Monika

> **"Delete Her"**
>
>

Monika is the poster girl of *Doki Doki Literature Club!* and one of the five members and President of the Literature Club. She is the driving force of the game, instructing the club members to practice writing poems until the club festival which itself facilitates and develops the characters and story.

## Character

Monika is a Isolationist and Manipulative Yandere; introduced as the Literature Club president, she is very driven and goal focused with a passion for poetry and music.

She is fully supportive of the Player, giving helpful tips, and comments on how the players choices are influencing their relationships.

**Major Plot Spoiler**

Her character for unknown reasons becomes self aware after having a epiphany, realizing she can not be dated in the game, and starts manipulating the game files in order to drive the player to her.

### Appearance

Monika has long coral brown hair that she keeps in a ponytail tied back with a cute white bow. She also has bangs and two long strands of hair next to her face. Her eyes are emerald green; Act 3 shows tiny dots in what is supposed to be her colored pupils already surrounding the iris.

She wears the typical school uniform, which is a warm gray blazer over a brown sweater-vest, and underneath that a white-collared shirt, topped off with a small red ribbon. She also wears a dark-blue skirt, black thigh-high socks, and white uwabaki slippers with a pink tip, completely different in comparison for Sayori, Yuri and Natsuki's long white socks with blue tips on their slippers. This is believed to be Monika's attempt to stand out and show how she is different from the other girls due to her sentience. She is believed to be the second-tallest character, behind Yuri or the protagonist.

## Personality

Monika is noted by the other characters to be smart, confident and athletic. She is not as talkative as the other girls, but this is implied to not be through choice. Monika is also known to be quite popular, which causes the protagonist to have an admiration for her. She always has a calm, gentle expression and is portrayed as mature and hard-working.

Monika had previously been a part of the Debate Club but left due to all the inner politics and drama, highlighting a desire for order, freedom of topics and friendliness. The Literature Club, which she founded after leaving the Debate Club, is very important to her. She aspires for it to be a place to showcase and grow everyone's passion for literature. She also has a passion for piano, which she practices frequently after school.

Monika was originally a very considerate and kind person who was always thinking about other people. She openly displays care and concern for her club mates, praising each member's writing style and even comparing them to famous authors and poets. However, it is later revealed that at some time before the start of the game, she underwent an epiphany which made her discover that she was in a game and also granted her the ability to edit the game's variables, changing her attitude towards the other girls because she did not consider them as being "real". She begins taking drastic measures when the other girls prevented the player from being able to spend time with her in the scene in Act 1 where the player has to choose a girl to help for the festival.

In desperation, Monika begins trying to make the other girls unlikable by altering their traits, as she only had the ability to edit variables in the game and did not want to delete/kill the other girls right away because of her lingering attachment to them. She starts with Sayori as she viewed her as the largest threat because she was the main character's childhood friend. Monika's alterations backfire because Sayori's increased depression level causes her to confess her love to the main character in an attempt to find happiness, then commit suicide the next day, regardless of the choice the player made. Monika then decides to delete Sayori's character file because "she is the one who's making this so difficult."

From Act 2 onward, she shows a much more manipulative personality. It is revealed that Monika was self-aware all along and resented having no romantic role in the game, as that meant there was no happy ending coded for her. She also makes her infatuation with the player more obvious and urges them to spend more time with her. Her desire and ambition lead her to become obsessive in this goal, highlighted by the fact that all of her poems are about the player or her epiphany. She also starts to disregard the other characters and amplifies their traits due to the fact of them not being "real". Ultimately, Monika's attempt to make the other girls unlikable led to her accidentally driving Yuri to suicide due to alterations to her personality, then finally her deleting Natsuki in order to be able to spend time with the player alone in Act 3, creating her own "happy ending."

Despite Monika's upbeat attitude in the Literature Club, it becomes increasingly obvious that she is actually sad and lonely, as a result of being aware that her whole world is just a simulation; a simulation in which she can't even achieve what is considered "happiness" (i.e. having her route completed). She is fixated on obtaining the love of player because they're the only "real" thing in her life. Monika's actions are also motivated by her desire to escape the torture she endures whenever someone quits the game, as when that happens Monika is trapped in a hellish void of noise, lights, colors, and screams, unable to move or even think. This is mentioned during Monika's Talk in Act 3.

## Yandere Actions (Spoilers)

In order to drive the player to her, she manipulates the character files of the three girls the game naively allowed the Player to choose.
* Sayori is changed to be driven to suicide by hanging, whether you accept or deny her confession. If you accept, she is driven to hang herself because she doesn't want the player to worry about her. If you deny, she hangs herself because of heartbreak.
* Natsuki is changed to be a victim of domestic violence. These hints are given mostly in Act 2, where instead of saying she isn't aware of what her father would do if she found her manga, she states that "he would beat the s\*\*\* out of her" if he did find it.
* Yuri is changed to be a yandere and commits suicide by stabbing herself after confessing her love (This is whether the player accepts or rejects her said confession.) If the player accepts, she stabs herself in excitement that the player is finally hers. If the player denies, she stabs herself in realization that she worked so hard to get with the player, only for the confession to be turned down.

In Act 3, she will endlessly communicate with you in a universe where everything is gone except the club room, a table, and Monika with you. That is, unless you delete her character file. When you delete her she will ramble about how she realizes that you used her to try to get the other girls back. Monika then realizes that she is the one who should be blamed. After all, she did delete the universe she was in. Despite them not being real, Monika came to the conclusion that it didn't matter if the girls were or not. They were her friends and yours, and ends up bringing them back and deleting herself. Although, she's not completely gone - Once Sayori becomes the president of the club, she becomes self aware just like Monika, and goes all yandere-like, but she is stopped by what seems like Monika. Boxes appear on the screen saying that she won't let Sayori take advantage of her self awareness over the player like she did. It is realized that nothing she can do can make the literature club a happy place, and deletes the whole game.

## Trivia

* Monika is purposefully designed to be suspiciously out of place from the very moment the menu screen is introduced:
	+ Every girl wears white knee-highs except for Monika, who wears black thigh-highs.
	+ Every girl except Monika wears white and blue shoes, but Monika's are white and pink.
		- Furthermore on these two points, Monika is positioned so close on the Title Screen that her legs up to the black thigh-highs don't even make it into the frame and cannot be seen at all, hiding her differences at first. This could be a form of foreshadowing.
	+ Every girls' name except Monika's ends with an "i" and is explicitly the rōmaji anglicization of transcriptions originating in the Japanese language.
	+ Every girls' sprites except one of Monika's have them facing slightly side-on. Monika's primarily used sprite has her looking directly frontward at the protagonist.
	+ Monika is the only girl to never be shown outside of school or in a casual outfit. She later states that she knows this and is jealous of the other girl's for having them, as well as wishing she could have "worn some cute clothes for you." This is most likely due to the game not originally having a route for her.
	+ Monika is the only person to talk to the player for a little while before reading his/her poem. Unlike the other girls who would immediately read the player's poem after choosing them.
	+ Monika is the only character in the game to have her voice connected explicitly to the credited individual for the vocals (Jillian Ashcraft) because of direct dialog presented before and during the credits.
* Monika and Sayori, the only girls who experience becoming Club President and therefore becoming sentient, are also the only two girls to smile on the Title Screen and have a natural eye color; green and blue, respectively.
* Monika's version of the song "Okay, Everyone!" debuts only the piano, fitting for her character as she plays the piano.
* Monika has authored the game's description. This is revealed to the player during Act 3.
* Monika's birthday is the same day *Doki Doki Literature Club!* was initially released.
* If the real-world secondary education system of Japan is considered, it can be concluded that Monika is a 3rd-year student:
	+ Monika says in Act 3 that "everyone [her] year starts to think about college," a statement supported below.
	+ The colored uwabaki tips represent a student's grade in their schools. Monika's uwabaki color is pink while the rest of the character' colors (likely the protagonist, too, because they are not exceptional) are blue.[citation needed]

* + Students may be admitted to the 2nd-year group while continuing to work with their 1st-year classmates if they are exceptional in their previous group,[5] which is consistent with Monika's given praise and exposition by the other characters and the protagonist's comment that he was with Monika in the previous year's class despite the different colors next year.[6]
	+ Considering the above evidence, Monika would not be in high school if she was a grade below the other characters since the protagonist would not have been with Monika in their previous year's class. From this conclusion, Monika cannot also logically be in the school if the other characters are in their third year because she would have finished the curriculum and had transitioned to her chosen college.
* Monika exhibits some hypocrisy, besides telling on a sarcastic manner, for designating Yuri to be the yandere archetype despite showcasing the common actions a yandere would do, which is to remove the competition by any means necessary and force the player into a situation that they cannot deny to keep them captive by Monika intentionally until the end of existence. What separates Monika from being an actual yandere is her acceptance of being rejected and allowing the player to live life without her and with the possibility of partnering with another.
* Monika's descriptions of what she experiences within the void is very similar to what the torture method "sensory deprivation" induces in its victims.[7]
* Monika has a Twitter account under the alias lilmonix3.
* Monika's favorite color is emerald green because she feels a "special connection" to the color of her eyes serving as part of her identity, which could be a reference of the expression "green with envy."
* Monika's favorite day of the year is Valentine's Day.[8]
* Monika is a vegetarian because she wants to contribute to lowering the carbon footprint of the planet, which is usually caused by meat factories and other industrial markets.
* Although she can find out the device's administrator name, she will not reveal this name if the player is recording on certain streaming programs.[9]
* Monika states that she does not know much about the player, including if they are a boy or a girl. Despite that, she still calls herself their girlfriend, an inconsistency interpreted as hinting ambiguous bisexuality. She calls the player her "boyfriend" in the same act afterward, however, another inconsistency conflicting the previously stated and hinting more toward a preference to heterosexuals. This could mean two things:
	+ Monika has preferences, but they are second to being the player's perfect girlfriend no matter the conflicts.
	+ Monika's interest originates from the fact for what the player represents as a real-world entity with infinite choices in life, rather than an autonomous programmable capable of only a finite set. Dan Salvato hints that Monika tries to love the player as they are, and her love depends if the player loves her or not.[10]
* Monika stated that she would have deleted herself if the player had not shown up. Soon after, when talking about introverts she says she can be "anything the player needs her to be", understands people really well, and "nothing would make her happier than being the perfect girlfriend for you."
* She repeatedly mentions the phrase "Just Monika" through another character or by making the game itself omit the phrase via a textbox/dialog box in an attempt to limit the player's choices or at first convince the player Monika is the better person to focus on.
* If Monika's character file is backed up before the player deletes it and adds it back at any point before starting a new game in Act 4, a text box will pop up when the player starts Act 4 stating that the player is being cruel to her and that she does not want to exist anymore and will consequently delete her own file afterward.
	+ Despite being deleted, if the player attempts to load a save file from another act, Monika will still appear and prevent the player from cheating.

#### External Links

* Team Salvato website
* DDLC Steam Store page

1. ↑ Monika's birthdate the same as game release date, appearing before such date but "in beta", and the statement by Dan Salvato on subreddit Discord (now deleted)
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Satchely (DDLC's character artist)'s tweet about Monika and Sayori's hair colors
3. ↑ "It's not like Monika is a horrible person. I think she is a very considerate person and is always thinking about other people. When those people are not real and it's just a game and she's effectively being tortured by being trapped in the game and she begins taking drastic measures and that what gets to her." -Dan Salvato, twitch.tv