Preamble

Yeah, I need to do this. See, given how little EG content we have so far, a lot of my arguments for survivors use canon DR as examples of things that may happen in the future. However, the production team has said that they're going to stay away from DR tropes like the double victim in CH3. With that in mind, does it really make sense to use canon DR for reference? Well, it depends.

In my eyes, there's a difference between a "DR trope” and a "trope DR happens to use.” What I mean by the latter is a trope which exists as a result of fundamental storytelling principles, or in other words, something that happens in all DR games just because there's good reasons for it to happen in all the games. And because of that, it's entirely possible in my eyes that said "something” happens in EG too. 

For example, take the statement "the sillier characters like Ibuki, Hifumi and Gonta don't make it to CH5.” It's true of all DR games, so is EG going to stay away from it just because of that? Well, not necessarily, because there's a legitimate reason this happens. If you reframe it as "the sillier characters don't make it to Act III", you can see how it's probably a good idea to follow it. The end of any story with the level of tragedy of a killing game is usually pretty serious, so it's natural that you'd want the more serious characters to take the spotlight. And an easy way to make that happen is by killing the sillier characters before you reach the final stretch. Because there's an underlying narrative reason to follow this trope, I think it's fair to use it to argue, for example, that Jett or Cassidy might not be the best survivor guesses.

On the other hand, a "DR trope” is something that happens in all the canon games Just Because. For example, there's no underlying narrative reason for the CH3 killer specifically to have a breakdown at the end of the trial which completely redefines their character, and yet, it's something that happens in all DR games. This is the kind of thing that I don't think is a good way of predicting what may happen in a fangan; if there's no underlying storytelling principle that causes a trope to exist, there's no reason to believe it will happen in all fangans just because it happened in canon. 

The separation between "DR trope” and "trope DR uses” is very thin and extremely subjective, so if you disagree with the things I consider one or the other, that's fine. I just wanted to make this preamble to say that if I ever bring up canon DR in this post, it's only to illustrate a point about standard storytelling conventions using stories we're all familiar with, and not because I think fangans have to stick to the things DR does 1:1. 

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With that out of the way, let's first establish how many survivors we're even picking. After all, any number of things, such as multi-murders, number of trials, suicides, etc., can really affect the number of survivors. I have no way of knowing, but since the creators have stated they're not doing a third trial double murder, I'm going to pick an optimistic estimate of six survivors. That's two deaths per standard trial, with five standard trials + Prologue Trial + Deathless Final Trial. If the final survivor count is lower, oh well, and if it's higher, I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Let's start with the easy one: I think Damon's surviving. Protag privilege, and all. Sure, being the protag doesn't guarantee survival, but with how much room for growth this particular MC has, I'd be really shocked if he doesn't make it to the end. Hell, even the Pathos/Logos path split mechanic is entirely centered around the fact that the protagonist is the Ultimate Debater, since it's a reference to the rhetorical triangle. If the protag switched, the existence of that mechanic would suddenly make a lot less sense.

Alright, so we got one. I have no other good guesses :v I'm not kidding, I genuinely have no clue what to do with half the people in this fangan. But I have to predict a few people, so…

The only other character who, by themselves, gives me some amount of survivor vibes, is Toshiko. Quite literally a lot of room for growth, given how much of a child she is, there are many arcs she could go on that would make her a compelling survivor. Of course, that can technically be said about all the characters, but y'know. 

She's also decently connected to a good amount of the game's main themes (or, what I think are the main themes based on the little we have of the story). Particularly, she embodies both sides of the theme of "modernity/tradition" (seen for example in Ingrid's intro); her general attitude is that of a very traditional person, but she herself is the youngest in the cast, so in a sense she represents the "future".

Please ignore for this analysis that she's only three years younger than the next youngest of the cast, which is really not that big of an age gap :v

Speaking of her age, being an Ultimate at 14 would certainly give her an unique perspective on the topic of "talent", which is definitely looking like the theme of the game. Though the counter-argument here is that everyone and their mother has some kind of connection to talent, so.

Having her in the final trial also has a small benefit in that she can be a "Truth Bullet Target.” Basically, when you're making a dangan style game, you need to create reasons for minigames to exist. So unless there's a bunch of agree points in a given trial, you kinda need people to get things wrong pretty often for Nonstop debates to exist. Thing is, if your surviving cast is competent enough, you might struggle to believably make them get things wrong enough for the player to shoot truth bullets at. Thus, a talkative character with a tendency to get things wrong is a pretty useful thing to have around, to create weak points in Nonstops if nothing else. I don't remember the canon dangans very well, but from what I recall, Hiro and (to a lesser extent) Aoi in THH, as well as Himiko in V3, are good examples of what I mean. 

The EG gang is pretty smart all around, but Toshiko stands out as someone who can get a lot wrong on command. She pushes Diana as the culprit in Trial 1 when she's being accused, then switches to defending Eva when suspicion shifts to her. I can see a world where, if the rest of the surviving cast is made up of relatively competent characters, half or so of all Nonstops in the final trial end with you shooting down one of Toshiko's statements. 

To be clear, the whole “Truth Bullet Target” thing is just a possibility, and I don't think it's the best way to argue for Toshiko's survival. I'd more go for the things I said before as real arguments, but I did want to include that as well because why not. 

Finally, I should probably bring up the matter of masterminds. I currently don't believe Eden's Garden has an in-cast mastermind the way V3 had, as I don't think we've ever been given a reason to believe anything of the sort. However, if someone is involved in the killing game in some deeper way (be it by masterminding it or doing some kind of traitor-y work), then my bet's on Toshiko.

If you've been around the EG theorizing scene, you've probably heard the reasoning. Toshiko's the only character apart from Eva not to talk in the train scene, which is especially odd with how talkative Toshiko usually is. She also sits in the back of the train, near where the bag with the sleeping gas thing is found. Since she always covers her mouth, it's entirely possible she was wearing a gas mask during that scene, later removing it before everyone else woke up. The only other person who could have such a mask was Jett, but we actually see him fall unconscious, unlike with Toshiko. The girl also gets nervous when the topic of the other people in the train gets brought up during the Prologue: 

Grace [Prologue]: I passed a bunch of students on my way to the crapper. I didn't talk to them, though. Eva: They have to have heard the commotion in our car. Why didn't they help us?  Damon: Maybe they were also knocked out?

Toshiko [Nervous]: I-I doubt it's something we can answer right now. Can I just introduce you to the others already? 

Not to mention that she acts weirdly even after everyone wakes up. She runs away from the courtyard, locking most of the cast near the tree with a lock that Damon makes a point to say he didn't even realize was there at first.

Damon [Prologue, thoughts]: [Toshiko] turned to face the door, but instead of pushing it open…  …she reached for a lock I hadn't even noticed before.

This is especially notable because Toshiko's actions here are the sole reason everyone stays near the tree while the organizers set up the prologue's faux murder scene. If she hadn't ran into the building and locked the door, the people who woke up outside said building would have probably gone in to explore before Damon's group got out of it. I don't know why the hell the killing game organizers didn't just make everyone wake up near the tree with the door locked in the first place (assuming this isn't a "the Matchmaker wanted the Damon-Eva and Wolfgang-Grace pairs to wake up together and alone" situation), but it's undeniable that Toshiko's little stunt was quite convenient for them. Pretty notable when said stunt is a very strange thing to do, unless you're specifically trying to get everyone away from the building where Cara's dummy has to be set up.

Thing is, though, Toshiko seems to be genuinely perturbed by the killing game. I don't think she actually wanted anyone to die, so I think it's more likely she was tricked/coerced by the real mastermind(s), and thus would probably go on something akin to a redemption arc after this whole thing gets revealed. Since such an arc would require her to still be alive for a while after what seems like a pretty late game revelation, then I find it likely that she would survive if she really did have a hand in setting up the killing game.

Now we're done with Toshiko, so it's time to address something you probably noted as weird while I was talking about her. I said Toshiko gave me the most survivor vibes "by herself.” That's because all the arguments I've given for Toshiko's survival work in isolation from the rest of the cast. However, other characters give me some amount of survivor vibes when we take into account the dynamics currently present in the group.

See, it's common in this type of narrative where a bunch of people die (not just dangan) for characters to "pair up” in small groups, and for these groups to end up having either one or two characters who make it late game, or even some who survive. And I'm not just bringing it up because it could happen; it has happened. Wolfgang-Grace, Ulysses-Wenona, Desmond-Eloise, Mark-Jett, Ingrid-Toshiko, etc.

It happens because it's an easy way to make a death feel meaningful; even if most of the cast can't possibly get deeply attached to every single person who dies, if there's at least one or two people the person who dies is constantly is interacting with, then the reactions of these people can help carry the emotional impact of the tragedy. Now, these pairs don't always have a survivor, but it's relatively common. For dangan, think Aoi-Sakura, Makoto-Sayaka, Fuyuhiko-Peko, Hajime-Chiaki, Sonia-Gundham, Akane-Nekomaru, Shuichi-Kaede, Shuichi-Kaito, Maki-Kaito, Himiko-Tenko, Himiko-Angie, and depending on whether you count K1-B0 as a survivor or not, K1-B0-Miu. 

What I've noticed is that the pairings that don't have survivors always have one death relatively early. Think Mondo-Taka, Mahiru-Hiyoko, Kirumi-Korekiyo (though admittedly that one's not a very strong pair). The biggest exception would be Gonta-Kokichi, but that's because Gonta's death is not central to Kokichi's character arc, even if it is an important point in it. There is an underlying reason this happens; if a character's arc is kickstarted by the death of their "pair", and their pair dies early, the character has enough time to complete their arc and then die… you know, unless your name is Hiyoko. I'm still salty over 2-3. 

Which gets us to the first pair to discuss: Ulysses-Wenona. The girl with a great sense of smell, and the boy who can't smell. Truly, they complement each other. Both of these characters have a good argument for a late game run, and the pair itself is one that would probably need quite a bit of time to cook before either character can be genuinely impacted by the death of the other. And if both of them make it pretty far, then by the time one of them dies, it might make sense to let the other survive. The question is, then, who's gonna outlive who?

You might think Ulysses has the worst chance, given his potential "victim gimmicks.” Basically, his notebook and his lack of sense of smell could be used as evidence in a trial where he's the victim. Plus, you could argue Wenona's character has more to gain by having someone close to her die. And indeed, these reasons (and a few others) are why I think that if neither of them survive, then Wenona will likely outlive Ulysses.

However, if one of the two survive, I actually think it's more likely for it to be Ulysses. His notebook can be useful in other ways, and his sense of smell is a Checkov's gun that can be fired without killing the guy. For example, he might walk past someone's corpse without noticing, complicating a trial because he couldn't smell the blood and rot. Bonus points if he walks past Wenona's corpse specifically.

On the other hand, while Wenona seems like a good source of conflict and drama (her imitation piece calls her "a foe” for a reason), it might be strange to have her die too far from her thematic rival Cassidy. It can be hard (though not impossible!) to properly function as a character when your primary foil is out of the story, after all. And since I doubt Cassidy can make that late of a run, Wenona might be kinda cooked. 

Finally, Ulysses has standalone survivor arguments as well, and I find them stronger than Wenona's. Although both work with the theme of "talent" and "modernity/tradition", Ulysses has more connections with the third main theme I've noticed, which for lack of a better term I'm calling "historical repetition.” Basically, "history repeats", as claimed by the first EG trailer. It's a bit too long to really get into now, but trust me that it comes up quite a bit, such as in the second Tozu Theater. And obviously the Historian would know a thing or two about historical repetition, so he would work great as a final trial participant, and thus survivor.

Oh, uh, fair warning, the quality of the guesses is about to jump off a cliff. I have less of a read on the remaining characters than the ones I've already talked about :v

Next pair to look at is Jett and Mark! Jett's dying. So. Mark!Survivor it is! Listen, I'm running out of genuinely compelling arguments and I'm interested in getting this post out sometime this century, so I gotta cut a few corners. 

(Full explanation: I don't see Jett as a survivor in the slightest, but it's clear his death would have some sort of impact on Mark's character, and the arc Mark would go through, regardless of what it looks like, would probably take too long for him not to survive after completing it imo. I doubt we're gonna get a 1:1 repeat of Himiko-Tenko, but I do think there will probably be some similarities there, given Jett and Mark are already giving me those vibes. Additionally, Mark's crocodile motif is one of the only ones where the connection between the animal and the character isn't immediately obvious, so it presumably runs pretty deep and would require quite a bit of setup to work. That implies a late run, increasing Mark's overall chances imo)

Then, I wanna look at Desmond-Eloise. In a vacuum, I could easily see arguments for both of them to survive. Desmond clearly has some kind of trust issues to work through (assuming that his secret saying "he protects the only one he trusts” means he's protecting himself and doesn't trust anyone else, which I think is the implication), while Eloise has a few things going on, such as the Entirety of her FTEs. Both of them could make for interesting killers too, however.

Since I don't have any better way to go about this, I'm gonna have to rely on previous guesses, and invoke gender balance. While it's not necessary, I find it likely that the team behind EG will aim for a cast with a more or less equal number of girls and boys. I've already locked in Damon, Toshiko, Ulysses and Mark, which is three boys and one girl with two slots remaining, so... I guess that means Eloise is gonna be joining her fellow bird girl in my guesses! 

Following that line of logic, we're looking for a final girl to close out the prediction. A lot of you are probably expecting me to say Diana here, and I probably would, if I didn’t think she's gonna get killed by Kai in CH2. 

Okay, I'm not that confident on that one, but I do have my reasons for saying that. I already brought it up once, but one of the lines in Diana's second FTE makes me think she's not making it past CH2. It's this one:

Damon [Diana's 2nd FTE]: You'll see who your real friends are when you're face to face with a killer.

That line kinda implies Diana's never been face to face with a killer, which becomes obviously untrue as soon as CH1 ends, as she was face to face with Eva when she got sentenced to death for murder (they were roomates even!). Thus, this line only works in the context of CH1, possibly implying Diana won't have any more FTE opportunities, and thus would probably die in CH2.

There are ways around this, mind you. You could do what SDR2 did with Nagito, and lock Diana's FTEs in later chapters unless the player's already done two in CH1. That way you can lock Diana's 2nd FTE to CH1, where it works. Additionally, since this line isn't referenced in the report card, you could potentially change her FTE a little bit in later chapters, so that the main idea of the FTE and the things in the report card remain the same, but without the weird line in the way. You could also just, like, ignore it. Unideal, but it would work.

However, even with those possibilities, Diana having a gigantic role in the CH1 trial and already undergoing a character arc isn't exactly a great indicator of her survivability. Given who the CH1 deaths were, I think it's safe to say EG will try to give all the characters their own moments to shine, which might make the story too crowded to have a character like Diana constantly active in it. In other words, it's very possible Diana already had her 15 minutes in the spotlight, and is soon to give way to other characters, potentially as early as CH2. 

Why killed by Kai, then? Because of the "surviving cast” image thing. 

Now, this thing could change however the hell the developers want it to change, but for now, the only difference between the Prologue and CH1 versions of this image is that Eva and Wolfgang disappeared. Assuming the same can be said for the rest of the chapters, where characters only disappear and don't change pose otherwise, this image has to be made with the death order in mind to make sure it never looks ultra silly. For example, it'd be odd (though not impossible!) for Ingrid to outlive Toshiko, because then she'd be leaning over nothing (unless you argue she'd end up looking at Damon? Doubtful). However, if Ingrid disappears, then Toshiko would be staring at the sky in a pose very similar to one of her sprites, so it's perfectly possible for Toshiko to outlive Ingrid imo. This isn't super reliable and what exactly “looks silly” is extremely subjective, which is why I didn't bring it up before. 

Anyways, Kai. If Kai disappears, then Diana would be staring at Damon, which works. But if Diana disappears, then Kai would appear to be talking to Eloise… while being fifteen miles away from her. In my opinion, it's gonna look silly unless you move Kai closer to Eloise, but we've established the only changes might be characters disappearing. Because of that, we can speculate that Kai might not outlive Diana. And since I think she's dying in CH2, in CH2 he might go. Technically either he or Diana could be the killer with this reasoning, but I trust my girl Diana more than I trust Kai, so. 

I want to reiterate, after saying all that, that this reasoning is extremely weak and will most likely be proven wrong. I've already given ways to avoid the FTE line problem, which is the only genuinely solid reason to believe Diana won't make it far. I'm just doing what I can man. 

Back to the topic at hand, final girl. I have to pick between Cassidy, Ingrid, and Grace. 

Uh. I don't think any of them are gonna live. Am I allowed to reduce the number of survivors I'm guessing? No? I have to pick one? Alright, uh...

… Grace. Sure. We can go with that. Cassidy's my second answer. No actual logic's being used here, vibes only. I don't care if it contradicts stuff I said before on this post or others, that's how I'm feeling right now.

Anyways, that's the final answer. Damon, Toshiko, Ulysses, Mark, Eloise, Grace. To be absolutely clear, the first three are the only ones I would call actual predictions, the other three are near complete guesses. It's very possible all of these people die, I have no idea what I'm doing. 

Finally, I did want to offer an alternative guess based on a pretty unhinged theory, because I kinda like the idea. This is gonna sound like a non-sequitur, but you know the modes of persuasion? Those things the whole "Pathos Route” mechanic is founded on? Many believe these things will have a large role in the theming of the story, since they're a pretty important concept for rhetoric and our protag is the Ultimate Debater. 

The reason I'm bringing up these things is that you could theorize that the survivors will be chosen in a way that connects to the modes of persuasion. You could have a survivor each for logos (appeal to logic), pathos (appeal to emotion), ethos (appeal to authority), and the secret fourth mode of persuasion, kairos* (appeal to context). Adding in Damon, who as the Ultimate Debater would represent all these things in conjunction, you got yourself five survivors, which is the average amount (keep in mind six was the optimistic assumption). Let's be clear, this is an insane leap in logic and most likely horribly wrong, but I found it fun to think about so I'm sharing it.

(*Kairos is a strange case. See, the other three things are the Aristotelian triad of appeals, so they're more universally recognized as central to rhetoric, being known as the points of the rhetorical triangle. However, more modern takes on rhetoric include the context (Kairos) in what's known as the rhetorical tetrahedron. It shows up in the Wikipedia page of the modes of persuasion so I'm including it too :v

The idea of kairos is that the same statements can be more or less persuasive depending on the context in which it's said, including the historical moment, the audience it's said to, etc. For example, if I described something as "rad” to persuade you to buy it (which by itself is a pathos statement), it would be more persuasive if I said it in the 90s as opposed to now. I think. I wasn't alive in the 90s what were y’all doing)

You can probably guess that I only started thinking about this after I realized that my three actual predictions kinda fit this idea. I already said Damon would be included to represent the tetrahedron itself, but Toshiko and Ulysses are shoe-ins for pathos and kairos respectively. Toshiko is obviously themed around emotions, being the Ultimate Matchmaker and all that, while the Ultimate Historian would obviously be a great representation of the persuasive mode that relies, among other things, on historical context. I could also see Ulysses as logos or ethos in a pinch, but no one else can fit kairos quite as well as him.

Though, admittedly, putting Ulysses as kairos has the slight issue that, now that Wolfgang and Eva are dead, we've kinda run out of logic users. Which is very funny. 

I could see the Desmond logos - Wenona ethos argument (Wenona chosen to conserve gender balance), but personally, I think Eloise as logos is more compelling. I'm mainly basing that on a few of her lines during the trial, but primarily this thing she says in her intro:

Eloise [Prologue]: Acting brash may get you the first move, but it's a steady, analytical mind that secures the win.

Yeah sure. The reason one would have to put Eloise down as logos is that now genders are balanced and you can pick anyone for ethos. Wenona still works, but I don't think the duo with Ulysses would last to the end. No, if this thing about the rhetorical tetrahedron is true (which again, is an insane leap in logic and likely wrong), I'd say that Jean might have a chance. What better representation of ethos than a captain, after all? Again ignore what I may or may not have said on other posts I wasn't thinking too hard about this at that point :v

Thus, the “rhetorical tetrahedron survivor cast” I'll go with is Damon, Eloise (logos), Toshiko (pathos), Jean (ethos), and Ulysses (kairos). I'd say that looks decent! No idea how we get down to five survivors instead of six, but y'know.