Analyzing "Wheel" Poem from Doki Doki Literature Club

[@fae1716]

finallyyyy someone talks about this poem!! it always stood out to me, and i love the creepy paradoxical image it creates in my head. thank you so much for sharing your thoughts!

[@arisanchez112]

this poem for me feels fractal-the more you zoom in the more there is to see, with no tangible end…just the subject breathing through these ever-shifting, ever-mutating words/images

[@richietribe9487]

You know what's interesting? The wheel poem reminds me of the description of an angel type named "throne". They appear as 4 wheels within wheels that were constantly spinning. The wheels had and eyes everywhere to look at every direction and four wings. And from within was a kaleidoscope of collors within a fire at the center of the spinning wheels. Sounds familiar?

[@erikohman2294]

Wonderful stuff! I have so many threads! Lets see. It starts with a linear gearbox. It only starts escalating after a while. This poem seems very thematicly connected to the game itself. Swimming with open water in all directions is also present in the special poem "A dream". It seems to have a handfull of thematic connections to this poem, like futility, sight, drowning, et.c. 7 holy stakes probably makes a wheel... But also it may kill vampires. The undead are interesting in relation to breathing because they dont, but they are animated, much like the dokis, and especially Yuri, the blood drinking goth. God disproving the existance of God is arguably written about by Monika. The lady who knows everything is an omniscient legend, and one of the things she knows is that she is not real. That is both a God disproving themselves with their divine knowledge, and its also about Monika herself. Yuris next poem is written "in" blood, but not with it. The club itself is a prayer written in blood, since the dokis are all somewhat alive, but are disposable tools to examine reality as talked about in the emails of DDLC+. The breathing connects with Yuri and her heartbeat, but also with the words "doki-doki". There is connections to hearbeats abound in the whole game, and to me at least it connects all of DDLC, the dokis, dating sims and "Wheel" to the question of what it means to live. The eyes, especially human eyes in the wrong place, also connects with Yuri. She looks at us with "regular" eyes rather then anime eyes. Also, if you open the character files and decode all the things, you can read about project libitina. It talks about experiments done to understand "the third eye". To the best of my understanding this is a matter of *.chr beeing aware, both of themselves and our world. The project is another simulated reality. This means that all of the dokis have the third eye, but it is usualy closed. Yuri may be somewhat sensing our world if she writes about it. When Monika emerges in the hallway, through Yuri, the first part we see is her eye, in Yuris face. In the glitched main menu, "Sayori" has three eyes in her face after her deletion. I haven really delved in to the third eye stuff, but its clearly connected. Also I need to mansion the eye on Yuris book, who I understand to be about another simulated reality done by team salvation - the makers of the game according to its own lore. Finally Time does end in act three, and it is followed by death, and that is in turn followed by a restart - again. The themes of nihilism, living, moving in place, power, sight and not going forward are all connected to the whole of DDLC in a beautiful way. If anyone does read this wall of text.. I appreciate your patience. I am curious to hear your thoughts.

[@doyltruddy902]

it's a very good poem, I agree.

[@stupidshiba]

16:40 this is the line that got me too this video in the first place. (Yes I know it’s been a year, I just recently played the game) When I thought of this lines relationship to the game, what I thought of was monika, the god of her world, showing herself that it is just a game, and that there is no “god” in that world because there was no god programed into that world. There isn’t concrete evidence for or not for god being real in real life(and there might never be), but there is in this game because, in the context of the game, monika is trapped in the game too and eventually dies and suffers with it (this kinda goes well with your idea of breathing god), and in the context of real life, monika acting as a god herself was always in the game which proves she isn’t, because she is not benevolent OR all powerful, and any power or changes she thinks she has or makes are all predetermined. This is what I got from this line, yes I know it’s been a year, but this is also my favorite poem from the game. Nice video, really made me think more.

[@erikohman2294]

When i saw the line, I thought of hitchikers guide, where God "vanishes in a puff of logic". Sadly I dont think that the reference is intended. EDIT: Monikas poem "The lady who knows everything" seems intended. Its an omniscient legend that disproves herself.

[@sandy-pb5vt]

A rotating wheel. Turning an axle. Grinding. Bolthead. Linear gearbox. Falling sky. Seven holy stakes. A docked ship. A portal to another world. A thin rope tied to a thick rope. A torn harness. Parabolic gearbox. Expanding universe. Time controlled by slipping cogwheels. Existence of God. Swimming with open water in all directions. Drowning. A prayer written in blood. A prayer written in time-devouring snakes with human eyes. A thread connecting all living human eyes. A kaleidoscope of holy stakes. Exponential gearbox. A sky of exploding stars. God disproving the existence of God. A wheel rotating in six dimensions. Forty gears and a ticking clock. A clock that ticks one second for every rotation of the planet. A clock that ticks forty times every time it ticks every second time. A bolthead of holy stakes tied to the existence of a docked ship to another world. A kaleidoscope of blood written in clocks. A time-devouring prayer connecting a sky of forty gears and open human eyes in all directions. Breathing gearbox. Breathing bolthead. Breathing ship. Breathing portal. Breathing snakes. Breathing God. Breathing blood. Breathing holy stakes. Breathing human eyes. Breathing time. Breathing prayer. Breathing sky. Breathing wheel.

[@chaoticpoint8105]

That's some dedication…

[@tedericopacovio]

great video! really enjoyed hearing your thoughts, thanks for sharing them

[@monika1157]

This is a really good video, although I think it could use a little more me, don't you agree? Ahaha~

[@AbbyHicks]

Thank you! And yes of course, my apologies

[@monika1157]

@@AbbyHicks It's ok ^^

[@erikohman2294]

I seriously have more thoughts about "after image of a crimson eye" then I have about "Wheel". I mean I Love wheel, and I see connections existing, I just ... I feel like I gave up because it feelt connected to meta things, like the club being a human experiment prison and project libitina and so on... All this is said before checking this out, so Im very curious.