🔥 Despaircest (can't Be Unpopular As In "fandom Hates It Even Though It's Gr8"; We Need To Go Weirder

🔥 Despaircest (can't be unpopular as in "fandom hates it even though it's gr8"; we need to go weirder and deeper)

If those two fucking idiots ever had an actually honest and heartfelt conversation, things would have gone extremely differently because they actually did feel the same about each other.

The Despaircest plot is told out of order. 1-6's trial has Makoto's hope include the caveat of "we don't even know if Junko is lying!" Yes, he also goes "and if she isn't, we've got this", but that's just half of it and the other half is "nuh uh!" And here's the thing: SDR2 came out years later after DR1 was successful. DR1 never tells us if Junko was lying or not. So, view it with that in mind. DR1 leaves the question to us: was she full of shit?

Two years later, we get the answer. In 2-6. A whole game later, we find out the answer was "no, Junko was not lying". And that modifies the viewing of 1-6. Because now, you have to view 1-6 as "Junko is telling the truth here, she isn't lying to manipulate anyone, she's just being honest". When Junko says she loves her classmates? That's true. When Junko says the world ended? That's true. When Junko says Mukuro is just like her and loves despair the same way as her... wait, what?

Oh, but you're given a decoder ring. Beating SDR2 unlocks Danganronpa IF, where we find out that that is not at all true. But... if Junko isn't lying, but that isn't true, there's only one possible explanation. Junko's wrong. Now, how does that line up with IF? Perfectly.

In IF, Mukuro survives the murder because Makoto's memories start to come back and he warns her to dodge using her real name, so she does it on instinct, so she doesn't die, but he does get hurt trying to save her. Which leads to Mukuro turning on Junko. But importantly, there's the breakup.

"Say, sis?" "Oh! Junko, it's you!" Ikusaba's eyes brightened at the first sight of her sister in days, but they would soon go dim. "You know, I was always thankful to you, sis. I mean it." It was because Junko's voice, coming from the speakers, was terribly soft and gentle. "...Junko?" "I'm really sorry. I was being too harsh with you. I even tried to kill you just now, and I was about to make you do something horrible. Even though I know how you feel about Naegi." "I-I don't..." "Don't force yourself. You might not realize it, but it was really obvious. You never cared about those class pictures, but you looked at the camera properly that one time Naegi took the photo." From just the image on the monitor, the Super High School Level Despair looked like a girl with a sweet, innocent smile teasing her older sister. But that was exactly why Ikusaba was slowly falling towards despairing fear. "I always thought you should've put your all into it when you were in a picture with Naegi, but I guess that's all part of your disappointing self, sis." "But you know, you might be lackluster and disappointing, but I love that about you too." Ikusaba trembled. "I love you. How long had she wanted to hear these words from Junko? Ikusaba believed that, no matter what Junko said, she actually loved her very much. Ikusaba believed that she alone could understand the despair known as Junko Enoshima. It was a ludicrous notion. The moment Junko said, 'I love you', Ikusaba realized--to her agony--that she never truly understood her sister. Only now had she come to realize Junko's feelings. Junko was being kind. There was no lie in her gentle words. Perhaps she was being entirely truthful about loving her sister as well. This was precisely why this signalled the destruction of their relationship. Ikusaba realized that Junko was cutting ties with her. And before Ikusaba could say a word in reply, the girl on the monitor left her with a word of cruelty. "I know you'll make your dreams come true someday."

Do you get it? Junko really, truly loves Mukuro just as much as Mukuro loves her. And they never understood each other, but they both completely believed they did. Combine this with Junko in 1-6 talking about Mukuro and you have Junko's belief before the truth is revealed to her and Junko after the truth is revealed to her.

So, what was killing Mukuro? Trying to say "I love you" and make Mukuro's dreams come true without understanding Mukuro's love language or Mukuro's dreams. Consider how Junko describes how Mukuro "must have" felt. Why would she deny herself that despair? Simple: so Mukuro could have it, believing Mukuro wanted it just as much as she did. Her act of love in DR1 was self-sacrifice to give the greatest gift she could imagine to someone who she never realized didn't want it.

And what does Junko do when she does realize it? She breaks her entire sense of self and personality just to express her love to Mukuro. She realizes Mukuro has hope and everything, and she encourages it and fosters it out of love for her. She loves Mukuro enough that, even knowing they will now be enemies, she will speak Mukuro's love language rather than her own to make Mukuro truly know how much she loves her. This scene and killing Mukuro have the same meaning, and you can only come to understand this by combining 1-6 and IF to get two contradictory perspectives in order to recognize the before-belief and the after-belief.

Junko fucking loves her so goddamn much, but Junko expresses her love in a very particular way. Despair. Remember what she said to Class 78? She loves them all. She wasn't lying about that either. It's so personalized, so direct, so cruel, because she loves them. She loves Mukuro most of all, so she granted Mukuro the most intense despair imaginable, even though it meant losing it for herself, even though that is literally her entire modus operandi. It's fucking self-sacrifice when she kills Mukuro.

The twist is that she never understood that Mukuro didn't want it. Junko can understand and learn anything, except the one thing staring her in the face. But because of her talent, she can't imagine that there's something so blatant right in front of her she's failing to understand. Mukuro meanwhile? Danganronpa Zero gives us this:

Then, looking at the face Ikusaba-san showed me, I was suddenly taken aback. The ever so emotionless face was, ecstatic and smiling. "I don‘t know if...she is attracting despair or despair is attracting her but...she has lived her whole life with despair by her side. She lived while immersed in despair. That‘s why she began looking for despair in others. She learned to enjoy pushing people into despair. But you know, that‘s normal. It‘s the same as someone being cursed by misfortune fall into hatred for those who aren‘t. But what‘s special about her was that, she learned to enjoy inflicting despair onto herself. That‘s how the link to despair began. As she chased down despair, she pushed it onto others on the way. Doing so, it caused her to desire falling into despair even more...and because of that chain to despair, the Super High School Level Despair was born." While she spoke, it was like she fell into a fever, the expressions on her face turned into ecstasy. It was so completely absurd that it would have been hard for anybody to think of it as anything but a joke, but I understood that this was real. It might‘ve been because the memories of Junko Enoshima inside me led to that conclusion. "Hey, you don‘t get it right? I don‘t think anybody could. But you know, only I can understand it..." Consumed by ecstasy, even Ikusaba-san‘s breaths began to become ragged. "Only I am able of understanding her. That‘s why she needs me. She still hasn‘t realized that but, maybe she is only pretending not to realize. Ufu, that‘s because she‘s so shy. Ufufufu." Seeing this intoxicated Ikusaba-san continue to talk like that, repelled me. I knew that she definitely didn‘t have normal feelings for Junko Enoshima, but that sort of thing shouldn‘t have anything to do with me.

They both have failed to understand each other. Danganronpa Zero came out before Danganronpa IF. So,

Ikusaba believed that she alone could understand the despair known as Junko Enoshima. It was a ludicrous notion.

Is a callback to

"Hey, you don‘t get it right? I don‘t think anybody could. But you know, only I can understand it..."

Both of them are having their preconceived notions about each other shattered at the same time in that scene in IF. Because both of them just assumed they understood each other. Because of course they did. They've been linked at the hip so long, they're symbiotic. Except, no, they didn't. Because they both assumed, rather than ever actually talking and getting on the same page. And note,

Seeing this intoxicated Ikusaba-san continue to talk like that, repelled me. I knew that she definitely didn‘t have normal feelings for Junko Enoshima, but that sort of thing shouldn‘t have anything to do with me.

It was incest in 2011. Before SDR2 and IF released. It was always incest. DR3 just was going "now shut the fuck up, we've visually confirmed it for you".

So yeah, Despaircest was mutual love of equal intensity ruined by them both being arrogant dipshits who failed to get on the same page because they wouldn't just have a goddamn conversation about it because they both assumed that they would gain nothing from it because they totally already understood each other so goddamn well. It was mutual, and Junko actually really did love Mukuro just as much as Mukuro loved Junko. It turned tragic from a lack of communication.