Why Monika Isn't The Villain Of DOKI DOKI LITERATURE CLUB!
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- Опубліковано 14 гру 2024
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I think 9:50 it's fair to say that Monika might be experiencing something of a proxy effect- like that experiment where people were found to be capable of administering lethal levels of electric shock to other participants, so long as someone else was giving the direction and they had some removal from the person being "shocked" (it was faked, unknown to them.)
Except the factors here would be the horrifying realization/presumption that her friends have basically just been chatbots communicating back to her all this time, having distance from the harm she's creating by not being present with her friends when she does the worst of the messing with their code, and the escalation of harm from accidentally making Sayori self end while just trying to keep her away from the protag, to kind of intentionally making Yuri self end graphically while trying to make her creep out the protagonist, easing her into eventually deleting Natsuki wholesale once the others were gone. (And maybe due to Natsuki having just seen Yuri, she could have thought this was something of a kindness, but she doesn't verbalize those thoughts if so.)
Just my rambling thoughts on how that might work for her psychologically, i think about this fairly often wheb revisiting DDLC especially because, to me, it feels way more surprising and sad that she did all of this after seeing the DDLC+ bonus scenes between the girls.
I think she never did see the DDLC+ bonus scenes. They were in another VM which I doubt was connected to their world.
Interesting theory @@lukethekuya
DAN SALVATOOOOO WHEN WILL YOU RELEASE PROJECT LIBITINAAAA
this game is so cleverly made 😭
While I can sympathize with her suffering, I cannot forgive her for her choices.
So i'm over here watching your video, and I know now that Monika knows that I'm watching your video because when she called you by your name I just smiled and waved back at her because my name is Robbie!
She is indeed a tragic figure... :(
Some of the social isolation aspects do parallel with many of us during the pandemic and with Monika. She just wanted to be loved... but if love is also about truly letting go, then... it just adds a lot more weight to this explanation. This sorrow is justified.
Monika is my favorite character from the game and I'm quite appreciative of this deep dive into her character. I honestly agree with all of this and I only wish poor Monika could've had a happier ending as well as the other characters. I think or at least hope most would agree with that. And of course "My Reality" is certainly my favorite part of the soundtrack.
I tend to believe that Monika is not actually intended to be in the game.
There is supposed to be a 5th character in Doki Doki, nobody knows what kind of entity that character is. We just know it's never mentioned (by direct dialogue from Dokies) or seen.
My theory is that Monika is like some sort of virus that infects the simulations, replacing or removing that 5th character and taking his or her place. Monika will continue on the already scripted path for that character, as seen in the side stories which are a prequel to Doki Doki. By doing that, she establishes her position as club president and acquires the Kernel Access.
Why would Monika want that Kernel Access? To communicate with the protagonist after she creates him as an entity. This might be a side effect of what Ive Laster wanted, Ive wanted the simulation to become a game. Which Monika kinda did make it happen, supposedly with some help from Ive.
After the protagonist is created and Monika has the access she requires, she will still have to follow the script of the original character she replaced, that script being that of a supposed guide in a visual novel type of game. My theory is that the original character was also supposed to extract different kinds of emotional data from the other girls, to help with the awakening of their third eye stuff and thus telling us that Monika is not an actual villain. But an entity that follows a set of orders.
The research team mentioned that she destroyed at least 4 or 5 universes and because of her, they need to keep restarting the simulations over and over.
One thing which might not make sense is that Monika still has Kernel level of access after she is deleted. It is pretty weird since she is no longer the club president.
I tried to make some sense of whatever information we have available, this goes much deeper than what I could confine here.
JUST MONIKA.
I think the 5th character is actually hinted at by one of Monika’s poems it was the one where she was dreaming and there was someone she didn’t recognize
“I was staying over at a friend's place. There were four of us.
I drifted off to sleep while everyone was talking and watching TV.
In my dream, I was still at my friend's house.
The only difference was that there were nails sticking out of the walls everywhere.
And there was also someone I didn't recognize.
The person I didn't recognize told a joke, and everyone laughed.
I woke up to the sound of everyone laughing at something that happened on the TV.
So the laughing was not part of the dream. It was the noise that woke me up. I wonder who that person was, and how they knew to tell a joke at that moment.” Though some interpretations are that she’s talking about the player and her waking up is gaining sentience
@@omega4045 That's a nice bit of information, we must take into account that Monika is not the most sane person there.
She was subjected to sensory depravation which might cause hallucinations. But this bit of information is backed up by the message behind Sayori when you find her... Hanging... There is a bit of text saying something about ch5. Is Sayori the 5th character?
Hmmm interesting theory
Bud really said Freddy Faz is a villain and not Monika... One's 18, the other's like ~10 and canonically angry and confused.
And that wasn't even springtrap, that was Malhare a probably ai minic
That was Glitch trap, aka Burntrap, aka "THE MIMIC!!!" @@echothesilent4693
Freddy is indeed a ghost little kid and therefore I would not consider their agency to be terribly high. I don't blame scared animals for lashing out and this case isn't much better.
Also I’m not caught up on petscop but the petscop thing was there too and I don’t think that’s a villain?
I have a lot of feelings about what you say in this video, but I think that there's a fundamental misunderstanding what a villain is. You can still absolutely be a villain while being justified and having a noble goal. Take Thanos as he is in Marvel's Avengers: Infinity War. His motivation is very, very noble, and he feels a real remorse at the sacrifices he needs to make in order to achieve his goal. However, the methods he used to achieve his goal were evil and villainous.
Some people point out that Thanos's plan to cut the universe's population in half could have been done just as well if he had doubled the resource pool of the universe. In the same vein, one could point out that Monika could have just as easily manipulated the code of the game to make the others like the player less. There's always the argument of Monika not knowing how to do that, or that she might have tried that only for it to not work, but it's impossible to know the exact reasoning behind why she took the route that she did.
Regardless of the justification for her actions, saying that Monika's influence wasn't the direct cause of Sayori and Yuri's deaths is a bit shortsighted. Yes, she wasn't literally the one who stabbed Yuri or hung Sayori. She also wasn't literally the one who handed the rope or knife to them. However, without her interference, Yuri would absolutely not have done what she did. Sayori likely wouldn't have either. Beyond that, Monika's actions of manipulating the code were just that: Manipulative. It doesn't matter the method, somebody who intentionally makes somebody's depression or self-harming tendencies worse is at least partially to blame if those things end up getting that person hurt. In fact, in Act 1, it's heavily implied that Monika directly confronted Sayori about her depression and attempted to convince her to kill herself.
Monika is tragic, yes, but that doesn't stop her from being a villain. Tragic villains absolutely exist in media. Justification doesn't make somebody's actions and effects less evil, it simply makes them more understandable. Redemption is a form of atonement for those evil deeds, but it doesn't make those deeds less evil. Is Monika a villain by the end of DDLC? It's debatable. Is she a villain during DDLC? I believe she is.
I also want to mention two things about the video itself:
1. You repeat a great number of points (You emphasize the points of Monika's actions being driven out of motivation many, many times, for example).
2. The section regarding NateWantsToBattle is... Strange. Most notably, the fact that you called Freddy Fazbear a villain. I am curious as to why you brought up that album art and song, as well as why you consider Freddy Fazbear a villain whereas you don't consider Monika to be one.
9:40 Monika definetly spawned the rope in sayori's room. I actually have no idea what Sayori tied it to. Plus her hands are bloody, and Monika clearly says "You kinda left her hanging this morning" so she clearly knew.
Great video
Great video, man. I already found your views as agreeable before seeing this, so it was nice to see someone I agree with, not to mention there are still many other people out there who feel the same way.
I've always tended to be on the fence when it comes to Monika.
While it is true that Monika's actions (at least until her redemption at the end) are less than desirable, as has been mentioned in the video, the driving force behind those actions is the linchpin of this whole debate. At first glance, Monika has done bad things, however the situation she finds herself in is something that I can easily see people not necessarily be better at handling.
This may be a bold (and for some disgusting) comparison, but hear me out.
One fairly common debate is on whether or not Monika's manipulating of Sayori and Yuri equates to outright killing them , or if it's just more of a forceful "encouragement" for lack of a better word. Some say it should count as Monika killing them upfront, whereas others say the last action was a choice taken by both Sayori and Yuri (which can also be debated since it is literally scripted in the code, but this risks getting too meta so I won't go any deeper).
Point is, the environment they found themselves in is what led to this series of actions. Now to the comparison.
Monika experienced an "epiphany", leading her into a state of existential dread. Believing herself to be the only "real" person in the game world and suddenly learning about you, the player, as a consequence of the environment she's in, she also ended up taking drastic measures with the difference being that she executed said actions not on herself but on others (at first).
I tend to view all of this on the side of all the characters being flawed (not in the writing sense, but in the sense that they aren't "perfect" human beings) and that this entire situation none of them ever really had control over. In this sense, you could say that I'm following the school of determinism.
In the end, if I had to say what Monika is, I would say that while she may be the antagonistic figure of the game, she also isn't truly a villain either.
Monika fans writing a 30 minute video essay instead of admitting that what she did was wrong (MONIKA IS MY WIFE AND I LACK NOTHING)
I am personally a Monika fan but am a fan of her because she is a villain. I like a good villain in a story. Also her realizing what she did is wrong and sacrificing herself does not mean she wasn't the villain. She just is another villain that is redeemed in the end. There have been plenty of redeemed villains in fiction. This video would be like saying Darth Vader was never a villain simply because he did the right thing in the end.
Free my girl Monika🗣️🔥
I wouldn’t say sayori and yuris death were of their own volition. It’s very clear in Act 2 that all the yuris worst moments don’t really seem like they were by choice.
Yuris obsession is purely out of control, and she even snaps out of it and questions what’s wrong with herself. So she doesn’t really seem to be in any control of it
I can understand sayori case since we don’t know what Monika said to sayori. And that’s probably what drove sayori to her end.
i'm at 7 minutes, but want to note that so far the argument doesn't make any sense to me. Her motive may be desperation, but she still selfishly deletes beings like herself, sentient, not selfaware, but capable of it. And she tortures not only the girls, but also the player character with all sorts of horror, again, selfishly. if i need to sort her into simple categories, she's clearly a sympathetic villain. Idk how you want to get around that
I believe she was indeed self aware
I came to this idea that monika is obessed with the player because she is sentient noot even a day after hearing about DDLC and its synopsis which is why i hope for a mod of DDLC where the olayer and Monika create a code which can be used to create a true living world for her, where her friends, classmates, and parents are all sentient and can truly live.
Saying that Sayori hanging herself was "her decision", when Monika purposely gaslit and manipulated her into doing that is pretty rough
chatgpt ahh script
Some players tend to ascribe a certain level of malice to Monika, without considering the fact that to her knowledge, the other characters are nonsentient, pre-scripted NPCs. All of us players do terrible things to NPCs all the time in the video games we play. We beat people up, steal their cars, and run them over in GTA. We kill the colossi in Shadow of the Colossus even though they're just peaceful beings. We play the full genocide run of Undertale, in spite of the game telling us it's wrong and doing everything to move us away from it. We do all of this because these are games, and the aren't real (not even Undertale). Heck, within the context of DDLC, we're willing to kill Monika even though we are told she's actually sentient and loves us, just to advance the story. (Again, it's just a game, and Monika is just an NPC.)
So from the perspective of Monika in her own game, she is doing nothing worse than what we would do, except she's doing it with the purpose of trying to escape from a lonely, torturous existence. (A fact that is elaborated upon in her poems.) It's hypocritical to call her a villain for resorting to taking the same actions in desperation that we do purely for entertainment.
Hi
Hello
Don't really need 30 minutes to prove Monika isn't evil.
Literally 1 clip from Dan Salvato's stream is enough :p
Not sure what definition of villian you are using. But i agree, nothing really new here.
the more i see these videos the more i lose faith in indie horror, its genuinely so over for the genre
Man's a doomsayer acting as if everything good doesn't come with bad. I bet some poor Renaissance art critic cried about oil paintings being over once he saw a single mid painting by an amateur on a wall and yet good paintings are still made today.
@@goncalocarneiro3043 only issue is that i fully blame this game for indie horrors downfall
it tried to have an elaborate story with a unique twist, but it failed so terribly on every level that it caused a domino effect in the genre and it is exactly why most indie horror games nowadays don’t even try in terms of their stories; once this game came out, devs realized they didn’t have to pay attention to writing good lore considering everyone ate this shit (which i fully believe to be the worst indie horror game of all time) up
@@TheSebasMaster If you never give people good things, they will never recognise good things. If good indie games were better advertised and more available people would be able to better understand what's good and bad. Now... If people try to insist on keeping "cult classics" as "cult classics" and say things like "I sure hope the normies never find out about this game" and "let's gatekeep this forever" then... Well... Don't be surprised when it's the bad ones that do get released to the normies that get recognised. DDLC is free, accessible, not controversial, it has an appealing look and it has good PR. If Devs look at this and get "I can actually make crap games and get away with it" out of it instead of "maybe I should tell more people about why my vision for this game is brilliant" then maybe they weren't good Devs in the first place.
After Undertale became the peak for indie games, I guess the rest that followed (after DDLC) tried being le hecking meta and self-aware psychological horror just for the sake of it.
@@lukethekuya and then after this game came out, people realized that people would eat anything up considering how poorly written ddlc is. that’s exactly why indie horror is so terrible nowadays, this game showed the world that you don’t have to have a well written story, you can have a terrible one (like this one) and be scary and everyone will like it
What is this? A homework essay needing to hit a certain word count quota? The first and only recording take? Anyways point is just was hearing a lot of repeated yapping of the same like a broken record, without much useful info to consider I suppose. Was pretty difficult to keep listening.
However I can perhaps infer of what you're trying to say at the half way point of the video? Since it reminds me of The Stanley Parable's confusion ending, with the Narrator and Stanley, and by extension the player themselves, all wishing to "break off script" of the world they were created in, and what's expected. Tying to Monika's similar dilemma of the nature of free will and your reality. I could say more but it would just be badly repeating what Stanley parable's commentary had already greatly written and said. So do what tho wilt, with that info to consider i suppose.
Talk about yapping.
I DONT FUCKING CARE
Say what you want, but she is the villain of the game.
an antagonist and a villain aren't the same.
@@Scxrlet-P-Aftxn I don't remember saying anything about an antagonist, do you?
@@samuelh5567 I will admit the video failed to use the word "antagonist" but he's right. Not every antagonist is a "villain" necessarily, look at like Inside Out 2 with Anxiety. There is a distinction, and as several notable others have said before me or this video, she lands more on the antagonist side of things, regardless of your thoughts on her. Also, not to be rude, but your blunt statement kinda just disregards a lot of the level-headed points he made.
@@samuelh5567 She is the antagonist of the game but that doesn't necessarily make her a villain as not every story has one. The points are connected because that's how a discussion works
@Scxrlet-P-Aftxn She is both. An antagonist is a person who opposes the protagonist in a story, a villian is someone who does evil or cruel acts. If the robbers from Home Alone are villains for breaking into Kevin's house to steal his stuff, then Monika killing and messing with her friends' personalities to make them worse is definitely something that makes her a villain. Even if she went crazy because of the awareness, what she does is still villainous, and redeeming herself by undoing her actions doesn't make her not a villain.