#i maintain the fact that nothing in the game objectively disproves it

[slavonicrhapsody]

HELL YEAAAAA LETS GOOOO

okay marika and radagon have a LOT of INCREDIBLY interesting dynamics here that, while not explicitly stated, seem to reflect some underlying gended dynamics going on in the lands between especially regarding Marika Radagon as Divinity

one of the BIGGEST examples here is the dichotomy of Active vs Passive. marika does not Act she Instructs. she instructs maliketh to slay the gloam eyed queen and seal destined death, she instructs godfrey to wage war against the fire giants, and she instructs the tarnished on their path to the erdtree and elden lord as we see via melinas church dialogue. contrastingly, radagon Does. radagon fights against liurnia, radagon marries renalla, radagon studies sorceries, radagon studies incantations, and pointedly radagon interacts with his children! we get stated lore about him interacting with miquella but no such lore about marika and HER SIX KIDS. marika distributes blessings but thats a very passive action, and in her OWN BOSS FIGHT she simply HANGS there. she has to transition to radagon to pick the hammer up!

in this way we can interpret marika as the golden orders Divine Feminine. she is passive, she blesses she instructs but does not Act, she is the reward won for the elden lord (who serves as the golden orders Intended Active Agent) and she is LITERALLY objectified by becoming a headless statue (only her torso is visible!) that the elden lord marries. she Has Heirs, she Blesses Heroes, she Instructs Her Lord And Shadow, marika routinely serves as the passive force in the lands between!

similarly we can interpret radagon as Divine Masculine. he goes to war, he chooses and marries a wife, and most especially he aspires to be the Perfect Hero by achieving physical and scholarly mastery over combat, sorcery, and incantations. radagon ACTS, he chooses his own wife instead of Being Married To, he interacts and raises miquella at the very least and studies WITH him, and overall if something is being done, radagon chooses to do it instead of using an agent to act on his behalf

we can therefore interpret many of the actions that occur throughout the story through this dynamic, especially as a source of conflict. many of the golden orders heretics defy this gender dynamic! the carian royal family had a line of queens, and rennala herself was a renowned, powerful, ACTIVE sorcerer. she led raya lucaria, and pioneered a new field of sorcerous study in the Moon. after her marriage to radagon, and therefore the carian merge into the golden order, rennala became passive and lost all her social standing in raya lucaria, mimicking marikas own passiveness (tho in rennala we see its poisonous effects in that by losing her agency she also loses much of who she is, becoming a motherly shell of who she once was).

while not strictly heretics, miquella and malenia themselves seek to break free of the golden order and this reflects in their gender dynamics. malenia is the more masculine of the twins, and acts as the Active Shadow of Miquellas Will. she Acts on his Instruction. similarly, despite being known as the Most Fearsome Empyrean, miquella works through Agents and through Diplomacy, and takes a passive nurturing role in the grander political actions the twins take. miquella Nurtures The Haligtree (through sacrifice of his blood), miquella will is acted through Malenia (who is his blade and serves as his Empyrean Shadow), and notably both twins are cursed explicitly due to radagon being the same person as marika!

marikas gender nonconformity serves as a major source of strife in the golden order, as liurnia falls to civil war (the cuckoos, raya lucaria, and the carian royal family), the twins are born cursed, and the elden ring itself is shattered by her, marikas only active action which serves as an attempt to destroy the golden order. radagons actions As Radagon are punished, the children he sires are forsaken or cursed (no ones really looking to rennalas kids as Scions Of The Golden Branch) because radagon is Marika Acting As Divine Masculine, and this is further symbolized by his red hair bearing the curse of the fire giants. Radagon Is Accursed because Radagon Is Marika, and marika is The Divine Feminine and thus is supposed to be Passive.

i wouldnt be surprised if this is a massive contributing factor in rannis decision to cast off her flesh, and her determination to do as much as she can herself. as an empyrean, shes slated to replace marika (and thus be relegated to Passive Goddesshood) and thusly rejects relying on Agents (iji, blaidd, seluvis, and the Tarnished MC) as much as she can, and why she does what she can to ensure you act on Your Own Will (repeatedly giving you outs to leave her, being surprised and somewhat thankful when you dont), and imo contributes HEAVILY to rannis trans-swag vibes despite being pretty clearly cisgendered (burns her old flesh, has a chance to remake her body and self image, chooses a form with long feminine hair and a delicate feminine face that is made in the spitting image of the witch renna who mentored her) which i attribute to ranni Choosing the femininity of her carian heritage, which itself is gender nonconforming to Golden Order Femininity

basically. radagon is marika acting out against Divine Gender Roles and being non-explicitly punished for that transgression, which escalates into an attempt to reform or destroy the golden order itself.

source: im trans and i think way too hard about gender dynamics in anything i hyperfixate on

oh my goddd this is such a great analysis and you’ve made so many interesting observations too… you’re making me think soooo hard about Marika contrasted with Ranni within this framework…

Marika being relegated to a passive, instructive role as god-queen makes her actions in the story and frustration with the Greater Will make a lot of sense. I think many of her actions as god-queen can be interpreted as attempts to carve out more autonomy for herself, rather than being the Greater Will’s passive pawn — such as her removal of the rune of death from the Elden Ring, her declaration to “search the depths of the Golden Order” rather than giving herself to “blind faith,” and of course her shattering of the Elden Ring. Then, because of the shattering, she is punished and imprisoned by the Greater Will.

Regarding the shattering, we can contrast Marika with Ranni’s actions leading up to the event: Ranni rejects her role as an empyrean, destined to become a passive god-queen like Marika, so she takes the active decision to initiate the Night of the Black Knives in order to slay her empyrean flesh. Marika then takes the action to shatter the Elden Ring (with her own two hands) in defiance of the Greater Will in the wake of Ranni’s rejection of the Greater Will’s prescribed role.

I think Ranni sees Marika’s fate as a passive pawn of the Greater Will as the worst possible fate for her — she admires her mother’s former strength and independence (taken away by the Golden Order), and wants to take that same active role in her own life. When Ranni finally confronts her Two Fingers, she takes up her blade and slays them personally.

Marika and Ranni both being prescribed a role that strips their autonomy by a higher power and then committing world-shattering actions to seize their own autonomy is literally soooo Gender of both of them… it totally reads as a subversion and rejection of Divine Gender Roles

[some-dr-writings]

(an alternate DR V3 ending) If Tsumugi failed to kill Rantaro and instead got herself killed in the process

·       Well… this was unexpected. The ‘mastermind’ went and killed herself and revealed where her secret room was located. But as they say, the show must go on, and that the producers made happen. Initially they were panicked but they quickly came up with an alternate plan, one that may be much more exciting than what they had originally planned. One that viewers were either going to love or hate.

·       Even with the mastermind dead the trial still went on, concluding that Tsumugi got herself killed, trying to frame Kaede and because she killed herself, no one was executed.

·       Even after the trial everyone continued to investigate the secret room and the passageway that lead to the girl’s bathroom. They still had mysteries to uncover. How was the killing game still occurring with the mastermind dead? Was Tsumugi the mastermind or rather an accomplice? How were their movements being tracked? Were there secret cameras or were there trackers on them? Who was the mastermind? Were they one of the students in their ragtag group, or some malevolent outside force? Was Monokum being controlled by someone or an AI? What about the Monokids, were they the same as Monokuma or different? Those and so much more they were desperate to figure out.

·       Monokuma never did a thing to try to stop their search. This made Shuichi suspicious. If pursuing this search was going to yield them results surely Monokuma would have done something, or had he already removed any trace of useful information they could have found? Either way Shuichi knew there was something wrong with this. He would have told Kaede, but now knowing their every action was likely being tracked, he couldn’t risk the Mastermind figuring out his suspicions.

·       Shuichi ended up finding an unlikely ally in Kokichi Oma. Everything about him screamed dangerous to Shuichi yet… in the trials he couldn’t miss how the trickster gave hints through the lies and chaos. Kokichi in fact approached Shuichi knowing the detective figured out something and he wanted to find out what it was. They slowly developed a coded language in order to share theories and the like, while still maintaining distance so no one would become suspicious of them.

·       Despite Kaede almost killing Rantaro, him, Kaede, and Shuichi became a trio of sorts. The three were always together, encouraging one another and doing all they could to get everyone out of that hell and solve the mysteries of that place, including trying to recover Rantaro’s memories.

·       Eventually when Rantaro’s lab was unlocked they only got even more lost. He freely showed them the laptop hoping Shuichi and Kaede could figure out something about why they were all trapped here… or… did they voluntarily join in? But soon after the laptop went missing, Kokichi having stolen it. Only Shuichi knew of it’s whereabouts but didn’t say a word. He didn’t like or want to keep the secret, but it was the only way to get Kokichi’s thoughts on the matter. He was a being of chaos, but that didn’t make him any less brilliant, several steps ahead of everyone else.

·       Eventually there were only five left. Kaede Akamatsu, Shuichi Saihara, Rantaro Amami, Kokichi Oma and Kiibo. With tensions running high everyone suspecting one another even if they didn’t want to, they all agreed to hold a trial to figure out if any of them were the Mastermind. They set up chairs and tables in the gym to serve as their makeshift trial grounds. They hoped nothing would come of this. They hoped all they would figure out was that none of them were the Mastermind, after all, why would the Mastermind agree to this without worry of revealing of theirself! R-right?

·       At one point in the trial they got to the topic of the voices Kiibo hears. The others didn’t notice but Kokichi did immediately. That tinniest little shift in personality. He asked what the voices were saying right now…

·       That’s when it happened.

·       As he described what the voices told him Shuichi discovered it. How those voices were getting Kiibo to play a part in each and every murder. All except the first one with Tsumugi. Kiibo began to panic, he couldn’t be a part of this mad house! But it was undeniable, Kiibo was related to this, somehow.

·       That’s when Kokichi struck. He kept placing on the pressure, getting Kiibo to snap, screaming he was not the mastermind! He spoke of the previous trials trying to disprove he had anything to do with any of it. It was then Kaede was able to definitively prove that the murders could not have happened without him, his actions lead directly to those tragedies.

·       All was quiet as they took in that awful realization. “So… I never had free will? I… I’m just some puppet of the Mastermind?”

·       Monokuma came in with the Exisals. He put a stop to the proceedings. Saying that was boring. That they should get to murdering one another instead of searching for some mastermind. Or instead, return the Mastermind’s memories since this game couldn’t be fun for Kiibo anymore. He then flashed one of those lights on Kiibo.

·       Kiibo announced his new plan. He’d open up the entire school and give the remaining students the next twelve hours to solve every last mystery of the place, including Kiibo’s own motivations for starting this game and why he’d choose to wipe his own memory.

·       They had no choice, they had to investigate one last time.

·       In the trial they had come to the conclusion that after the world began to piece itself back together a new Hope’s Peak was created. The people of the world however hated this. The Ultimate hunt began, kill all those with an ‘ultimate’ talent. They were nothing but trouble, it was them that plunged the world into despair. They had to all be eliminated. Dr. Idabashi was one such individual, believing the only way the world could truly start anew was with no talented individuals, everyone starting from scratch at square one. He believed Kiibo, his newest and greatest creation was the only one that could achieve this. He managed to get Kiibo into Hope’s Peak newest class. That was when the newest class’ fate was sealed.

·       The principle of the new Hope’s Peak set about protecting these talented youth. First, they tried using the Neo world program to delete any memories of their talent so they could live as normal people, but that did not satisfy the world still wanting them dead. Because Kiibo was a robot he was excluded from this to an extent. They deleted only some of his memories. Dr. Idabashi being a brilliant scientist thought of this and created a failsafe. Should any of Kiibo’s equipment, hardware or software be tampered with an AI, the ‘AUDIENCE’ as he dubbed it, would be many voices that would manipulate Kiibo’s actions into still going through with his true objective. Destroy the talented children and make a show of it, showing what the people of the world would do to any future talented youth. It was unfortunate but it was all for one goal. To keep someone like Junko Enoshima and her Ultimate Despairs from even getting the chance to exist again. Only youth so talented could cause such a travesty so people must fear pursuing their talents… at least in their youth. If they grew into adults and pursue it then, maybe they could utilize their talents, but not when they were children, when their brains were still developing.

·       A new plan was formed by Hope’s Peak. They would send out these remaining hopes into space away from potential harm from the world. When the world had calmed, they would return and lead the world into a new era of peace. Little did they know that Kiibo was a person of the world’s will as well as Tsumugi Shirogane. She was given a talent in the same fashion as Izuru Kamukura, as to infiltrate the new class. Tsumugi before boarding the ship had her memories returned to her, so she helped remodeling the ship, fashioning it with the Monokuma room. The people of the world decided to film and project the new murder game worldwide as to show what would become of young talented individuals. Though they hated Monokuma, they decided to repurpose him into a mascot of sorts, a twisted beast that would come to kill all young people with talent in the most twisted of ways.

·       That’s what this all was. Kiibo was the will of the people, who wanted these remaining students dead and to suffer when doing so. They had the audacity to pursue their talents even knowing how the world was destroyed in the first place, so they had to pay. Deleting their memories and talents was not enough to pay for what they dared risk to bring back. More of that retched despair. A world of pure neutrality would be better than a world filled with hope and despair.

·       With all the mysteries solved Kiibo decided it was high time to give the remaining students their final reward. Blowing up himself as well as the entire ship. But then Kaede, Shuichi, Rantaro and Kokichi insisted on speaking to the world. Kiibo told them they couldn’t change the mind of the world; it was far too scared to be changed. And yet, the four remaining students made their plea to the world.

·       A new decision had been made. They could live, as long as they never returned to earth. Recreating those killing games brought no good. Instead they decided to send all talented individuals away to a new planet where they would live, never to return.

·       A rather controversial ending, but it was an ending that opened the door to many possibilities and that was good news for the producers. More material to work with, without needing to think much.

·       It was rather tricky, pulling the strings and making sure every one of the viewer’s choices lead to a murder but they thought it was well worth it.

·       A new season of Danganronpa was already being produced set in ‘the new talented world’

[oumakokichi]

Sorry if you've already answered this, but why is it important from a plot/writing standpoint that Shirogane is the one who technically kills Amami? If Kaede was the one who conceived of and executed the plan, then why was it necessary for Shirogane to go behind the scenes and "frame" her? Was she just there to make sure Kaede's plan didn't fail?

The main point, at least in my opinion, is to reemphasizethe central idea of ndrv3: that anything and everything can be a lie. By havingTsumugi be the one who actually killed Amami instead of Kaede, and bydiscovering this only in Chapter 6, we come full circle to the idea thatanything, even the game itself, can lie to us.

What’s more, the lie that “Kaede killed Amami” becameaccepted as “truth.” Lies, fiction, and falsehoods can and often do getelevated to the status of “reality” when they’re accepted as such. And all thendrv3 cast, the killing game audience, and Tsumugi herself, “accepted” thatKaede “was the culprit.” So that was accepted as truth for six chapters untilgetting exposed and torn down. But until that point, it was certainly regardedas the “truth.”

Kodaka had a lot of fun making ndrv3 not only a game aboutlies but a game that actually continuously lies to you, the player. Unlikeprevious DR games, which by and large maintained a certain sense of reliabilityand trustworthiness in the sense that you never had to doubt what was a “fact”and what wasn’t, ndrv3 has reveal after reveal. For the first time, we have aprotagonist who actively lies to and tricks not only the other characters butalso the player themselves—unlike Hinata, who simply had no memories of beingKamukura and who certainly never lied to the player consciously in an attemptto trick them, Kaede very deliberately goes right under Saihara and the players’noses.

The promotional art for the game and Kaede’s flaunted statuswas itself a big “lie.” It was a low blow primarily because it’s not the sortof bait-and-switch that should’ve been pulled with a female protagonistspecifically, in my opinion—but I’ll be the first one to admit that if thebait-and-switch had been the other way around, or if it had been between twomale or two female protagonists instead, then I would’ve absolutely loved it. A protagonist switch makesperfect thematic sense in a game like ndrv3; it’s just that it came at theexpense of a female character’s autonomy and potential development, and that’swhy it’s not nearly as enjoyable as it could’ve been.

Chapter 1 hits us with repeated reveals about “lies,”setting the tone for the rest of the game: no one and nothing is trustworthy,not even the things you might have taken for granted, like the protagonisthaving plot armor or always being a reliable narrator. By the time we return tothe same case in Chapter 6, we’re hit with the even bigger reveal that theentire first trial was itself a huge “lie.” There were truths mixed in withthose lies, certainly; it’s a fact that Kaede absolutely intended to take ahuman life, even if she thought it was justifiable because she only wanted tokill the ringleader. But at the end of everything, the big “truth” that Saiharaand the player exposed was itself nothing but a “lie” carefully crafted toresemble a “truth.”

It’s a huge wake-up call to the fact that Tsumugi iscertainly not above playing dirty, any more than Junko was. People still seemto think that Junko was a completely reliable mastermind who always played byher own rules and never broke them or lied at all, which confuses me to somedegree—after all, what Tsumugi did to Kaede in Chapter 1 was exactly what Junkowanted to do to Kirigiri in Chapter 5 of dr1. Junko lied and broke her ownrules all the time, even as early as Chapter 4 of dr1 where she completelyfaked Sakura’s suicide note in order to make Asahina despair and try to get herto kill everyone in the trial. Even Tsumugi’s ruthless framing in Chapter 1feels itself a little like a tender and loving imitation of Junko’s attempt toframe Naegi/Kirigiri, in my opinion.

More than rules, “despair” was Junko’s endgame, the same waythat “entertainment” could be said to be Tsumugi’s. The only reason Junkofollowed her own rules to the end of dr1 was because of the incredible,once-in-a-lifetime despair that she’d be able to taste—not because she wasstrictly adhering to a personal moral code or because she would never, everbreak the rules of her own game. Similarly, Tsumugi prioritized the “entertainment”of the outside world above all else; the game dwindling off into nothing, noone dying, and the audience getting bored without any murders occurring was theabsolute worst-case scenario for her, and something she wanted to avoid at allcosts. So she was willing to dirty her own hands if that’s what it took.

Tsumugi knew about Kaede’s plan to kill her due to thehidden cameras set up within the school, which all reported back to the MotherMonokuma in her hidden lair in the library. She also knew that Amami wassnooping around the door to that lair. She was prepared to wait and see ifKaede’s plan would actually succeed in killing Amami—but just in case it didn’t,she prepared her own back-up plan by grabbing an identical steel ball and usingit to frame Kaede. It mattered very little to her whether Kaede actually killedsomeone or not; all that mattered was that it was a “fiction” which she couldmarket as “reality” to the killing game audience.

As long as there’s no way to objectively prove, beyond ashadow of a doubt, it remains a possible truth. That’s the main idea behindSchrodinger’s Catbox, to bring this discussion back to Umineko as I alwaysinevitably do, and it’s one of the most recurring themes in ndrv3 as a whole.

Tsumugi absolutely loves engineering scenarios in which it’simpossible to disprove the things she’s saying; as long as it all exists insideher “fictional catbox,” then everything she’s saying can stand as the truth,without the characters having any way to prove her wrong. This is the reasonwhy she’s so effective at breaking their spirits in the Chapter 6 trial,because even though she’s lying through her teeth when she says she engineeredthings like their personal feelings or emotions, there’s no way for them to provethat those things are lies. So they all stand as “the truth.”

The fact that Tsumugi killed Amami instead of Kaede shedslight on just how little difference there actually is in ndrv3 between “truth”and “lies.” After all, Amami and Kaede still died because of that lie. That liehad just as real and tangible consequences as if it had been the truth. In thesame way, Tsumugi’s lies throughout the rest of the Chapter 6 trial have thevery real and tangible consequences of making almost the entire group despair andwant to give up on the spot.

All that being said though, while I love the thematic emphasisof the whole Chapter 1 trial having been a lie, I do wish that it didn’tcompletely dismiss Kaede’s autonomy all over again. It’s kind of a shame thatthe moment the group realizes Kaede’s trap didn’t work, the whole narrativeinstantly feels like it’s brushing the fact that she did actually make up hermind to kill a person under the rug all over again. They even stop bringing upAmami’s death in the trial much after finding out Kaede was framed, and thisonce again ties in with ndrv3’s somewhat glaring pitfall of often condoningmurder or attempted murder while simultaneously trying to talk about how it’snever acceptable, at all, no matter what.

I hope I was able to answer your question! Basically,Tsumugi being the culprit and framing Kaede was a narrative point meant toillustrate that anything and everything in the game could be (and often was) alie. But it was also something that perhaps wasn’t as well-handled as it could’vebeen, considering it negated one of Kaede’s really interesting flaws as acharacter and made it seem as though her trying to kill a person was of verylittle consequence—something objectively untrue because Kaede’s decision tokill was exactly what allowed Tsumugi to carry out her frame-up job and helpedspark the entire killing game up in the first place.

Thank you for asking!