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This of course occured to me because of the part about "save data" being loaded into Milgram. To me that reads as if these 10 prisoners we have been observing and judging for 5 years now are in fact just digital copies of people that exist outside of Milgram.

And I do think these copied people outside of the prison just continued living their life from that point on. In a sense you could say that anything that happens inside of Milgram has absolutely no consequences on the people that have "commited these murders" (or in Yunos case have just ... lived their life, really).

Which is both somewhat uplifting, but also depressing in other ways. It could also be that at the end of Milgram the experiences of these digital copies somehow get loaded into the original people, which might be a benefit for some of them, but for others? They will just get the knowledge of torture and an actual death experience, great. But I feel them getting these memories is the more unlikely story progression anyway.

So why not take a look at these 10 characters and speculate how life continued for them in the (in canon) real world?

Haruka: Talk about being doomed in the narrative both outside and inside of Milgram, truly my luck in picking my fav ... well, he will still be in his absolutely atrocious family situation, that the body of the girl that he killed hasn't been found is close to a miracle, and the guilt about it is so immense that he might have attempted suicide, depending on the interpretation of "the second child". In any case, it is obvious that this will just lead to more tragedy, either by Haruka lashing out against other living things in his desperation or by him taking his life. Truly depressing.

Yuno: She will ... most likely just go on like she had before. I would hope that she manages to heal from her obvious depression and that her self-destructive behaviour is not leading her down an even darker path. I worry a lot for her.

Fuuta: He will struggle a bit with blame and guilt for a while, but i think he will be just fine, honestly. He might take a good, long online hiatus, but I think he will be okay after a while.

Muu: Definitely will go to actual prison for this. Depending on how well her parents will let the money speak things might be a bit more lenient for her than they should. I don't think she will handle all of this well in her future though.

Shidou: Might or might not resume his job after losing his family. All of this clearly has made him depressed and suicidal, so I just hope he will heal and move on at some point.

Mahiru: Depending on if this was a double suicide or not there might be no living Mahiru anymore, but let just assume that only her boyfriend killed himself. Honestly ... I think she will bounce back relatively quickly. Might she find a new love and hopefully this time things will work out better.

Kazui: I think ... he will struggle. I don't think he can overcome this on his own. Best case would be him actually seeking out therapy, sadly this is not overly common in Japan. But he has at least the chance to heal and at some point live true to himself.

Amane: Another one who is pretty doomed by the narrative. In a best case scenario she will be taken in some sort of custody and will given the chance to get deprogrammed and receive help. Worst case she might end up getting punished by her father and if that goes too far she might also lose her life in the process.

Mikoto: Unless he will somehow not get caught for these murder/s he probably will be looking forward to a lifetime in prison. If he does manage to stay free ... not the best life, we could just hope that he isn't dying from overwork or that it doesn't lead to more killings.

Kotoko: She will probably just continue to do what she does. With that dangerous lifestyle that might get her killed or in prison pretty quickly as well.

So yeah ... honestly, if this proves to be true (and I feel like 95% certain with this), it will all feel a bit ... hollow? I guess the whole point of Milgram will be that it was indeed an experiment on Es/us and not strictly about the prisoners. They really were just tools, Jackalope has implied such often enough. Sure, these characters exist as real people in the series canon, but the versions that we grew attached to over the years are just fake copies. At least their personalities are a copy of their real counterparts, but it still all feels senseless. It lessens the blow about having been involved in killing my fav in one of the worst ways possible, but still.

This theory also just lets so many things make sense. A magical song prison that could change layout and rules by the will of the warden? No problem if it is just digital. We know the Jackalopes are just normal people outside if Milgram. Of course they would, that is just their avatar in the simulation. Wounds not healing properly and people not aging? Yeah, that is just how the settings are or how it got programmed. It also makes sense that we have healthy and restored looking sprites for the dead prisoners. They just had to reboot a fresh copy. The people in front of the computer probably would only need to press a single button and they could regain conciousness just fine. But that is not the point of that whole experiment, isn't it. To have the raw emotion and data from Es/us these losses need to permanent, huh.