The main difference between Kokichi and Komaeda, I think, is that Komaeda's always going 'yes, I'm in the right, I'm doing the right thing here,' whereas Kokichi's going 'okay, I'm being a terrible shit.' Even if Kokichi's goals aren't necessarily malicious. I like your suggestion that he might have killed Miu and Gonta as part of his plan to bring all the other participants together by giving them someone to fight against: making sacrifices as steps towards his ultimate goal of ending the killing game.
as a literal brainwashing that was making people actually murder people in the real world, no VR involved. Just… it’s so many years in the future, our version of reality TV is now literally killing people on TV for the sake of narrative, and that people signing up for the show knew the risks of that.
I've seen a lot of different interpretations of the ending, but this is how I read it as well. I don't know if the people signing up knew they would have their memories and personalities rewritten, because they say some things that suggest they expect themselves to be participating (I think former-Shuichi says he's been thinking about some possible murders he could commit), but I do think the events and the deaths were real.
Coming back to Kokichi: that guy is so difficult to write, given it’s so hard to get a handle on his thoughts.
He really is! It was fun to write his dialogue in Close Your Eyes (my 'Shuichi gets addicted to the love hotel' fic), but I don't think I'd ever be able to write something from his perspective.
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as a literal brainwashing that was making people actually murder people in the real world, no VR involved. Just… it’s so many years in the future, our version of reality TV is now literally killing people on TV for the sake of narrative, and that people signing up for the show knew the risks of that.
I've seen a lot of different interpretations of the ending, but this is how I read it as well. I don't know if the people signing up knew they would have their memories and personalities rewritten, because they say some things that suggest they expect themselves to be participating (I think former-Shuichi says he's been thinking about some possible murders he could commit), but I do think the events and the deaths were real.
Coming back to Kokichi: that guy is so difficult to write, given it’s so hard to get a handle on his thoughts.
He really is! It was fun to write his dialogue in Close Your Eyes (my 'Shuichi gets addicted to the love hotel' fic), but I don't think I'd ever be able to write something from his perspective.