Player Consent and Content Warnings in DDLC

CW: Suicide, self-harm, depression

[SPOILERS BELOW]

The first thing you see when you try to download or play Doki Doki Literature Club is the game’s content warning - “This game is not suitable for children or those who are easily disturbed”. This alludes to the fact that there is potentially triggering content in the game, but is not presented in a particularly serious manner and does not specify what kind of disturbing content is to follow. I wanted to discuss whether DDLC appropriately warns its players/asks for consent, especially following our discussion about video games and consent earlier this quarter.

Almost all of the online discussion surrounding DDLC is centered around the Monika twist; I expect that our class discussion will be too, since the theme for this week is metagaming. All of the discussions I’ve read have stressed the importance of avoiding spoilers to feel the full emotional impact of the Monika twist and characters deaths. I discussed in my post last week how the intended Undertale experience can only be achieved by going into the game blind, and I theoretically agree with the analogous argument for DDLC. However, many online discussions defended the game’s vague content warning, arguing that more specific warnings would spoil the game and the shock the player is intended to feel. I disagree entirely with this - my overall opinion of DDLC was lowered because of it’s insufficient treatment of (and warnings regarding) themes of suicide, depression, and self-harm.

I think the severity of DDLC’s insensitivity towards mental illness is made clear by pointing out all of the inappropriately handled moments in the game (Note: I didn’t not play a Natsuki focused playthrough, and cannot fully comment on her treatment):

1. Sayori’s depression/suicide. Sayori’s depression is only introduced as a way to justify her later suicide, and is not realistically presented. The game suggests that her depression makes her unworthy of love, which is later reinforced by her killing herself after confessing her love to the protagonist. The protagonist implies that it is his job to take care of Sayori because of her depression, which inaccurately depicts people suffering with depression as being overly dependent and needing to be coddled. Following Sayori’s suicide, the protagonist even comments on how her suicide is his fault/how he should have done more to stop it. The game does not address the fact that people shouldn’t blame themselves for others’ suicide. In this way, DDLC inappropriately depicts depression, and does not correctly address suicide.

2. Yuri’s suicide. While I recognized the foreshadowing to Sayori’s suicide and expected it when I walked into her house on the festival day, Yuri’s suicide caught me entirely off guard. I expected the game to write her out somehow, but her suicide was treated almost entirely as a jump scare. It was justified only by her “obsessive personality” (which is vague and insufficient on its own), and seemed included only for the shock factor. The impact on the protagonist or player having watching this suicide is not at all addressed, and is treated as no more important than the other glitch moments in the game. However, stabbing oneself to death is clearly worthy of more attention than a mildly creepy image of Monika flashing onto the screen. The game fails to recognize certain moments as more serious than others.

3. Characterization of the datable characters as their mental illnesses. The fact that the main characters in DDLC fall into anime stereotypes of appearance/personality is important to the game’s commentary on visual novels as a genre. However, the game relies heavily on Sayori as the “suicidal character”, Yuri as the “obsessive character”, and Natsuki as the “neglected child character” in a way that denies the characters any other identifiable qualities. This inaccurately represents mental illness as being someone’s entire identity. Where does the game draw the line between stereotyping personality (as a part of the game's satire on visual novels) and stereotyping mental illness?

A lot of our class discussion has focused on how the narrative and mechanics of a game should both further the game’s overall message. But what if the game commodifies mental illness in order to do this? Is the impact of the game’s message lessened by its exploitation of mental illness in order to convey that message? For all the reasons I addressed above, I feel that DDLC uses mental illness either as a device to further the plot or as a character trait. I believe that the game could have still reached the same horror and point about metagaming either by using disturbing content not surrounding mental illness or by treating its serious content more appropriately. I would have appreciated the game much more it's warning had mentioned its themes of mental illness, and especially if it had acknowledged its poor depiction of mental illness.

Even though I read the content warning at the start of the game, I did not feel like it accurately warned the player of the game to follow. I would have been very shocked and upset by the content of the game had I not already known that to expect. Although we discussed video game implicitly asking for consent in that the player agrees to play the game, I felt that DDLC did not appropriately ask for player consent considering the kind triggering content it contains (and how dismissive the game is of that content). I would be interested to hear what other peoples’ experiences were playing the game, and whether they thought it appropriately asked for consent. Even if you disagree with me and think the game did appropriately depict mental health, do you think there should have been more of a content warning?