Moonlight Moth #1: Music and Musings

I think instead of just a daily music video drop, I might as well do a music video drop and a longer-form essay on a topic of interest. Welcome to Moonlight Moth, right here on WFMF.

For tonight's musical offerings, we have a crazy little video you've seen on this blog before: "You're On Fire" by They Might Be Giants.

And now, below the cut, I'll be diving into some deeper thoughts about Doki Doki Literature Club. Beware, my children, spoilers abound.

If you're still reading, you know all about Doki Doki Literature Club. What it is, the twists, the scares, probably all the endings.

But this is a game whose metafictional implications run so deep that sometimes you have to think on it for a while and reach a deeper understanding of things--to find new truths and new horrors in the metagame.

Tonight, I realized something a lot of players--even those who "understand" the game's concept and metastructure--seem to have missed.

As presented in the game, as taken at face value, all the bad things that happen are the result of Monika sabotaging the code and breaking the script. For most players, that would seem to indicate that Sayori's and Yuri's suicides were not things that were intended to happen, and are the result of Monika screwing with the game to get rid of her competition.

Well...yes and no. Because this is the point where you have to step back and examine the metafiction, in all its dimensions.

Monika can delete files and change the script. She can damage the code and game assets. But one thing she's incapable of is creating new game assets--she can't create sprites or CG that don't already exist in the uncorrupted original game data.

What does this mean?

It means that the insipidly sweet, cute, pure VN the game seems to be for the first three hours was already a lie to begin with. It means that Sayori hanging herself and Yuri going insane and stabbing herself were already part of the original game, presumably as each girl's Bad End. If you've played enough VNs or know enough VN/eroge tropes, you know every girl in a gal game has a Bad End route.

So what exactly did Monika do?

Monika screwed with the ending path flags, essentially locking the Good Ending paths out and switching more and more flags to railroad the game down a Bad Ending path.

With or without Monika, there would always have been a possibility of the player entering Sayori's room to find her hanging there.

With or without Monika, there would always have been a possibility of Yuri stabbing herself to death.

Further proof: Natsuki's neck snap scene. It happens out of nowhere, suddenly, and violently, and when it does happen, look at her death sprite. It's a very messy photoshop job, essentially a rotate right on her head, an airbrush smear on her neck, and Yuri's slasher smile pasted onto her blank face. It was never in the game assets. Monika threw it in there for some sick reason.

This game...honestly, it's one of those works of art you just keep finding new depth and meaning in the more you think about it.

Comments

[Claw in Cursive]

What is that actress's name? Wasn't she the technician in the control center in Jurassic World?