Please do the Komaeda's morals analysis
Okay, so first I think that I should explain something here.
Everybody is morally grey, there’s no doubt about that. The terms “good” and “bad” person always bothered me because they’re unnecessary labels painting the world and our minds in black and white, while in reality it is all a spectrum of grey, varying from person to person based on how they had grown up perceiving the world. While adopting standards, many people (such as myself) will follow them, but they might not always feel right. Some people, instead, will stick to what feels right rather than agreeing with the majority because they’d rather stay honest to themselves, which most of the time goes against social norms.
We are shaped by everything in our environment, from the smallest things to the bigger ones, like the media. Our families, friends, peers, even strangers shape us. Observing the world around us, seeing how two people interact, seeing how people do not interact, etc. Not only people, but the lack of them is what shapes us, too.
Rules were set to be followed, but what are rules if not a thing to be broken? What truly makes a rule, if it can be bent and shaped however we please, anyway? Let’s take a simple one, for example: “Do not kill.” That can be justified in many different ways, based on how the scenario played out, and many people do not consider that rule necessary. Why? It’s because by observing the world, their beliefs were shaped differently from yours, and they act and think different from you. Nobody is the same.
Deep down, we don’t have a path laid out in front of us. We make it ourselves and we do it by interacting with the world.
Now, a similar matter is at hand in Danganronpa—the plot is heavily surrounded around societal norms and standards, which we see every step of the way, from the very beginning even before Izuru Kamukura came to existence. It is a bit different from ours, so I will do my best to explain it. Talent is everything. People learn that talent is what makes the world great and what dominates everything else, worthless in comparison.
Komaeda says so himself in his speech:
I’m sure we’ve all been taught this way. Even if we weren’t told directly, we should be able to see it for ourselves, from the world around us. The “messages overflowing with hope” that are shown on TV, the Internet and the news tell us this… People who can’t win…people who don’t do their best…and people who do their best but still can’t win…they’re all the same worthless trash.
From the moment they’re born, people are clearly divided into those who have value and those who don’t. Worthless people will never be able to become someone with value, no matter how hard they try… “Hard work leads to success”…what a misunderstanding! The world isn’t that simple. No matter how hard a small dog tries, it’ll never become a big dog… No matter how hard a penguin tries, it’ll never be able to fly… In other words…a worthless person will always be worthless, no matter what they do. You don’t “become” a talented person…you’re born with that potential. Yes…just like all of you. That’s why I look up to you.
Unlike our world, Danganronpa’s universe heavily values hope and talent, or what they call ultimates, if you may. Even average people are considered worthless compared to that. Talent is important because it breeds and creates hope, which keeps their world going and holds great potential for the future, and for that hope, most people would do anything. Average people are a majority, which makes talent ever more precious because it’s something much greater than all of them combined.
To us, it might seem strange because we do not live in a world like that, but it would be just like any other problem we have. Those who have privilege (the talented) are often unmoved by the problems, do not notice them, or it is subconsciously engraved in their minds that they are superior in a way, or that they hold some sort of power, and even if they aren’t aware of that themselves, they still act on it the way they learned to by observing the world. The world is in their favour, and everybody is aware of that one way or another. Denying it simply doesn’t work, that’s just ignorant, or pointless.
The world was always corrupted, before Junko Enoshima even ever took her first step.
The Natsumi Kuzuryuu case, the deaths of the student council, The Kamukura Project, Komaeda’s suspension—they were all just examples of that corruption.
Why mention Komaeda’s suspension along all the other examples? That’s actually very simple. They expelled everybody who was involved except Komaeda, for his talent. It was something they didn’t understand, but found worthy of keeping because it was powerful and if utilised, could provide a great opportunity. Despite it being Komaeda’s plan, he was never directly involved due to his SHSL Luck excluding him from the situation and bringing out the plan through others, but in the end, his intentions came out just as he intended.
They found it worth keeping, so they excused Komaeda’s actions if not outright covered them up.
The Kamukura Project in itself is a very good example, too, although everybody knows of it by now (I assume). The reserve course at Hope’s Peak Academy was opened for the sake of creating the embodiment of talent. They created a scenario in which every student attending would pay a huge fee, which they would use for the project to then exploit a single person and turn their worthlessness into something of use. A tool for creating hope. In the process, they removed everything that would stand in the way of that (or so they thought), including memory, numbing Hinata’s feelings, and getting rid of his identity entirely to make him into a tool of their own—the ultimate hope. No regard for his life whatsoever, because he was worthless. He became the school's ideas, right to the rotten core, and he was used as intended, although not in a way they wanted to.
So where does Komaeda stand in all of this?
He views the world exactly as it was shown to him: People who have no talent are considered worthless, people who have talent hold all the potential.
So why does he view himself as worthless, despite being talented? That’s because his talent cannot be used for creating hope, and it does as it pleases, holding no potential whatsoever. His talent holds a pattern, but it cannot be controlled and wherever he goes, it will spread horrible misfortune to anybody it wants. There’s no hope in that scenario, not at all—there is nothing to look forward to, nothing to use for his future, nothing to give other people, nothing that would make something great. It’s just fate, luck and then misfortune, and that talent means nothing in that kind of world.
I said this before, but Komaeda doesn’t insult himself because he loathes himself, but because “realistically” speaking, he is worthless. When people treat him horribly, he assumes that’s because of talent, because that is how worthless people are treated (that doesn’t mean he likes it), not because he says weird things, since he considers them perfectly normal and he’s surprised to think they don’t understand his beliefs. To him, they were obvious facts and he was simply following what the world told him, so it was weirder to see them think differently.
Komaeda doesn’t necessarily care about talent. He looks up to talented people because he could never be like them, just like anybody else would, but he still sees them as people, and he doesn’t even like most of them, just tolerates them and respects them like anybody else, while also remembering the fact that they’re superior to him. Again, he doesn’t blindly idolise them, and he expresses his distaste for their actions or even personalities. Many times, you can see him comment on the things they do, and he very clearly states that even if a talented person like them crosses the line, he will not hesitate to stop them, forcibly if he has to. Why? Because they’re still people, and the thought to excuse an action of theirs just because they’re talented doesn’t even come to his mind.
Actual important things to him are always about respecting others. Harassment, SA, homophobia, racism, misogyny, ableism, etc. Based on how he acts, you can easily tell that he would not tolerate those, and that he’s against them. Whenever he sees something like that, he intervenes, no questions asked. For example, Hanamura’s disgusting behaviour, or even smaller things, like when he says that he would rather consider somebody’s feelings than feed someone else’s curiosity.
When it comes to talent, like I said, he sees it just as the world does, but that doesn’t change the fact that he respects everybody, and that if someone goes against what he believes, he wouldn’t care about whether they’re talented or not. Many people write his interactions with Hinata as bullying or harassing him, but he would never—In fact, he would defend him if somebody was not giving him basic human respect.
That being said, respecting people might actually be the only thing where he draws the line, and the only strong standard that he holds for others.
Even as he speaks of things like hope, or despair, it all comes back to respect. Respect somebody’s life. Their death, use it for a greater cause to give it a meaning and do not let it go in vain. Put respect on their name, on their sacrifice.
Just doing things that cause pain and misery is disrespectful and meaningless, causing despair for the sake of despair, or for the sake of simply doing it, treats one’s life as if it meant nothing. Suicide, dying to a disease, or being murdered for nothing at all, all of those examples follow a simple rule:
Your life is disrespected.
Things like that should only be done for a reason, a good reason.
Also, many people think that Komaeda would blindly admire Hinata for having every talent, but it would be the opposite. He would feel disgusted to know how badly they disrespected his life for something like artificial talent, and it’s been proven already that Komaeda is the only one who respects him enough to see him completely as who he was, who he met before he turned into Izuru Kamukura, and that whatever talent they put into him didn’t matter, because he saw the person he was. He saw Hajime Hinata, not the life of a person they destroyed for their sick wants.
(which the DR3 anime portrayed really badly btw lmao)
He would detest the whole project and he would treat him like a normal person, and who he was, rather than what they made him.
Yeah, there are many things that could slip past Komaeda, but only as long as there’s a good reason and as long as it’s not disrespectful to someone.
With that, I think I’ve said enough. This is the only thing that truly matters to him and what guides his actions and behaviour. It links to everything he does and say.
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