#milgram analysis

note on names: for the purposes of this post:

mikoto refers to the overall human being. this includes when i am speaking about him as a collective, and when speaking about him generically (when i don't know or care 'which' alter did what act).

'john' refers exclusively to the mikoto that appears in Neoplasm and is named 'john' by es for convenience. i will not assume any other 'not-normal-mikoto' alters are necessarily 'john'. you will see why.

when referring to any other specific parts of mikoto (eg. his normative identities, other versions of him we see) i will clarify which ones i mean within the sentence by describing them.

introduction

the amount of 'jokes' i've scrolled through on twitter lately about him being bad rep or having one good personality and one evil personality has officially made me lose my marbles.

my girlfriend pointed out that tbf, that sort of impression about how his character is written makes sense if you haven't read the text very deeply. not everyone has spent almost a year picking apart every word this man has said.

so i'm doing the work reading and i'm going to personally spoonfeed the relevant bits of the text to people. now nobody has any excuse.

i will try to keep every section as brief as possible, but please know that every section has a lot more evidence and reasoning behind it. please feel free to ask me about them or see my other (significantly longer) essays for further evidence and reasoning.

psuedo-essay starts now.

1. 'John' didn't commit the murders.

every time 'john' confesses to the murders, he makes a point to always, immediately, make sure that this confession means that mikoto will be forgiven/considered innocent, as if he has an ulterior goal and preoccupation with keeping mikoto's identity 'clean'.

his account of the murders is incredibly vague and emotionally detached (compared to 'normative-John Doe-mikoto' who panics and dissociates when pressed on the matter, and to his response in Interrogation 2 Q.10 where he exhibits distress and is unable to answer the question on if he feels sorry for his victims). it honestly seems like he doesn't have much connection to the memory at all.

and 'john' says himself in his own words that his reason for existence is to protect himself, and that eventually he will "take it all - bear it all, everything and anything, and [] be rid of it". he also demonstrates a striking amount of self-destructive ideation and poor self esteem.

to me, all this is indicative that 'john' is a part of mikoto that exists to bear the guilt of their murderous acts (and the stigma of being labelled a murderer); he is not a part that exists to perpetrate murder. he protects mikoto by 'owning' the unacceptable acts and elements of identity, isolating them within himself, and then planning/wanting to vanish it with him, somehow.

obviously, because of this, he wants es, the audience, and he himself to believe that 'john' — 'not-mikoto-(trust)' — perpetrated the murders, and that that means mikoto didn't do anything bad. but because we are smart we see through his dissociative coping mechanism.

mikoto murdered people; mikoto is being labelled a murderer. and although he has a psychological scapegoat that he cannot recognise as himself to help himself cope with that fact, he ultimately cannot escape that reality.

when mikoto is lobotomised and loses the part of himself that es calls 'john', the guilt and reality of his situation remains. all that is removed from mikoto in the lobotomy is his ability to separate himself from this act and cope by believing it was somebody else.

almost as if the purpose of 'john' was to act as a dissociated part that bears his guilt so mikoto (who cannot cope with this reality) can protect himself from confronting it.

2. Mikoto is mask upon mask, and 'John' is the model prisoner.

milgram.jp/character/mikoto (Profile): 常識人なりに常に状況に対して順応しようとしている。 tl: "A sensible* person who is always trying to [adapt/conform/acclimate/accomodate] to whatever the situation is." By "sensible", it means acting in accordance with prudence and propriety with the mores. (@milgram-en)

mikoto is described on the milgram.jp website as a person who is always adapting to the situation at hand.

we can see this firsthand in his normative-identity-self that we meet in t1, who insists on what a standard everyday worker he is. in Double and Undercover and his interros we see how much he values his work and puts up with his abusive work environment, and how much he neglects himself to prioritise and bear it.

i find it practically textual that a major element of his identity is how he dissociates to allow himself to 'become' the role his environment expects of him, to survive these abusive environments.

by Neoplasm, mikoto's demeanour has adapted from his work-self to a 'prisoner-self', and he dissociates (through 'john') to 'become' the role MILGRAM expects of him.

in John Doe mikoto and es could not negotiate because mikoto could not accept any of this was real and insisted he was a regular guy.

in Neoplasm, 'john' is able to negotiate at length, making the warden's job easier and less frustrating. he accepts that MILGRAM is happening, he accepts that he is a murderer, and he even acts the part of a rough and aggressive prisoner without having it cause es any problems.

'john', on the surface, acts exactly as you'd expect an aggressive alter who perpetrated crimes to act, because that's exactly what es and the audience want him to be.

and just like in his life so far, by acting this part, he even gets on the right track for surviving this new abusive environment (T2 inno verdict).

3. Mikoto demonstrates very realistic dissociation from his absolutely justifiable anger.

when asked on if he'd ever even wanted to kill someone in the T2 interrogation, he denies it, uncertainly and disconnectedly. his handwriting shows visible distress and the beginnings of severe dissociation setting in. this claim that he'd never had such thoughts is also contradicted by him in Neoplasm, as 'john' says normative-mikoto "wished for a being that could destroy everything".

therefore it is pretty clear that despite having the capacity for violence and wishing for violence, mikoto cannot psychologically bear that coming from himself, and so whenever it comes up he either flat out denies its existence or attributes it to an 'other'.

he very obviously demonstrates dissociation from the fact that he killed people or has the capacity for such violent acts, because this reality is not one he can face or confront, because of the immense anguish it causes him.

in John Doe es persistently prods at his dissociation from his violent acts and thoughts and labels mikoto a murderer, despite mikoto begging for them to stop. es essentially takes a sledgehammer to mikoto's dissociation that has kept him stable all his life, and refuses to let up despite mikoto's begging and obvious immense distress.

mikoto's crashout is absolutely justifiable here. it's simply deeply unlucky that mikoto exists in a MILGRAM loophole and is therefore successful in connecting his attack, so this instance sticks out to everyone as a show of extreme violence.

(i don't think anybody thinks fuuta, who attacks es right at the start of his interrogation is volatile and violent, and yet mikoto is often labelled this way for reacting to relentless abuse.)

another element of his self that mikoto is clearly dissociated from is his anger. he cannot recall ever becoming angry and finds it an unacceptable way to be. hence the part of himself that does hold anger and is the one that explodes at es, is dissociated.

he didn't 'switch' into some fundamentally evil violent alter and start beating es for no reason.

he (completely understandably) cracked and lashed out under a relentless abusive assault, while also being unable to identify with lashing out or the idea of having angry emotions. hence, his demeanour changes for the period he is angry, and he forgets this understandable reaction after it happens.

this is literally just what DID is.

4. Mikoto demonstrates many more dissociative symptoms beyond alters. He also has more than two alters.

mikoto's writing evokes dissociative symptoms such as dereality (the feeling the world is unreal or dream-like), the feeling that you are watching yourself act without your own control, and the feeling that you have done things without being conscious of them, through his sleepwalking/dreaming imagery. these are common and significant dissociative symptoms found in disorders such as DID.

(i wrote this section in the miraheze wiki. i'm just not arsed to copy and paste it.)

he also demonstrates identity confusion and alteration outside of being a binary.

mikoto uses at least six distinct personal pronouns that are often intentionally alternated. most famously mikoto alternates katakana ore and kanji boku in Neoplasm (when talking about him ('john') vs 'normative-mikoto'), but mikoto also alternates personal pronouns in MeMe, wherein katakana boku and kanji boku are used as object and subject in a sentence respectively (ボクが僕を).

the mikoto who uses kanji boku in John Doe and the mikoto that uses kanji boku in Neoplasm also have distinct linguistic profiles and demeanours (see: milgram-en's commentary in how his boku pronouns are pronounced in their Neoplasm translation).

so pronouns are not the end-all for denoting which active part he is in; his identity and demeanour is persistently nebulous, inconsistent, and confused.

in mikoto's trial 2 interrogation alone mikoto also demonstrates at least five distinct handwriting styles.

the way the 'other' mikotos are drawn between MeMe and Double are markedly different. the ore mikoto in John Doe and 'john' use different personal pronouns (kanji ore and katakana ore respectively), while the ore personal pronoun in Double is back to kanji ore again.

and, literally anyone who has tried to analyse his MVs and definitively point out which shots are mikoto and which are 'john' can tell you that it is practically impossible.

mikoto isn't only two distinct parts, as much as we would like to assume. instead he has a lot of grey area, a lot of overlap, and is a character with a lot of undefined dissociated states.

5. Mikoto's DID label and the model of being multiple is coercively applied to him.

mikoto, coming into MILGRAM, does not consider himself to have DID. it is implied he does not know very much about DID even after he is labelled with it, and generally seems to sympathise with the notion of DID being a lousy excuse for murder.

however, after kotoko, es, jackalope, and the audience concede with his armchair DID diagnosis, and after MILGRAM ensures a main talking point between T1 and T2 is if having DID should let him get off for murder (by having kotoko suggest this angle), in T2, parts of mikoto begin to engage with the idea that he has multiple selves, and the argument that it was an alter that did it.

even after he has been labelled and begins to acknowledge he has different selves however, he doesn't seem to consider himself multiple entities with different names, like es (and the audience) expect him to. he (unenthusiastically) lets es provide him a distinguishing name for convenience, but he only identifies himself with this name once, at the very end of the voice drama and desperate to get through to them. he otherwise kind of ignores it.

a large part of how mikoto understands and presents his DID is directly informed by what people have told him about him, what they suggest he should be like, and how he knows they want to think about him. parts of it are also entirely constructed by the audience and es, as they mold him into a more stereotyped DID presentation that is digestible to them.

outside of MILGRAM's coercion, and within the less obvious parts of his writing, mikoto's DID is significantly more hidden, realistic, and nuanced. but under the audience's speculation and expectations he is shaped and plays into into what they expect him to be.

which is entirely in line with his vulnerable, highly adaptive, and socially conscious character.

conclusion

please be mindful when analysing characters like mikoto that you don't immediately assume they have bad, stereotyped writing just because they act in a way you don't understand.

when you pick apart mikoto's influences, his contexts, and look at his actions beyond the surface level, a very understandable and traumatised person emerges. just because many don't look beyond a surface level does not make his character illogical, volatile, or offensively written.

Take one of the first scenes in the song, for example. Specifically the scene of him sitting in the police car with Hinako. Here, he looks over to Hinako while singing "I just wanted to touch, to caress. I just wanted to be touched". I am personally of the belief that Kazui is a gay man who tried to force himself to like women by lying his way through his relationship with Hinako in order to fit into the expectations of his family and peers. But here Kazui is, seemingly expressing genuine sexual desire towards Hinako, which would go against my theory, right? Honestly, I'm not convinced by what he says here.

The prisoners videos are their true feelings, they can't intentionally lie in them, but they can however remember a time they lied, or if they try to lie to themselves in their thoughts, their song will reflect that. Kazui's lies are, as he himself describes, "two-way", he lies to others and he lies to himself— because he, more than anyone, wants his lies to be the truth. Looking at his second voice drama, Es tells him that they believe he cheated on Hinako, and that they find him acting on his sexual urges like that "stupid" and "disgusting", but regardless, they still opted to forgive him. What Es says here isn't exclusive to Es, and is often how men who do similar things are perceived by society. A man may act openly sexual, and he may be seen as perverted or disgusting for it, but ultimately there's usually little consequence for this behaviour— it's brushed off as "men being men" and often encouraged further by the other men in their lives, even if other people will look down on them for it. In other words, Kazui is attempting to frame to himself that what he's doing (going after a woman he isn't romantically interested in) is done out of sexual desire, both in the past and currently, because doing so is more 'acceptable' than his true, genuine, shameful desires. As he says in the next scene, "So it's wrong? Oh, shove that! Innocent, isn't that right?", he knows that both us and society at large will forgive him for what he's done if it's from a place of uncontrolled heterosexual desires, rather than what's really going on.

His shame becomes more clear once you see the intention behind what he's saying, rather than what he's actually saying. However, I think what he doesn't say here is even more revealing. "I just wanted to touch, to caress. I just wanted to be touched"— following what he's saying here, the next line the audience is expecting is "I wanted to be caressed" and yet instead, he quickly moves on and changes the scene entirely. We're left hanging as he gives us no time to process the way he completely skipped over the next natural line, and I'd imagine that's also how it felt to Kazui. "I just wanted to be touched" is coming way too close to the truth for him, and his shame and fear physically stops him from completing his sentence, instead forcing him to race to the next scene before he admits too much— before he admits something he himself desperately wants to deny. This is the first clear sign in the song of Kazui's true desires starting to peak out before immediately being shoved down.

Moving on to the scene that follows, we have Kazui continuing to verbally lie to himself with "So it’s wrong? Oh shove that! Innocent, isn’t that right? Maybe, perhaps… or… could it come true… like, it’s for the sake of true love, who wouldn’t lie for that?" As said previously, Kazui is desperate to convince himself both that what he's doing isn't wrong so he doesn't have to deal with the shame of being a manipulative person, and that he can eventually fall in line with the way the world tells him he has to be. He's not doing anything wrong and he will surely fall in love with her with time— so there's no need for him to think too hard about the reality of the situation.

The framing of this scene backs this idea up even more. We see Kazui and Hinako walking side by side before he turns towards her, but the way this is shown is by focusing on their feet. Looking down at the ground, especially while with someone, can have many meanings. When done intentionally, it can be a way of showing respect to another, but when done subconsciously it's more often than not a sign that someone is anxious or ashamed, especially in fiction. I'd imagine that Kazui's physical self isn't actively looking at his feet in this scene, as he's learned how to make his body language line up with his persona more than his reality, but internally he's only capable of avoiding really looking at himself and only looking downwards. He doesn't want to internally admit to himself the truth that he's hiding, even though he's very aware of it, and he can't bring himself to really face himself or the reality of his actions— once again, shame is physically blocking him from doing so. This is shown further in the next scene, with him giving Hinako flowers, and then a ring. Notably, this scene focuses on his hands and Hinako, however Kazui as a whole is out of view. He focuses on his actions, his pretty lies, and the positive reactions of the people near him caused by those actions, but Kazui himself is shut out of this, both his true desires and overwhelming shame are kept out of the picture.

Skipping over to the scene after the chorus, we have Kazui confessing his love to someone most likely his childhood friend/the bartender from Half. Kazui starts this scene by announcing "Phew, oh wow I’m drunk" however looking at the glass itself, it's easy to see that Kazui is lying here. The drink has been drank out of, though not by much, and knowing that Kazui is someone who drinks somewhat regularly, it's extremely hard to believe he's that much of a lightweight. Rather, it's much more likely that he's giving himself a convienient excuse for what he says next: "Hey, so what if I said I liked-liked you, what would you do?" Kazui is extremely dependent on the opinions of others, especially those important to him, as well as the feeling of being safe, so by laying out this lie before his confession, he can hopefully lessen the consequences for trying to tell someone his truth. If we focus less on what he says here and more on how he says it, we can hear how extreme his anxiety in this scene is. His voice starts out strong, however quickly begins shaking, and by the end of the sentence his voice is almost inaudible, as if he can barely get the words out. Even with an excuse laid out in advance, Kazui can hardly bring himself to say a single sentence— he is absolutely terrified.

This scene also uses the same tactics the car scene and the proposal scene use, having Kazui sing before cutting himself off and having him move to the next part of the song, and never fully framing Kazui. "I just wanted to ask, so it's out in the open. I just got a little greedy". Unlike the car scene, there's no noticible pattern to what he's saying so we can predict what he wants to actually say, however we can still hear the music itself flow as if there should be more to what Kazui says, only for us to be left with nothing. He isn't lying to himself to justify his actions, and panicking when he gets a little too honest for his liking, but rather he's being intentionally vague about his feelings and what is happening. We don't know much about this night, we're given him confessing and that's about all, but we can infer by Kazui immediately insulting himself, immediately going back to hiding and lying in the next scene, and by him telling Es in his voice drama that he's tried opening up to others in the past only to be unable to truly be himself around them, that whatever happened after he confessed wasn't good. We also later see the same glass he's drinking be knocked off the table. It doesn't appear to be knocked off with much force, it wasn't violently pushed or thrown, however the glass itself doesn't seem too close to the edge for it to be accidentally pushed off either. Whatever truly happened is anyone's guess, but one thing is clear— the memory of this night is one that causes Kazui much shame and pain. This is further supported by the framing of the scene, again having Kazui focus on his actions rather than him as a whole, and when he isn't acting, the camera is far away from him, hiding his expression and distancing himself from the memory and the viewers. He doesn't want to focus on that night, he doesn't want to look at that version of himself and he doesn't want to feel the extreme shame that radiates from it all.

Finally, we approach the end of the song. After 39 long years of Kazui shoving down his every emotion, lying to himself and others until he can't take it anymore, he tells Hinako the truth. The first thing to leave his mouth? "To be carassed by you, that would be perfection". At long last, he finishes his sentence from the beginning. The audience by now has long since moved on from the car scene, having been overwhelmed with the rest of the song and expecting his first explanation for his actions to forever go unfinished, but for Kazui? This entire time, it hasn't left his mind. He hasn't been able to move on or forget about it as we would have, it's been constantly hidden and shoved down in his mind, yet never truly being able to be snuffed out for good. And what is this terrible, shameful, disgusting desire he's been rejected for and drowned in self-loathing his entire life for? The desire to be carassed. Sexually, we can interpret this as a want to be a submissive partner, as this desire is originally paired with his lie of wanting to dominate Hinako sexually. Emotionally, however, it's a desire to be treated gently. To have his entire self be seen and not be punished for it, but loved for it. To be seen as and treated as fragile, and have this fragility be a positive, not a negative. For his entire life, he has despised himself so strongly for the shameful wish to be weak and loved. Unfortunately for both Hinako and Kazui, once he can finally get this sentence out, he's unable to stop it all from pouring out, his truths completely overwhelming the both of them.

The audience has seen this same scene before in Half, although it has a completely different feel to it, and comparing the two really highlights the shame Kazui currently feels about this day. Originally, we're shown a very calm discussion, with Hinako and Kazui seemingly reaching an understanding about everything, with only a slight hint at any real conflict happening afterwards, showing a single image of Hinako acting in a very animated way as if arguing. In Cat, however, we're shown Kazui acting in a frightening and almost erratic way to begin with, ending with him looking at her with monsterous eyes and varociously tearing apart a dove with his teeth. In Kazui's first voice drama, he mostly maintains his calm, stable persona, and Half reflects this by being a very slow, sombre song and video, as the songs themselves are taken fron the thoughts the character has at the end of the interrogation. His second voice drama shows Kazui pouring his heart out, unable to stop forcing out his self-hate once he starts, and this scene in Cat is clearly reflects that. Obviously Kazui didn't actually animalistically eat a live bird, as hot as that would be, but Kazui's spat out guilt and shame from his voice drama has completely dyed this memory. No longer can he see it as a day where he sadly confessed his secrets to Hinako, it's now become the day he disgustingly destroyed everything dear to her with almost malicious intent. His true self has always been one that's caused him so much pain and shame, and now that he's let it come to the surface, he's unable to do anything other than villainize himself further.

So. I think Yuno's MVs paint a very scarily accurate picture of dettaching from a situation as a victim, be it due to shame/pain/whatever.

Umbilical is Yuno's surface; what she shows to the world. A bubbly exterior that might not be fake, but definitely ommits a lot of baggage. This makes sense to me for a first video in a series of three, but also as a way to show how Yuno tries to separate herself from the most painful parts of her experience. "See? I was having fun."

I often look at Tear Drop as the "denial" part of Yuno's story. She says she had agency, she affirms this was "all her idea; everyone was kind". She does NOT want us to feel pity towards her. If we do, she has to face what had happened to her. She has to recognize it as something bad... and that makes her feel ashamed. Thinking about it makes her think she is dirty, which she tries to avoid.

This feeling isn't the truth; she was groomed.

But if she recognizes that, then... what? She already knows about the exploitative nature of this world. Her understanding is that she has to "adapt to others" to live more comfortably. If she puts the blame on her groomers she won't be able to separate from the situation. It becomes too "real"

And we get to Life, at the moment her actions, by no fault of her, receive consequences (pregnancy).

She can no longer dettach and see herself as an outsider, which leads her to aimlessly wonder to the abandoned building (not before thinking of herself falling to the train rails).

I always think her falling down is an interesting choice. She is not actively looking for death, but passively puts herself in places where danger is a very real consequence, letting "life" decide for her. She doesn't want to make this decision; she can't do so without facing the whole ordeal. So she falls.

As someone who often loses all strength in the muscles at the peak of overwhelm, this is honestly a very... relatable experience lol.

TW for real "Yuno falls from the stairs" experience (look for another bold line to skip this story, its okay <3)

Before I share this; don't worry about me. I'm in therapy, I have a great support system and I'm better now. Don't feel in the obligation to reassure me about anything because of this story, okay?

Okay.

Last week I had one of the mobility loss things after getting some... shocking news. I was waiting for class on the street. When I notice that I'm losing my grip, I cross the street.

And I fall. In the middle of the street.

Luckily I wasn't ran over and got help right away. But a part of me kind of wanted to "leave it up to another to decide". When you feel too much, your body can react in a multitude of ways. And sometimes that way is just... doing nothing. Falling.

Ok end of story lol

So when I see Yuno's fall, I quite frankly like it. Sure, it would give her more agency for her to decide to commit s*icide. But as we know, all the agency she has is an active defense mechanism. Her falling kind of paints the picture of "someone who didn't want to care anymore but did".

Someone who wants to be as cold as the world, but can't.

(Yes, she is dissociating, in my opinion.)

(Yes, I got a DPDR diagnosis after Life came out. Indeed it is my headcanon for her.)