#dr literacy

[gamegirlx]

"I hate Korekiyo's character! He's a freak!"

"But you misunderstood his character! You just can't handle nuanced characters!"

GUYS. HEAR ME OUT.

(Analysis on how the fandom treats Korekiyo up ahead.)

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Whether you hate or love Korekiyo, I think we all have to agree that in the end, Korekiyo ultimately is a poorly written character that doesn't give justice to grooming/SA victims and DID representation.

I was someone who, at first impression of Korekiyo during the 3rd class trial, was disgusted by his character. Like man, incest, come on??? It was only till I looked upon Korekiyo character analysis done by people online that I realized that there was in fact, attempted nuance and context to justify Korekiyo's mannerisms in his lore.

Now here's the thing. THE FACT that my first impression (and a lot of other's first impressions) of Korekiyo's character was just an incestous pyschopath is proof that the writers couldn't get across the full broadth and nuance that they wrote his character to have. Take into the fact that not all people who watch Danganronpa look that deeply into the media they get into. Some are just going to take Korekiyo's reveal as a weird freak at face-value without further research.

Let's also take into context the fact that Danganronpa was never really a game that gave nuance to physcological character writing. You would think that a murder mystery game involving a lot of unique and quirky highschoolers would explore the deep emotional effects and turmoil that grow and affect characters as the game progresses, but for the most part, Danganronpa has never fully taken its tone too seriously, often having comedic parts sprinkled here and there. For example, think of Toko and how DID was represented. It is a serious mental and physcological issue, but Danganronpa decided to stick to easy-to-write stereotypes. I also think of Teruteru, Mikan, Kazuichi, and Miu, whose perverted characteristics often serve as comedic relief instead of giving nuance to stigmatized topics that can be explored with depth and nuance.

So when you suddenly have characters like Korekiyo, I imagine that the majority of the audience wouldn't be too analytical or aware about the details that potentially serve Korekiyo as a deeper character.

That being said, if you ask my opinions on where I stand about Korekiyo, I would like to love his character, but I can't stand behind his writing and how he stands as bad representation for DID (once again, sigh) and grooming/SA. I don't like the fact that people are looking at characters like Toko and Korekiyo as representation of DID and accept them for what they are. It lowers the bar for what proper representation of DID, grooming, or whatever deep and nuanced topics deserve. I don't like the fact that a victim of grooming, a victim of severe physical trauma, as well as a person with DID is shown to simply be a physcopatic murderer, and I feel deeply compassionate for actual victims who fear that stereotypes like this may affect the way they are percieved in real life.

Of course, my mind is not always on full-media-literate mode, you and I can enjoy Danganropa on a shallow silly level for no primar reason, but I'll personally keep my enjoyment of a character like Kiyo to a discrete level to keep my word to all the above. It sucks that we can't be open enjoyers of Korekiyo as an interesting and unique character without having to confront the fact that he is a harmful stereotype, but we cannot also just deny the effect of encouraging a fandom to enjoy shallow characterizations of Korekiyo without encouraging deeper discussion. I believe the best we can do with a badly written character like Korekiyo is to be able to allow open discussions surrounding his themes without generalizing people as "Korekiyo haters" or "Korekiyo defenders".

So chat, as fans of Danganronpa, let's be responsible when it comes to fandom interactions surrounding sensitive topics, okay? And let's not be afraid of educating people in fandom spaces who may not fully understand characters CONSTRUCTIVELY and RESPECTFULLY.

[jacksmusesdrv3]

To add to this post I made a little while ago (since it originally wasn't super clear):

The biggest issue I have is with the fact that marginalisation is a huge underlying theme of Danganronpa (in particular, the Reserve course and how they and the super talented are basically guinea pigs of the institution- Izuru is a logical extreme of that), but when marginalisation is factored in to interpretations of Kokichi, it's not as understandable even though his entire being is arguably moulded around survival mechanisms. Or rather, the 'surface' is made to be all that's there, even given how much darkness was hiding behind the face of the original DR's narrative- at the time of the game's release, we are given the mistaken impression that Junko was the destructive force, while you learn in the lore that she was more of a match to a bunch of oily rags

I simply ask that we all keep an open mind about similarly 'mistaken impressions' in an open-ended game like V3, what with the way even the presence of talent itself could be an in-universe conspiracy along with the history of HPA (which gives credence to Kokichi suppressing things about himself - like talents - because people either wouldn't believe, or would target him). It's very possible that Kodaka has left us with a real ugly mess.

[jacksmusesdrv3]

Someone asked me a bit ago about what I was trying to ask when flailing about the conspiracy-themes issues, so I'll say it here:

Ultimately? Before I can address that, I think this fandom is very, very badly in need of frank, nuanced discussion about DRV3's ending, themes and of Shuichi and Kokichi, so that the whole situation is better understood rather than constantly swept under the rug.

See, a lot of people assume the 'Fiction' end means that, even if HPA history is real, that has no bearing on what happened in the game, that Shuichi's judgement on the matter has no significant issues, that there's no chance of any Flashback Lights being real because of post-Chapter 5, etc. That is fine if you just want to make your outside world story based on that premise, or just don't see any other sides.

However, to assert that that has to be the case is going against the stated structure of the game itself, by the developers themselves, for its story have multiple sides and no clear answer. And by the game itself, that includes characters, relationships and events.

Yes, that includes the possibility of a different Kokichi from the one you know. That includes takes that make him into the group's martyr. That includes takes that give him prior knowledge of others and supernatural gift but a deficit of the power and freedom to use it well. Yes, it does in fact mean takes that you consider 'missing the point of him and what makes him so compelling and good'.

But more importantly, it includes allowing critical analysis of the cast dynamics, how they come to be biased against Kokichi even before the killing game starts and how this group mentality and tendency to scapegoat can affect our perception of who he is, regardless of where your interpretation leads.

This is so exhausting to go into, so the long and short of it:

We need 'Fiction' and 'Non-fiction' readings to coexist. We also need to allow the darkness hiding in the game's themes to be bled out. And we can't do either if we're constantly denying the possibility.

[jacksmusesdrv3]

I know I've twisted myself into a goddamn pretzel the past five or so years trying not to be 'too much' and backing off when I am

but

A good deal of why I started the #dr literacy tag is precisely because of this- I am beyond tired and fed up, with the kinds of things that people have ignored and left on my back- whether it's to do with Kokichi, or V3 overall. It's easy to deflect and call me 'delusional', and five years later never even consider the implications of having called me that over what I've been trying to grapple with, much less apologise to me sincerely and genuinely try to understand where I'm coming from and why it's so hard to discuss in the first place- not to mention why it's so easy to make mistakes not least because the way Kodaka plays with themes can be decidedly insensitive (and I was clearly out of my depth with that when I started this blog)

This isn't about all of you. A good number of people here have been wonderful about this, even if they don't understand all too well. But frankly such people are the exception rather than the rule, and the rule is that people don't bother to interrogate their own biases about Kokichi, or really grapple with the way him and V3's narrative might be constructed with bias. And this unwillingness to accept ambiguity and nuance results in some genuinely hurtful behaviour towards people who try to point out that, maybe, not everything was even his fault, or that his character and situation is far more layered than it appears on a first run of the game. Or even a second, or third.

So I'm gonna need people in that camp to swear that you'll do better about this going forward. No really. This situation I've been in didn't come out of nowhere, and while I've beaten the proverbial horse to death that I haven't always been fair or reasonable either, that does not mean I should just back myself into a wall and take the status quo that is 'Tsumugi is telling the truth and Kokichi is just a clown' as a 'fact of canon'. Because there's a very good chance that that might not even be true, and that there's even more tangled messes Kodaka left in the text to unpack that you never even thought of, and that really NEED extra care and nuance to fully understand.

I know you're probably sick of hearing this from me by now. But this is an issue that can never be helped until it's faced head on, and the effect of basically being pathologised over it (due to *checks notes* autism), is seriously damaging- the inability of people to address things as serious issues and themes rather than 'just the pet theory that came out of my nutty head', is something I cannot, on principle, force myself to accept. So please just think about the way you're approaching issues in the future. I will try to do the same.

[jacksmusesdrv3]

Okay so I wanna address this snappage real quick:

I'm concerned about nuance in this space which makes it very hard to go into particular details when nuance of V3's... background, is generally extremely highly contested to the point of it being theory. This does not mean I wish to erase the offensiveness with Angie and explain it away with nuances. I really would just like to address issues and nuances, both, rather than have to toss it aside because far too many people don't realise or accept there are issues in the first place, although at a lot of times this results in being more defensive than not. Hence the framing of that post being so slanted.

That's the simplest I can put it right now anyway. Anyways, I do not want to shut anyone down about social issues like Angie's in the text.

[jacksmusesdrv3]

Did you know? 

Kaede and Shuichi were specifically designed to be likeable to the player. Conversely, the like of Miu were specifically designed to be hated

Danganronpa Distrust was basically remade so it would be more marketable due to how excessively dark its content was

There’s a lot of hideously dark material underlying in V3, so uh... considering how much Kodaka - by his own admission - wants to manipulate you, coupled with how he’s learned since the beginning to toy with dark content in a ‘way that looks fun’, all I have to say is:

Stay cautious

Stay very fucking cautious