Celestia Ludenberg

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**Celestia Ludenberg** is a character from the *Danganronpa* anime and video game.

Also known as the "Queen of Liars", Celeste is renowned for her exemplary luck in games of chance. She's accumulated a sizable fortune by robbing anyone stupid enough to challenge her blind. She speaks softly and smiles often, but in a way that tends to creep out everyone around her. She also hides a surprisingly short temper and will start shouting (usually at Hifumi) if she isn't pleased. She is the culprit of Chapter 3, tricking Hifumi into killing Kiyotaka, then killing him and trying to frame Yasuhiro for it. She is exposed during the trial and executed by Monokuma, subjected to a faux "witch burning" that gets interrupted when Monokuma rams a fire truck into her.

In the XP4 fics, Celestia is spared from canon fate. Celestia is a member of the Heroes Coalition as a trainee. She also attends the Vanguard Academy as a student.

## **Appearance**

At the beginning of the Killing School Life in *Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc*, Celestia appears to be young high school-aged teenager, but due to the memory loss she is two years older than she believed. She wears a white lace-bonnet with white ribbons and has black hair in two large twin-drill pigtails. However, these are clip-ons, evidenced in the event of the girls bathing in Chapter 2, as she is seen without them. She has pale skin, red eyes, and gold circular earrings which have an image depicting the cross engraved into them with a red gem placed in the center in each. She also has long, black nails.

Celestia wears a gothic lolita-style outfit, consisting of a white blouse with a Long-point collar, a white ribbon tied around her neck, a black jacket that includes white ribbon lacing down the sleeves, fastened by a simple white ribbon across her chest to reveal her red tie (consisting of a butterfly pattern layered on top of various spears with skulls attached to it) and the waist of her skirt, which is many-tiered and features white lace.

Celestia wears knee-high stockings trimmed in ladder lace, dark red mary janes with a thick heel held on her feet by three grey buckles, a white lace headband and a silver, Gunmetal plated ring (reminiscent of a *Gunmetal Armour ring* designed by Vivienne Westwood) layered in overlapping sections on her index finger.

## **Personality**

As an experienced gambler, Celestia appears collected, cold and cunning by nature. She possesses the ability to manipulate others to do her bidding and can lie with a straight face, this is shown when she is able to manipulate Hifumi to make her royal milk tea and further be her accomplice during Chapter 3. She is shown to be fairly intelligent, referencing several aspects of game theory such as Prisoner's Dilemma or Zero Sum Game and her manipulative and coercion skills are shown in Chapter 3, being able to deceive the majority of the students, including Byakuya up until the class trial. Her intelligence is also shown in previous cases in which she, alongside Kyoko, Byakuya, and Makoto are the ones to bring up crucial points and is also capable of keeping up with Byakuya and Kyoko's train of thought during the trials as well.

Celestia is a very ambitious person, as she declared that she will do anything it takes to win, and is ready to go as far as murdering someone or manipulating others in cold blood. She is extremely selfish and values her life over the lives of others, stating she has no problem sacrificing others in order to save herself. She also has a lot of pride, refusing to surrender no matter how far into a corner she's pushed, as long as the chance for victory remains.

Celestia believes in adaptability to be the key to survival, rather than strength or intellect, and she acts upon this by setting up measures such as the voluntarily imposed night-time curfew to protect the other students, as well as herself, from potential killers during the Killing School Life. She often reminds others to obey the curfew and is often annoyed when people such as Byakuya Togami, violate the curfew, showing her authoritative and commanding nature. After the death of Chihiro, she coldly remarks that people who disobey the rules pay the price. In reality she was lying about having to adapt and more than anyone wanted to leave the school, showing how easy it is for her to hide her emotions.

Her mannerisms are strict, refined and her spoiled nature emphasizes this due to her aspiring to be like European royalty. She even has a habit of ranking men between Rank A and Rank F, supposedly to test who is worthy of being one of her servants. She despises her real self as she dislikes ordinary and common things and considers her real identity and name to be one of *"a loser"*. Celestia speaks softly and smiles often in order to imitate Victorian mannerisms and etiquette as a lady. She usually uses polite language whenever she talks to the others, but her short-temperedness surfaces when something fails to go as well as she expects it to, such as when Hifumi fails to make her royal milk tea as she likes it. Another example is during the third Class Trial when she accused of being the blackened, Celestia quickly lost her composure after being accused of murder. She shouted and denied accusations towards her with unusually rude mannerisms, often using vulgar language.

To further keep up her Western masquerade, Celestia often does things such as using the Japanese transliteration of the English "gambler", instead of the Japanese term "shōbushi" and claiming her parents are of European ancestry.

As the Queen of Liars, Celestia claimed that she can even fool her own emotions, but this doesn't seem to be entirely the case. She appears to lack empathy and claims that she feels no guilt for the nefarious acts she committed in the gambling underworld. Despite her status as a consummate liar, before she was executed she presented a smile but Makoto was still able to recognize her fear within. Celestia has a habit of deceiving her own emotions and so even in defeat always keeps a constant poise.

## **Abilities**

At a young age, she became a gambler and won countless games, even ones at the stake of her own life, but was able to win regardless. She states during a game of King of Liars, she spilled tea on her favorite dress and she had to end the game quickly to take it to the cleaners. She once even managed to accumulate over ten million dollars. She also won a Shogi tournament despite not really knowing how to play the game. Though her poker-face helped, she claims that the secret to her success is the luck she was born with. She was renowned for managing to rob any who challenged her of all their money and she gained the title "Queen of Liars". She kept earning money for her main goal in life - to live out the rest of her days in luxury in a big fancy European castle with handsome man servants from all around the world dressed as vampires.

**Queen of Liars**

She was renowned for managing to rob any who challenged her of all their money, taking part in life-risking gambling underworld tournaments and having the ability to lie when faced with difficult matches. Celestia is able to lie with ease about her character, convincing those around her that her real name is “Celestia Ludenberg” while referencing various manga stories when it came to her gambling exploits. She is also able to lie about her line of descent, though seemingly originating from Japan she states to be of German and French background and was able to lie about her parents associated ancestry. While Makoto suspected she was lying, she was very convincing when manipulating Hifumi into making her royal milk tea and murdering Kiyotaka, by lying that he had abused and threatened her to steal Alter Ego.

**Superior Intelligence**

Celestia is able to manipulate situations to her advantage by using Robo Justice as an object to convince everyone of Yasuhiro's supposed deceit. It is only during the class trial that the students begin to unravel the truth of Celestia's complicated plan that was successful through a various number of planned intricacies.

Celestia explained to Makoto during her Free Time Events that she once partook in a gambling match without understanding the rules of the game however was still able to overcome her opponent, presenting her quick thinking and intelligence under pressure.

## **Trivia**

* In some Free Time Events, Celestia makes references to a few gambling-themed manga series:
	+ She states that she played mahjong against a “crazy rich old man” and a “silver-haired boy”, referencing the manga series *Akagi*.
	+ She won a tournament of shogi against an “unusual maid”, referencing the manga series *81diver*.
	+ She claims the most dangerous situation she ever found herself in was in a game of "The Liar King", in which she played against an unusual pair consisting of a “foolishly-honest girl” and a “master con artist”, referencing the manga/drama series *Liar Game*.
* In the non-canon *Danganronpa V3* bonus mode, Ultimate Talent Development Plan, Celestia challenged Makoto and Nagito Komaeda to mahjong to test their luck. She then suggested they add the headmaster, Jin Kirigiri, to even things out. This is likely a reference to an official art from *Danganronpa 1.2 Reload* where the same event happened.