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anderscim · 1 year

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bagel’s drdt death predictions but they’re all based on character relationships and assumptions (lots of assumptions)

//spoilers for drdt ch1 + ch2 pt. 1

//long, long wall of text warning (nearly 4k words am i right 😭)

i mean, the title explains it all.

there’s really nothing else other than my unhinged predictions which will likely be wildly incorrect compared to the actual outcome in DRDT

so, as always, take this with a grain of salt

alright, let’s get straight into it.

arturo and j:

obviously these two have a… very interesting dynamic. they’re constantly at odds with each other, and this worsened especially after arturo found out about j’s family through her secret.

arturo is following j around and she hates it. arturo constantly crosses j’s boundaries, idolizes her, places her in his own “perfect image” that she doesn’t want to be a part of, and she (justifiably) hates it.

meanwhile, arturo sees j as one of the “beautiful people” that he idolizes and tries to get close to in order to improve his self value, possibly in an attempt to resolve his own insecurities. (okay i don’t think i’m gonna talk about this later so i’m gonna say it now. but based on the fact that arturo seems very attached to “societally valuable” things and people (major brands, celebrities, etc.) and the fact that he instantly pushes away things he sees as “ugly,” arturo may actually be trying to preserve a certain image of himself and/or his ego by surrounding himself with valuable things—which could be due to holding some sort of insecurity that he can’t be as “valuable” as others without those factors surrounding him constantly. maybe because he sees himself as “ugly.” just a thought. not justifying his actions though. idk)

but though i love j with all my heart… i’m very, very scared that she’s going to be the culprit for this chapter.

except for the possible motive, there’s actually a suspicious amount of logical conclusions and reasonings one can make that point to j being the culprit.

this isn’t my post, but i’m going to put this here because u/Difficult-Parfait627 on reddit explained the logic significantly better than i could have:

i also saw some theories on j’s secret weapon (the remote) possibly opening trapdoors that only she could access, so that’s definitely another possible advantage.

aside from that, i find it intriguing that MonoTV makes specific mention of this detail regarding the playground:

it would be very, very interesting if this proved to be foreshadowing of some sort regarding arei’s murder. whether it would just be the height of the room that plays into a factor of the case, or the fact that the movie screening room and the playground are only separable by a single wall, or both—that, i don’t know. but seeing multiple prevailing theories it could be possible that this is more important than we think.

not only this, but during the trial j constantly pointed fingers at many people and jumped from suspect to suspect—which is exactly what min did as well, and might be an indication that j is desperate to pin the crime on someone else.

though i’m probably wrong

revision: the following is… likely incorrect (_ _;) i’ll keep what i originally said here for the sake of it, but just know that arturo is more likely to double down and shun himself even further from any guilt if this theory proves to be true. here’s a reblog chain ft. @/aquariiium that explains it really well!

but if j is the culprit for this case, it could actually lead to character development for arturo. after all, if j gets caught, he would probably blame himself—if he didn’t get so worked up over eden and the reveal of his secret, if he didn’t let j overhear the conversation—she might’ve not committed a murder. i think he might feel intense guilt that he let j die—especially since he’s so (unhealthily) attached to her.

don’t know man. just trying to give him redeeming qualities here lmao

essentially, i think j might die this chapter as the culprit for arei’s murder, and arturo will survive for at least the next few chapters. whether he’ll be a victim/killer in the last few chapters i’m unsure about at this current moment, but bear with me

side note: it would be absolutely cruel if whoever the killer is, they get a quiet execution in a way that reflects arei’s body discovery ;-; also tbh i’m probably wildly wrong about all of this. for you guys who say the true culprit is someone else (especially people who think it’s levi, eden, or whit), i see you and i do see why that’s definitely a possibility. take all of my theorizing with a grain of salt lmao

whit and charles:

(sorry i couldn’t find a proper CG for them haha)

ah, one of my favorite dynamics. i love these two so much

it’s cool to see how they’re actually quite open with each other now, compared to the beginning where they were established as near-total opposites of each other (mainly looks at the free time event)

but as it goes with many ships in danganronpa…they’ll probably end in tragedy. unfortunately

i believe i made a really brief analysis earlier on how whit deals with grief by completely deflecting his true sentiments through the use of humor, and i think as of now this still holds true. whit’s bottling up his grief, and sooner or later he’ll have to come to terms with it.

whit has developed an understanding for charles, though, and seems to be genuinely considerate towards him. plus, he’s willing to admit to any mistakes he makes and is very open about it to charles, which indicates how close they actually are

charles struggles with not only his hemophobia + necrophobia (fear of blood and fear of corpses/things associated with death), but with the pity from others that result from it.

he really, really hates being pitied. we actually saw this earlier in the FTE between charles and whit as well—he seemed very worked up with how whit was “belittling” charles to make teruko laugh. obviously whit figured this out, admitted what he did, and eventually became more considerate of charles’ feelings. charles notices this and decides to open up to him.

👆 this line is so cute btw

i think though, especially because they’re so close to each other it’ll really impact their characters when tragedy strikes. personally i’m more scared that charles is going to die (as a victim) because plot-wise it would force whit to come to terms with his grief—the grief over not just his mother but the participants of the killing game—that he has pushed into the back of his mind for a long time.

but at the same time charles surviving is also definitely a possibility given his importance in the plot right now—and not only that, if whit dies, i think he would have a clear moment of feeling ashamed of himself for not even being able to look at his partner’s body and being unable to come to terms with whit’s death until later.

either way, one of them is definitely doomed to die, and the other is probably going to be a survivor.

for me, regardless of who bites the dust, they’re going to be a chapter 3 death. i personally believe this because it would give both of them time to cope and face their grief in their respective character arcs over the next few chapters—but also because i think chapter 4 is going to be surrounding a separate character dynamic.

nico, ace, and hu:

yes, it’s the “two people who absolutely hate each other and the one person that stands in between” trio.

as already established within the series, nico and ace hate each other. i don’t even need to put screenshots as proof—plus nico literally attempted to murder ace.

and by the way, for those of you who said other people manipulated nico into doing it, i think that would be very contradictory with what the series is trying to get at. nico is their own independent person—and they’ve tried to solidify that fact. this specific murder attempt was to probably establish that nico has their own limits, despite how much they are infantilized by others. if it’s true that someone manipulated nico, i feel like it would… just take away from nico’s individuality and turn them into someone to be pitied upon.

not only that, even nico established themselves that they have a tendency to be agressive.

there’s not much to analyze here, but it definitely is a strong indication that nico does have their own limits and will not act all innocent-like if those boundraries are crossed. it’s interesting though, because this kinda makes nico a foil to ace. while ace is “all bark and no bite,” and/or accusing and insulting everyone 24/7 but never acting upon it, nico is the opposite: not the type for words but will genuinely act if they are pushed hard enough.

i genuinely think nico attempted to murder ace on their own accord. plus, it would fit perfectly with one of the themes from this chapter

anyways—though i’m not going to condone her for infantilizing nico—there’s one person who’s kinda been keeping both of them in check. (or moreso, keeping ace in check) quite literally, hu defending nico, despite the fact that her way of doing so was really flawed, temporarily stopped their conflicts with ace from escalating in a short amount of time. at least until ace almost got murdered though.

the thing is, hu sees things in black and white. she trusts a little too much into nico and she thinks they desperately need to be protected. meanwhile, she essentially antagonizes ace, and didn’t seem to attempt to sympathize with the fact he almost got murdered. she didn’t make many attempts (especially during the second chapter) to genuinely understand their “grey areas,” instead jumping to what she knows. and… it’s understandable why she does this, but regardless, it’s one of her greatest flaws. however, that flaw is exactly what humanizes hu. she cares immensely about others, even if that means trusting them too much. she puts it on herself to help anyone she can. she wants others to rely on her, even if that means she inadvertently forces the role of “the damsel in distress” onto them as a result. though it doesn’t exactly justify her actions, i felt it was still important to bring up. (by the way i actually like hu, plus i love the concept of a really flawed but sincere mother figure. i don’t hate hu at all lmao i think she’s a really good character)

especially as of ch2 ep11, hu seems to show possible signs of change after getting called out by david. his so-called “betrayal” (by throwing hu’s personal impression and expectations of himself out the window) might begin a development arc allowing hu to see past her… i guess… her biases.

but, i’m scared that hu’s character arc would end (whether abruptly or gradually) in the middle of the series, rather than continuing to the very last episode of DRDT—and that she’ll get killed/executed before she can truly develop and leave the killing game with a new perspective.

additionally, as far as i can tell i don’t expect nico and ace to ever make up during the killing game—because in traditional danganronpa, that never seems to be an actual occurrence. not only that, but the whole tension surrounding their situation has already gone too far—neither of them will probably ever forgive each other after how far this conflict went (especially ace, who almost got killed by nico). i personally think hu, though the way she went about this was not exactly the best, acted as a “mediator” of sorts between ace and nico by throwing herself in and breaking up each conflict. if hu dies, their relationship will completely fall apart and their arguments will likely escalate past the point of no return—which seems to be a perfect setup for a murder case. personally i’d put hu as a chapter three death (regardless of victim or culprit), nico and ace’s dynamic escalating to a breaking point during chapter four, and either nico or ace dying in chapter four (with the other one surviving the killing game). my personal opinion as for who dies is nico, but mainly because i think ace might actually be a survivor.

ace and levi:

oh no i wasn’t done talking about ace yet, did you seriously think i would stop talking about him after all of that? plus i. didn’t give ace a proper character analysis in that previous section

ace and levi’s relationship is very unique as well. at first, ace and levi felt at least relatively comfortable around each other—which was really rare for someone like ace, who’s essentially scared of everything and holds many insecurities that prevent him from easily trusting people/processes/objects.

over time during chapter 1, ace and levi get closer to each other. ace develops a feeling of safety when around levi, since to him, he seems like one of the only few people who don’t just see him as a coward.

and that was true for a while, at least, until this happened.

this blog post by @thefandomenchantress explains the effects of levi’s dialogue here better than i ever could. go read this. please but essentially—the death threat is really important because it essentially shattered ace’s sense of security around levi, but the fact that levi out of all people called ace a coward really seals the deal for him. this is my interpretation, but ace probably felt that levi was more non-judgmental than the others and was also one of the few people that saw past his insecurities. so levi specifically targeting one of his largest weaknesses, probably hurts a lot.

not only that, but ace genuinely seems to believe that this is what levi actually thinks about him. though he focuses on the death threat here, i think it still holds true that he’s really paranoid of levi and thinks he actually hates ace, despite their dynamic in the first chapter.

on the other hand, levi regrets threatening and insulting ace in the first trial, and makes attempts to apologize and make up with him. he even asks teruko for advice here.

since ace is really insecure, it’s really difficult to make him actually forgive levi. ace’s paranoia makes him believe that others are out to “get him” and cause him harm, especially when it comes to people who bluntly pointed out his insecurities in the past. and as a person who genuinely hates those parts of himself and wants to get rid of his paranoia, it makes ace act really aggressive when people begin pointing out those issues again. after all, they’re reminders of what he thinks he is.

👆this quote is actually from an earlier point, and is ace talking about why he still races despite being scared of horses. but it’s representative of how he hates his own reputation and his insecurities that are connected with it—which he desperately doesn’t want people to see. that’s why ace is so aggressive. it’s because he feels he needs to bluff and act all “strong” to prevent people from targeting his insecurities.

the reason why i actually believe ace would be a survivor is because of some personal unhinged interpretations i have for chapter four. like i mentioned earlier, i personally believe that the current conflict between nico and ace will reach its climax during chapter four, which will likely also be a major part of the murder case during that chapter. and uh. if we go by traditional danganronpa patterns we know which character is probably doomed during that chapter (that is, assuming DRDT still follows a similar equation). though i admit the stereotype of “buff character dies during fourth chapter” is a bit overused—the thing is, if the conflict between nico and ace does actually reach its climax during that chapter, it actually makes sense relationship-wise for levi to play a major part of it. getting into major “this is probably wrong” territory here despite the fact that ace is currently distrusting towards levi right now, i think there’s still some part of him that harbors more personal feelings towards levi (whether that’s positive or negative)—i don’t think ace would be attacking levi so much otherwise. he probably feels like he was betrayed by levi, likely due to their changes in character dynamic during the first chapter. i also find it interesting how ace has always harbored a feeling of resentment towards nico—and i personally feel that this is because nico also reminds ace of one of his insecurities. they represent something that ace hates about himself, or they represent the antithesis of this insecurity—as for what specifically, i’m not sure, but it likely has something to do with ace’s paranoia. that’s probably why he attacks nico so much—because they remind him of something he hates about himself.

if both of them die, in the same chapter, i think ace would start doubting himself. all that would be left are people who have already seen how insecure he is. i think he’d lose his “purpose” and “relationships” in some ways, in that case—which would actually be a great setup to his secret quote: “i don’t know what to do with myself anymore.” ace markey existential crisis at 3 anyone /j

okay but. like. idk what i was even trying to say there. just take all of that with a grain of salt

okay, finally:

david:

(okay he’s literally just his own category at this point.) (i like to psychoanalyze him independently because i uh. have so much to say about him)

if you couldn’t already tell from my multiple theory posts about david, i have a considerable amount of interpretations regarding his character:

his current demeanor doesn’t reflect his true personality, but it’s not exactly like he’s a constantly optimistic person either

he’s not actually manipulating everyone into making the worst decisions. even his plan, though it wasn’t foolproof, was probably better than any of the options the cast had. however he did try to preserve his own image a little while presenting the plan since he’s trying to hide his depression

(both of those bullets are linked to other theory posts i made that elaborate more on these points)

either way, david is currently established as the “antagonist” character for this series, which was especially solidified after his breakdown in ch2 ep11. i think we all know what usually happens to the antagonist character in chapter 5.

however—david, unlike other canon danganronpa antagonists (especially nagito and kokichi from goodbye despair and killing harmony), has different motivations. rather than acting fully evil and/or cynical in an effort for the “greater good,” to me, he just… seems like he’s acting cynical and manipulative because that’s who he thinks he actually is. he’s playing a glorified version of his self-doubts and insecurities. so, to be completely honest, i think rather than him acting in a way to throw everyone off and ultimately end the killing game, i think david’s just in the middle of a breakdown and is acting suicidal. he’s actually pretty smart, so unless he was really emotional/desperate, i don’t think his lying would be as obvious as it is now. i think he honestly would’ve thought about it more (/lh) if he was genuinely attempting to end the killing game through lying and making everyone vote wrong. plus, we have already seen in chapter one that david doesn’t really… think straight when he’s emotional. we saw this during xander’s trial with the way he kept accusing teruko and thought she was the culprit despite the gradual accumulation of evidence that proved her innocence. (i think it’s general consensus that david actually did care about xander—and arei actually—and was therefore pretty emotional regarding their deaths, but i will make a post on that later if necessary.)

if david really is breaking down and acting suicidal in the second trial, i think it would fit if the plot decided to pull some irony and… y’know, have the one person who wants to die the most actually be a survivor. i really have no backing to this (and tbh i think i’m saying this because i want david to live LMAO), and i don’t exactly have any concrete evidence that establishes david as an antagonist character that doesn’t follow canon danganronpa antagonist traditions, but even then i still think it would be pretty cool if that happened.

god. this was. unhinged.

okay but watch me be entirely wrong on this lmao

i hope you guys could actually understand that entire wall of text because i don’t even know what i was writing halfway through also i didn’t put chapter 5/6 here because i literally have no idea what’s going to happen. it’s just going to be full of plot twists and i know it

i also didn’t exactly put a clear amount of killers/survivors so they don’t exactly. match up. plus i didn’t actually do a thorough analysis on veronika, rose, eden, teruko, etc so i’m probably going to have to go through those if i genuinely feel like doing a proper death order. (something is telling me rose and veronika are both going to get significant character development though, especially in the later chapters. we don’t have too much information on either of them yet (moreso veronika than rose) so i’m kinda waiting until we get more scenes to make assumptions about those two in particular)

but in summary:

j might die this chapter, arturo’s going to get significant character development as a result

no matter what, charwhit is absolutely doomed and one of them is going to die in the third chapter while the other is a survivor

hu will probably die in the third chapter, leading the conflict between nico and ace to escalate and reach a climax during the fourth chapter

(of course, this is assuming drdt follows traditional danganronpa and has a double murder during the third chapter. i’m not too much of a fan of the trope myself, but for the sake of organization)

nico and levi, who ace has the most personal (mostly negative) emotions towards at the current moment, will probably die during the fourth chapter leading ace to have an existential crisis and get character development (and will have to navigate his way to the end)

david is a non-traditional antag so he might die during chapter 5, but i personally see it more ironic and fitting to see him survive until the end seeing his current emotions and character

anyways.

i know there’s a lot of you who are significantly better at analyzing certain characters than i ever could so please please don’t hesitate to correct me if there’s an assumption i made that’s incorrect, and/or if you have anything i said that you could refute

plus i didn’t like. rewatch the entire series to make this i just had a long train of thought and searched for certain scenes that fit the most to what i was saying even if my assumptions weren’t correct

and as always. take this all with a grain of salt

(no but seriously, feel free to voice your opinions on this as well! i’ll definitely listen to them)

#bagel’s train of thought #drdt #danganronpa despair time #j rosales #arturo giles #charles cuevas #whit young #nico hakobyan #hu jing #ace markey #levi fontana #david chiem #despair time #okay but. this is nearly 3.8k words holy shit #sorry about that #i really went overboard 😭

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