#essayist

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Ok fuck dude, I was literally in a deep stupor, shakling in my socks after learning Fyodor's ability, the series did great work making a smart and terrifying villain.

Okey, on to the analysis ggs

Fyodor Dostoyevsky's ability is "Crime and Punishment," and, as we saw in DEAD APPLE, Fyodor himself is "Crime," and his ability is a supernatural entity called "Punishment", which are inseparable. Let's keep that in mind, shall we?

THE BLOOD

Fyodor's ability is linked to his blood; some go as far as calling it "parasitic ability", but I think it's more than that. Fyodor's blood could be infectious but not parasitical; it's heavily linked to crime and guilt.

Now, before we move to discuss the workings of Fyodor's blood, let's look more carefully into the memory itself: Sigma said he looked at Fyodor's "older" memories, not "oldest", which could suggest that memories of Fyodor's original body have ceased, or rather, been suppressed. The memory he saw here was significant enough to present itself to Sigma, suggesting that it was a major turning point in Fyodor's life.

This is important to keep in mind because what if the memory was carefully crafted as well? What if Fyodor predicted that someone would look into his memories, and he made sure that even in his memories, it wouldn't be easy to figure out his ability? What if he wanted to trick the memory-reading ability user into believing that his ability only activates through death?

Actually, now that we think about it, what exactly did Sigma learn? As of now, November 2025, the manga has shown that Sigma has learnt the "truth" about Fyodor's ability, but it has not revealed exactly what Sigma learnt. We only know what Dazai speculated, and that's only speculation. We don't know whether Dazai is correct in his conclusions. We have grown accustomed to taking Dazai's words as fact because we have learnt throughout the series that Dazai is a very strategic and intelligent man, seldom wrong.

Now, we, the readers and viewers, have seen Fyodor more than any other character in the story; we have seen that Fyodor's blood has something to do with his ability. Dazai doesn't have that knowledge.

To better understand how Fyodor's blood works, we must first look at Bram's blood ability.

This post by @kaurwreck wonderfully describes how Bram's ability works: "it's not bram's bite that creates vampires; vampires are created when bram ingests another's blood because that blood becomes a part of him. his kin are able to turn others into vampires because they have already become an extension of him and his conscious will, so when they ingest blood, he is too."

This is an important point to keep in mind because once Fyodor took over Bram's body, his "kins" also became an extension of Fyodor, as a result of Bram's ability aka leftovers lol.

@kaurwreck suggests that Fyodor possesses bodies via his "parasitic blood" touching another body. They compared Kyoko's parents being controlled via blood that entered through their ears to Fyodor's guard being splashed by Fyodor's blood, then, after his death, he possessed the guard like a parasite. [source]

I counter that argument because, in my book, it's too religious (but excellent allegory, pls go read the post, is really good!). We should not forget how Fyodor is being a sneaky mf who plays on human perception and assumptions. Whatever we see about Fyodor can be misleading, just as he did with Ace, fooling the snake; or at the Cannibalism Arc, fooling not only the Port Mafia and ADA but also us, readers/viewers. The same thing could happen with Fyodor's execution by the guard; it could be staged. The manga could trick us into believing that detail is significant, but really, it's misleading us further.

Furthermore, Fyodor's ability is "Crime and Punishment". It's more about "possession" than "parasitical" in my opinion. I'll talk more about this later in this analytical essay, promise.

For now, my theory is this: Fyodor's body, especially his blood, collects and records crimes. Fyodor Dostoyevsky is an archivist of crimes and punishments.

The way Fyodor "records" crimes inside his body is either by possessing the bodies of his murderers or by killing targets with his touch. The way I see how he kills his targets via touch is by "bringing out" their crimes, where the burden of their guilt gets so overwhelming to the point that the target dies with their blood spurting out (possibly elevating their blood pressure or drawing out blood vampyr???). We saw this happen with Karma and the Special Corps Officer. This is the way Fyodor "brings punishment" upon them, the "sinners", by granting them "death".

Let's look into Ivan; he said that his master, aka Fyodor, removed sadness from his brain. Fyodor most likely lobotomised Ivan and bound his head with bandages. What I think Fyodor also did was put his blood inside Ivan, thus overwhelming his mind with Fyodor's crime-dense blood. By combining Fyodor's oratory and psychological skills, he convinced Ivan that he was "cleansed" and that following him would keep him "on the right path to God."

Fyodor did the same thing with Nathaniel the Priest. There was a scene in the anime where Fyodor was letting his blood into the goblet, quite religiously symbolic (not my job to interpret). It's also a significant scene because it shows that his blood is the key to his ability. I am confident he also messed with Nathaniel's brain, but mainly it was done via his blood.

Upon encountering Dazai right after stabbing Mori (during Cannibalism Arc), Dazai pointed out that Fyodor messed with the "priest's mind". The detective knew that Fyodor was multi-talented, but what he didn't realise was that Fyodor used his blood to mess with Nathaniel's brain. Dazai's theory was further strengthened thanks to Ivan, who misled him further.

In this manga panel, we get confirmation that Nathaniel can only use "his" blood to semi-levitate, transport across dimensions as long as his blood is connected to that other dimension, and control it long-distance, either creating bullets and whips of blood. [source]

Now, why is this important? If Fyodor did put his blood into the Priest, mixing it, it explains why Nathaniel is brainwashed and could control Fyodor's blood that's now inside his body. Fyodor used his blood to lure Fukuzawa and to tamper with Ivan and Nathaniel's minds. This could also explain why the blood pool didn't dry, as it was Fyodor's blood that Nathaniel could control.

Let's remember what was driving Nathaniel to follow Fyodor's orders: to save Margaret = it's his guilt, and thus Fyodor could easily manipulate him. Nathaniel blamed himself for Margater's demise.

But what about Bram? Did he feel any guilt for his actions? He was so consumed by rage and vengeance that he felt no guilt and turned into an actual vampire. Let's remember that even the tiniest bit of guilt is enough for Fyodor to affect the person; this we see in the case of Karma: Fyodor simply touched the "innocent" boy, and he died.

Now, let's take a little look at psychology: guilt is a feeling very closely linked to shame and regret; guilt says, “I made a mistake”, shame says, “I am a mistake”, while regret is when you think, “I wish I had done things differently, now that I know differently.” [source]

Karma felt ashamed that he couldn't do anything in his predicament to help himself and his cellmates, his partners in crime. The boy also committed crimes under Ace's command, which made him more ashamed. This is why Fyodor was able to kill him; he found Karma's guilt in his shame and made him "atone" for his "sins" with "death". Bram felt no shame nor guilt in killing people. What Bram had was regret, regret that he wasn't able to save his daughter, and thus a deeper feeling of guilt followed.

I also believe that in his last moments, Bram atoned for his "sins" by helping Aya, who reminded him of his daughter. His regret and rage were soothed momentarily, allowing him to send a fraction of his consciousness to Akutagawa before his body and the rest of his consciousness were completely consumed by Fyodor.

This post also suggests that Fyodor's blood can be controlled long-distance. My suspicion is that Fyodor is in cahoots with Agatha Cristie, the leader of the Order of the Clock Tower. The organisation must've used Fyodor's blood to poison the pilots.

Fyodor had a fuckton of time to develop his ability (together with the ability, aka "Punishment"???), probably more than Bram, because the vampire dude was fucked and sealed in a sacred sword at some point as well. AKA Fyodor is OP as fuckkkkkk

Fyodor's blood is dense with crimes, and his words are sweet like toxic honey. He is intelligent and hungry for control. Fyodor knows exactly how to use his ability and skills to manipulate people and the events. However, he's also human (WHETHER HE IS ACTUALLY HUMAN OR NOT WILL BE DISCUSSED LATER) and cannot predict humans completely, like Gogol and Sigma; strangely enough, the very people who were closest to him turned out to be the most unpredictable. he has a type, huh?

THE POSSESSION

Okey, let's move to Fyodor's possessive ability, which is: Fyodor taking over the body of a person who kills him.

Now, before we move on to explore Fyodor's possessive ability, let's jot down the facts — the evidence we know.

What are the conditions for possession?

Fyodor possesses the body of a person who had killed him

Upon possession, everything of the possessed person's consciousness and physical features disappear (except for their emotions and clothes)

These are actual facts we know for sure are true, until proven wrong; Fyodor did possess the guard who killed him, and Fyodor did possess Bram, who killed him with his vampire kin. The "killing intent" won't be discussed here but will be mentioned at the end of this essay.

Some major questions about his possessive ability:

Does Fyodor inherit the possessed person's memories, skills and abilities? Has Fyodor been affected by Bram's loyalty towards Aya, which is why Fyodor continued to express such a desire towards the little girl? (whether Fyodor faked it or not, let's ignore that for the sake of not making this essay too long lol).

In the manga, after Fyodor possesses the guard and Bram, he has their outfits intact. Could that be part of his ability's condition? Throughout the series, Fyodor takes good care of his clothes.

If more than one person is murdering Fyodor, can he possess more than one person? Are there Fyodor clones?

To answer the first question: likely, Fyodor does not inherit the possessed person's memories, abilities nor skills. Dazai concluded that upon possessing a body, Fyodor takes all their essence away like a demonic entity that consumes the soul of the possessed. We clearly see that with Bram's guard in Fyodor's past (possibly his first death) and with Bram himself: Bram's hair sheds, and his skin is torn to shreds.

Before you go and type comments about how Fyodor could still access the memories of the past people he possessed, I argue that he can access their emotions rather than memories when consuming their "souls". As I have discussed above regarding sensing "guilt", which Fyodor uses to kill his targets, it appears that Fyodor possesses the ability to sense people's emotions (which later helped him learn to analyse and read people accurately).

I will make a small mention of another series called Katanagatari. Please bear with me; it's relevant here (though it is also a spoiler for the series, so you have been warned). One of the main characters in Katanagatari is a strategist named Togame who seeks revenge, even using her emotions to that end.

"Togame tells Shichika that every part of their journey was only toward obtaining revenge for her family's murder at the hands of the shogunate, even the part of her that fell in love with him. Togame explains that she used even her own heart as a pawn." [source]

Togame's revenge was more important than her love for the guy named Shichika, whom she used to carry it out. She used her romantic feelings as a tool for vengeance.

Do you see what I'm getting at? Fyodor uses the emotions of the people he possessed before as tools to reach his goals. Just like how he had fooled Sigma with a split-personality troupe, Fyodor used an honest, meek person's emotions to create a convincing act that fooled Sigma. After the act, Fyodor felt no shame or embarrassment, which clearly shows that he used emotions to achieve his goals.

Why does Fyodor wear the clothes of the person he possesses? According to this website: "wearing clothes symbolizes the temporary acceptance of societal norms and identities, which can conflict with an individual's inherent freedom." [source] Those clothes help Fyodor stay connected to the real world and maintain his sanity. Since the "real Fyodor" died, for him to "exist" in the world is to be someone else, but also him at the same time.

Before we explore the topic of clothes further, let's talk about his (gorgeous, beautiful, captivating-) fuzzy eyes.

The phrase "the eyes are the mirror of the soul" means that a person's eyes can reveal their true emotions, intentions, and character, often more accurately than their words, even if they try to hide them. [source] Keeping this in mind, the condition of Fyodor's eyes makes it way more interesting because his distorted "gaze" hides his true intentions. Fyodor's eyes also look distorted because they try to "mirror" all the souls he has consumed.

As the image above points out, Fyodor is "never completely himself, but at the same time he isn't someone else either." Fyodor, as "Crime", is in a constant state of chaos, never reaching homeostasis, most likely maintained by "Punishment". It makes sense to me that Fyodor's ability helps him contain the chaos inside him.

There's this quote from this article: "Many cultures believe that not only do mirrors and shadows reflect the soul, but they also capture it.[...] These beliefs often included the notion that when the soul is captured by an image, the subject may become ill or die".

This supports the theory that Fyodor's ability makes him gradually sick both mentally and physically, yet also powerful. Fyodor is a mirror, a shadow, and also an image "of one that serves God". It all becomes so beautifully twisted; it's like controlled dissociative identity disorder (DID) where "Punishment" keeps "Crime" always fronted, aka the dominant persona. (The whole discussion of the plural system deserves its own post. I noticed a lot of implications in the manga.)

This is also why I chose "mirror" over "window" phrasing [source] because, let's be real, these eyes are dead and cold, like a frozen lake. This is an accurate description because Fyodor's state is frozen, both physically and mentally. Ice can be viewed as a mirror and a window, scratches and frosty fuzzy??? So all the trapped souls are behind this frozen lake, dead and gone from the outside world forever.

This scene is also important to look at because not only does his scar disappear from his cheek upon his death, but also his gaze, which resembles his current "fuzzy" eyes. While it lacks pupils (the dude's gone), the iris edges look similar to Fyodor's living eyes. Ma boi here is in a constant state of "dying", ggs dude.

THE GAZE

Remember when Fyodor met Bram just to catch "but a glimpse" of him? It's clear here that "gaze", or rather, "seeing is believing", is part of his ability's condition. That meeting was also crucial to "execute" Fyodor's plan, to confirm to himself that Bram is truly evil, and that when he kills Fyodor, he can possess Bram's body.

This reminds me of when the real author Dostoyevsky was almost executed; he was blindfolded and ready to be shot, but was spared at the last minute. [source] Could this be a correlation to the condition of Fyodor's ability? Could this be a weakness in his ability?

See how Fyodor says to Bram: "merely meeting your gaze is enough to freeze my own."? It's peculiar. Could it be that Fyodor, in addition to sins, was collecting "the gaze of evil"? What if Fyodor tries to collect all the evil in the world and purge himself by being the "ultimate evil", thus cleansing the world of sin and abilities?

I can see the correlation between Jesus and Bram, pure good and pure evil, dying for the sins of mankind. Using Bram as a medium for “exorcising” the world from evil with evil is beautifully symbolic. Fyodor wants to use Bram's body as the catalyst for calamity (haha, which Bram was), to create World War, similar to the Great Flood; cleansing the world of sins and impurities (including the ability users) to make "the promised land".

It’s actually horrifying yet exhilarating to think that Fyodor planned this far ahead. Now, I don’t believe Fyodor predicted that Dazai would survive the bullet; that’s too much omniscience in my opinion and poor writing. For example, Fyodor didn't know how deeply Chuuya and Dazai trusted each other. However, what he did expect was that Bram could have been rescued and killed Fyodor, but he just didn’t know when that would happen.

This begs the question: did Fyodor's ability "Punishment" talk him through the plan of "world domination", the true way of "cleansing the world" of sin and Fyodor's curse, aka Crime? I can see Fyodor also tricking "Punishment" by playing along to get what he wants; to free himself of sin, of his crime.

There are some talks about how the "Punishment" entity, aka Fyodor's ability, killed the "real" Fyodor and overtook his body. [source] Similar to Tatsuhiko Shibusawa, who was dead all along. [source] I believe that Fyodor, aka Crime, and his ability, Punishment, live a symbiotic life. Like in DEAD APPLE, the famous line goes:

"I am crime. I am punishment. Crime and punishment are close friends. Borders vanish. Rooms awaken. The incarnation of death, the master of the ability-consuming fog… Eat, howl, and make violence as your instinct desires. This is neither a loss of control nor a singularity." [quote]

It's clear to me that they are "partners in crime", so to speak. This explains why Fyodor's ability didn't fight him; they instead worked closely together willingly. Some may argue that the reason Fyodor's ability didn't kill him was because of his immortality ability, but let's remember: Punishment is the one that revives, not Fyodor, Crime.

What is also very interesting in that panel above is that "Punishment" is wearing clothes that Fyodor would normally wear. Again, linking to my theory that the "clothes of the possessed" anchor Fyodor to the real world and also work as the symbol of "punishment for killing Fyodor, thus an act and a mark of crime."

Whether "Punishment" brainwashed Fyodor into acting the way he does is a matter for a different discussion.

There's more philosophy behind this ability. But I won't go into the depths of it, so all I will say is that death is the answer to cleanse humanity, for to be a human is to be foolish and sinful, thus the suffering will never cease. Which in turn means that for Fyodor to be killed, all humanity must die. [source] This could explain why Fyodor tries to create singularities, such as the dragon in DEAD APPLE and the 4-dimensional being he made in recent chapters.

Mayperhaps Fyodor and Dazai have more things in common than we all initially thought~

With this in mind, there could not be more than one Fyodor existing simultaneously. "Crime" and "Punishment" are singular entities and thus cannot be split into multiple ones, as far as we know. I won't be surprised if Asagiri tries to pull a silly stunt like that, but it will make the writing poor and tasteless. Fyodor, as a singular person, is already a powerful character and having clones of him will be overwhelming.

What happens to the body that was possessed by Fyodor after it dies?

In the manga, after Fyodor dies, his corpse reverts to the original body he last possessed. It is also worth noting that the eyes are completely blank, symbolising that Fyodor's soul left the body (remember the "mirror of the soul" thing I talked about?).

Now, before we move on, let's confirm that this corpse is not Fyodor's real body by comparing it to a living Fyodor:

The noses don't match: Fyodor's is smaller and lacks a prominent bridge, unlike the corpse's. The hair difference: while they both are darker-coloured, Fyodor's hair has more sheen to it and is thicker, and it's never completely black. There's also a difference in cheekbone structure; Fyodor's is much lower than the corpse's.

I won't go analysing their chin and jaw structure because it's obvious the jaw on the corpse is dislocated, most likely as the past injury from the previous body Fyodor possessed. In fact, this is the next topic I will discuss now that we have established that the body Fyodor casts away after its death isn't Fyodor's original body.

Fyodor accumulates the wounds of the past bodies he possesses, leaving them on each body that dies. We can see the corpse has old scars and wounds, which were not caused by the helicopter's explosion. This adds to Fyodor's god complex; each time he "resurrects", his new body is free of wounds and "sins" that he "carried" within him. It's a form of "cleansing", true resurrection.

It is safe to say that the Fyodor we see in his memory through Sigma is his original body, mainly due to the cheek injury we see here.

What we can also see here in the right panel above is that his injury had already disappeared the moment Fyodor "passed" away.

Since I am only discussing Fyodor's ability, if you wish to read more on his personality and how his immortality affected him, you may read from these lovely people! [source 1, 2, 3, 4]

WTF is Fyodor Dostoyevsky? (lol)

Instead of being a parasitic type of ability user, Fyodor is more of a vampiric type of ability user. Let's think about it: stereotypically, vampires are ageless; upon transformation, their bodies turn into a healthy, elegant, yet pale appearance. Then there's resurrection, like how vampires are born: they cast away their mortal coil and become immortal monsters of darkness. For a vampire to turn someone into their "kin", they give them "their blood", a consent, a permission for them to become the vampire's "kin".

In Fyodor's case, both his blood and death serve as the sign of "consent" to become "the next Fyodor Dostoyevsky". The blood doesn't have to be literal; crime can serve as blood, for once you kill someone, "your hands are stained with blood." [source] That's why I believe that Fyodor must know who killed him, seen them with his own eyes. Fyodor is "Crime", so what he passes on is "blood" and "death", the latter of which is his ability entity - "Punishment".

Fyodor definitely has Devil qualities (Asagiri literally said Fyodor is based on the Devil conversing with Ivan in Dostoevsky's book, The Brothers Karamazov [source]), but for the sake of entertainment, let's follow the argument that Fyodor is actually a vampire-like being with demonic features. What is to be a vampire? A lot of people oftentimes refer to vampires as demons, evil beings that "possess" the human body. [source]

Vampire = Possession, not parasite, since the body they possess is technically dead, and becomes a new lifeform. In a way, you can say that to be a vampire is to be cursed, and *GASP* to be Fyodor is to be cursed. This is also why I see Fyodor as a vampire-type of ability user. There are also references to his "vampiric" appearance.

Ace describes Fyodor as "a soulless, vampire-like man..." Fyodor isn't actually a vampire, though his anaemia and delicate, frail appearance give him a haunting, elegant look of a vampire. As @hollandvosljk says in their post: "in the manga, he’s shown to be frail and weak looking with bags underneath his eyes — he’s also shown to be using his non threatening appearance to his advantage." [source]

I also agree with them that it's likely that Fyodor's ability makes him anaemic but by no means weak (like bro, this dude has stamina and strength). Fyodor uses his appearance to his advantage just like vampires do; instil fear, uncertainty, and certain, delicate seduction.

Vampires also wear the clothes they were buried in, which is a fascinating reference for Fyodor wearing the clothes of the possessed person, suggesting that Fyodor becomes the vampire version of the person who killed him. In a way, the clothes Fyodor wears are "burial clothes" of the dead. [source 1, 2] We can also see Fyodor wearing a cape, then Bram's dark clothes, pretty vampiric lol

Remember when I said his eyes are captivating? hehe They truly are; despite their dead and disturbing appearance (hah), Fyodor's eyes play a role in how he carries himself and mesmerises people.

The power of eye contact is a) emotional control, b) to foster feelings of trust, honesty, and cooperation, and c) active listening. [source] All of these are great tools for manipulation (don't use this on your loved ones, folks), which Fyodor uses masterfully. Vampires are known to use "mesmerizing gazes to entrance their victims" (literally popularised by Bram Stoker lmao) [source].

In manga, Fyodor's eye colour is between violet and purple, while in anime, it's between purple and magenta, much redder, very close to vampiric eye colour. While Fyodor does not hypnotise people vampirically, he can easily manipulate people with his wit and his calm yet sinister expression. Again, Fyodor is not a vampire, but his ability makes him something similar to one, a vampiric creature.

Safe to say we all are as fucking confused as Sigma. Look at Fyodor, look at this lil shady scrawny smugass.

THE BODY

Are we going to talk more about his body? We are going to talk more about his body (lol). It's cold and wet, with smooth skin. It also doesn't age. Sounds pretty vampiric, no? Sigma even notes that Fyodor, in the far past, still looks the same today.

As I mentioned before, each time Fyodor "resurrects" as a new Dostoyevsky, his body is fresh and new while the corpse he leaves behind is adorned with past scars and damages (not mental ones, I presume lol). I think y'all get the point, but let's dive a lil deeper: is Jesus also a vampiric creature? Upon his resurrection, his body is free from the scars and sins of others. no, im not gonna talk about evil Jesus Fyodor here, nope

@skkisms pointed out in their wonderful post [source] how Fyodor's body serves as the Eucharist. That consuming (and perhaps destroying?) his body will make you part of Fyodor.

They also mentioned that Dazai and Nikolai would have noticed a change in Fyodor's body. [source] The reason they didn't immediately realise that "Fyodor's" body was different was that Dazai grabbed the "injured" arm — the one bandaged.

I have a feeling that Nikolai noticed that Fyodor "completely" left him. By this, I mean Nikolai noticed the change in "Fyodor's" hand (in the image above, you can see the fingers look thicker than Fyodor's). The arm got tattered and burnt by the explosion and swollen by the damage, further making it hard to identify the body. But Nikolai noticed. He was overtaken by sorrow to form coherent words, realising that Fyodor had not just left the body, but Nikolai as well.

While I can see the biblical symbolism and implications surrounding Fyodor, I don't believe his ability is entirely biblical; it's Crime and Punishment after all, more related to guilt and blood — aka crime. While the literary work of Crime and Punishment has a religious theme, its main focus is the human psyche, guilt and redemption.

Nevertheless, I can see that many "missions" Fyodor conducted were biblical, as @skkisms and @kaurwreck mentioned in their posts. They have analysed the religious allegory of Fyodor, focusing on how his blood and body were portrayed as the Eucharist. (pls go read their posts~). [source]

Returning to Fyodor's body, while he resurrects anew, some features of his past linger. Looking at his nails right after he takes over Bram's body: they are bristled and bitten. Bro had no time to bite his nails, so what does this mean? I believe that self-inflicted damage stays with Fyodor, including his anaemia. His sickness could be either hereditary, a chronic disease or inflicted by his ability.

While Fyodor could have faked his illness, I beg to differ: we often see him complaining about being cold and wet, and he also mentions having a sickly body. While he does use this to his advantage to let people's guards down around him, he's not weak. But let's be real, he's anaemic as FUCK; pale skin, tired eyes, feeling cold and being a sleep-deprived gremlin at his PC [source]. Iron deficiency also leads to brittle nails and a tendency to bite nails (pica). [source]

Complaining about your illness is common, and Fyodor is not different. In fact, chronic diseases cause emotional distress and often lead to depression and anxiety. We see Fyodor biting his nails frequently, so he isn't immune to anxiety either. [source] Now, calling him mentally ill won't sound fun, but let's be real here, highly intelligent people struggle a lot with connection and loneliness. [source]

SOME QUESTIONS

Aight, time for me to ask questions, or rather, share my thoughts and wonder about Fyodor's ability. u fuck

OK, now it's time to discuss the "killing intent" Dazai mentioned that decides who becomes Fyodor's murderer. As @skkisms mentions in their post, the concept is quite ambiguous. So let's break it down a little bit with my thinking (you are FREE to disagree with me, please!)

First, the murderer has to be a conscious being, so a weapon like a gun won't work because they don't have feelings and intentions. Similarly, a puppet that's controlled isn't aware of its actions. In other words, the one who is conscious and thinks, "I want him dead/I need to kill him" towards Fyodor is the one affected. This is why Bram's guard dies and becomes the next Fyodor.

Now, the question lies: if a soldier following orders kills Fyodor, will the soldier or the one who gave the orders be possessed by Fyodor? Logically, the soldier gets possessed because they are consciously killing Fyodor, aka “I need to kill this guy/I want him dead”. The excuse of “I was just following orders” won’t cancel the intent. Those who are brainwashed or controlled as puppets do not possess the intent nor consciousness; they are simply puppets, living tools.

Here's another question: what if someone under the influence kills Fyodor by accident, not aware of their actions? Does this mean that Fyodor can be killed by a mere accident? Now, this is a hard pill to swallow because a) Fyodor is too cautious to be killed by a fool and b) it’s hard to kill someone in the first place, let alone by accident (we are ignoring the power of manga/anime here).

Let’s think of a scenario: An engineer who builds land mines for the military gets drunk one night. They decide to put one of their land mines somewhere random in a drunken state as a prank. The next day, they forget they ever did that. 5 years later, Fyodor accidentally steps on that mine and dies. He didn’t know who set it there, nor was the engineer who put it there even aware that it was their mine, nor that they accidentally killed someone. What happens now? There was no killing intent, nor did Fyodor see the "murderer", so the engineer who set the land mine won’t experience guilt because they didn’t even know that they killed anyone in the first place.

Now, question: is there a time limit? What if the engineer was told that, yo, btw, that was your land mine that killed this man. Will Fyodor be able to possess the engineer at the moment the guilt appears in the engineer’s conscience? Or does he need to know/see the murderer first, like with the case of Bram?

THE ENEMIES

Here, I will shortly discuss the two people who could defeat Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Atsushi Nakajima and Dazai Osamu.

Astushi is a Tiger, which is the key here; it's possible that ability users who can transform into animals and beasts can counter Fyodor's possession since animals/beasts are commonly known as creatures that lack "consciousness". My Vegan and Animal friend, I hear you, but sadly, this is an ordinary world, and I am not sure how much Asagiri dwelt in animal psychology (next post idea???).

In addition, Astushi's tiger ability is highly unique, like, come on, he literally "released" the space-time sword Ame-no-Gozen from its seal, ngl that's some Madoka Magica shit there (also, there's this "bookmark" thing Fyodor kept yapping about; it has to be OP, bro).

In Dazai's case, it's easy: his nullification ability. Fyodor knew of his ability and thus tricked Dazai into believing that his main ability activation was touch. This misguidance led Dazai to keep a distance from Fyodor, which kept him safe from Dazai's ability. Meanwhile, Dazai believed that he kept his companions safe.

Now, you could also argue that Sigma could "defeat" Fyodor, but that's more related to "redemption" rather than "killing" Fyodor. Since this essay is more focused on Fyodor's ability than his character, you can read this nice post by @fyodcrs about this theory!

Also, just a lil rant here, I promise it’s lil: Chuuya isn’t an idiot, contrary to many fanfics I’ve seen. Guys, he’s quite literary an anomaly; him to pretend to be a vampire was not difficult to pull off as he reverted to his “monster” behaviour, which is why it was easy for him to fool Fyodor. [source] Chuuya might be hotheaded, but he ain’t no fool, y’all.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk reading my analytical essay!

(P.S. I have not read any Dostoyevsky, so this is only my analysis of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's ability based on manga and anime. I have watched the Crime and Punishment old Soviet movie (1969), as schoolwork, which is why I know the concept of "guilt" from the plot.)

Another Note: I haven't read any of the light novels like Stormbringer, which is a major piece of material for the Bungo Stray Dogs series.