It’s Thursday today, marking the 3rd day of the DDLC story setting, and also the obvious manifestation of Sayori’s depression in her ‘unusual’ behaviour, in the game. Here forth lies a serious discussion on the characters, their personalities and association with mental health issues. Just as Dan Salvato cleverly managed his game cryptically, so have I (well I tried) for this series of posts to mimic how things went downhill from doki-doki to —————— in the visual novel.
By the way, if you are reading this, it assumes that you are okay with spoilers. It also assumes that you are fine with reading extremely depressing content.
There is one (non-death) graphically disturbing content in this post.
[Background]
First off, I have to mention how lucky (or rather, I appreciate the fact that) I am to be a (relatively) mentally stable and self-sustaining individual. This resilience has allowed myself to get back from depression chasms with the support of friends and family time and again – which is why I’m still here, except no longer pure and a lot more cynical and sarcastic (but that personality doesn’t show itself on normal occasions). Oh well, you win some and lose some I guess.
But not everyone have the capacity to hold down the fort and restrain the devil of darkness within them. Sometimes it is just beyond their control – no matter how much they do try to struggle with what-society-deems-abnormal-mental-wellbeing, that’s the norm for them. In Doki Doki Literature Club this very concept is explored based on the emotional states of the fictional characters.
Once again, I will mention their names. We have Monika who is the DDLC club president, Sayori who is the Vice President, and Yuri plus Natsuki being members of the club. Each of them have their own problems which gives rise to different dormant mental issues (except Sayori). I’ll briefly list these problems and get into the gist of it in their respective routes.
Monika – Psychopathic >> Sociopathic
^ Mental instability arising from her conscious self-realization that the world she lives in is virtual and, being the only programmed self-aware character, resorts to unorthodox measures in desperation.
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Sayori – Chronic Depression
^ Permanent mental disability with being constantly depressed on the inside, but seemingly cheerful and hxppy on the outside. It’s like being unable to find the motivation to live, nor the purpose for self, but somehow is able to for others.
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Yuri – Psychotic
^ To be fair, she doesn’t have this issue, per se. However, it is a dormant (close to extinct) trait nestling within her. Mildly manifested with her fetish for knives and horror, and then later exploding (tweakity tweak) into psychotic and violent self-harm tendencies.
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Natsuki – Victim of Abuse
^ The most ‘normal’ individual in the entire visual novel, the consequence of abuse is manifested in her distrusting personality and passive-aggressive attitude towards others (although when above moderation, it devolves into disturbingly aggressive haunting neediness and slanderous attitude)
The player’s very exposure to the blackhole of (inevitable) despair in this visual novel sheds some light on the depressing nature of mental illnesses and emotional instability. When left untreated, or provoked, the individual may create his/her own slippery slope that escalates into an extreme disorder. This is very well highlighted by the visual novel’s methodology of establishing a surface layer and a deep layer to the game, the former being a buffer to hold the game’s (and hence the characters’ mental) integrity, keeping the demons from metastasizing.
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[Sxyxri’s Rxute]
How great would it be if it were sunshine and hxppy thxughts everyday. There would be nothing to worry about, endless optimism to share with everyone, and no need to burden the people who know/love us with rainclouds.
But that’s not how life is. We receive free gifts we don’t sign up for, lemons from thin air which we don’t know what to do with, and sometimes a consecutive influx of misfortunes which they conveniently proclaim “It’s just a joke”.
Each of us have different tolerance levels to said negativity in life. Those of us with positive tolerance levels can bear pretty much what’s thrown at us, but if they were weaker at resisting the invisible choking force, cracks from strain soon manifest as abnormal behaviour relative to our day-to-day personalities. Then there are those with negative tolerance levels – those who simply can’t feel any happiness for no apparent reason.
Sayori is such a person – constantly torn between feeling happy with and for her friends, and surrendering to the pessimism and indescribable blues that have made her mind a permanent home to stay in. It is difficult for someone like me to fully understand the severity of her depression, but what Dan Salvato has done in this game is to make the symptoms and manifestation very obvious, to send a strong message to players.
Depression is a personal problem, and there is no simple cure for it – Just saying something like “Think of the positives in life“, or “I’m here for you, as long as I’m here I’ll be trying to make you happy always“, or “You’re not a burden being present, in fact it makes me happy to have met and known you” won’t cut it for someone who is drowned in nothing but emptiness.
We see this in the game, where Sayori confesses (to you) and comes clean about her depression, and you have the option to either reciprocate by telling her that you love her, or kindly reject her by telling her that she’s your best friend. In the latter option, Sayori goes insane and breaks (and sends you a .png graphic drawing of herself). In the former option, she calms down a little, but realizes that even with the new-found-happiness she felt even more miserable knowing that she would be selfishly clinging (onto you) and becoming an emotional burden the further her depression drags out. In either case, she chooses to end her suffering the next day (Monday – not sure if this was intentional from Dan, but it just gave a creepy new meaning to Monday Blues).
To put it simply, there’s no 100% certain way that one is able to save another from depression. We can try, but that’s about it. Unless we take equally extreme measures to control their lives to prevent their suicide. Perhaps you have heard of cases where extreme mental patients are restrained in their quarters (bound to their beds) to disable them from inflicting self-harm – It is a very pitiful state, but sometimes necessary.
We see what it means for someone to save others from depression, but not themselves, with this metaphorical and disturbing poem written by Sayori’s character:
The signs are usually clear, and this visual novel points them out to us. No, it is not that a depressed person will have blue eyes (Sayori has blue eyes, its meant to be a figurative expression). A common mentality is the notion of excess self-rejection and purposeless brooding. As much as someone can try to lie about their messed up mental well-being, they may often subconsciously slip into their (true) alter ego. Sometimes they leak bits of their instability through various forms of expression – art, speech, writing, music preferences, etc etc…
If you happen to know of anyone exhibiting signs of depression, or in need of crucial (emergency) emotional support, please look after them and check on them. If necessary, contact a counselling/samaritan hotline. Not all illnesses are viral (this one is even very well known to be a ‘silent killer’). It can also help for someone, who had depression and recovered from it, to emotionally support the depressed. It isn’t so much about the point that one knows how to recover from it, but more of lending the distressed individual some hope that his/her depression isn’t permanent.
At the end of the day, depression comes in different forms and of different severity. There isn’t a clear way to approach this mental instability, but that doesn’t mean there is nothing that we can do. Every bit of effort and attention will go a long way in preventing said individuals from premature self-homicide, and it may even be necessary to intervene.
In the mean time, remember to love yourself.
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[Yuri’s Route]
What is psychosis? For the sake of clarity, I decided to get a proper definition (umm.. from wiki..) which states:
A disorder whereby the individual exhibits personality changes and thought disorder. This could involve the mind’s loss of contact with reality.
If you look at Yuri in the first arc and early part of the second arc, she does not exhibit any form of psychotic behaviour. She is by default a shy girl with some mildly weird interest in horror and psychological thrillers (Which I think is pretty normal – there are girls who like these genres of media/art). It existed only in the later part of the second arc when Monika re-programmed her personality – and the fact that she has a fetish for knifes (those aesthetically beautiful and yet dangerous ones) caused her to become obsessed with self-harm (You know when you’ve got scabs from wounds when they are healing and they itch? I guess that’s where she gets her drugs from).
Unfortunately I’m not very familiar with psychotic behaviour. Generally people would be concerned when they hear that xxx is a psychotic individual, since said person is insane and may likely bring others harm. It is important to understand that psychosis involves some sort of mental impairment which implies the loss of some sort of logical perception of reality. Yes, not only are other individuals at risk of being harmed, but even the impaired individual is a threat to his/her own existence. Therefore, we cannot exclude the possibility of self-harm.
In the visual novel, Yuri turned to self-harm as means of relieving her excitement (wtf yes) – It might be to make herself numb to the tension that she experienced and therefore alleviate a certain withdrawal symptom from being high; or she needed an outlet to express how much she loves the protagonist (I’m sure that’s not how it works but… her reality… is hers I guess).
There is a fine boundary between depression and psychosis – Depression can result in psychosis in extreme cases when individuals start to lose all sense of who they are, their purpose, and what everything and anything else means to them. All the more I should stress that there ought to be a stronger awareness for depression. While leading causes of depression include abuse (I will discuss about this for Natsuki’s case), genetics as well as grief, stress in society (work/personal) can also lead to the illness.
To add on to that, psychosis can be developed from drug abuse as well (psychoactive drugs in particular). But don’t just take it literally – anything can be a drug. Addiction to unusual interests (Knifes and psychological horror for Yuri) can alter an individual’s perception and behaviour (bit by bit) if he/she does not keep him/her-self in check with their obsessions.
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[Natsuki’s Route]
Abuse in relationships is one of the major causes of emotional trauma – This is not limited by domestic origins or workplace occurrences, nor does it need to need to be physical in nature. Mental abuse is also a very concerning issue in society today where individuals can exploit the anonymity of the internet to hurl insults and disparaging comments at others. We should be familiar with the ironic statement that “Sticks and stones may break my bones… But words will never hurt me” – It should be noted that both forms of abuse are equally hurtful.
Being subjected to abuse, individuals could lose their sense of self, their self-esteem, confidence and the ability to reason because of their mentality being clouded by the constant (or severe, or both) bombardment of physical or mental harm.
(And thus spiraling to a state of depression)
In Doki Doki Literature Club, Natsuki was (since she’s… deleted) a victim of abuse by her father (seriously, these girls have some serious issues… and Sayori’s parents were never mentioned…). We see this from her backstory (thanks to Monika) that she suffers from malnutrition (thus explaining why she’s a little on the short end… and… thin… end…) and is practically ignored by her father (It is further hinted that she was possibly physically abused by her father too).
Surprisingly Natsuki turns out to be the most normal character in the entire visual novel (much much more normal than Monika if you ask me), being able to hold in all her angst and yet remain emotionally sound. The negative consequence of her treatment though, is that she becomes very skeptical and critical of others (especially boys – her first statement when the protagonist (who is male) is brought to the club was: “Seriously? You brought a boy?”).
We can further see that odd statement “I like when papa uses his inside voice” which we may interpret it to be her father’s “true feelings/thoughts or thoughts of reason”. Clearly Natsuki understands that something is wrong with her father, and that he might be dealing with issues of his own too. It is admirable that she faces the abuse (outbursts or silence, either way it doesn’t matter) with grit, but at the same time saddening that her initial positive and admiration for her father decays to a wish for his negligence (or her becoming transparent altogether) instead.
It might be difficult for individuals to come out of the closet for help when subjected to abuse by a family member – either out of fear, or out of love (They are all flesh and blood after all). Again, the tell-tale signs of abuse are noticeable – in the case of physical abuse, the effects are more prominent and frequently observed. It might be harder to identify emotional abuse, but what is certain is that no child would be happy to return to a home where he/she would only be further abused. A person with a weakened guard (in the absence of friends – on this note, they may shift towards being anti-social as well) would show their true feelings through their actions and the liveliness/dullness of their eyes.
Some abused individuals may shrink from social interaction, into their imaginary world of comfort. Others, like Natsuki’s case, may not feel discouraged in socializing. They may even show genuine concern for others when they realize that something is wrong with them (or their normal behaviour anyway) and try to help out of empathy.
As with the case of depression and psychosis, seeking external help is important for the victim’s well-being – there may even be a chance to identify the problems of the individual inflicting the abuse and provide help & rehabilitation for him/her. There are many cases where the vicious cycle of abuse (for domestic case) continue to torment the subsequent generations, receiving abusive treatment which they do not deserve.
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[MONIKA’s Route]
The last of all the mental disorders I intend to discuss (borrowing DDLC as a medium) is the concept of psychopathy and sociopathy, the former being more elusive to identification.
In the case of psychopaths, the individual lacks empathy and conscience. This, not to be confused with psychosis, may naturally imply the lack of restraint when it comes to making decisions with a disregard for other individuals, and the lack of moral considerations.
Sociopaths on the other hand have less severe (it is thought to be) mental abnormality than psychopaths, which may be associated with being simply anti-social and acting with poor social judgement (but not necessarily manipulative).
We observe that Monika is psychopathic from the first arc (at this point of time, we are still not yet sure, until we see the traceback.txt file created by Monika after Sayori’s death) up till the end of the third arc. Desiring to have her own romantic route after realizing that the visual novel is defaulted to allowing the player/protagonist to choose between only Sayori, Yuri and Natsuki, Monika made alterations to the game’s script to sway the game into her favour. The manipulations became more significant and code-breaking as her desperation grows, inadvertently causing Sayori and Yuri to become fatally suicidal. Whilst losing her (“lifeless”) friends, Monika’s chance of finding a happy end with the player ‘increases’ which made her ignorant of their deaths, often commenting with little regard for them – quote: “Actually, you know what? This would probably be a lot easier if I just deleted her. She’s the one who’s making this so difficult. Ahaha! Well, here’s goes nothing.”
The interesting thing in this case though, is that Sayori, Natsuki and Yuri are all non-conscious characters in the story. This kind of gives Monika the impression that deleting them is justifiable, and thus not feel as much guilt as if they were self-aware like herself. When she becomes deleted (against her own will) herself, she felt temporarily anguished, before realizing that her actions did not bring her any closer to the player/protagonist – just like how the player forcibly deletes Monika, she understood that she was simply forcing the player to stay with her eternally – in that aspect, there was no happiness.
I would consider Monika more of a sociopath as she was capable of feeling remorse even though her decisions were certainly questionable. Unlike Sayori, Monika converted her depression into action (but one that brings others down for her own benefit); in comparison to Yuri, she avoided a violent approach by making use of the system itself (and end up breaking it) – although we could view this to be equally destructive to Yuri’s compulsive tendencies. (This was why some thought Monika to be a yandere type)
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Doki Doki Literature Club isn’t a happy story in any aspect (Let us ignore the special ending of the game for the sake of the general argument) built on the foundations of different mental illnesses – Issues that the player/protagonist cannot approach and resolve because of the restrictions imposed by the game.
1) You cannot spend time with Monika
2) Monika tempers with the other characters
These are the two leading causes ( (2) resulting from (1) ) that led DDLC tumbling towards the morbid side of things.
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Anyways… one of the main points that I wish to reinforce in this post is that mental illnesses are real (now… hold the cynical comments of “isn’t it self explanatory” for the moment), and it could happen to anyone (I hope not).
Keep a look out for the friends and family whom you care for, and take action if you notice something unusual with them in comparison to their normal personality.
If you are subjected to rainclouds yourself, don’t hesitate (I understand it is incredibly difficult to do so, but still…) to talk to your close friends, advisors/counsellors and/or next-of-kins. Humans are meant to be social creatures, and when it comes to troubles and issues, two or more brains are definitely better than one.
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Alright, that’s all for this post.
At this point I’m probably just repeating myself, and sound no different from a broken tape recorder, but I’ll still say it anyway…. Having coming this far, I really appreciate that you’ve read through the serious and also depressing discussion. I want you (readers and friends) to cherish your life. While you care for others, live for yourself as well. Keep holding on, and Live on.
Have a cupcake~
>> Doki! Doki! >> Part IV >>
Acknowledgements:
1] “Vxsuxl Thxughts: Depressxxn Dxmxged Lxxbxlxty Club (Pxrt III: Gxxng Mentxl)” Pixiv/Author Source
2] Team Salvato & Doki-Doki Literature Club
Living life little by little as I try to understand how life works. As complex as it is, so as I am, it may take a lifetime to understand. But regardless it is not pointless to pursue a near-impossible goal.
Karandi
Irina
Plyasm
Shokamoka
TPAB~
arthifis
_LIFEisAniMovie_ 
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