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Analysis of Amaya, Taro, and Hindsight Bias

So, essentially speaking, remember that situation involving the love confession in Yandere Simulator. I watched the confession to see what Amaya had said, and the only issue I really had with it was that Amaya said she was envious.

“Envious” is a sort of loaded word. When someone uses a word that is normally associated with negative things, entitlement, or wrongdoing, it can trigger a particular mindset in the person hearing it.

I actually commented that, to be fair, the only thing she did was feel jealous or envious. That is the word I forgot to type originally, and I don't know why I forgot it.

She doesn't necessarily want him to be happy about the death, nor is she necessarily trying to steal him from another girl. We also have to remember that, as the players, we caused everything. We did everything that happened. Some of the things we did were far worse than what Amaya did, and it isn't worse than what the Yandere characters are capable of doing by any means.

People are saying that the confession is insane, but I think the main reason it sounds insane is essentially because of the envy part. Most of the rest of what she says isn't necessarily that extreme.

She doesn't necessarily want him to be happy about the death, nor does she necessarily want to steal him from another girl. She also didn't initially do what she did because she wanted to get with him. At first, she simply wanted someone to care about her.

And honestly, wanting someone to care about you is perfectly natural.

Wanting Someone to Care About You

This is actually where things become somewhat concerning from a character-analysis perspective.

It makes me wonder whether Amaya originally had people who genuinely cared about her. She says that she has her family, but that's different from having someone outside of your family who chooses to care about you.

Of course, it's completely normal to want someone else to care about you even if you have a loving family.

One possible explanation is that she may have very few close relationships outside of her parents. If she were an only child with no siblings and primarily relied on her parents for emotional support, she might eventually become afraid of being alone.

After all, parents eventually die. If your parents are the primary people who care about you, you might eventually wonder:

“When they're gone, who will I have?”

That leads into another concept: what I would call a husband-oriented mindset.

The Husband-Oriented Mindset

This is the mindset of someone who wants a husband partly because they cannot imagine being alone.

It could manifest as:

“I can't imagine myself being alone when I grow up.”

Someone with this mindset might not necessarily believe that they need a husband to survive. They could theoretically take care of themselves perfectly well.

Instead, they simply don't want to live alone.

They may have lived with other people for their entire life and genuinely enjoy having someone around. They're naturally social and don't think living with another person is a bad thing.

Therefore, when they imagine moving out of their parents' house, their mind automatically associates that with getting married and moving in with a husband.

That doesn't mean they are incapable of living alone. If they eventually found themselves in a situation where they had to move out without getting married, they might discover that they could handle it perfectly well.

They might even enjoy certain aspects of living alone, such as being able to yell loudly, make noise, or do things they couldn't comfortably do in their parents' home.

However, they may still worry about the financial costs and difficulties of handling everything alone.

There is also a second version of this mindset: the care-oriented version.

That's when someone specifically thinks:

“I want someone to take care of me.”

They may not trust friends or extended family to fulfill that role, but they trust the idea of a loving husband.

It isn't necessarily about being incapable of taking care of themselves. It's about not wanting to experience life completely alone.

Someone might have friends and still think:

“I don't want to live by myself.”

Their ultimate goal might therefore be to leave their parents' home only once they have a partner to live with.

How This Could Apply to Amaya

This could potentially explain part of Amaya's behavior.

If Amaya's parents eventually died, she might want someone who could live with her, care about her, or simply be there with her.

The other issue is that Amaya doesn't seem to have many friends.

That makes it feel as though she may be aware, consciously or subconsciously, that when her parents are gone, she might not have anyone else who genuinely cares about her.

That could explain why she became attached to Taro.

She may have been trying to fill an emotional hole in her life.

I don't necessarily think that makes her malicious or a bad person.

In fact, if I narrow everything down, the one genuinely questionable part is her envy.

Even then, people can experience envy without being evil.

You can be envious of someone because they have something you desperately wish you had. That doesn't automatically mean you want that person harmed.

You can even mourn the loss of a friendship and feel envious of the person who still has the relationship you wanted.

Taro's Perspective

Taro's reaction can still make sense.

He's extremely upset, and the wound is fresh.

From his perspective, Amaya's confession could look manipulative, especially if he interprets everything she did as an attempt to eventually enter a romantic relationship with him.

But that's where the distinction becomes important.

That wasn't necessarily her original motivation.

Initially, she may have simply wanted to make a friend.

The simplest way to describe it is:

“I did all of this because I wanted someone to care about me.”

Later, she could have developed romantic feelings for him.

That raises the question of how those feelings developed.

There are several possibilities.

1. The feelings were already there.

She may have subconsciously liked him from the beginning but didn't recognize those feelings as romantic.

2. Her feelings developed through prolonged interaction.

The longer she interacted with Taro, the stronger her attachment became.

3. His kindness caused her to fall for him.

This one is particularly interesting.

If Taro was consistently kind to her, especially because she was helping him, they could have developed a close relationship off-screen.

Eventually, his kindness could have caused her to experience what I would describe as a “swooning” feeling.

Swooning Versus Lust

Swooning is different from lust.

You can find one person extremely physically attractive while developing romantic feelings for someone else because of the way that person treats you.

For example, imagine someone who is physically attracted to one person but isn't romantically involved with them.

Then another person comes along who isn't necessarily as physically attractive to them, but that person gives them an unusual amount of tenderness, affection, kindness, and attention.

Eventually, they begin thinking:

“This feels different.”

They start feeling butterflies.

They begin to swoon.

They become flattered by the affection.

And if that person genuinely appears to love them in return, the affection can become much more powerful than physical attraction.

This can create complicated situations.

For example, someone might be in a friends-with-benefits arrangement with one person while another person begins showing them genuine romantic affection.

At that point, they may realize:

“I'm starting to catch feelings.”

They can't necessarily continue treating the situation casually because their feelings have changed.

That's the kind of complicated emotional situation that could potentially explain Amaya's relationship with Taro.

And, ultimately, everyone involved contributed to the circumstances that created the problem.

Hindsight Bias

This is where I think one of the most interesting concepts for my own game comes in:

Hindsight bias.

I thought of a scene involving a character from one of my games. The character is affected by an evil book that corrupts people when they touch it.

The protagonist initially believes the book will make her a better person. In reality, it is cursed, and the person who created it lied to her.

As a result, she eventually becomes evil and starts killing people.

Her mother has to figure out what happened and try to solve the problem.

This creates a situation similar to the Amaya situation.

Imagine that the protagonist confronts another character for being jealous of someone who was harmed.

The protagonist might say:

“How could you possibly be jealous of someone who was hurt?”

But there's a problem.

The person being confronted doesn't know what the audience knows.

The audience knows that the victim was framed.

The audience knows someone was manipulating events behind the scenes.

The audience knows the victim didn't actually commit the crime.

But the character being confronted doesn't know any of that.

From her perspective, the victim actually committed the crime.

That's where hindsight bias comes into play.

The Audience Knows More Than the Character

This is something that can happen when the player knows information that a character logically couldn't know.

For example, imagine that a character's friend really did kill somebody and subsequently went to jail.

From the character's perspective, mourning that friend is completely understandable.

The character knows:

“My friend committed a murder and went to jail.”

The audience, however, might know that the friend was actually framed.

That creates two completely different perspectives.

The character can't be expected to react according to information she doesn't possess.

This is why I think the reaction toward Amaya can sometimes become distorted when the audience knows everything that happened behind the scenes.

Tara and James

This is where Tara and James come into the scenario.

Tara essentially finds herself in a position similar to Amaya's.

James finds himself in Taro's position.

And the main character finds herself in the position of the Yandere protagonist.

The main character confronts Tara and essentially asks:

“How could you be jealous of someone after what happened to her?”

But Tara's response would essentially be:

“Why are you acting like I knew what happened to her?”

From Tara's perspective, there is no way she could have known that the girl had been framed.

She only knows the information available to her.

So when the protagonist says something that requires knowledge of the framing, Tara might immediately become suspicious.

She could think:

“Wait. How do you know she was framed?”

That is actually a clue.

The protagonist possesses information that she shouldn't logically possess.

Tara therefore realizes that something is wrong.

The Important Distinction

There are several different scenarios here, and they shouldn't all be treated the same way.

Scenario 1: The victim is publicly killed or seriously injured

In this situation, it makes sense for Amaya to be criticized for being envious.

She knows something terrible happened.

If the event was public and everyone knows about it, she can't reasonably claim ignorance.

Depending on the severity of the event, her envy can legitimately come across as disturbing.

Scenario 2: The victim is tortured, driven insane, or otherwise severely harmed

Again, Amaya knows that something terrible happened.

Therefore, being envious of the victim's situation is understandably messed up.

Scenario 3: The victim was secretly framed

This is different.

Amaya wouldn't know that the victim was framed.

She would believe that the victim actually committed the crime.

Therefore, criticizing her as though she knew the truth is hindsight bias.

The audience knows the truth.

Amaya doesn't.

Scenario 4: The friendship simply fell apart

This is another complicated case.

If the friendship broke down because somebody secretly manipulated the situation, Amaya wouldn't know that either.

She would only know that the friendship ended.

Being envious of someone because they had a friendship that she wanted isn't necessarily some horrifying act.

In fact, it could be a fairly ordinary human emotion.

Why “Envious” Can Become a Buzzword

There's also another concept I was thinking about: buzzwordism.

This is when a particular word carries so much negative connotation that people react to the word itself instead of examining the actual context.

In Amaya's case, the word “envious” can make people immediately think:

“She's evil.”

But envy itself doesn't automatically mean malicious intent.

Context matters.

Being envious of someone because they received something you desperately wanted is different from deliberately hurting them because you were envious.

The action matters.

The motivation matters.

The circumstances matter.

Simply saying:

“She was envious.”

doesn't tell us everything about the character.

My Overall Conclusion

After analyzing everyone involved—not just the fictional characters, but also the way the fans interpret the situation—I think hindsight bias is the strongest concept to incorporate into my game.

The buzzword concept doesn't work nearly as well unless the characters actually understand the context and are deliberately reacting to a loaded word.

If someone simply hears the word “envious” and becomes angry without understanding the circumstances, that doesn't necessarily make sense.

Hindsight bias, however, works extremely well.

The player knows what happened.

The player knows who was framed.

The player knows who was manipulating events behind the scenes.

The player knows why the friendship fell apart.

The characters don't necessarily know any of that.

That creates a situation where the audience can judge a character for information that the character herself never possessed.

And that's much more interesting from a storytelling perspective.

The character isn't necessarily evil.

She may simply be too honest about an ugly emotion, while everyone else is judging her with information she never had.