Doki Doki Literature Club! is a visual novel developed by Team Salvato. The story follows a male high school student who joins the school's Literature Club and interacts with its four female members. While it appears at first glance to be a lighthearted dating simulator, over time it shifts gears to a psychological horror game that covers a much wider range of thematic content than might at first be expected.

In addition to depiction various forms of mental conditions, the game also delves into themes revolving around your fundamental agency and degrees of control, your relationship to or knowledge of reality, and even the facts revolving around the persistence of your identity in general. With intersections between various of these topics, and how they relate to one another. A big aspect of the narrative is its use of meta, and relating the game world to the world of you as a player. This focus on the core aspects of your being being subtly referenced in the title itself, since doki doki is an onomatopoeia for the sound of heartbeats. Detailing the essence of what supports and makes one who they are. And calling to mind the ties between life and death.

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Neurosis and psychosis

One of the most obvious themes in ddlc is its thematic depictions of various mental conditions, various sources they come from, and some things relating to them. These depictions range from less to more severe, covering various topics such as suicidal depression, reaction to abuse, obsession, existential dread, and projection among others. While descriptions of them can elucidate the thematic depictions a bit, much of the weight of their content is in the presentation, and how sudden and hard hitting some of the depictions and realizations can be, giving a tangible reality to some of what is being shown.

First, sayori is depicted as suffering from a major strain of depression. And is shown to have many of the associated qualities. Some things that are highlighted is that depression can make it hard to get out of bed, since someone doesn't see any reason to do so. As well as the fact that people who are internally depressed may hide it from others, making its appearance seem sudden. And often times they have a tendency to put the value of the happiness of others above their own, seeing themselves as not worth it, which is something she is shown as doing in-game. Another important thing that is shown is that while people on the outside might want to help, they may often think it is easier to overcome than it actually is, thinking that it is just some kind of prolonged sadness that cheering up can fix. Something that is ultimately revealed to be misled.

Monika's end notes on the topic expand on this. She says that many people who are depressed don't want attention, because they've already given up on the inside. And that their feeling of worthlessness is so overwhelming that they don't even want people to tell them otherwise. Monika also gives notes on how to help someone dealing with depression of a suicidal nature. Focusing on being there, and being a friend for them, and more specifically planning things with them in the future to give them something to look forward to day to day. The game gives a positive spin on this, despite its seemingly negative content, focusing on your ability to help real people by being a friend to them, and to potentially save a life by being a good person to them.

Another aspect if this is the emphasis given on people with certain thoughts to bottle them up. Sayori's second poem is literally about thoughts and bottles, and about taking out happy thoughts to share with others, while trying to keep the other ones hidden. Eventually running out of happy thoughts, and thus no longer being able to please people. The tendency of people to bottle up the negative thoughts until they run out of power to being a large way of acting of many depressed people, and ties back to the tendency to hope focusing on the happiness of others can substitute as a lack of one's own.

The negative element comes from a bit the realism of the situation. That while you can try to help, there is no guarantee of it working. This is reflected in the later themes of an ultimate lack of control. You can do what you can to help, but you will never have absolute power over any situation. These dual aspects are presented to you, as well as the depiction of how someone close to you could have it without you noticing as a reflection on the true face of depression. And the game drives home the finality of the possibility of someone's suicide in that has you lament on the fact that it is something that you can never undo once it passes.

Another thing focused on is the reality of abuse. In the second playthrough, natsuki reveals aspects of her being abused, which likewise come as hard hitting, and things that while being hinted at earlier on come a little suddenly. This is presented as a potential reason behind her heightened aggression, and even her short stature potentially coming from not eating properly due to being raised in a house where food was not always properly provided. While this is expanded on less than some of the other issues, it is likewise a reflection on issues that might not be easy to see at first. And what it means for people to have them. In the second route she talks about how the club is all she has, and the only thing she looks forward to. So it emphasizes what can be important to people who lack other things or places to feel safe, and the importance that those things can have to them.

Yuri of course depicts a type of obsession that can border on unhinged levels, as well as the tendency to self harm. She is seen doing things like bleeding on something she gives you deliberately, or obsessing about something you get from her. Which despite being a seemingly random or small thing, is a thing that can really happen when obsession of this form kicks in. She also talks about masturbation with your pen, which is also depicted as having an obsessive tone.

However, there is more to her depiction than just this. Her and natsuki in the second route are both being overwritten to be more unhinged, or crazy. But this too is a reflection on what it means to have mental illness. It overlaps with the themes of lack of control. In that in real life, these problems are often something that can come on you suddenly. Yuri in game is getting forcibly reprogrammed against her will. But that's actually a good parallel for real issues. Because oftentimes real mental problems of that nature are notable things impeding your agency. you react to the rather than control them. And the bigger of issues they are, you can have times where you flip flop between more self awareness, while realizing you have a problem you cant control. Seeing the yawning abyss in front of you slowly absorbing you and forcing you into something you don't want to be. And the other times where it is totally consuming you. So the themes of agency and being reprogrammed are overlapping with very real psychological issues to make a point about agency and freedom. and its boundaries.

Monika is of course also interesting, in that she has various issues of her own, despite being part of the source of the issues of the other. For instance, sociopathy being one due to how she treats the other characters, and her tendency to see them as fake props. Control issues, due to her need to forcibly ensure you be with her. And the overall feeling of being trapped that stems from the reality that she suddenly became self aware of existing in a tiny realm where as she says nothing is real. Which overlaps with the idea of an existential crisis, and questioning of your reality. But the existential questions aren't tied just to her, but to the narrative of the game itself. She mentions how if you did not show up she would probably have deleted herself, due to being unable to care or stay sane in a world where nothing is real. The existential crisis aspect ironically calling to mind the paradox that while from the perspective of real life she is right, from the internal perspective she is no more real than any of the rest of it. So her self aware nature is hard to distinguish from the others, despite her thinking of them as not counting as other people. She even mentions how seeing things in this way made everything lose its meaning. Although she is seen as sad and looking back on the days when she was able to enjoy it fondly. Another potential issue one could associate with Monika is the idea of projection. She describes yuri as a yandere in a way that begins as if she was describing herself. Although this latter aspect is not expanded on.

The idea of mental illness as a whole is addressed by monika in her conversation topics. She talks about how if you don't have it, its impossible to really know what it is like. And that many people mistakenly thing that they are something you can simply overcome easily through having enough willpower. This statement about how it is something out of your own control overlapping with themes of control, and how even your own mind is like a prison that binds you.

That it is hard for others who don't experience it to understand is something highlighted even in game by the player character, who being written to act like a typical dating game protagonist acts like he knows how to solve sayori's problems, only to have this turn out not to be the case. He was not presented as ill intentioned, and legitimately wanted to help her, but it inverts the expectations that come from the writings in normal dating games or fiction in general that often present easy solutions, showing that sometimes you will be in over your head, and unable to help as easily as you might intend to. And it highlights a bit as well the reality of dealing with these situations as an outsider, and the mental fallout from such an event.

She also mentions psychologists and the idea of mental health. Bringing up how many people are embarrassed to go to them, but that this is a mistaken attitude to take, since it can be helpful to learn more about your own mind. It is important, literally being the core of your being, and so having professionals who dedicate their life to studying it helping you being a useful tool that could help you improve. She describes life as a never ending journey of self improvement, and as such any area it can happen in being a useful one to look at.

Lack of control

One of the main themes of the game, and one that intersects with the previous idea of mental health is the theme of a lack of control. The game calls into question how much agency you even have, first by asking the questions of the characters due to their designed nature as a part of a game, but then going a step back for the more self aware monika, and for the same question to ultimately go a step further to you in real life. Something noticeable about the game's structure is that while you can choose what to do at the beginning, regardless of this it railroads certain events into following from this. And it elucidates on that you can't escape this or go back. Changing the ending requires forcibly cheating the game, and even that still pushes you through many negative events you can't avoid. Notably, it also shifts the narrative from you as a character to you in real life. Since as the game goes on, your character speaks less and less since the second half is ultimately more about you yourself, and applying the themes to your real existence.

One of the obvious themes of control is its overlap with the mental illness. It depicts these conditions as something the characters inflicted with them cannot escape. Which brings up questions of agency. People can make decisions, but there are certain barriers, things about even themselves that their agency cannot override. And if this is true here, when else is it true? Certain conditions exist not as something you have power over, but something you are subjected to and have to maneuver around. And so the questions of agency drive deep into your own core, since these things that control you are in fact aspects even of yourself that you are bounded by. Raising the question of how to view agency when your own self is what is stopping you.

It takes questions of agency away from a mere abstraction about how much you own your given actions into a direct more tangible depiction of actions of your own that you might reject, but are powerless to stop yourself from falling into. While in the examples in-game they are being forcibly reprogrammed into this, this aspect of the story from their perspective is in a sense immaterial, since the game highlights how this is not so different from it happening naturally, which when it happens is still outside of your control. And the paranoia of the realization can set in that something is wrong, but not having the power to stop or often even understand it, as can be seen in the warning natsuki gives you disguised as a poem.

Monika brings up ideas of control in how she treats the other characters. She describes them as essentially automatons without self awareness. Beings who were designed to be one-dimensional, each embodying a specific anime trope, and all of them designed to be obsessed with you. An interesting thing about this is the fact that while the other characters more closely embody anime tropes, self aware monika does not as much and moreso comes off like a real person. Who even makes fun of the prospect of technically being a trope, by pretending to start saying stereotypical anime lines in some of her conversations, before starting laughing and asking you what you think about them. Despite this, they are shown to have more self awareness than she ascribes them, with them bringing up in the second arc how things don't seem to be normal. And are shown to have internal depths that their original stereotypical depiction did not at first make obvious.

However, despite her more self aware nature, these questions about agency can still be inverted and applied to monika herself. While she obtained self awareness about her condition, one aspect of her is that her core drive is still an obsession with you. She does it in a meta way, about your real, rather than in-game self, but despite this she she still does it. Meaning that, despite this self awareness she may still be unable to resist this programming, and so it is not clear whether it particularly makes her any more free.

In one of her conversation topics this lack of freedom she has is even shown directly, in which she starts saying something she doesn't herself understand, and so asks you to ask her designers why she said this. Interestingly, the other characters do also show periods of self awareness of their situation, calling into question monika's claim to being the only self aware one. So she's stressing that she doesn't have true freedom either. And that while there are layers of awareness and removal and control, that going a step back doesn't necessarily remove you from what you are bounded by. In fact, doing so may not even be possible. it just changes your relationship to it. This relates to some post-structuralist philosophy about how even acts of rebellion are shaped by the system, since they shape the mode of rebellion.

So this narriative is establishing layers of awareness over one's situation, but calling into question whether that even makes one more free. Since the themes of agency overlap with descriptions of real life mental states and processes, this question goes beyond her, and to you yourself. The story emphasizes that you too lack control, since regardless of your actions it railroads the story back from the splits into a specific ending. So it is asking this question about you as well, and whether this is something that can be overcome. Noticeably, despite everything there is a way to get a good ending to the game. Which implies some level of optimism amidst everything.

Another aspect of this lack of control is the emphasis placed on the fact that from monika's perspective she is trapped. She only exists in the context of the game, which it shows literally only exists for the relevant aspects like the school and your houses. Knowledge aside, knowing about her condition does not give her power to escape it even if she can effect the world itself. She doesn't see the others as self aware, and so considers you as the only real thing she has a chance to interact with. Her actions are in reaction to this feeling of being trapped, and she thinks her sole chance at happiness, and to experience something real is interaction with you. Even in this she shows awareness of what she can't control. She admits that you might hate her for what she did, showing that even her attempts to control you are limited to inside the context of the system / game.

One of the hidden poems even highlights this binding of the mind more directly. Part of it says "with freedom, we sought purpose - and what we found was only realization. Realization of the sad pointlessness of such an endeavor. Realization that freeing our bodies has no meaning, when our imprisonment reaches as deep as the core of our souls.” While this may also elucidate on the plot element of a future game, in ddlcs internal context it helps highlight how the things that bind you are not only physical. It is one of the more direct statements to such an effect. Note that its point is not necessarily an absolute lack of agency for anyone. But realization of all the forces that bind. And the need to understand and contextualize your relationship to them and how to approach its ramifications.

Reality

Another major theme of the game the epistemological issues related to reality and perception of it. The questions relating to what, if anything is real. And also, the question of how one should even approach that question. How to even understand what real means in this context. One of the secret poems highlighting this question directly, by being made from redacted text, leaving enough to ask if anything is real. One subtle thing shown about the game is the fact that it subtly implies that the world doesn't really exist outside of the plot. For instance, your and sayori's homes have no indication of parents living there despite the characters being in highschool. You are the one who finds her dead too. Which implies that anything not relevant for the plot seems to simply not exist. The only one who has a family member being the one whose family is relevant for their own story.

Monika herself also stresses that the world she is entrenched in is not real. Which in the immediate sense is treated literally due to her awareness of being in a virtual world. This is further highlighted in scenes such as how monika when deleting people only really focuses on the other specific characters. Because no one outside of them actually exists. With this being expanded on by the fact that once she deletes a few things nothing remains of her world but the classroom in empty space. Another example is how in the school hall the sound of the song sounds muffled as if it was coming from the classroom itself.

One important place this comes into play is the various mental issues that stem from monika's reprogramming. Monika insists that she didn't really change them all that much. That these problems already existed, and she just ramped them up. And there are aspects of the first route that hint at this. But the game never actually comes down and gives an answer. The question of whether those problems were originally real is left open ended. But at the same time, it calls you to ask whether it really matters. Whether their problems, or the lead-ins to them are real is secondary. This is their reality now. One they found themselves irrevocably entrenched in. What past led to it is secondary to the reality they find themselves in. Once they are overwritten it is the only one they know. This is depicted as even more true due to the game's indication of the fact that nothing outside of its plot actually exists for them. So the absence of it containing content that clarifies the true depth of this implies a true lack of any underlying reality to even use to make sense of the answer.

This raises questions about the reality of the past in terms of it even being a necessity to contextualize the present. The same is true about their identity. Your identity only exists within the narrative you find yourself. So if this narrative is shifted even your existence as an individual is shifted with it. Which relates to narrative conceptions of personal identity as something that only exists as a self-told narrative. But the reality and objectivity of such narratives is called into question by the fact that they are based on subjective perceptions. Ones that are not only necessarily subjective, but don't even need to be based on a true past. Identity is tenuous, since it relies on a narrative of a past that even in your retelling will be far from an accurate or objective depiction of reality. Since how much of, and how accurately can one even give detail to about the story they call their past? It is necessarily viewed through the lens of one's own narrative which is steeped in that same narriative's subjectivity.

This of course ties into larger themes about reality in general. Whether a “true” reality exists versus whether truth is mainly something that exists entrenched in narratives. Note that this does not mean that the world itself does not tangibly exist (although since that is true of her own world you could also ask that Question). What it means rather is that while we look at the world as a matrix of things that have inherent meaning, that in reality this meaning is not part of the objects themselves but only exists in the narrative we are moving through relative to them. A narrative that we don't even share all of with other people. And that underneath this there is a pervasive emptiness that these constructs lay over. Something reflected in how at the end of the game the classroom now literally exists in empty space.

An abstract shape is only a chair because people exist who see and use it as one. If this perception was not applied to it it would be a meaningless shape. And likewise, its existence as a chair is only part of your narrative. If that were to shift, the meaning of what you call real would as well. Even of what you call yourself. And yet the "real" world we experience is one of narrative, not one of meaninglessness. So what is being called into question is how stable the world we consciously move in can be treated. The abstract impersonal world outside of human perception has no meaning to us. Your world doesn't objectively exist because what you call your world is only the world of related meaning and perception.

Since we are ordered in such a way as to require these narratives, this overlaps with the ideas of control it already touches on. Since our reality is shaped by the story we are stuck in, even though this story may not be a matter of truth, but simply perspective. Which can overlap with some existentialist or even absurdist themes, but takes it a step further, saying that even our experienced world only makes sense in terms of the meaning we apply. That reality as we know it, and the truths therein are simply human constructs, because none of the narriative elements are ultimately objectively real. Even our history in some sense being a story we tell ourselves, and even ourselves being something that may not be objectively continuous, but a construct entrenched in a subjective narrative. And our continued existence may require this, both since we are incapable of functioning without this feature of applying meaning, but also because our persistence over time is a construct that necessarily refers to a narrative of our process.

Monika emphasizes the lack of reality of her world, trying to distinguish herself from it. But an important realization is the paradoxical nature of this, since she emphasizes that it is a game, but ultimately taking this literally implies a lack of reality to her as well. The game even hints that the other characters are self aware similar to how she is, albeit not aware of what is going on. Making her perspective perhaps reflective of an existential crisis, calling into question her own reality, doubting its own existence. But this too is a paradox, since the narrative deliberately treats different contradictory perspectives as both accurate, both of her world not being real, but it being real internal to the story, with her own character existing in an ambiguous zone that reflects this paradox. Which highlights the nature of ambiguous reality, and it existing in narriative. This also makes her a morally ambiguous character due to the literally paradoxical nature of her actions, and the fact that the game treats two contradictory narratives as true making them impossible to objectively classify as to whether the deaths of the others were "real."

Monika also makes a big deal about the difference between her and your reality. With the ending song even aptly being called “your reality.” Which is not only showing that you exist on a different level of reality, but also highlights the irrevocable distance between any two people, in terms of understanding eachother. Since if reality is related to perception, there is also an irrevocable difference in perception. She mentions how she doesn't even know if you the player are a boy or girl. But she does note that your reality may not be too different from hers, with the same binding aspect she is subject to applying to you.

The themes of your particular reality being an illusion of course has practical effects as well. As shown in the game, people's reality often exists as a surface level description of the things they want to focus on. As in game, it is shown as a one dimensional and optimistic understanding of a world that lacks a larger understanding of its nuance. And so when inconvenient truths break through this narrative disrupting it it can come off disorienting since these were things that were literally not part of the perceived reality of the one viewing. This can intersect with the themes of control as shown in game where the mc thinks they have power to easily fix things that the larger realities of were out of their control. And as well how the characters were originally depicted more one dimensional before more nuance appears for them. Noting how part of why monika sees them as not real ties to the fact that what from her angle is their non self aware one dimensional existences are not real because real people don't act like that.

Isolation

The theme of lack of control can relate to other relationship aspects also. For instance, monika brings up how she can't be with you in person, only indirectly. Lamenting slightly that its not possible, or at least not as far as she knows. Another aspect of this theme relates of course to the idea of unrequited love. In the end, to finish the game you have to delete her, and she is faced with the reality that she couldn't force you to stay with her, despite her control over the world she herself inhabits. Which ties to the themes of loneliness and isolation, and distance from one another.

Monika's actions also highlight aspects of people's desire for control in general. The game's emphasis on control in general also highlights the fact that those types of games in general rely on the assumption of control over outcome, and deconstructs the mentality that would apply to if this logic and approach applied with real people. So it shows a contrast between her desire for control, and yet awareness that she doesn't have absolute control even over herself. Showing a contrast between the things that bind, and the goal of striving for liberation from them.

One of her last realizations in the game, as well as shown in her song being that she doesn't have the power to make you stay with her or make it productive to try, and so in her love for you she will let you go. Which not only has direct implications for how to approach relationships, but are part of the themes of control in general. That realization of your lack of absolute control might feel suffocating, but to some degree what you need to do is to come to terms with it to move forward. And this was expressed in a sense with her realizing the same about her relationship with you.

The themes of reality also having to do with how different people live in different realities that are themselves isolated from one another. Which is also shown in that sayori's problems were something unknown to you, despite you ostensibly knowing her all this time. This intersects the previous two themes into another more tangible aspect. People literally live in different realities. This is unavoidable, and something that while you can relate together there will always be an unavoidable distance. And by extension lack of control. But this alienation applies not only to other people. Even facts about yourself, and total control of your own situation are not possible. There will always be a level of dark ambiguity surrounding your approach.

This also was shown with monika in that she not only doesn't know your true sex, but also shows ambigutiy about your feelings about her. While she acts as if you appreciate her in the ways that correspond to the relationship ending she tried to present the ending as, she shows awareness that you might actually hate her over everything that happened. Showing optimism if it might turn out that this wasn't the case by you going through the game's files. This shows distance from your angle as well, since it shows her as more self aware about her inability to force you to like her than the ending itself might imply.

Gnosticism

In-game these themes of reality are presented in an almost lovecraftian way, in that the revelation of the empty nature of the world outside of your story is a horrifying thing to notice. With the idea of the underlying truth behind these narratives being merely constructs, and the world as we perceive it lacking much substantive reality being something frightening, and a dangerous fact of emptiness that can encroach its way onto the world we know. One that reveals horrifying truths that we would rather not have to focus on.

Going back to the idea of control, the underlying reveal being that in a way, outside of our views of reality is a kind of vague emptiness. There is not necessarily a controlling narrative of reality that guides us, simply a bleak picture that exists outside of our vision, and which can encroach onto our narratives, disrupting them. With us only existing within these self perpetuating binding forces and narratives that even within our own minds we cannot fully control. An additional horror aspect is the fact that even being aware of our position does not necessarily free us from it.

These ideas are loosely tied to gnosticism in a way, albeit it being unclear whether this was direct. Monika talks about how she thinks that the world isn't controlled by any divine providence, but then contrasts this by admitting that she was designed. She exists in a literal bounded world, with limits on what she can do. But this same truth is applied to you, questioning your ultimate agency. And she brings up that a god may well exist for your world as well, who created reality, but who if so likely sees people as its props, controlling them for its own purposes. So while this aspect is not a major presentation for most of the game, it does go out of its way to make this depiction.

This description over how her own nature of being designed makes her think of a controlling god conflates her world with your own, driving home that the themes of binding and questioning that apply to her likewise have analogues in your own world. This idea of her creation is depicted almost as a metaphor for the construction of your world and narratives that you move through. Your social constraints and mental barriers are like a demiurge over you. Similar to durkheim's saying that god is society writ large. This element of binding and control exists over you whether it was designed or no.

Another theme tying it to gnosticism is the focus on knowledge, which is literally the meaning of gnosis. Especially due to the awareness gained by monika, a self awareness of herself as entrenched in a situation. Which ties to the lovecraftian idea that this knowledge is not necessarily a positive revelation. Since the idea of people going insane from the revelation is lovecraftian in tone. Monika says about the club in the normal less positive ending that it continued to expose innocent minds to a horrific reality. A reality our world is not designed to comprehend. And she can't let any of her friends undergo that hellish epiphany. The revelation being that of being bound to the system. This inverts gnosticism in a way, saying that while knowledge can shine awareness on your reality of being bound, that it cannot ever fully free you. What you choose to do to move on from there with that knowledge being up to you.

Note that the subtle religious underpinnings of this are likely intentional. Since while the game itself only rarely mentions religion, (although once the events are compared to a type of hell) the easter eggs that point to another story do enough to give a religious undercurrent of the depiction. In addition to the story outright talking about faith in some kind of god, they often mention the third eye, which regardless of its meaning in the other story is a common religious motif for hidden knowledge. Which plays a large part in the story of ddlc. The other story mentioned in the book that the game calls the portrait of markov is also mentioned as taking place in what used to be a religious camp. And they are doing something called project libitina. Libitina is also a religious term, being a roman goddess whose name was used as a synonym for death.

These themes can also almost be considered some kind of inverted platonism. Since the cave in plato's cave represents your narrative, but the truth is actually that the reality of the fact that you lived in illusions may not be a positive revelation to have. It inverts it in a sense, because the real world is your world of illusory narratives, whereas the world outside of them does not exist. Not in any meaningful sense that is.

Despite all this, the good ending shows it as something that can indeed be positive regardless. Since it is only knowledge that goes beyond the system that can allow you to reach the good ending, and the self aware sayori does not go insane from the revelation. So while this awareness can be seeming awareness of being bound, it can also be taken in a positive direction.

Identity

One of the more striking aspects of the game is its reflections on identity and oblivion. This first becomes notable when you see sayori deleted at the beginning of the second playthrough and it begins again as if she had never existed. Which highlights the ephemeral and situational aspect of existence. And comes with an equivalent reflection on the possibility of you never having existed.

More characters get deleted over the course of the game. And so the theme of erasure is continued across the entire thing. But it gets highlighted even more with one of Monika's conversation topics. Monika asks you about death, asking you if you wonder what it is like to die. Then says that she thinks she now knows, since for her it is similar when the game is turned off to death. The interesting thing about her description is that it is neither continuity nor nonexistence, but describes it as in a sense dissolving into an abstraction. But everything that composes you still existing in an abstract form, despite “you” as a cohesive compiled individual not existing. Unable to form your own thoughts, and being nothing but meaningless abstract data that is fluctuating around.

Notably, she ends this description by saying that she comes back after the game is turned back on. Which makes an interesting point about the idea of life and death. Since she compared it to death herself. Overlapping with the themes about how your existence and story are bound by unfolding narrative in which even your own identity is a construct. If your existence is itself a construct, then its end, when and where that would be is likewise not an absolute, but a construct. She talks about remembering it even though she herself didn't exist at the time. And notably, even after she is deleted in the final aspect of the dark ending of the game, aspects of her are shown to still exist in abstract form, moving through the world. And in one of her conversation topics, she mentions how even after she deleted the others, she still feels them as present in some abstract way.

This aspect has more to it than it might at first appear, since it has far reaching implications for the concept of identity, and its flow. That your identity is more of a bundle entrenched in a narrative than necessarily a single thing. An idea known in the west as bundle theory. The end is not the absolute end of anything, simply the loss of the identifiable form one associated with. Interestingly, something similar is mentioned in sayori's last poem. It ends by saying that a poem is never actually finished. It just stops moving. Which since this too is a line about death (via comparing it to art, which has to be put forward at some point even if in one's mind there is no end) it comes off like a double sided fact about identity. That while the narrative stops, the things composing it move on. Monika herself says about the game being turned off that she has no idea what it means for her for that to happen. So it calls back to the ambiguity of chaotic reality.

This of course ties back to the question of reality and the question of whether nothing is real. This too can apply to identity, and the fact that even the parts of ourselves we identify with may not be absolute parts of ourself, just what we focus on. And what's more, since we are bound by narrative, situations that mentally "reprogram" is in a sense change our identity as well, by shifting the narrative our new self is bound by. Showing that even continuity itself is tenuous, since once you are reprogrammed your new self becomes your new identity as if it always was. Your identity being shaped and related to your past, but at the same time your past is an abstraction - one which your mental narrative of may not even be real, or at best not the full reality. The game is ambiguous about how much of their problems existed before monika's meddling because in the end its not clear it even matters.

This abstract and ephemeral approach to identity applies not just in the immediate sense of how everyone has deeper layers to their identity, some of which even they don't understand and so which don't exist in their self told narrative, but also because what it means to be an individual is likewise fuzzy. Since the idea of one brain corresponding to one individual is more of a construct of identity that helps bodies stay alive and focus for reproduction more than it is any kind of a hard fact.

And this is something highlighted even further when talking about A.I. Since it is something that in theory it would be easier to reproduce or copy parts of. Which would make the deconstruction of discrete ideas of identity more present in people's minds. In this case, the characters literally being presented like Ais who can be reprogrammed. Monika even mentions this directly, by talking about how you can copy her character files on a flash drive to bring with you, and so in a way you will have a part of her with you. It is a direct admission that her identity -like all identity- is not discrete, but is more ambiguous. She mentions this offhandedly as if she wasn't sure what it would mean for you to bring a copy of her with you like this either. Highlighting how even being self aware of the tenuous nature of identity, there is a point beyond which it is difficult to understand or make sense of. You can only choose to make decisions and keep moving forward. But the game conflates its own world with real issues to show that these issues are not unique to programming, but reflect larger questions in general.

This idea of abstract continuity being something talked about by fechner. People's influence stems from causality. Their presence is something you experience from causal relation. Even identity is something that stems from different states of the world being linked through causal chains that perpetuate certain patterns. But even if a pattern is for the most part lost, the causal chain that composed it is still ongoing. And presence in this sense still is continuous. While this may seem bleak at first, in some ways it is the opposite. Since it would mean that like they say in-game that even when people are gone, they are still in some sense around. Not just as a metaphor, but as a literal physical fact, albeit one that is beyond our limited comprehension, since being bound to look at the world as individuals we struggle to understand what it would mean to stop being one.

Markov chains

While ddlc doesn't overtly reference real people directly most of the time, one exception is in the title of the book portrait of markov. This is likely a reference to markov, the creator of markov chains, which are a specific model of a random process that happens over time, often associated with computer algorithms and A.I.. How the process of the markov chain works is that is that you have a system with several distinct "states" it can be in. The system can move between different states with some degree of randomness. Each time it does this it is called a step. The markov chain is based on the markov property, which says that what probability there is of the next step is only based on the current state you are in. This means that the system does not "remember" any past states before the one it is currently in, nor does anything outside of the system matter.

What specific reason this reference is there is not made clear, though the associations with A.I. presumably mean that primarily it was there for that reason. In addition to this though, the emphasis on how the markov chain has no "memory" and is only acting based on the state it is currently in may relate to the themes in-game of how if your identity is overwritten your past now no longer matters relative to the fact of your current state. The idea of modelling the unfolding of a system may also be related to the idea of things that bind one's actions.

Optimism

Despite all of the above things, the ending tone of the game actually has an element of optimism. With many of monika's conversation topics being uplifting, and, strangely for the setting, played straight as if she was now a positive person you were dating who really cared about, and wanted to help uplift you, and those you know. In addition, there is also the fact that there is a hidden good ending shifting it away from how it was seen in-game. While almost everything that happens in the latter half is slanted to the negative, the final emphasis on solving these problems of suffering in real life sets a tone of it being very cathartic.

Which is interesting, since one of the message is that even if you try, you may not always be able to solve certain problems. Bad things might happen. But regardless of this you can pick up, keep together, and move forward. Which gives a lens of optimism, ironically even in the face of realizing that things can end badly all the same.

Monika not only gives advice on how to help someone who might be suicidal, but gives you a speech about being positive too, where she says that even if you have a bad day that the sun will shine tomorrow. Which is interesting, since these conversations are narriatively jarring in juxtaposition from the rest of the game, yet are important for deriving the overall angle of it. And her final message to you on the regular ending is a heartfelt handwritten goodbye, and a thank you for the time you spent not only with her, but to the other ones you meant a lot to.