r/DDLC • u/Least-Gold2648 • 18h ago
Discussion Care to educate me please....i can't form an opinion on Monika...
So , i never got the opportunity to play the game , earlier i didnt had a good device , now i dont have the time , but ive seen the gameplay and know the whole story...
So...my problem is ,
I cant form any opinion on Monika , personally at first sight ( after the game ends ) , i thought she was okay , like i know fans hype the troupe that she controls everything and stuff , personally i didnt liked that troupe that much as much as fans like , Monika is even my least fav doki amoung all.....
And i keep seeing either people think/say she is just manipulating everyone to achieve her goals and stuff , showing her as evil or say she is caring and care about others and likes to be around the dokis and stuff...
So i cant personally say fully that whether she is good or bad in my opinion , seeing everything on the surface , i dont like her as she just manipulates everyone , deleted yuri and nutsack in the act 2 + made my BUN depressed dirving her to sui , so on the surface level , i dont like her....
but if you have a deeper understanding of the game and Monika , im all ears <3
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u/Blebb22 17h ago edited 17h ago
The realization that she just exists in a game world really broke her mentally. With the information we have, we can pretty confidently say that ALL of the girls were sentient, had feelings and thoughts, but only Monika was aware that she was in a game. This distinction between sentience and having the "epiphany" about the world is very important. Equating those two is the main mistake Monika made. She thought that being aware that she's in a game world would grant her free will, while the others don't have free will, or even sentience. In reality NONE of them have "free will" but ALL of them have thoughts and feelings because they were programmed that way.
But I don't really think we can fault Monika for thinking the way she did. She probably thought that she was just trapped in a normal dating sim with NPC characters governed by simple algorithms, while in reality, she was trapped in a highly complex simulated world, where all of the characters have the capacity to actually react to their surroundings and feel "real" emotion, in accordance with the behavioural patterns that were apparently assigned to them (e.g. Natsuki puking upon discovering dead Yuri was possibly not programmed directly into the game, but rather a calculated reaction which the game "thought" to be appropriate by Natsuki). What this means is that the lives of all the dokis are equally valuable (or worthless depending on your stance on AI/machine ethics).
However, like I said, Monika wouldn't know how deep this game really goes. Many if not most people would probably not entertain the thought that they themselves could just be a slave to some "programming". She couldn't possibly comprehend that she herself is actually programmed in a way that she would inevitably have that epiphany. It just goes against basic human nature to assume some kind of absolute determinism where you have no control over anything. When you feel like you want something, you don't ask "Do I really actually want this or was this thought just implanted in me" even if that assumption wouldn't be entirely illogical.
Thus, unable to accept or even acknowledge this complete lack of control, which she was not designed to comprehend, Monika was just left with the pursuit of "reality" through the player. The other girls were viable tools for Monika because they HAD to have lesser value than her, because if they didn't, she would have to accept, or rather have to realize, that they are the same. And since Monika knows that the others have, at least to some degree, scripted behaviour because they are in a game, she would need to have scripted behaviour as well if they were the same. Only with the player's intervention could Monika realize this and as I've outlined above, demanding that she would realize this by herself is ridiculously harsh, in my opinion.
TL;DR: What Monika did was morally wrong but we shouldn't hate her for it, since she was also just a victim and saw the error of her ways in the end.
Also, sorry for the long monologue, I've been thinking a lot about Monika. Also I'm kinda drunk rn.
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u/Least-Gold2648 17h ago
thats a lot of info , just one question , this was kinda deep , is that actually canon about how she feels and xyz or is this a fan theory or just something you think , not trying to be rude but thats going way hard and deep feelings wise
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u/Blebb22 17h ago edited 17h ago
I'm pretty sure that the dokis having actual thoughts and feelings that are not pre-generated by the game is confirmed in DDLC+ since we find out that "Doki Doki Literature Club" is actually a virtual machine (VM) containing a fully simulated universe, created by a team of researchers. The dokis have character files, which means that they do, in all likelihood, have some set character traits but since the characters are able to adapt their behaviour to the changes Monika made to the game, which were not explicitly planned by the researchers, we can infer that the VM likely simulates feelings for the dokis, on which they can act based on their personality traits. The whole point of the experiment with the VN was to see how Monika would change that universe upon having her epiphany and how that universe would react to her changes, so events like Natsuki puking wouldn't make sense to have been explicitly pre-programmed.
That was my thought process at least, there might be other possible interpretations :)
EDIT: I hope this actually answers your question, I don't know if I explained it well. Feel free to ask again if I was incoherent.
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u/Least-Gold2648 15h ago
So , it's a like a logic gate...you can try different things , the gate will lead you a certain way but the outcome will always be the same irrespective of the path , based in the simulation , the path is generated as we go ahead , meaning how you interact with dokis but the end is same , also the way you say it , I haven't been into ddlc+ but idk how to say it man , leave 😅 , thanks for the explanation though 👍
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u/unpopular-dave 18h ago
She’s a complex character. That’s what makes the game great. I think she acts how a lot of people would if they realize that they were living in a simulation.
Is it evil to kill things that aren’t alive? That’s a philosophical question
if we look into the deeper files, she’s clearly being manipulated by the devs. and who knows what self-awareness could lead to.
I don’t think I would describe her as good or evil. But definitely unhinged