Hajime Hinata And The 5 Stages Of Grief.

Hajime Hinata and the 5 stages of grief.

Hajime had a stronger reaction to Nagito’s death than he did with anyone else who died on the island considering the writers bothered to depict all five stages of grief distinctly throughout 2-5 and 2-6, which in return put a lot of focus on Hajime’s grief for Nagito, pushing his relationship with the latter to the forefront and driving the point home that it’s the central part of his life at the time. It’s my favorite “grief arc” in the series (if it can even be called one at all), because it feels like one of the most realistic, especially when the nature of Hajime’s relationship with Nagito for the majority of the game following their initial fallout in trial one is taken into account. It’s portrayed in detail and shows the immense impact Nagito left on Hajime in spite of everything and highlights their deep connection.

Stage 1 (Denial): immediately, right after Hajime and the others discovered Nagito’s corpse at the back of the warehouse, Hajime went on a verbose internal monologue, where he emphasized multiple times that he couldn’t believe that Nagito was dead or that he didn’t expect to be looking at Nagito’s body in a manner as such. Whilst this can be easily chalked up as simply any normal person’s reaction to such a cruel murder as was the case with most of the others like Akane for example, it’s entirely different for Hajime considering the fact that he referred to Nagito as あの狛枝(that Komaeda) repeatedly regarding his first reaction to Nagito’s body discovery, which is arguably a callback to the situation in trial one, where he asked himself in the original JP “Is that really… that Komaeda?” This emphasis on “that Komaeda” possibly implies that Hajime couldn’t quite imagine that the person with the demented thought process standing in front of him could be that reliable partner he’s been spending time with. He was somewhat in denial and not ready to move on yet (and never was). Similarly, in 2-5 he was equally reluctant to let go of the memories of that problematic Nagito exactly like how he never wanted to let go of pre-trial one kind-hearted Nagito. It was substantially more difficult for Hajime to come to terms with the fact that Nagito truly died than anyone else still alive at the time (keep in mind that the “that Komaeda” bit is one that’s lost in translation because NISA translated it as just “Nagito” on all those occasions).

Stage 2 (Anger): the seeds for anger are planted at the moment when Hajime starts thinking that Nagito is still trying to make them suffer after his death when Hajime finished up investigating Nezumi’s Castle.

However, it fully manifests itself and takes shape in the trial when Hajime starts referring to Nagito’s “malice” on multiple occasions, which is exactly where anger fits in. Hajime wanted someone to blame for Nagito’s death and there was no one more convenient than Nagito himself, whom Hajime lashed out at multiple times in previous chapters despite caring about too much whenever he wasn’t present or when he was on the verge of death due to the despair disease, to fully shift it onto.

It makes complete sense for everyone else to think that Nagito was only trying to put them all through more agonizing pain, but not so much for Hajime who, despite all his effort to dismiss his true feelings wherever Nagito was concerned, did believe in the fact that Nagito wholeheartedly served hope above all else and not so much his own selfish interests or anything like that, but only what he perceived as absolute good. Hajime easily recognizes this in the second FTE, when he explicitly states to himself that he can tell that Nagito isn’t trying to trick anyone or anything of that sort.

Even after the jig was up and Chiaki got executed by Monokuma, Hajime never actively blamed Nagito for anything. Instead a couple of days later when Hajime received the news that Nagito left a final message, if you interacted with his cottage, Hajime would determinedly tell Nagito that he’ll make sure to listen to whatever he has to say.

In conclusion, “Nagito’s malice” is what Hajime found most suitable to deflect every ounce of blame onto and it also serves as builds-up for Nagito as a villain, only for that to be subverted in 2-6 when it’s revealed that it was an act of misguided heroism, because he realized that almost everyone on the island, including himself, is one of the worst criminals in human history who were largely responsible for the apocalypse.

Stage 4 (Depression): depression is the most clear-cut one and takes place during the period of two days in which Hajime stayed in bed, sleeping all day. Most people assume that it’s purely about Chiaki, but I personally beg to differ and think it’s more of a mixture of that, Nagito’s death and a culmination of literally everything that’s happened before finally taking its toll on Hajime’s mental health and bringing him down. Nagito’s death is what pushed Hajime to his utmost limit and then he had to condemn the innocent, most helpful girl in the group to death so him and the others can be saved, the amount of guilt he felt due to that was immense and evidenced by the fact that he interpreted Chiaki’s request to prove that she’s the traitor as “asking him to kill her himself”.

This isn’t exclusive to Hajime either and pretty much everyone else was psychologically tortured especially Sonia, with Hajime already feeling depressed from the investigation. It makes complete sense that condemning Chiaki broke him considering the fact that he trusted her and cared for her a lot. Hajime already found it difficult to implicate Mikan in 2-3 and had it not been for Nagito’s “epic villain breakdown” in 2-1, he probably wouldn’t have been able to implicate him easily either. Chiaki was only a link in the bigger picture; and meanwhile the whole situation of 2-5 just drastically exacerbated his habitual tendencies for various reasons. Hajime was a nervous person the whole time, he screamed into his bed in his cottage on the first day of the killing game, it’s only expected that he had a breakdown.

In addition to that, it’s worth noting that it’s never explicitly stated what specifically made Hajime make that decision and sleep for two whole days, it’s left up to interpretation and Nagito is almost often taken out of the equation, mainly because people assume that Hajime either hated him or didn’t care about him at all when both don’t describe Hajime’s feelings towards him.

Stage 5 (Acceptance): regardless of how you interpret the dead cast making a comeback at the end of 2-5, whether as Junko messing around (which is credible considering she has everyone’s data and can easily act like them) or the simulation glitching and polling back people it’s not supposed to (which is even more so considering the general instability and glitching of the NWP), there’s one consistent theme amidst this and it’s that Nagito never resurfaces and remained unseen, which stands out as remarkable. The in-universe reason is debatable, but from a meta perspective I think it’s symbolic of Hajime’s acceptance of Nagito’s permanent passing, which makes sense when taking into consideration the fact that Hajime was more calmed down in 2-6 and not angry with Nagito or anything anymore, as shown when he read the manga about Izuru Kamukura where he openly remarked that the hope Nagito believed in is the true form of hope as opposed to Izuru’s which is purely about talent itself.

Before that, when Hajime went to Nagito’s cottage, he understandably let his conflicting feelings cloud his judgement and contemplated whether the stuff Nagito said, including his beliefs, were things he genuinely believed in. Keep in mind that Hajime is also reminiscing about Nagito in the Makoto/Sayaka and Shuichi/Kaede sense here.

Furthermore, in the trial right before the first intermission, Hajime recalled that Nagito always said that he’s yearning for “an absolute hope that can overcome any despair” and wondered if the situation they were in is precisely what Nagito wanted, but alas he was quick to dismiss that as overthinking (but he was very much on the right track in regards to Nagito’s motivations, because even though Nagito did have a preference for the traitor’s survival, he wasn’t opposed to the idea of the remnants surviving, otherwise he wouldn’t have left a message addressed to both sides or lots of clues inside his cottage that lead to the answer of the mystery when he could’ve easily disposed of all of them in various ways like he did with the pages he tore out of the files. Nagito believed that whatever the outcome was, hope would undoubtedly prevail after all).

On top of that, Hajime zoned out and, in his confusion, he was lost in thought, wondering why Nagito didn’t leave him alone in spite of learning that he’s a “nobody”. It’d be counterproductive of him to contemplate how he wanted Nagito to “leave him alone” ages ago since he was already long gone at that one point and it’s inconceivable as well that after Nagito threatened to blow up the island and set up a murder plot to kill all of them that the only thing that bothered Hajime was that “he didn’t leave him alone”. Hajime took the affection and validation Nagito showered him with in the first half of the game for granted, so for the rug to be pulled from under his feet out of the blue left him extraordinarily distraught. He was hurt because Nagito changed and wanted to know Nagito’s objective and why exactly he changed.

Stage 3 (Bargaining): last but not least, the way bargaining manifests itself is less personal and inclusive, but is still present nonetheless. When Hajime and the others were presented with the choice to bring everyone back he was about to click the “graduation” option together with the others before Makoto showed up to intervene. That and the end of 2-6 showed the ending that Hajime desired and longed for, of which Nagito was a part of. This is probably overanalyzing on my part, but I find it interesting that Nagito was the first to utter a single word in it (bar Usami), followed by Chiaki right after him. Both were closer to Hajime than anyone else so this may imply that he missed them more than the others at the time.

I’m sure someone will raise this up so before they do, I want to clarify that I prioritized following the chronological order of Hajime going through each stage. It may be somewhat strange that Hajime went through bargaining before acceptance but like, before that point there were no available means to bring back anyone who died so nothing that warrants going through bargaining at all until Junko offered that window of opportunity to bring back everyone who died before the last class trial.

I do have some doubts about whether that was the intention at all and I could be reaching with all this, but it all fits way too nicely for me to disregard it as just a coincidence and I do think denial, anger and depression perfectly explain Hajime’s feelings at the time.

With acceptance there’s the fact that Nagito was the only one who didn’t turn up when the simulation broke down which you can chalk up as an implication that he’s super ultra mega dead as opposed to the rest of his classmates, but then the epilogue wraps up on the optimistic note that everyone will wake up irrespective of how low the chances are realistically and in a meta context I feel like it’s supposed to symbolize Hajime’s acceptance all things considered, like I can’t think of another reason Nagito would be singled out, but this would fit considering how central to the plot and themes his relationship with Hajime is and it works with how he felt at the time.

Like, it’s somewhat odd for the Hajime who spent the whole class trial talking about Nagito’s “malice” and to even regret feeling sympathetic towards him the moment he thought that Nagito’s goal was to commit suicide and get them to make a mistake before they all realized the true cause of death and everything to do with weeding out the traitor then be like “I know, I’ll make sure to listen to what you have to say!” as if what Nagito wants to communicate is of particular importance to him and he wants to honor his last wish. The abruptness of Hajime dropping everything to do with Nagito’s malice makes me believe that it wasn’t all that genuine at all.

The hero we deserve.

Deer and cherry blossoms in Nara Park, Japan 

(via)