YMMV / My Deepest Secret

• Alternative Character Interpretation: There are some who theorize that Elios didn't actually kill Emma's professor. Technically, it could never have been him. That said, they were right—it was a completely unrelated set of characters.
  • Camie from Sophie's memories was treated to some of this. Was she truly stringing Sophie along, or did she actually want to help her/liked her? Given the heavy dose of Unreliable Narrator in Camie's scenes, it's left ambiguous.
• Diagnosed by the Audience:
  • Elios is all but stated to be a sociopath, the only thing making it unambiguous is that it hasn't been stated. Or rather, Emma's hallucinated version of Elios is.
  • Emma's childhood trauma causes her to stalk the real Elios because he was always kind to her, and she tries to kill his girlfriend when it's clear that he's not going to leave her. When Emma believes she's murdered Elios, she hallucinates a version of Elios that borders on being a split personality, the perfect boyfriend who will hurt anyone who tries to hurt Emma.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Elios. Well, being a good looking, loving, and understanding boyfriend will get you fans wanting a boyfriend like you. Even if your love is closer to obsession, and you protect your girlfriend by killing or attacking those who hurt her. It doesn't help that despite being a yandere, he hasn't hurt Emma in any way... yet. It's only a matter of time. It might have even happened before the series began, which resulted in the real Elios' death.
  • Averted; that version of Elios is a product of Emma's childhood trauma and her obsession with the real Elios, somewhere between a split personality and a hallucination. The real Elios is kind, sweet and friendly without being a yandere.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Nura gets a lot of love in the comments, thanks to her feisty and outgoing personality (which bounces very well off of Emma's), and her being a genuinely good friend to Emma — which she really needs. Being the Only Sane Man also helps. Pretty much any episode in which she appears gets lots of comments to the effect of, "Dear God, please don't let Elios kill her."
  • Hanamika, once she's revealed to be a decent person.
• Epileptic Trees: Emma’s past was hotly speculated prior to its reveal, including who her abuser was and whether she and Elios have met before.
  • Another popular theory is that Elios actually doesn’t exist, and is Emma’s alter ego: a split personality. These theorists were right on the money.
  • The identity of the two skulls at the end of the date arc. Some popular theories are: Elios ends up pulling an If I Can't Have You… on Emma, or he ends up accidentally hurting/killing her and kills himself so they can be Together in Death. Another theory is that the skulls belong to Emma and Yohan. Even more theories speculate they could be either Emma or Elios' parents. It's a hot topic for theories.
• Hollywood Homely: Unusual in-story example. Sophie believes herself to be ugly, but...really isn't. Unusual example in that several characters have told her this... only for her to think each time that they're playing with her and resultantly turning on them.
  • Farah also believes herself to be plain. While she's not as attractive as, say, Emma, she's hardly un-attractive. Having a bunch of jealous, catty women around the cafe insulting her looks purely because she was dating Elios doesn't help.
• I Knew It!: As stated above, the popular fan theory that Elios is Emma's split personality was eventually proven right.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: While the truth of why Sophie is a massive Bitch in Sheep's Clothing is rather sad, it still doesn't excuse that she redirects her anger of being rejected toward girls she considers prettier than her by giving them nasty, insulting notes. She even tries to ruin Emma's reputation as well as attempt to kill her because it turns out that not only was Emma getting attention from other boys (albeit unwanted on her part) but she vaguely resembles her "friend" from high school Camie since they both have long blond hair. Though even in-universe, Yohan eventually admits to Sophie how he felt that what she did to Emma wasn't fair. While it doesn't faze her and Yohan considers that he might have been a bit hard about it, he at least still got to call her out.
• The Woobie: Emma, so very much. She's a constant target for sexual harassment, has a history of abuse, and her allegedly perfect boyfriend isn't. Her narration makes it clear that Elios' actions will eventually totally upend her life, and not in a good way. Especially when it turns out Elios was Dead All Along for a year, and she’s technically the real culprit due to her Split Personality.
  • Poor Farah genuinely loves Elios and is a kind, sweet person but other women are catty and mean to her because she's the one dating Elios...and that's before Emma comes into the picture to threaten her and even cause physical harm. Lucky that all she really ended up with was a small scar near her eye.
  • The real Elios really was a Nice Guy, gentle and kind to everyone even when he was being bullied, but he didn't necessarily love Emma, let alone know her, which meant that he winds up stabbed because of her obsession with him... Not that it seemed to stop him from surviving and carrying on with his life.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Sophie. Even though her actions are pretty bad, it's hard not to feel at least a little sorry for the girl.