Why Sonia Nevermind is an underrated Danganronpa character that isn't at all "useless" or "bland" like I see a lot of people call her: a thread

I'll start with Sonia's personality. I like how she falls into the category of Danganronpa's "nice" character, but doesn't do so in an unrealistic way and she still doesn't just simply take shit from others without reacting or being overly forgiving. She's polite as the +

etiquette requires, kind as human decency requires and generally understanding as years of her upbringing probably taught her to be, but she will still snap when she's angry and be cold or even show some cruelty when pushed her to her limits, something we can especially see with+

the way she reacts to Kazuichi, at first politely avoiding/subtly rejecting his advances but eventually going out of her way to avoid him in the most obvious way possible, referring to him as a stalker and being biased against him during a class trial. Still, most of the time +

she is caring and tries hard to keep the group together. +

She is also somewhat awkward and a bit of an outcast, which I appreciate a lot. It makes sense, with her being both a princess and a foreigner. She even says so during her introduction: "In my home country, I...did not have a single friend who's standing in society matched my +

own. So, to be able to do something like this with everyone is a new experience for me..." She has trouble connecting with her peers. That's why a lot of time she says things that come out rather uncomfortably. She tries to be cool, to fit in, but isn't sure how to. And on the +

topic of her way of speaking, her mixing up Novoselic and Japanese expressions and saying is a pretty nice touch considering that this is a common mistake for bilingual people and more realistic than how bilingual people tend to be described in fiction. +

Something I also see people hold against Sonia is that "her ultimate talent isn't really talent", but I will have to disagree with this here. How come we never complain about Fuyuhiko being an Ultimate Yakuza simply because he's the heir to the Kuzuryuu clan but there are a lot +

of people complaining about Sonia being the Ultimate Princess and saying it's just something she was born into? And I actually think her talent makes a lot of sense because she's not only a princess in the title, but she takes her role very seriously and it shows in her every +

day behavior. In her free time events it's clear how much she loves her country and how devoted she is to her people, enough that she sees possibly sacrificing herself for her people as something normal and a part of her duty if there was ever a situation where she'd be required+

to do it. In the interactions with the group, she's also seen taking on the role of a leader a lot of times, trying to diffuse feuds or motivate others. +

Her interests are another nice touch because there actually aren't that many characters in Danganronpa that have interests and hobby that aren't strictly connected with their talents, so it's refreshing to see Sonia interested in multiple things that don't have much to do with +

being a princess. Not only that, her knowledge that comes from her hobbies proves to be helpful in class trials. On the topic of which, she is probably one of the most helpful characters during class trials. I see a lot of people calling her useless, but the fact is that she +

often points out important things during investigation, asks helpful questions during trials and she's the character that the player has to agree with the most during non-stop debates.

And this concludes why I think Sonia Nevermind is one of the best Danganronpa characters and doesn't deserve to be called "useless" or "bland" or "pointless".