If you think about what we know and make reasonable inferences, the leaks don’t seem as stupid as they sound written in shortform
BE AWARE OF POTENTIAL SPOILERS HERE. i got the info from various twitter pics. I can’t blur all their names because I’m on mobile. I’m not saying these leaks are automatically true- im more analyzing the reasonableness of the scenarios presented by the same leaks.
If real, some of this makes a lot more sense than people are claiming. They really aren’t that bad if we consider what we know already and make a few reasonable inferences. They just sound bad because we read it instead of playing it for three hours. Imagine if we read ch. 3 of danganronpa 1 instead of playing it: “Celeste falsely accuses Taka of SA to Hifumi. Hifumi instantly goes to kill Taka in a robot suit. While chaos ensues, Celeste causes a diversion and kills Hifumi when everyone is absent. She does this because he knew her real name was Yasuhiro.” Not so good without playthrough, right?
But yeah, here’s my thoughts on the PJEG leaks.
Chapter 2- Victim makes complete sense, his death by this exact tactic was foreshadowed in chapter 1, and Culprit isnt difficult to make reasonable
I think it makes total sense for Ulysses to be a victim, particularly of poison. I knew he would die to either poison or fire from the very second he told us in Ch. 1, while standing in the pharmacy, that he has little to no sense of smell. It makes him a wildly easier target because he would be far slower to sense the danger than the average person, if he senses it at all. You might think he’d at least taste the poison, but assuming it wasnt tasteless/odorless, the senses of smell and taste are rather closely related. You know how we lose our taste/our sense of taste is extremely muted when we’re extremely congested or sick? Studies show that our sense of smell is actually responsible for about 80% of what we taste. It’s the same interconnected sensory system. He probably wouldn’t taste it either, which makes him the perfect poisoning victim.
Why Jean apparently does it, idk. However, it does make sense for a potential drug dealer to kill someone with what I imagine is a drug he managed to formulate from the items in the pharmacy. I’m gonna go back after posting this and see whether Jean was in the same place as us when Ulysses told us about his sense of smell. Jean would have to know somehow, unless the poisoning is an extreme coincidence.
Plus, those “I’m the leader” types never tend to survive the whole game. If true that the drug dealer thing is an actual thing, maybe it’s a longstanding drug empire that Jean “inherited”from his parents, such that its existence is documented, and Ulysses connects or starts connecting dots from historical pieces he’s read. Jean strikes me as a prideful person and I can see why he might kill to keep that secret, since it might impact whether hes seen as a good leader, and thats his entire identity.
Ch. 3- Culprit is unfortunate but could be reasonable with more context, victim is reasonable with the limited context in the leak and the information we have currently from the actual game
The Ch. 3 traitor perk sounds like a Survivor advantage. Lol. It makes sense for Damon to tempt Kai with the apple, his snakey self. Not like he has anyone else to put that on, and theyre roommates, they’re somewhat closer now. they probably grow even closer in ch 2. So the victim here does make sense narratively based on this perk, because i dont know who else Damon would give this to without getting his ass kicked.
But I’m upset about the culprit, just personally, because I wanted Toshiko to live soooo badly. Ugh. I really loved the support convo with the turtle sledding. Idk why she’d bash him over the head with an appliance, but maybe she used a two-handed murder method to cast suspicion away from herself. “It couldn’t be me, I’m always holding my fan, I couldnt push the appliance with just one hand.” Or maybe the heavy appliance was suspended by a rope, which she cut from above with her fan. Who knows. Maybe its super fucking sharp. And the leak suggests it was intentional but maybe it was an accident (coping). Like if you’re pushing a fridge from the back, and accidentally push it out the window and it crushes someone on the sidewalk?
Her motive is hard to theorize or characterize just because I’d have thought, from what we’ve seen, that toshiko would go tell someone else rather than taking matters into her own hands. Maybe it’s as simple as fear, after she realized this situation was happening between damon and kai, knowing she had to act or she’d die along with everyone else. I imagine she must just be on edge because facially, she’s one of the easiest targets at this point. I get it. I sure as shit would be scared in her position. And If Kai really was forced into killing by Damon with this perk, with 0 options, I DO think he’d target Toshiko. Because, again, it’s the easiest/one of the easiest options. Who else could Kai’s inept ass plan to kill?
I can’t think of a reason without context that tozu and mara step down at this point and join the killing game. They mustve really pissed the mastermind off.
Chapter 4 is maybe the least reasonable narratively because it requires a lot of conjecture, but with context, this could have the potential to be a very tragic but thoughtful and emotional chapter.
Alright, this one’s hard, but i suspend disbelief in light of us not getting to actually play the game and see their interactions develop over time.
It’s not terribly hard to envision, i guess. With Mark’s standoffish and insecure nature that we see in his FTEs, I can see how he’d silently grow to admire Jett’s outgoing and social nature. If the meth addict thing is true, given mark was alone in the concept art, maybe he was given up on by his family due to the addiction and in turn, he initially rejected Jett’s attempts to get close, but grew to love him for his positivity and steadfast belief in him. But possibly misconstrued Jett’s intentions, and when Jett let him down—even if he did so as gently and respectfully as possible and made clear nothing would change between them, their friendship would always be there—Mark might still feel the abandonment he sought to avoid in the first place, and thats why he was going to kill himself with Jett’s helmet and a bomb. “Everyone I love will leave me, and it’s my fault.”
The fact that Ingrid winds up dead because she was saving him is in character for her, and could suggest a kinship of a kind with Mark in this respect. Maybe Ingrid suffered the same abandonment, or addiction, or somehow otherwise relates to Mark’s feelings of isolation. Or maybe once again, Mark is saved by someone whos sociable and likeable, only to watch them die right before his eyes from a bomb of his own creation meant to kill himself. I don’t think she intended to die when she tried saving him, but watching him grapple with whether she’d hate him from beyond the grave for it, and knowing she wouldn’t, it honestly couldve been really good.
I can see why people might be mad about unrequited yaoi, especially with one of the most popular mlm ships in this game and if it’s portrayed as bait, but I think with the theme of self-isolation and self-harm this chapter really did have potential to tell a tragically realistic story. I think if it were told correctly it would really show how self isolation and self destruction can hurt someone and the people that care about them. And I think it’s a heroic and fitting end for Ingrid.
[Or maybe I read Mark too positively. Maybe he elects to use a bomb and Jetts helmet to frame Jett, and get everyone killed. Who knows in these games. In any case it’s all conjecture, assuming they grow to be friends in chapters we wont get to see.]
Chapter 5- We really should’ve anticipated this culprit and victim combo, its substantially consistent with the information we have as of now
Desmond kills himself, and Eloise executed by proxy. They connected over similar traumas of some sort, so he felt most comfortable with her being the one to kill him so she could be the one to survive.
Their concept art alone makes this somewhat make sense. Desmond literally being speared multiple times in what looks like pseudocrucifixion, Eloise running from what is likely herself to show how close the “predator” inside of her is to the “prey.” It’d be fair to say the line between hunter and hunted is very close if Eloise is an unwitting culprit.
I’m not sure how he accomplished a suicide but managed to, in the end, shift the COD to something Eloise would cause. Then again, the murders themselves in danganronpa aren’t known for their realism, so I don’t view this as a problem without context.
Maybe Eloise removed a blunt object he stabbed himself with from his body? Often when you’re stabbed, you are told that if you can, keep the instrument completely still within the wound instead of taking it out, because the instrument itself is functioning as a plug to keep you from bleeding out. So if she instinctively tries to remove the instrument from him, she would accelerate exsanguination and effectively have “delivered the final blow” to make her the murderer.
Or more broadly, if she did anything in an attempt to help him that actually ended up hurting him, she would be deemed either the principal blackened or a double blackened with himself as the other culprit. Sort of like how if you find a person on the side of the road after being hit by a car and you, trying to help, moved them and you somehow got them hit by another car or something, they could sue you (absent a good samaritan law, which I doubt exists here).
I can see this being mischaracterized too, and rather than suicide/proxy, they pulled a haruhiko/Satsuki. Eloise ended up killing him before he could kill her, which makes sense because (1) she’d be a moving target, which we know limits Desmond’s ability to use his ultimate talent, and (2) her FTEs demonstrate her own abilities in terms of combat.
Chapter 6- I do like the Mastermind actually. And the victim dying makes sense if they played on his Pride.
Forcing Damon to prove he isnt a coward by killing himself is probably far clearer in context, but we dont have it. Since he has a lot of allegorical connections to Lucifer, I can see his final actions being rooted in Pride. I bet you it was something like, “you have to believe itll happen when you die, and believe the people you see as inferior will come to the truth without you.” Basically forcing him to accept Diana’s hope before he dies and she becomes the protagonist. Why he blows himself the fuck up, no clue. I guess it’s fast, if nothing else.
I had already theorized Cassidy would be the mastermind because of the one picture with her as a spider with her mouth taped. The spider web thing, in any case. But I figured it was because she was an apathetic and aggressively bored psychopath who was livestreaming the game to her fans, and letting them vote on motives and such to give the players. The leaks suggest that instead, she was motivated by her resentment of ultimates because her friend was overworked by the UTP. Does this make Cassidy something of a fake communist? Yeah, being that she targets the people rather than the establishment. I’ve seen a lot of people mad at this and the potential conflict with her communist ideology/theme.
Then again, Cassidy cannot unilaterally destroy the establishment as long as ultimates are paying into it and supporting it. It’s more realistic, albeit in conflict with that ideology, to thin the herd of people upholding the establishment than to kill figureheads who’d immediately be replaced. The establishment dies when there is no more support, and the support comes from those who actively engage with it. You cannot kill the country, so kill the soldiers fighting for it.
But I also think Cassidy might hate the ultimates themselves and view them as the establishment itself, a group that sees themselves and is treated as above the common working class because of their talents, and she might view killing them as effectively killing the establishment.
Plus, have you noticed the vast majority of ultimates are dickheads? It’s possible the pressure her friend was under was driven by elitism within the ultimates themselves, by and against ultimates they saw as less “worthy.” Her friend mightve been one of the ones deemed to have a less worthy talent, they mightve bullied her, and that might be why she targets them. I’d think this is supported by how when they all ganged up on Eva just for having an ultimate talent they saw as nerdy, she didn’t participate to make fun, and invited her to the video game tournament/complimented her taste even when she was being ostracized.
Or Cassidy could’ve gone with the theme of communism to gain traction with fans and ensure a less cancellable persona of herself was portrayed to the public. She couldve picked “Cassidy’s comrades” for her fans for as simple a reason as alliteration and kept up the theme. Or finally, and more probably, Cassidy could just be a massive fucking hypocrite and advocate her beliefs only when it doesn’t conflict with something she wants, making her similar to most political figures regardless of their espoused ideology and a more unfortunately realistic 19 year old experiencing grief (even if the starting of a killing game is itself inherently unrealistic).
Leaks also suggest that Wolfgang’s dad set it all up, and that his dad bought his talent or forced it onto him (I guess hes the one who gassed the train). I think the both could make more sense given Cassidys apparent motivations. If he bought it, people are using arbitrary titles to hold themselves above others and create a pseudo caste system that got her friend killed. If he forced it, she witnessed what likely amounted to lifelong abuse to force a talent to the end of upholding that same pseudo caste. it could also be a mix of both- his dad forced him to hone a talent and funded it significantly by way of specialized tutoring and practice.
Narratively they already hinted at a connection between wolfgang and cassidy with that picture from chapter one, wolfgang’s blackmail, with the red haired woman that looked virtually identical to Cassidy. The picture was dated from April 2001, so it’s definitely his dad and her mother, something like that. I assume from their age that they are biological siblings. Interestingly, if they are siblings, they mirror the Mukuro/Junko death sequence in THH. This would lead me to believe Wolfgang was initially helping her. Would make sense given his potential abuse to become an ultimate at all.
I anticipated Grace surviving because of how important she was in the first chapters. I did not think Wenona would but it actually makes sense given she is the antithesis to anything Cassidy stands for as of chapter 1. She likely develops in terms of her approach to business and maybe her elitist attitude. I didnt know whether Diana would live, but I’m glad she did.