope and they were the killer for example, Hajime would have to die. Now, this doesn't mean you can't say that maybe Nagito deep down wishes that this doesn't happen, or that he'd want Hajime to be this hope, or that because of that he'd actually try to stop that outcome in practice etc, those would be interesting explorations of the character on their own. The point I'm trying to make isn't one that throws our poor Hajime under the bus and stops you from steamy komahina action. I'm just trying to emphasize to you how important hope is to Nagito here. It's important enough that Nagito would sacrifice his life and the lives of others, and this is not only natural but obvious to him if for the sake of hope.

With this in mind, if Nagito has been seeking this hope throughout the game, telling Monokuma that he could become this hope is probably going to be an important and serious matter. Nagito in his cottage talked about resolving this situation "for the sake of hope", and he talks about how his core way of thinking hasn't changed to Monokuma. The h-word remains active in Nagito's mind post-Final Dead Room, and has always been from the start of the game, making this another reason why we could posit it likely that Nagito is telling the truth in the scenes from the end of Chapter 4. So, Nagito would be actually gunning to become true hope himself, by becoming Ultimate Hope. This isn't the only point of interest to that baseline, however, or else I wouldn't have screenshot practically all his lines from it and cry at the time it took.

Let's synthethise the findings we can have with a handy-dandy bullet point list:

"Yep... I'm definitely lucky! I never expected to obtain so many valuable things from a simple game of Russian Roulette... Thanks to that... I was able to learn the identity of our true enemy. And before everyone else, too!"/"Am I? I actually think I'm very lucky. Wouldn't you say that coming across this much despair is a rather rare opportunity?" - Nagito is attributing the elements that got him to the position to become Ultimate Hope to luck. The fact that he's seeing this much despair is lucky. Thus, luck is a factor in these circumstances.

"Regardless, I was saved. Things would get complicated if they found out."/"There's no way I can let this run loose... I'll be the one who stops this once and for all. Even if it costs me my life..."/"I can't rely on anyone in this island... That's why I have to be the one who does it..." - Everybody is else markedly distanced from the possibility of taking this very title. No one else can be trusted with this, except Nagito.

"No matter what situation I find myself in, my core way of thinking will never change... In order to create absolute hope that shines brightly, stepladders such as myself and despair exist..."/"I don't know who you're talking about, but if someone as worthless as me reminds you of some other person... They must be extremely unlucky." - Nagito's self-esteem is still poor in this scene, when he's already set on possibly becoming Ultimate Hope. He's still worthless, different from the Ultimates, something he also goes out of his way to say in Chapter 4 pre-class trial, which is after he finds out the truth about everyone (evoking trust me bro rights to conserve image limit).

"You know me well... Is what I'd like to say but, unfortunately, I haven't learned that yet."/"If that's the case, I might be able to cooperate somewhat too. However... in exchange, I want to know who the traitor is." - Nagito pointedly has no clue who the traitor is at this point, meaning that the reliance on his luck and the general logic of his murder in Chapter 5 have a high degree of credibility, since it's to the point he offers to cooperate with Monokuma for the information.

All of this, plus the part about Ultimate Hope that I just broke down! Oh, and the cute lil Makoto parallel inserted in, which has the contradiction-backed answer marking Makoto as extremely unlucky (but from Nagito's Free Time Events, we can find that Nagito considers bad luck and good luck to go hand in hand, adding nuance to this response that can be interpreted a number of different ways). We can take these as the pins we'll be removing throughout this post, so that we can put further thought into Nagito's mindset about his own demise, since they're going to connect to content from Chapters 4 to 5. Speaking of which...

2

Nagito Komaeda and Chapters 4 and 5

It technically sounds intuitive to approach this topic chronologically, listing each scene that's relevant since the Final Dead Room to work our way into Nagito's final message. However, it ultimately wouldn't anchor us any faster to the details I wanted to highlight, because they appear insignificant on first appearance, but to me contribute to putting more thought into Nagito at this point of the story. After learning various truths from the files Nagito found in the Final Dead Room, he lashes out at Hajime while revealing that he's a Reserve Course student, and also has a shift in behaviour which makes him ill-humored even at what used to be the targets of his admiration. I think that this intuitively leads people to the conclusion that Nagito hates them for being Remnants of Despair, and that this hatred had him lose all respect for the people in the cast. While I can't deny this possibility, I would like to offer leeway based on the language Nagito uses while speaking about his classmates post-Final Dead Room.

It's not just in the name of trying to make it seem like Nagito actually liked everyone all along, to clarify. One of the interesting questions lingering in my mind is why Nagito believed he could only trust himself with the task of eliminating despair from the island, why he had the right to Ultimate Hope. If he hated his classmates and excommunicated them for their standing as Remnants of Despair, wouldn't he be included considering he is part of them? I think the interpretation that this is actually the reason why Nagito sacrifices his life to be valid enough, since it has his death as a consequence of being a Remnant of Despair, but I personally wonder about the language Nagito uses to describe himself as Ultimate Hope. Through it, he would stop being a stepladder... Nagito doesn't express hatred for himself as part of the enemy he's trying to face throughout the game, and his final message closes with the wish for him to be praised, so is his sacrifice a form of punishment? An inevitability, or a choice? Basically, there are roads we can take here, especially when taking into account what Nagito says. He can't rely on anyone else, so he has to do it... Is it really because his classmates are Remnants of Despair, considering he's no different?

For the longest time, I've paid attention to the instances Nagito's had of talking down on his classmates in the game (barring specific insults during the investigation, which apply to Nagito's personal evaluation of the people involved that are surfacing due to his poor mood like telling Akane to not get in the way if she can't use her head) and there's one pattern I notice:

That Nagito's disillusionment still presumes in his classmates the potential they have as Ultimates. Their lacking willpower puts their talent to waste, but that still means they have talent. Nagito points at the lack of forethought from his peers, at the fact that they remain stagnant, but these are still supposed to be the Symbols of Hope. Rather, that's what Nagito says before the class trial, too:

What he denies is the fact that the killing game was one of hope, but not necessarily the part where he and Hajime are just stepladders. After all, even in Chapter 5...

He's assigning this standing to Hajime, and like we saw before, he referred to himself as a stepladder to Monokuma. In other words, I find myself wondering if to Nagito, his peers still have the potential to accomplish something in theory, that they are still Ultimates to him, and if so... Other instances of Nagito speaking become intriguing to think about. Such as Chapter 5, at the food stalls when Nagito was saying they were just running around in circles, he gets told by Sonia that she doesn't like the current him, with others chipping in to say that they don't like Nagito right now either. He reacts like:

And if Hajime tries to hang out with him on his free time in Chapter 5, his reactions are also interesting:

(taking from my free time event document because I can)

The first time Hajime can invite Nagito out, he uses language we're more used to: he refers to himself as inferior, for Hajime not to worry about someone like him and to just go have fun with everybody instead, saying he's happy Hajime asked. It's a much softer rejection this first time around, where from his mood shift in Chapter 4, Nagito didn't really have to refer to himself as if not someone worthy of being hung out with by Hajime, who he knows is not actually superior to him in any way. There are generically two paths we can take here: either Nagito is just being polite to try not to rouse any particular suspicion, or that reaction had some tinge of truth to it. This affects how we look at the second reaction, where Nagito pushes Hajime away full stop, bringing up Fuyuhiko from early in the game as if to say that while he's not quite that bad, he still isn't going to be friends anymore, likely because he has other things to do at this point in the game. We could say it's that his polite front slipped the second time around, to shoo Hajime away.

However, the game can't assume that you decided to get Hajime going up to Nagito that first time, so we can't actually reasonably assume a sequence here and have to take this second rejection as standalone within the context of the situation. Nagito pushes Hajime away, when he could have otherwise been nicer about it like last time. Would it be that he didn't have the time to afford speaking as usual? But he already was disgruntled from Chapter 4. Is it really that this second time around, he's showing how he really feels, or the other way around? Or, is it that he truthfully feels both ways? Nagito suggests Hajime spend his time with the others. It could be fully just to drive Hajime away, but we could also have the leeway to wonder if that also means it's what Nagito thinks Hajime would be happier doing in his ignorance. The food stall scene carries significance when pursuing this angle: Nagito puts distance between himself and the others, because they can't understand the burden of truth he carries.

He has no reason to pretend to be sad off the top of my head, because it doesn't benefit the practical purpose for his visit in the food stalls, which related to asking about the traitor. If it's sad, though, what does that mean for his classmates? That he would still like not to be hated? But they're the enemy, right? Why does he pity their ignorance? In other words, are they in their ignorance pitiable even though they are also the despair that he's pitting against the traitor? Or, basically, is their state where they don't know they're with despair something that Nagito is keenly aware of, and because of that what he hates isn't them themselves, but the despair that occurs because of their presence? This killing game continues so long as everybody is there, because it's just perpetuating the despair for the survivor of the Killing School Life to drop by. Thus, does Nagito have to necessarily personally hate the people around him? These are the questions I'd want you to take away here, because the caveat about interpretating a complete grudge is that, if you try to simulate Nagito with this take, the result would lean towards more bitter and hateful sentences, where these moments of melancholy may not pop to mind. Not to say that it isn't possible to interpret it that way, but more so that it requires caution on the nuance. I think that there's the potential for Nagito's feelings about everyone to be complex in nature, going past solely how he feels about despair rampant in Jabberwock Island. The fact that he's aiming to kill them all isn't exactly news in hindsight, when he was prepared for them all to die if the killer was true hope to begin with.

Rather, this initiative in Chapter 5 comes from the separation between the traitor, the one likely to be true hope, and everybody else, the Remnants of Despair who got in for the sole purpose of drawing out the survivor from the Killing School Life, meaning that the events are solely for the sake of despair. So, there's a question that can be posed here when wondering exactly how hateful he was of everyone when putting his plan in place? Is the malice Hajime refers to in Chapter 5 a new thing to begin with? Hajime detected something like that since Chapter 2, which is why the topic of how everyone's lives were all liable to sacrifice for the sake of hope is a sufficiently important detail to think about when it comes to his mindset in Chapter 5. Does his plan, his dedication to it truly reveal a hatred for his peers, or more so the will to erase despair and have true hope win? Maybe, in that process, everybody else are just the contributions to the refinement of this hope, the necessary casualties in the process, and that would in some way explain the pity he seems to express in Chapter 5. There's other interesting dialogue throughout:

These scenes have multiple implications, for which multiple roads can be taken, but I'm going to first approach the theme of belief that is pushed in Chapter 5, and how Nagito is expressing something that Chiaki thought was his faith in everyone, that they would move as he thought they would, because his plan hinged on belief to work. Nagito believed in the time he spent with everyone, and I think this can be taken not just in the positive, or not just in the negative, but maybe even in both at the same time, in what can be potentially part of the malice that looms in the shadows Hajime sees with his vibe check. This belief regardless has the potential to be complex, especially in the implications of what he's said prior. Nagito goads everyone under the assumption that they are considered Symbols of Hope (the English line looks like that, but the original line doesn't go specific with Nagito saying that it makes him laugh that he thought they were Symbols of Hope, more so that this title is laughable when applied to the implication that their limit was at that particular moment, which to me doesn't necessarily carry the same past nuance), finding their resignation to run counter to the hope that they're meant to hold towards finding the traitor. Maybe that's the attitude Nagito thought would get them to move, so we can argue that's the manipulation taking place, but at the same time, his peers don't have a history of reacting necessarily well to this, and even at his grumpiest, Nagito referred to them as Symbols of Hope... It could be either or, but it's interesting to consider how Nagito still speaks to them as if they were different, having singled out Hajime as someone who can only be fodder for them. Is there a need to pretend on this matter? After all, Nagito talks out loud about becoming Ultimate Hope in their presence at the start of Chapter 5, in that food stall scene:

In other words, we can say that Nagito doesn't particularly need to use this language that specifically categorizes his peers as different and superior to him by nature, especially when he's become disillusioned by them and is planning on becoming hope himself. What does it mean? It's up to your headcanon to truly find out... On my end, I have two other points that I'd want to highlight from all the text I showed above. Nagito talks about how this concern with the traitor not immediately revealing themself could if anything make hope shine brighter, while talking about the final fight between hope and despair... This would be understood as the fight between the traitor and everyone else, especially since it's what Nagito is saying outright, something that gains significance with the hindsight of knowing what happens and is revealed later. Or is it?

I think that it would be the most intuitive interpretation, thus making it valid, but the nature of despair becomes muddled with the nuance I'm haunting everyone's brains with. I think that even with it, we could say that hope is the traitor and despair everyone else, just that it involves the clarification of everyone else representing that despair but what I want to say most of all here is that this fight between the two is apparently also being refined through the ordeal that Nagito is seemingly putting everyone through. Nagito expresses also not only a belief for everyone and his luck, but also hope. He talks about how absolute hope can't lose, and leaves talking about how believing in hope will open the path, a statement that doesn't just apply to himself, but everyone else. Isn't that a little strange? Why do these Remnants of Despair have to believe in hope? Or is it that he's trying to communicate with the traitor, having to also refer to everyone else in the process?

Basically, there's a chance, from the way Nagito talks about everyone, that not only does he still think he's worthless compared to them even if innately or as a lingering emotion, but also that he pities them and may not necessarily resent them, while still classifying them as the real enemy. In the process, we run into another point I was on about previously, the part about why Nagito feels he can't rely on anyone else. If he doesn't actually hate everyone, and the truth he bears truly is a burden, why IS he choosing to take up this burden himself? There's no real answer to this, especially because even if we assume that Nagito doesn't rely on them because they're Remnants of Despair, it would put to question why he can rely on himself just because he knows the truth. Of course, it doesn't have to necessarily make sense: Nagito's character can be beholden to contradiction, so we can also just chalk it up to Nagito's contradictory thought process that conveniently makes him the only guy able to eliminate despair. I am always an advocate for Nagito contradiction, but I also find myself thinking if the reason Nagito finds he can't rely on everyone is because of how he is disillusioned by them: he incorporates the existence of their talent but criticizes an element that's present in his own definition of hope, which is their willpower. I'm wondering if maybe Nagito believed that if he told this truth to everyone, they wouldn't back down and continue to perpetuate the killing game, or that they wouldn't be willing to sacrifice themselves for hope. That they might lack that resolve, or not be in the position to exercise their roles if they knew this truth, because they don't love hope like he does, and they'd fallen to despair before. We can take his reaction to Mikan in Chapter 3 while contemplating this, because Nagito had discarded her for her having fallen to despair from the Despair Disease. We could say that maybe, everyone was similarly discarded as able to fall into despair, so he wanted to settle the matter before any of this could occur to all parties.

Or, from this occurrence that makes everyone out to be a Remnant of Despair, Nagito could be looking at the matter more broadly, that those capable of hope would be able to turn to despair, but that the reveal of this truth would lead to a situation where, if they rejected his idea of the traitor as hope, he wouldn't be able to get back his advantage. Or, we could say that his rejection of other people learning the truth could be this subconscious desire to be the only one to accomplish becoming Ultimate Hope, something that if people talented like them could access, it would make them accomplish this, while Nagito had the chance to do so and finally be praised and recognized. The tldr is that as you can see, we have a myriad of possible reasons, of which multiple can involve a complex stream of emotions. It also means that Nagito's potentially complex feelings about his peers and his distrust in them could co-exist, and if anything contribute to this distrust. Nagito felt them unable to move forward from their current point, and took advantage of that to guarantee he could eliminate despair from the island. He saw them as hesitant to open the path before them in the class trial of Chapter 4, so that hesitation could linger in Nagito's mind when thinking about this situation, that it would mean they wouldn't accept the elimination of despair and that it would inconvenience his strategically good position to do so, one that makes him able to become true hope.

This brings me to another point to tie all of this together, which relates to the way Nagito's self-esteem appears to be the same despite the fact that he's trying to become true hope. It makes one wonder, right? Rather, I've noted Nagito being interpreted to find the Ultimates as below him for being on the side of despair, and his rise to Ultimate Hope hinging on the idea that he could become that when the Ultimates are despair anyway, but he's still worthless, still "someone like him" and so is that simple habit in his words? Or because he still holds that idea? But if so, why is he so confident in the idea that he could become Ultimate Hope? I have an idea, personally. When I say personally, I of course mean it's a headcanon. I have no supporting evidence, and it could be completely wrong. Still, I'm gonna say it, in the interest of offering food for thought, but I'd want Nagito's luck to have the spotlight in this topic.

Nagito talks about how lucky it was that he got all those files from the Final Dead Room. How lucky it was that there's this much despair in one place, and that since he can't rely on everyone else, he has to do it and thought it, he can become Ultimate Hope. It makes me think about what got him in a position to be able to plan this out in the first place. To Nagito, does it have anything to do with his personal ability? No... It relates to his talent, something that's outside of his actual powers. He's in a position to eliminate despair from the island because of his Ultimate Luck, something which has never erased Nagito from his standing as an unremarkable person. What do I mean?

(from his first free time event)

(from his fourth free time event)

Nagito doesn't consider accomplishments of his luck as something amazing that he does, but just being lucky. It's not a power he believes he can fully control, and if we consider that while he can influence and believe in it, it didn't always lead him to the outcome he expected (considering Byakuya died in his stead in Chapter 1), we can draw a conclusion where Nagito's position as being able to execute this plan to become Ultimate Hope comes purely as a result of his luck, and doesn't say anything about himself personally. Thus, it doesn't make him feel any better about himself, but it doesn't have to when he can be valued by others in the end, and that's part of the lucky opportunity given to him, the chance to become true hope after the complete despair of the situation. At least, it explains to me why it results still in the sacrifice of his life, in a lingering lack of self-esteem when he ends up telling people to praise him, build a bronze statue of him, etc... But there's another reason I think about the matter from this angle.

It's because of Island Mode.

3

Nagito Komaeda and the Absolute H-Word

I know most people didn't play Island Mode and don't worry, there is no universe in which I'd judge you for this, but I'm also not gonna deny the sauce that Island Mode packs for supplementing characterization, which is why I'd want you to look at this passage from Nagito's ending:

(also taken from my Island Mode document because I can and also the mistranslations involved sorry friends)

From here is when Nagito asks to be friends with Hajime, an outcome that doesn't come to pass in the base game, but what I want to focus on is on Hajime's line, and the fact that it's this conclusion that transitions us to that request from Nagito for Hajime to be his friend. Hajime talks about how, because Nagito now knows hope is inside him all along, that he can't just say he'll die or kill someone that easily. It counters Nagito's willingness to sacrifice himself and others directly as the conclusion to this ending, implying that this hope which is inside of Nagito rather than external is one that makes Nagito treasure life, and would make him no longer throw it away. In other words, that with hope in his heart, and the confidence to ask someone to become his friend, he wouldn't be able to pull a stunt quite like the one in Chapter 5. The latter revolves exactly around the sacrifice of Nagito's own life for a hope outside of him, a position he got into due to nothing he would attribute to inner ability, as well as the sacrifice of everyone else, and the implication we can take from Island Mode is that it was because he had no hope within. I think that Hajime referring to Nagito's willingness for sacrifice would be important since this is something important in the scope of how Nagito treats hope throughout the base game, in that he could stake both his life and other people's to see it come to fruition, in his search for a hope in his reach. Island Mode puts hope as something inner, and that it's by having it that he can have enough self-worth to take a step forward and ask to be friends with Hajime.

Island Mode is also generally the content from the game that touches on what hope could be in its ending, a line which comes from Nagito:

Unlike the flashy strength Nagito envisioned for the hope that he was trying to find, hope is defined in the ending of Island Mode as something easy and simple, with an effect that is subtle but enough to have one keep going. It's something that Nagito in the base game never ended up realizing, and Nagito instead seeks to become Ultimate Hope, praised by others for that achievement after death, which ultimately means he's not alive to feel fulfilled in that manner. It cuts off his life, for which he didn't have hope for to begin with, is the angle I'm trying to introduce to you here to lay the groundwork for the parallel I believe may exist between Nagito's ending in Island Mode and his fate in the game proper. Following this thread, we can deduce Nagito's mindset to be one where he still has that inferiority complex, the desire to be special while believing he is worthless, and that this fate indicates that he could not treasure life because he has no hope for it, and that his mindset was one of clinging to the external hope that could carry him to the closest thing, and continue to put his faith in his luck til the very end. In other words, we can paint Nagito's characterization based on the concept that's been flashing us throughout the whole game: the absolute h-word.

Which is why we're taking a detour from Chapters 4 and 5 to address Island Mode. Now, I can't actually tell you what absolute hope truly is or was in the end, because this is left open-ended for it to be interpreted as one sees fit, but the possibility I'm positing is going to touch on this concept, because the interpretation in my mind is one where absolute hope wasn't. As in, that Nagito sought it out, thinking it would come from a clash between hopes, borne of sacrifice... But that absolute hope isn't real, and hope is instead something that comes from self-worth, confidence in oneself because that forges the path forward. We could also say that this means the real absolute hope was all the friends we made along the way, but I think that the friends we made along the way is more so the means for which self-worth can be attained, and that self-worth gains relevance here when thinking about the climax of Danganronpa 2, where Hajime pushed past his own feelings of inferiority because he could forge the future with his own two hands. Island Mode talks about hope as something that makes life better off than otherwise, and it gives Nagito the initiative to ask for Hajime to become his friend, something that implies the expectation for the future in that relationship. In other words, by viewing hope as connecting with self-worth and tying it together with the themes of Chapter 6, as well as how self-worth has a part to play in Danganronpa 2, we can end up seeing absolute hope as having a part to play in having been the representation of the despair Nagito already had for his own prospects, whereas true hope was all the self-esteem we had along the way that we can use to look forward to the future. Or at least, so goes essentially my complete speculation on this matter. That Nagito's character in Chapters 4 to 5 is defined by the feelings of inferiority and his search for hope that shaped him to begin with, and he died seeking to be special based off of the hopeless that comes with those two factors. And that this ties directly to the way Nagito does not treasure life in the base game, leading him to pit everyone against each other while taking his life in the process.

From here, we can try to think about the other mysteries in Chapters 4 to 5, understanding that Nagito's character resolves within itself, in the context of the base game as a tragedy, one of elusive, contradictory and complex feelings. This doesn't mean that this framework comes up with all the objective answers instantly, but more so that it means we don't have to depend upon anything other than Nagito's own character for them, and can continue to see the events as open to interpretation as they are. We have for example, the 'What is he trying to determine?' conundrum from Chapter 4:

The original line here actually has no verb to it (evoking trust me bro rights to conserve image limit), so the translation assumed that from context, it would be the verb to say. This is because it's assuming that since the last line is "Is he talking about the traitor?" then the next line would be, "If so, why is he (talking about determining the traitor) all of a sudden?" However, from the context, I'm inclined to think that Hajime would be thinking, "If so, why is he (trying to determine the traitor like this) all of a sudden?" Because Nagito would be talking about determining as part of his reasoning to begin with, whereas Hajime wouldn't know why determining the traitor would come up in the middle of the class trial. Anyway, this means that we have the easy road of assuming that Nagito is trying to determine the traitor through the trial, but this poses a few questions. After all, how would figuring out the murderer lead to figuring out the traitor? Nagito does talk afterwards about how he didn't figure out who the traitor is, but it isn't imminently intuitive that his standard would be how smart that traitor is. After the culprit is determined, Nagito talks about how the class trial and killing game are just an opening act, something Junko will echo in Chapter 6, but is this because he fails to determine the traitor, or because he has no further business with the class trial to begin with?

To begin with, what happens from the class trial? The culprit is deduced, but otherwise, everyone dies. Nagito expresses not wanting to die alongside everyone, but wants them to figure the answers for themselves to determine something. This passage pops to mind:

Nagito here is presenting these mysteries as solvable by Symbols of Hope, taunting Hajime who he seems to believe not to be the traitor, and it makes me wonder... Nagito seemed to want a battle between hope and despair to happen. He brought the items from the funhouse since the class trial, meaning he had this clash in mind. For it to happen, though, the people involved would have to offer each other a sufficiently okay challenge without him to lead people anywhere, and this could maybe be determined through the outcome of the class trial, where people's deductive prowess comes into play. Since everybody could solve the case with Gundham, Nagito deems this passed to go onto his next plan since he doesn't know who the traitor is, where the traitor would be pit against everyone else, whoever they are. Or, it could just be that Nagito believed the traitor would slip up while talking about the funhouse. Who knows?

I talk about this hypothesis with determining everyone's mettle because it can relate directly to how Nagito doesn't know who the traitor is, so he would have to assume that anyone there excepting maybe Hajime would get through Chapter 5 with his support. However, I don't feel like this would be the only hypothesis, and just comes from me reverse engineering what the meaning behind this determining process is. To me, when I think about the determining conundrum, I start thinking about this passage from Hajime in Chapter 5:

Hajime says he's overthinking, probably because he feels like Nagito isn't truly hoping for everyone to be united in this way in the process of overcoming despair, but I find his words compelling. This was inserted at the end of the first half of Chapter 5's class trial, referencing absolute hope, and it reminded me of how Nagito believed absolute hope would come from the clash between two hopes. Nagito wanted hope to shine from this incident, where there would be a fight between hope and despair, the traitor and everyone else... But since the everyone else side don't even know they're on the side of that despair, what they're fighting for is technically their hopes, right? Then, by having to go up against the traitor, they would be clashing against each other inevitably, meaning that this resulted in a clash of hopes of Nagito's making... I find myself wondering if that clash hopes matters here for Nagito's reasoning, and why he was trying to determine something in Chapter 4. While it could potentially explain this aside... It could also just be me making stuff up because the aside could also just be to reference that actually this unity between everyone is the closest thing to absolute hope we can get and that conversely, Nagito didn't get that. However, I find that maybe, it could mean that this clash and the way everyone is united to solve this mystery, only to find out its result, would be part of the process of going up against despair, and result in absolute hope.

Or, I could just be making stuff up and it's truly the opposite way around, with Hajime just doing a lil philosophizing to the audience. It could truly be either or, but I presented this hypothesis not only because it ties back to hope, but because it will also come around to tie in to a pertinent question, relating to for some reason, the OVA. I don't have the screenshot of the quote, because I believe it might not have been correctly translated, but the premise to begin with is that Nagito knows about the Neo World Program, and when he wakes up, he talks about how he believed that everyone would be able to reach the truth, which is something strange to imply if Nagito was only banking on the traitor winning. I say this because the original line was translated as deepest stratum, but I don't know how Nagito would be aware of these strata in his mind from Danganronpa 2, and "deepest statrum" and "truth" sound the same, which is why I'm assuming it would probably be truth... But anyway, we're in this pickle where the implication from Nagito is not one of disappointment that his plan to get the traitor to win foiled, but that he finds it expected that Hajime and the others won. Why is that? I'd say as an answer that it makes these lines from his final message become further food for thought:

In Chapter 5, Nagito talked about how hope would never lose, but in his final message, he easily admits to the possibility of his hope losing out, while saying he'll talk so that both sides understand. Why would he do that, when his plan hinged on faith? He supposedly believed in hope wholeheartedly, but he's accounting now for it losing out, and despair winning? And if so, why would he benefit them by talking in a way they understand, anyway? Because he's a good sport? We can think about it that way, but then the OVA and it's quirks get quirkier, whereas if we jump into the just as speculation-based hell of the potential that Nagito saw both sides as able to praise him for his contributions to hope, that the hope which lost in the scenario of this final message would be more so the one that was banking on the traitor winning, when in fact the other side won, but that this still means a path to hope would be built, as the hope of the other side was stronger. It's something I've thought about before, one that recontextualizes to me his final words, because he says that he believes his actions will contribute to hope, and if so, for him to be praised and called Ultimate Hope. I had the thought that maybe, if he's talking about it considering both sides, and if one side was one that would shun this wish entirely, would that have still been the same wording?

It really could've been, but putting it to perspective, his dialogue in Chapter 5 becomes even more elusive, because we can wonder if the hope he's talking about is the hope of the traitor, or hope itself. That when he says that hope will never lose, he meant it even if hypothetically the traitor were to lose. Then, it would fit into the way he puts faith in hope, but I think that in all fairness, we can't make true conclusive statements about how much is referring to this idea, and exactly what Nagito means with the truth that he believed everyone would reach, as well as how much of that line isn't a retcon from the OVA where the game might not have followed through with this necessarily. However, there's reason to think that it might have, so we can extrapolate that maybe, Nagito was setting up a clash between hopes, and that either hope would resolve the despair in the island, but his hope was that by the traitor winning, the despair that comes in the form of everyone's existence as Remnants of Despair would be erased and in that sense he would have been responsible for ridding the island of despair. But that in the event that isn't the case, he still contributed to hope, because he gave everyone the tools to deduce the truth. Or something like that? Maybe? It'll depend on your mood and fanfiction of the day...

Whichever way it is, we can put meaning into his actions based on his search for hope, as well as in his desire to become Ultimate Hope and erase despair, where there could be a tangible stake in his personal victory besides one where hope naturally always has the last laugh. While the OVA can set a path of ambiguity like that, it's still an implication, where Danganronpa 2 has the road of everyone else as despair, and the facts on the table make that remain viable. In the end, Chapters 4 and 5 set up this downfall of Nagito, and the nuances of this mindset are an important part of thinking about it, making up as a result the scope of my post on these two chapters.

4

Conclusion

As you can see, most of the content I presented boiled down to speculation and headcanon, as the presented facts don't have necessarily clear conclusions to take. There's a reason these parts can be debated in their purpose, the same way any piece of literature has specific gaps that the readership will interpret as they see fit. This isn't an indication necessarily of us missing something, but of the natural construction of a narrative where a character like Nagito, who is designed to be mysterious, would leave mysteries in his wake.

I normally like to be conservative with the personal speculation I bring to the table. This is because I don't want to induce people into the idea that my speculation is fact, when I'm just saying my interpretation of events. I go over these things when they might be interesting to think about, but if I were tackling Chapters 4 and 5 normally, I would have ommitted most of these things from the post, aggregating more facts into highlights about the chapters, but in so doing, I realized something. I realized that in the process, I wouldn't be able to lay the groundwork to introduce possibility just from giving out these facts. I would leave people to intuitively fall into the idea that the blanks to be filled could maybe only be filled with Hajime shapes, because of the popular theory centering Nagito's taking of his own life on his love for Hajime.

Which is, naturally, speculation like any other. However, this speculation at times takes a dangerous quality, where it becomes assumed fact to the point that supposedly, Nagito's character can only be contemplated with this speculation in mind, and that thus Nagito's love for Hajime and his core actions in the base game are inseparable because of the way they are tied intrinsically to Chapters 4 and 5, despite the fact that there is no conclusive evidence that makes this assumed fact into actual fact to begin with. I've been asked before, "If not x, what else would it be?" Which changed my mindset, because if truly only x is repeated, maybe it conditions the mind to believe that indeed, x must be the most likely. Because of this, I feel the need to present the y in this equation, so that everyone can know exactly how not clear, obvious or clear-cut this topic is. The answer is not necessarily x, because we don't actually know the full answers. Nagito Komaeda is not that simple, and less so enough that you have to be looked down on for not imminently nodding along to x.

Though, outside of this mindset, I always wanted to talk about the nuances of the implications in Nagito's behaviour to begin with, because I find this to be the standout matter for Chapters 4 and 5. I think that introducing that nuance can be important, because it would aid in letting others think on it and hopefully encourage variety. I've had this cooking for long, and even thought it might need two parts, but I'll have to be real and say that the highlights reel compilation would probably be better as just the separate posts with their own highlights so I can properly address them. Because this post was voted for through a poll, my earnest hope is that the content was worth the wait and can answer expectations when talking about Chapters 4 and 5, in that I don't just want to explain the obvious but to introduce nerd minutia that insane people like me have archived to begin with. Chapters 4 and 5 in this sense aren't completely over since I'd have more to yap about, but in the format of a big text wall, this would be the main and closest thing. Thank youuuu for your time and I hope that you all have a wonderful day because I am awake super late ohohoho--

[archsimp]

Nagito Komaeda and Despair (Part 1) also known as Nagito Komaeda and Chapter 0

Massive spoilers for Danganronpa 2 incoming (as always) but a major part of the storyline is in the reveal that most of the cast in Danganronpa 2 were part of Ultimate Despair (which then became the Remnants of Despair) the entire time, but they didn't know about it because their memories were wiped in the process of trying to use the Neo World Program (the program running the simulation everybody is in) to rehabilitate them. What this means is that there is a gap in time for each character where they were doing Junko things and despair things, this elusive timeline where they were "the bad guy" that would presumably contrast the people we know from the game proper. I say it's elusive because there is no robust depiction of the characters in this timeline, leaving a lot up to interpretation so that we the fans are allowed to make the cool Despair!Ibuki headcanons of all time.

However, for bits and chunks of the series, there are a few characters who get despair spotlight... And perhaps it might be easy to guess which character I'm going to talk about in this post. Arguably one of the characters that we get the most material of for their time as a Remnant of Despair is one Nagito Komaeda, on account of his role in Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls. A game that maybe could use being at least watched a bit more often, which has pretty significant content when it comes to thinking about Nagito's character in general, but it isn't the only time Despair!Nagito makes an appearance. Or even the first. We have to attribute the origins of Remnant of Despair Nagito Komaeda content to the memory Hajime had pre-Chapter 6, Chapter 0.

My initial intention was to write a text wall talking about the Servant for the cool people who voted for it, but the analysis of the Servant to me is tantamount to analysing the concept of Nagito Komaeda and the effects of Junko's influence on him by its roots. The reason is because when I research this topic, I do so to contemplate and expand on the concept of Nagito as a Remnant of Despair, so a post that I'd make about this would have to serve the same purpose. I want to create a reference point for interpretations that can be drawn based on material that has Nagito Komaeda be a Remnant of Despair, and to be able to talk about the Servant, I need to talk about the scene that laid the foundation for key aspects of Nagito as a Remnant of Despair. To clarify, Chapter 0 is not the end all be all to Servant content, but it establishes baselines and has content that is worth thinking about when trying to interpret the Servant. At least for me, conversation about the Servant can't fully start without Chapter 0 so before you collectively yawn at my intro let's get a move on!

1

Making Despair Lemonade Out of Despair Lemon Peels

The thing to keep in mind when checking Chapter 0 is that the content is limited in scope: a scene this short isn't going to establish a fountain of unshakable facts, so there are a lot of things that will be very much subject to multiple interpretations. The point of this post is going to be to introduce these things so that we can collectively do our thinking statue impression, because we'll have more questions than we will answers. However, even a scene so short will make me hit the image limit if I truly go over every single thing there, so what I'm going to do as a compromise is that this post will have the content relevant to the topic of Nagito Komaeda and despair, while this handy dandy google document:

Chapter 0

Introduction This is just a document with the alternative translation for Chapter 0! There isn’t a lot to talk about, besides the usual dis

... Is going to have the rest of the yapping that isn't necessarily relevant to despair and Nagito. Through this, I can talk about Izuru while moving on to the meat of the content for this post here, so basically for any Izuru enjoyer who may be interested in my particular takes for some ungodly reason can check the google document. It's where all the ships and boats are.

Which yes does mean the ships and boats are going to be skipped here sorry Izuru Kamukura your love is in another document, but the gist is that the boats were the conversation opener for one Nagito Komaeda to break the silence as Izuru was vibing to the waves, and though he's almost shut down by Izuru not getting the laughs and the hahas, Nagito regardless asks to chat because he's bored:

But quite honestly this passage is translated in such a baffling way that I have to press the pause button so that I may show you an alternative and break down what Izuru Kamukura was actually saying about Nagito here:

The first three lines are technically okay, but I personally feel like they're meant to have a flow of Izuru seeing something essential about Nagito that's buried underneath this external friendly surface. Izuru sees through Nagito's true character, because it's something that goes past that friendly exterior. Thus, Izuru is referring to the use of his Izuru snoot to detect something yucky because it's something not inherently visible, and it establishes a relationship between the two contrasting elements of the sludge underneath and Nagito's friendly surface, which is the "thin skin" being referred to. I didn't go that literal in translation because it doesn't seem to be a word used solely in its literal meaning, and is being used here by Izuru to remark this friendly nature as a superficial exterior that is veiling the yucky wonky sludge.

And then we have "In a sensible way, of course," which is definitely not what Izuru is saying there. What Izuru is trying to clarify is that his talk about stenches is just the vibes in the room that he feels rather than Nagito having literal sludge under his clothes. So, he's not trying to say that Nagito has foul stench in a sensible way (like what does that even MEAN), and I believe "sensory" was confused for "sensible" in translation, "sensory" itself not being a passable translation for 感覚的 (refers to matters of intuition, gut feeling, sensation, impression) in this context but is a literal translation and is why my tinfoil hat presents this theory. Either which way, Izuru is in fact saying that this is just his instinctive vibe check.

Then there's the final line, which is a very literal and thus misleading translation of what Izuru is trying to say, too. "The smell exclusive to those who were already finished" is already by itself a weird sentence in English because what does that truthfully mean? The cool people online and in general adapt it to the interpretation of finished as in "about to die" and connect it to Nagito's diagnoses, but I'm fairly sure that's not what Izuru is trying to say here, and wouldn't be a random Japanese person's first thought either.

I'm not gonna claim superiority in the terminology my brain came up with since I feel like I went the convoluted route for lack of suitable synonyms but the gist about this translation is that if looked solely at face value, it's 終わってる (finished) ヤツ (person but rude) but in any language, even English, there's always a term that if broken down by parts would have a literal meaning, but that in practice is its own specific term, right? This is a similar thing: a finished person (usually the term is 人として終わってる for finished as a person, but the verb to end in general has a lot of applications relating to a negative meaning of being done) in Japanese is something that exists to describe someone who is essentially a failure as a human being, they're finished because as a person, in terms of personal relationships/morality, they're done. You can search 終わってる人 right now and you'll find yourself with results solely about various Japanese people describing and/or giving warnings about how to watch out for these people, since this is basically terminology for someone who sucks. In other words, Izuru's snoot has sniffed out not the fact that Nagito is about to die, but that Nagito is bad as a person. This can mean a lot of things, ranging from evil psychopath to basically just a loser, but I decided to opt for the latter side of things under the assumption that the meaning relates to someone who is hopeless, unsalvageable and in that sense, wack in the way that he would not change his wack ways, indicating the type of lack of consideration that usually defines this terminology but not in a necessarily evil way.

So the tldr to Izuru's narration here is that he is shittalking Nagito to such degrees that the Japanese let's players who spare a reaction actually feel bad for Nagito in this scene. Izuru's Ultimate Vibe Check is in fact destroying Nagito Komaeda's career, because Izuru essentially doesn't believe in the nice guy act and thinks something wonky is going on. Why is that? There are a number of roads we can take with this, and normally I like to take all of them. The first thing that can pop to mind is the fact that Nagito right now is a Remnant of Despair and thus has done bad things for sure, and that the amount of sludge and loser energy Izuru is picking up is in fact the energy emanating from the added Junko influence. The second road to take is one related to Nagito Komaeda and Malice, the idea of a vibe check Hajime's made a few times in-game where he feels like there is some kind of spooky toxic aura emanating from Nagito past a surface level, most notably from Chapter 2 but has recurring presence also in spots like Chapter 5.

I say I like to take all roads because I personally like to see it as both referring to the added bonus of Remnant of Despair energy amplifying something that was already there: the layer of a darker feeling that has been defined as malice by Hajime before. This is not only potentially controversial but also the subject of its own text wall, so I'm going to leave it at that for now, but I think it's worth exploring because Izuru's snoot should be pretty good and contemplating exactly what that snoot picked up on can be the food for thought in completing a profile for Nagito that also accounts for the elephants that are hardly addressed, such as my friend Malice... (I'll get to you one day I gotchu bro)

Anyway, without knowing he got eviscerated in a matter of seconds, Nagito introduces himself:

And while it doesn't look like it's a lot, it will end up piling up to levels of importance that cannot be understated once combined with the Servant, so it's time to squeeze mililiters of juice. The first thing to note is Nagito is considering himself lucky here, referring to his good luck. Put a time travelling pin on this one for Part 2, because this is how dry the Servant well is gonna be and one thing that has to be contemplated is that Chapter 0 Nagito follows off of the Servant. Nagito referring to his luck is a trait that existed even in the past, so if it still exists in Chapter 0, it would intuitively mean that it's enduring even through the Servant and that there's a likely chance that his luck still works the same way. Though, I'm not going to say that in order to discourage people off of the fun theories surrounding how the world being in such bad shape could make bad luck have different categorization. I'm more so just saying that probably we're still dealing with the same guy in terms of his perception of luck.

The other thing to note is that Nagito is celebrating the fact that Izuru will talk to him, and this is before he knows Izuru is an amazing person. Nagito was the one who initiated conversation, wanting to break the silence and out of boredom, and since he can't assume that this was an Ultimate or from Hope's Peak Academy (as he would believe he is aware of all living Ultimates plus the Reserve Course is meant to all be dead), it would mean Nagito is doing something he would do to a person in general. Then, gauging from the fact that Izuru is simply replying to his conversation is happy that there is someone who will talk to him, something that would also probably apply to a general person. It's only after this point that Izuru endeavours to flex:

(...)

Izuru saying that he also has luck like some kind of possession intrigues Nagito, who likely is getting the feeling that he might be talking to someone extraordinary. He asks Izuru if he's from Hope's Peak Academy, but pauses because...

And this bears about a thousand reminders...

Even factoring in the anime, Izuru and Nagito don't know each other from anywhere! They are under the impression they are complete strangers and thus Nagito has never met Izuru in this gap in time where he was a Remnant of Despair. Ever!

And he doesn't know Nagito either yes! Anyway!

Nagito's interest in Izuru because if anything he may be out of the ordinary is another big fat interdimensional pin to keep in mind, because it maintains that general fascination that exists in Nagito's character from the timeline of Danganronpa 2. It will also serve as reference for the Servant and those who have played the game will maybe start connecting some dots...

Anyway, Izuru doesn't engage with any of Nagito's questions, prompting him to ask others:

Nagito has already referenced the fact that he didn't really get to talk to people much in a while, and now is talking about how he is told he isn't good at talking. This as a statement is ambiguous, because it doesn't necessarily mean Nagito himself thinks he sucks at conversation, simply that he is aware of this perception and that it would upset others. So, it can't stand as definitive evidence of anything in particular, but you will paradoxically enough have to take this as another pin because foreshadowing is a literary device that--

Anyway, Izuru has a moment of monologue about the general worthlessness of the normies and their desire to oppress talent because they feel inferior to it, along with a side dish of having been taught about the wonders of culling but unfortunately for Izuru we're dabbing out of that one except:

This comment that Nagito makes in the middle of Izuru's takes, the first time Nagito talks about the power of the talentless majority in the entire game to mention how it revolves around people who don't have talent, and that this is why the talented can be subjected to oppression by them. There are two points of interest here (that I can think of, anyway): the majority of society according to Nagito, and the reference this making to the parade of Hope's Peak Academy.

Throughout Danganronpa 2, the hope of the Ultimates is talked about as if standalone, based on what Nagito wants to see and how cool it just is, and because the talented are seen as capable of big and cool things, it doesn't give the impression that Nagito at the time was under the belief that they could be dominated by a majority. Though, we can't say that Nagito didn't have thoughts about this majority before Chapter 0: my statement just means that it wasn't mentioned outside of Chapter 0, but it's technically possible to consolidate the two opinions with enough speculation such as seeing this majority as a trial for the Ultimates, or strong people being strong on a vs individual basis but still obeying to the confines of society, etc. There's paths that can be taken here, but the one that most intrigues me is how this can tie back to the way the Servant will talk about the talentless majority in Ultra Despair Girls.

This brings me to the parade. I'm not gonna walk the reader through the entirety of the lore surrounding the Tragedy, but after Izuru's existence is doxxed to all of the Reserve Course, they start protesting against Hope's Peak Academy knowing their money was being used to create a guy that supposedly murdered a lot of people. This protest was called the parade, and this was the point everything went downhill, as it contested Hope's Peak Academy, and talent by consequence, in the eyes of society. Hope's Peak had to close down and then create that shelter for the surviving class, as the world fell to despair with that parade as the trigger. The dots I'm trying to connect, which you may do so if you want, is in that Nagito is saying that he and the rest of his class are in that present situation as a result of the sequence of events that led to the Tragedy, essentially pointing to it as an example of the talentless majority exercising power over the talented, and the decision would not have been positive as a result of the truths known about Hope's Peak Academy. Here I'm also making the assumption that he isn't necessarily saying he's one of the talented necessarily but is placing himself in a Hope's Peak non-Reserve Course bracket probably in consideration for how the majority bends to the will of the normie.

Anyway, what this all means is that Chapter 0 introduced the idea of Nagito contemplating the authority of the weak due to the power of the majority, which is interesting to consider in comparison to his words in Chapter 4 about how the strong are fueled by the weak. It's naturally important enough to warrant its own time travelling pin which will pierce the heavens, as we continue to skip Izuru dialogue. Nagito has something to say about how people expected a lot out of Izuru which is very much not that feel when Nagito's life story, but it falls under a pin already addressed so we're not covering this detail here and instead do a lil flashforward into the somehow not decaying meat of Junko Enoshima:

From here on we get the appearance of our (maybe just mine) unliving nightmare:

Otherwise known as Nagito's girlfriend, the Junko hand. As we'll soon see, Nagito is a little tsundere about the introduction of his sweetheart:

But worry not Izuru, Nagito was kind of speaking the truth. He DID try to kill Junko Enoshima before!

Just hetslop things I suppose!

Izuru finds himself compelled to wonder how can so twinkish a man be technically touching a woman, but this question unfortunately allowed further trauma into the brains of all people watching, as Nagito continues into monologue and yes I will be saying serious things later I'm just tldr'ing beforehand:

So, the reason for the existence of Chapter 0 in Danganronpa 2 is to provide some form of context and evidence of the fact that the cast used to be Remnants of Despair, in the form of a memory that Hajime has from his time as Izuru. In so doing, there is a need for this scene to not only portray Nagito, but to have that be done in such a way that doesn't put to question how far gone he is as a Remnant of Despair. This is where the Junko hand comes in, as part of fake Makoto's explanation on the Remnants of Despair:

Now, how much can we trust what Makoto is saying here? He does happen to not actually be Makoto, but just Junko in disguise. However, even when the real Makoto shows up, he doesn't contradict this part of the explanation, and the truth is Junko doesn't particularly need to lie here since, well... Nagito sticking her arm in place of his (no hetero) is already horrific, and adding the reasoning doesn't embellish that to that much higher a degree. Rather than adding more to this story, fake Makoto pivots to talking about other atrocities committed by the Remnants of Despair, so as to pile on the despair necessary to offer the cast the solution Junko wants to promote, the graduation program. This makes me inclined to believe that Junko's Ultimate Analyst analysis of Nagito's motivations are probably hitting the mark, and since this memory is meant to back this particular moment, to display just how horrific a Remnant of Despair is, it means the Junko hand is meant to contribute to our main aspect of research in this post: Nagito's post-Tragedy despair.

Nagito here is excitedly talking about The Hand because Izuru gave him the opportunity, since he questioned it when it presented himself. This is because the topic of Junko Enoshima by itself caused Nagito to move to that position, seemingly at the prospect of being able to meet her again. Even though there was no such guarantee from Izuru's words, since he only talked about using Junko and that he had something from her, Nagito went ahead and wondered about the possibility of seeing and killing her. Then, in talking about The Hand, he is ecstatic that it hasn't rotted because it can be taken to mean it lives in him, and I'd want to note that when he's saying he became one with Ultimate Despair at the end, the term used is more that he was able to take her in/consume her, which implies that she is included in him rather than a matter of equality when it comes to becoming one. Yes, we do require going over the logistics of Nagito absorbing Junko Enoshima energy.

I'm gonna put Makoto's explanation on a bit of a hold to continue onwards with Nagito's monologue, after Izuru remarked how boring it is to go scavenge Junko body parts. From here on, Nagito takes on further levels of tsundere:

Thankfully, not even Nagito could keep up the act for long and questioned the allegiance to his newly-taken archetype. Jokes aside, the juice that can be squeezed here is immense and probably another elephant in the room that is not often addressed, this being the duality of Nagito's feelings for Junko, as well as the way they tie to the themes of his character. The point that this scene wants to make about Nagito here is one that Monokuma explains in Chapter 6:

Lying in the principle behind the brainwashing of Junko upon the Remnants of Despair, and how that made them do the things that Makoto ends up explaining in the class trial. This is going to be a little complicated so I'm going over it from the start to then connect back to the duality I mentioned before, but Monokuma is talking about the type of control based on fear: by seeing Junko as always the bigger fish to fry, everything else becomes less significant and is relinquished in an attempt to escape that despair, producing more despair without even knowing. It creates an element of obliviousness to one's own deeds, where the Remnants of Despair aren't necessarily aware that they are dancing to Junko's tune, they instead have this idea that they have to do the things they do for their own goals.

Though it doesn't seem to be the case, it reflects on Mikan, too: she doesn't believe to be acting for despair (the image limit is upon me but I do have screenshots in the Chapter 3 text wall if one would like to certify what I'm saying), but out of love for Junko, which made her relinquish everything else to such an extreme that it can be considered hopeless. To her, Junko was the most significant existence, and from the rest of Monokuma's words, we can theorize that the happiness Mikan gained from receiving Junko's love probably had something sinister behind it, the fear of a despair that Junko can cause, without knowing that this is what is already causing it to begin with.

This makes the brainwashing in Danganronpa 2 have this interesting element where it doesn't actually break character for the people affected by it, and seemingly self-corrects to adjust to the idea of spreading despair in accordance to the personality of the individual. This brainwashing is also described in the anime, but I'll go over the particulars about the anime in some more detail later. The point here is that what Monokuma is saying reflects on Chapter 0, because Nagito is beholden to the same principles: Junko is a looming presence so significant that it causes Nagito to sacrifice a limb so that she can continue to exist, and in a way, so that she can be "defeated". Nagito's relationship with Junko here is opposite of Mikan at a glance, where Nagito is if anything focused on the idea that Junko is his greatest enemy, and that he wants to defeat her, making this despair be an effective threat even after her death. His is one of the examples used by Monokuma when talking about things offered for the sake of escaping despair, as Nagito sacrifices his arm for this purpose and is ecstatic that he was able to take in her power, connecting back to the logistics talked about before. In a way, we can see the absorption of Junko's power as an act where it could seem as though Nagito is dominant here oh god I kinda sound like one of those psychologists hear me out I'm just interpreting the game don't leave meeeee--

Lastly, this brainwashing does take effect in accordance to Nagito's character, because this is where the duality of the matter comes in. Junko is his enemy, and he does despises her... But Nagito's thematic existence is one of co-existing opposing extremes:

(stealing from another post I made because I can)

Contradiction is an essential part of Nagito's character, and it manifests in multiple different ways. Well, we don't have the official account of all those ways, so this can be contested, but the take that I'm going to present right now, out of what I believe to be multiple existing instances of contradiction in Nagito's character, is one that approaches the spectrum of love and hatred. The same way we can think of hope and despair as a yin and yang that connects back to the same thing, and how trust and doubt are interconnected, here we can explore the concept of how a hatred to its extreme is a form of love, because of the way you obsess and care about what that person is doing. For those in the audience who may be fans of characters with tension that is not necessarily friendly, you would if anything be more familiar with this principle than I ever would, but the implication behind Nagito's hatred being put to question by Nagito himself is because it truthfully is going to revolve back into love, as part of the way these complex feelings are interconnected and applied to the brainwashing that made him into a Remnant of Despair in the first place. Without being entirely on top of this himself, he ends up coming back around to loving Junko and doing things for the sake of that love. Now, love can mean different things, so what kind of love this is can be subject to interpretation (my personal one is the same as usual, where this love is more a type of obsession and worship), which I suppose if you're reading this text wall you might know even more than I do the many ways people may or may not talk about Nagito Komaeda and love.

Instead of dissecting the theories of whether or not Nagito would have wanted to fuck Junko Enoshima, we at least know that Nagito is meant to also love her, because of how Ultra Despair Girls completes this at the end of the game, but I also don't want to get ahead of myself. There is a contradiction present here, this time one affected by Junko's influence, where a deep love for Junko is also on the back of a deepseated hatred, and Nagito pauses while talking about why he took in Junko's power. There was meant to probably be a hatred-based goal for this, seeing as Nagito saying he hates Junko precedes this, but he puts it to question, and the reaction afterwards is interesting because it's almost like a short circuit. It was said as a principle that the brainwashing self-corrects and adjusts, and while Monokuma also talks about Junko recruiting the Ultimate Despairs one by one, there is this moment from Chapter 0 where Nagito is repeating the same sound over and over, and more interestingly yet, though Izuru remains quiet...

Nagito changes the subject entirely, as if nothing ever happened. However, we were clearly in the middle of something. Why did you take in her power, Nagito? He talks about defeating Junko but then is taken by a confusion that is extreme, only to avoid it entirely. Fake Makoto's explanation about it truthfully being so Junko can live feels more compelling when considering that it serves as the pure opposite of Nagito's stated reasoning of wanting to defeat and kill her, that in the end, that is also another contradiction that he is carrying. And the way that this isn't addressed and the subject is completely changed can appear almost mechanical. While it isn't surefire evidence, it is material that can support the stance that there was an actual brainwashing process that is mechanical, which matches up with the fact that the cast was brainwashed in the anime. Overall, what we can pick up from this moment is that the effects of Junko in Nagito at this point messed with his mind to the point Junko is a significant presence in his life, and he is motivated based on that presence. Additionally, the extremes in his base personality carry over to the madness and exacerbate it to the point he could go as far as to sever his arm for the sake of following through with the idea of becoming one with Junko, the person he hates to the point of love.

I'm not going to end this section on the absolute last line of the scene, but on this part where Nagito is looking out the window:

Which you'd think sounds less exciting and important than Nagito talking about how it's a shame he's parting ways with Izuru and if they'd meet again and how boring Izuru finds him, but while it's fun, I'm making the judgement call that it's best relegated to the document because the juice that I'm wanting to squeeze here is related to lore things about Nagito as a Remnant of Despair, and yes somehow this part is more relevant because it pertains to the knowledge that Nagito had pre-memory wipe. Nagito knows that he's going to Jabberwock Island, potentially because he was told just before going, but he doesn't know exactly what will happen there. This question plagues me almost as much as Junko Enoshima's despair, man. Exactly what do you know, Nagito? To spare image limit that I'll need for the next section, I'm gonna be as if yapping here but it's known that a killing game would be done between the people involved and that the cast went in willingly not for rehabilitation, but to perpetuate this plan of bringing despair to Makoto and co... But the details surrounding those logistics are very elusive, because Nagito doesn't know Junko is gonna be there, and doesn't know that Izuru is going to plant Junko in there for the killing game, but the Remnants of Despair went in to cause despair, since they let themselves be found so they could be put in the program, which implies they kind of knew about this, but then how did they know about this, and how and in what way was this coordinated as they don't know who Izuru is or about Junko's AI--

Anyway there's a lot we can think about when it comes to this part :) And we draw the looking through Chapter 0 section to a close! Which would make you think that we're done with the text wall yay except it turns out!! Not really! Let's talk more despair logistics!

2

Consolidating with the Anime

Danganronpa 3 swoops in with its aptly named Despair arc to put some prequel context into how the Danganronpa 2 cast fell into despair. This method and surrounding context are generally considered controversial, and in the realm of fanon, anything can be what headcanon makes it to be, but from my position of someone wanting to keep to canon compliance, the stance that I have to take, and also for the sake of the anime enjoyers in the audience as it would be unfair to neglect them, is that, well... What's the sport in that? Danganronpa 3 is considered canon, so it takes part in the analysis of canon.

The thing about the anime, though, is that it partakes in a bit of retconning. It's not exactly complete lore-breaking retcon work, because truthfully the anime is paying more attention to the source material than it's usually made out to be (and I could and probably will eventually make a post about this), but it does give way to a bunch of questions. For example, and I want to conserve my images so I'm not gonna go out of my way to screenshot Chiaki dying in this post, but Chiaki's execution put over Ryouta Mitarai's MLG edit filters that cause people to despair (I'd sensibly assume the Student Council Murder Fest video also played somewhere here but it doesn't show so I honestly have no clue how the MLG edits were happening in real time, maybe Junko just made them up on her own for Chiaki's execution?) are the catalyst that brainwashes the cast of Danganronpa 2, which runs counter to Monokuma's explanation that the Ultimate Despairs were recruited one by one due to Junko having taken advantage of their weaknesses as well as due to her boundless charisma shared with leaders throughout History (and Monokuma actually said that by the way, also called Junko Lady Junko?? Junko flexing about herself to amazing levels).

I've seen the justification that Monokuma was just lying in Chapter 6, but I'd like to posit my own theory which is really just my theory it has zero evidence it's just a yap but rather than considering that it's contradictory, I'd look towards the time gap until the end of the Despair arc which spans a significant enough time for Junko to have shown herself. I think that we can maybe picture it as Junko first did the Mitarai brainwash special, and then to keep it that way, unlike the good old Chisa lobotomy special, she then went up to the Ultimate Despairs one by one with their weaknesses reinforcing Junko as the target in this brainwashing. It would consolidate both the hinted at mechanical brainwashing, and the hinted at threat-based brainwashing and in a way kind of sort of consolidate the vibes. I accept alternatives my friends...

But anyway I didn't just make this section to yap archsimp diabolical headcanons. We're going to look at actual lines from the anime, as in, all lines pertaining to the behaviour of brainwashed individuals, as well as scenes that are relevant to this behaviour. The explanations the anime gives for the brainwashing basically come from Junko and Ryouta at different points, Junko's being the earliest one on:

Junko here is about to show an example of brainwashing that doesn't actually correspond to the brainwashing that we'll see even in the context of the anime for the Danganronpa 2 cast, maybe for the sake of flexing. Meet the OG, Reserve Course Guy:

He is being made to kill himself, but he displays the characteristics of 1. being self-aware and not wanting to go through with the action that he is performing 2. not under the belief that he HAS to do it and so being as if physically forced through Junko's order. These points will also contradict Ryouta's own later explanation of his despair brainwashing method so what's up?? But Junko is going to put the dirt back in that hole I artificially dug and balance the universe in a jiffy:

That's right this is just baby brainwashing! The real deal is gonna be when the Mitarai MLG edits get to them!

This is also the precursor to the Chisa lobotomy special, which seems to have occurred because the Mitarai Student Council Murder Fest alone didn't work on her so Mukuro got a bit creative based on Junko's instructions (activating my trust me bro rights over the image limit here but the dialogue really do be like that), which is by the way an extremely interesting thing added to this story because it clearly outlines the existence of resistance to brainwashing to the point that certain people need certain variations for it to work. In other words, within the anime itself, it doesn't work 100% of the time every time. But anyway the gist here is that what Junko is saying is that she is administering a brainwashing more advanced on the Danganronpa 2 cast than on the Reserve Course students, one that makes them willing to go through the hopeless things she wants them to, something that she is defining as worse off. It also outlines a requisite that makes the involved people kill their loved ones of their volition, and sacrifice their own bodies to be in-line with Danganronpa 2's own explanation, so it circles back to the principles that were named in the last section. Phew! Thanks, Junko Enoshima!

Now afterwards is Ryouta's own explanation of the brainwashing, which occurs in the Future arc:

It's also on the brief side, but it gives added context from a different perspective, as Ryouta says that it makes the person who watched it crave despair. It doesn't say anything about how that person may or may not be into Junko in the process, or the mechanics behind fear in Danganronpa 2, but it talks about a potential mechanism that can adjust the people involved to continue to perpetuate despair and feel like they have to, as a way to subconsciously veil this inner desire for despair that is shared with Junko. Alternatively, we can associate this thought process that is equivalent to Junko Enoshima to include Junko's own relationship with herself but there's no immediate guarantee, and what that would have my consolidating mind think is that it could make one lean into the direction of Junko coming in with the fear part afterwards, while Ryouta's video is a sort of mechanic catalyst glue bundling it together. As in, even if one craves despair, can it be guaranteed to center around Junko? If Junko came in and did make it about her, though, it would solve that problem.

Another thing to consider is the case of one Kazuo Tengan, the mastermind behind the killing game in the Future arc. He displays the same characteristics as the advanced brainwashing mentioned before, since he watches the same video Chisa did (but I suppose he didn't need the lobotomy special), and his plan also matches in the principles stated before:

He leaves a video talking about how the leaders of the Future Foundation killing each other would be so hopeless that he couldn't help doing it, which goads Ryouta into using the hope brainwashing video that he'd cooked beforehand, something which we come to understand from Makoto's think thonking to be part of an even bigger plan:

This is Makoto's take on the matter (his take is confirmed as fact on Kazuo's plan itself, but not in the sense of whether Kazuo is or isn't a Remnant of Despair), but one that actually makes it clear that this killing game is adjusting to Kazuo's character: Kazuo is someone who prized hope and acted in its name, so his ultimately hopeless plan is one that is still intended to supposedly bring hope to the world. He was entrusting the world to Ryouta in a way that he could ensure despair would be erase through worldwide brainwashing (he didn't know about the need for the lobotomy special, so let's not rag on him for that). However, it can also be noted that this brainwashing idea is seen in-universe as something bad, at which point the loss of despair is itself a hopeless concept because of the relationship hope and despair have. So, what ends up happening is that Kazuo's plan, even if intended for hope, is hopeless whichever way it goes because he caused a killing game and would have altered people not to feel essential human emotions. I think that in that sense, it represents the despair process in a way that is in-line with Danganronpa 2.

Chisa's brainwashing has its own quirks that can be explored, but it's also specific in that it needed something different from everybody and a lot of the things involved are hints and so it's another layer of extrapolation and the image limit is upon me so I'll unfortunately have to leave this out of this section but curious people please hit me up I would be very willing to answer an ask about Chisa and despair brainwashing-- Ahem! You might be thinking, "Okay, we know a lot about anime brainwashing, but where did Komaeda go?" The point is that through knowing the specifics of how it works to have been taken in by Junko's despair, we can apply this to analysing Nagito as well as to expand with our own ideas of how Nagito would act as a Remnant of Despair. This is why the stated principles can be of importance, so that you aren't necessarily lost on where to begin when coupling Junko despair with Nagito Komaeda past the hintsies in Chapter 0. We have seen that the anime adds further juice, which contributes to the perception of Chapter 0, and consequently the Servant once part 2 rolls around.

But we're not done yet! This is why I split this into 2 parts!

3

Nagito Komaeda and Pre-Junko Despair

This is going to be a short one but a very important point to yap over. By Pre-Junko despair, I of course mean the despair that Nagito feels without any Junko influence involved, which is a very important aspect of the character. In the setting book commentary I showed way above is the idea that extreme hope becomes despair, as well as of an inverted hope. The principle is one where this massive hope is because there is a deep despair involved, and that Nagito's ideals have on their back this already defeated stance, this despair to them. I need to mention this not because this section is gonna cover this portion in detail, but because this is also going to be a massive pin going into part 2, as well as a point of interest when contemplating Nagito in particular. After all, the other characters don't share this pre-existing deep despair in common with Nagito. It can maybe justify why out of the whole cast who are talking about all the cool happy things they're gonna do after graduation, Nagito in the anime echoes a set of lines he'll eventually say as the Servant, too:

The anime translates it differently from Ultra Despair Girls, but it is word for word the same line in Japanese (both translations are accurate in terms of general meaning). The rest of the cast do speak of being Remnants of Despair afterwards, but there is a divide between their desires, and this awareness that they are Remnants of Despair, without it being addressed as a contradiction. We can theorize it to be the brainwashing self-correcting, or go on with other interpretations, but I guess I'm thinking about this because Nagito here is talking about his aspirations without that gleam of hope in his heart to make the world a better place like his other classmates, but about the fact that he can become despair knowing hope will win at the end, placing himself in a supportive and disposable role similarly to how he is in the game, but with the key difference of where he is positioning himself in terms of the dichotomy between hope an despair, which is very important but also maybe hopefully probably a topic better suited for Ultra Despair Girls as the real originator of this line in terms of development timeline.

Anyway, the reason why I talk about this pre-existing despair is because it is spoken of in an official setting, and because it has significance in being highlighted as part of Nagito's character because dichotomy and the complexity of different extremes hinges close to the essence of Nagito Komaeda. Though, to speak about this at greater length, I'm going to need to combine text walls, but to a more specific extent focusing on the matter of Nagito's inferiority complex, I touch on it in the text wall about parallels to Makoto Naegi. I only have like two images left until the image limit that is why the desperation is big right now but the big things I'd want to talk about before finalizing this massive universe-shattering pin is that this disposable element is something I'm talking about because it is paralleled with significance in Nagito's Island Mode ending in the game (also a read of interest in the scope of hope and despair for Nagito), where Nagito finds that hope is in himself and thus no longer wants to throw his life away. This finding of inner hope is indicative of the despair that existed in Nagito to begin with, and the way that it affects how Nagito perceives life is of the significative aspects of the dichotomy for the character, in my personal humble opinion.

Thus, I send off this part with the food for thought pertaining this theming.

4

Conclusion

What do you mean, "A huge chunk of this post isn't about Chapter 0? Where did my Izuru Kamukura go?" In this post, the world revolves around Nagito Komaeda and the honest reason I ever wanted to cover Chapter 0 solo was specifically to talk about Nagito Komaeda and Despair to begin with. Believe it or not, this wall of text is actually condensing the scope of my research, so this is technically the short version comparatively to the text walls I've sent my friend. The point, though, is to introduce and hopefully help with thought about this elusive and much more brief timeline of Nagito, because I often see a lot of confusion surrounding it, as well as depictions in which I feel a desperation to achieve something but no anchor of knowledge to support it as it is naturally and understandably easy to forget Chapter 0 and the details in Ultra Despair Girls/the anime. For people who may like to reference canon content, I would hope that this post can be of service.

Like I said, this is Part 1 since the main point is that I still have to cook up the text wall about the Servant. I had thought of merging the information here with that Servant text wall, but as you can see, this text wall is already pretty extensive, so I believe it's understandable that I ended up splitting them. I don't know what effect this will have on the general engagement of the post, but I will regardless sit back on the expectation of usual and thank the brave souls who got this far. When it comes to Despair!Nagito I am very open available and single (👀) for discussion because this is a hot topic for archsimp research and there are multiple paths you can take with it based off of what we know. Anyway thank youuuuuuuu I hope you have a nice non-despair day!! <33333

Also part 2 here!!

[archsimp]

My moot has inspired me... @justamathgay

SPEAKING OF SURVEILLANCE CAMERAS AND BEING PEDANTIC I know there'll be zero text walls in which this content will have a use kind of so CHAPTER 4 NAGITO POV LOOKING AT RANDOM THINGS TIMEEEEE

You move as Nagito for a brief period in the game and get to fuck around in limited areas of the funhouse. Naturally as I was trying to collect as much Nagito line as possible I at least think I touched everything that was touchable AND YOU GET TO SEE IT TOO RAAAAH

(Well not everything since that'll somehow hit the image limit but the juicy things!!!)

("Wow, "The Founder of Hope's Peak Academy, Izuru Kamukura," huh!")

("I can understand wanting to put the portrait of such a distinguished person on display, but...")

("What's the meaning behind deliberately hanging it in a place like this? What are they trying to show us?")

So I did go to review how it was all translated to English in the actual game after I did it myself (I changed languages and booted the game and did the investigation yes...) and the differences are interesting. Firstly, Nagito's comment on Izuru Kamukura doesn't have any exclamation to it, and is made out to be pensive:

Not sure why? I thought the standout part of this observation is that Nagito was pretty excited considering this is the founder of Hope's Peak Academy. Otherwise, it's just that I assumed that the target was "we" whereas the English script assumed "I" at the end. In the end, it means the exact same thing.

("It's the monitor used for communications...")

("How much longer do we have left until Monokuma appears on this screen?")

("I'd best gather all the clues necessary to solve this mystery until then. So that I can be of use to "true hope," too...")

Here though the whole subject switch is interesting to me because the English script assumes that "we" are going to be useful to a true hope:

I'm not sure why? Considering the script's very own decision to have translated this past line to be Nagito himself resolving to determine true hope by investigating the case:

Who knows? Insert shrug emoji here!

("From the other side of this surveillance camera... They must still be watching...")

("They must still be watching the beautiful scene that is everyone's fight for hope while suffering in despair!")

("... I'm jealous of them if only for that.")

("After all, they can see everything about hope... Even the parts I won't ever get to know...!")

This one's really funny because it's Nagito wishing he had the ability to stalk everybody. As you do, when you're the Ultimate Ultimate Fanatic. But strangely enough, the whole passage is weird in English:

I don't mind Nagito including himself in the people being beautiful here just to be open-minded, but the structure is also a bit strange because the point isn't that people are watching them despite the fact that they're suffering from despair. Rather, considering the point of the killing game, the premise makes no sense to begin with. The point is that everyone is beautiful because they fight for hope despite suffering from despair, and that this is being watched by the people behind the killing game. So the meaning is completely different from some reason, where despair isn't being made out to be the factor that increases everyone's beauty even though that's the point.

Another thing is Nagito including other people in his stalker mindset here. I don't know why, because the subject isn't even omitted or anything, it quite literally says aspects that "I" don't know about. The point then being that Nagito specifically wants that exclusive hope info.

But last but not least!!

Nagito will wanna go downstairs to the Final Dead Room but WE WON'T LET HIM--

Upstairs!!

We can look at the flowers ☺️

("If these flowers are hope... Am I... The earth from which they take root...?")

("No... That would still be impertinent of me. I'm sustenance for only a moment's worth, after all...")

And watch Nagito being a NERD preparing his hope analogies in his KOMAEDA BRAIN I'd dare say that's the real second-worth sustenance (the English script translation is practically equivalent I have nothing to say about it)!! I normally have an overarching point but the point is that Komaeda is a nerd.

CLASS DISMISSED

[archsimp]

The Archsimp Index of Comically Long Theses (among other things)

Hello! Since it's a pain for me to scroll and I want to make sure all my relevant content is accessible, I made this post compiling both character analysis, headcanon and fanfiction posts, all of which I take very seriously. For now, it's mostly Nagito Komaeda-related because he's the main subject of my research, but I can yap about anything Danganronpa in general and I'll likely diversify in the far-off future. This means this index is gonna be subject to a lot of change but that is neither here nor there for now. Without further ado, though:

General Things

Character Accuracy in Fanfiction

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Danganronpa

Headcanons

The Archsimp Ship Headcanon Asks Index

Miscellaneous

on V3's Hajime and Sayaka Ultimate Talent Development interactions and what that says about them

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Danganronpa 1

Makoto Naegi Research

on Makoto and Kiyotaka's Free Time Events

on Makoto and Sayaka in Chapter 1

on Chadkoto and Sayaka in Chapter 1

on Makoto and the Chapter 1 trial aftermath plus Komaeda parallels

on Makoto and overall impressions of Chapters 2 and 3 (Celeste in particular)

on Makoto and his behaviour in Chapter 4

on Makoto and Komaeda parallels relating to seeking someone relatable

on Makoto and his empathy for Alter Ego

on Makoto and Ultimate Hope

Miscellaneous

on Makoto being a JoJo fan

on the parallels between Makoto and Komaeda based on Chapter 1 of Danganronpa 1

on Aoi Asahina and her characterization

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Danganronpa 2

Nagito Komaeda Character Analysis

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Nagito Komaeda and the H-Word

Nagito Komaeda and RNG

Does Nagito's Luck Truly Kill Everybody He Loves? Ft Canon Facts

Nagito Komaeda and Makoto Naegi

Nagito Komaeda and Chapter 1

Nagito Komaeda and Hajime Hinata

Nagito Komaeda and His Free Time Events

Nagito Komaeda and Chapters 2 and 3

Nagito Komaeda and Island Mode

Nagito Komaeda and Despair (Part 1)

Nagito Komaeda and Despair (Part 2)

Nagito Komaeda and True Hope

Opinion Pieces

Lest We May Forget About the H-Word

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retranslating and recontextualizing Nagito calling Hajime a nobody in Chapter 4 and how that affects Hajime

highlighting and retranslating Nagito POV observations from Chapter 4

demystifying the Danganronpa 3-related Otomedia magazine spread from 2016

retranslating and recontextualizing Nagito talking about how he's not the crazy one

Contemplating Nagito's attitude towards Monomi in Chapter 4's Final Dead Room

Nagito Komaeda and All These Files He Found in the Final Dead Room

Asks

on Nagito and feelings of guilt

on Nagito and shame relating to Chapter 4's attitude shift

on Nagito and how he felt about Chapter 5

on Nagito and becoming Ultimate Hope by erasing despair

on Nagito and the thematic parallels between him and Junko

on Nagito and translation quirks of his third hope shard event

on why Nagito was hoping for casualties in Island Mode

on the significance of the translation choice of Nagito's final Free Time Event line in my Free Time Event document and interpretation of the event

on how Nagito knew about the Neo World Program and Izuru Kamukura at the end of the OVA

on the messages in the cottages of each dead character from the end of Chapter 5 and Nagito

Nagito Komaeda Headcanon and Opinion Stuff

Asks

Nagito Komaeda and Eyesight (parody)

on my opinion about the Servant

on Nagito handling strong negative emotion

on Nagito and Sonia

on what kind of magical creature Nagito could be

on theories related to Nagito's diagnoses

on Nagito and getting isekai'd

on Nagito getting isekai'd to Persona 4

on Nagito if he was cursed with immortality

on Nagito and pets

on Nagito and food

on Nagito's handwriting

on Nagito and Pokemon

on Nagito and children

on Nagito and scars

Miscellaneous

The Post-Island Mode Komahina sales pitch

Komaeda Cog in the Machine office AU

Nagito Komaeda and Teruteru Hanamura (April Fools)

Cat House Komaeda

General Danganronpa 2 Posts

Miscellaneous

Speedrunning defeating Junko Enoshima

on Hajime and Gundham's Free Time Event and Island Mode content

on Hajime in a Danganronpa 2 office AU

Identifying the Statue Curse Believer Squad

Happy birthday Chiaki!! 💘

Miscellaneous Asks

Akane saving the world (by which I mean Danganronpa 2)

Sharing thoughts I have about Hiyoko

Checking translation and yapping about the use of the word "friend" in Danganronpa

Checking translation and yapping about trust for Chiaki, Akane, Hajime and Sonia in Chapters 3 and 4

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Fanfiction

Nagito Komaeda

Main Project

Danganronpa Another Episode: Hope Starved Theater Rated M for the dark themes (not the sex sorry to say), Nagito/femReader Summary as per ao3:

In a building too uncanny to be considered a hospital, you wake up from a coma struggling with the loss of years of memory. However, the gaps begin to fill when you come face to face with the only other person present, an old friend named Nagito Komaeda. He seems to have been responsible for you while you were unconscious, and was eagerly waiting for your awakening in preparation for something, but what exactly compelled him to transport you to this location? That question soon becomes inescapable, and whether the answer carries hope or despair is up to you to unravel…

Originally updating monthly, but currently on break to finish the second draft as per this post. Any questions welcome!

Respective Main Project Chapter Author's Notes

Prologue: Predetermined Checkmate

Chapter 1: Cemetery Under the Unfamiliar Ceiling (First Half)

Interlude: Lost Golden Years (1)

Chapter 1: Cemetery Under the Unfamiliar Ceiling (Second Half)

Interlude: Lost Golden Years (2)

Chapter 1: Cemetery Under the Unfamiliar Ceiling (Checkpoint)

Interlude: Lost Golden Years (3)

Chapter 2: What Does Oolong Tea Wish Upon the Seven Stars? (First Half)

Random Short-Form /gnReader Fanfiction (which have been bundled on AO3 too!)

Shooting Star 🌠

Calm After the Storm 🌈☔️

Snow Globe ☃️

Nightfall 🌃

Sunrise 🌇

First Meeting 🪟

Rose🌹

Through Slumber and Fire 💤🔥

Birthday 🎂

Flowerbed 💐

Requests

General Ideas on Reader x Nagito Komaeda in a Kakegurui Setting 🃏🎲

The Luckiest Person Alive 🍀

The Ultimate Conspiracy Theorist 💸

on Nagito discovering ao3

on Nagito museum headcanons

on Nagito falling in love with a girl from the Reserve Course

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And as for the least important thing here, myself! I'm known as Archsimp! I wanna write fanfiction that appeals to me, and what appeals to me is the commitment to portraying a character with clear basis on their canon characteristics, to the point you can really imagine them doing and saying those things. Because of this, I do a lot of research and use this account to dump said research for the funsies (and to prove that I'm not just making it up).

I'm a fan of multiple things, but right now I feel like I might forget Komaeda if I don't see him every day and that's why this is just Komaeda all the time every time right now. I read for characters individually (as in, I filter solely for x character) and so I have no specific shipping preference. If at all, the rarer the pairing is, the more I'm intrigued because of the challenge of trying to accurately portray characters in unlikely scenarios, so you could say I'm more of a rarepair shipper at heart but I have no one OTP. As for blorbo sharing status, I'm somehow not a selfshipper! But I also consume x reader and x OC content.

So I suppose the bottomline is I'm a bit strange and all over the place! Though, it's also with this in mind that I try to be conscious of making posts that are accessible to any person regardless of their stance, and want to respect people's headcanons as much as possible. Whichever it is, I'm in for it! The more variety the better! Anyway, nice to meet youuuuu and I hope you have a nice day <33333333