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HIJK posted:It’s the tragic back story + pretty face. There are other reasons regarding how he’s supposed to reinforce the themes about society failing the vulnerable etc. Datamining also produced info that he was supposed to have a palace of his own from the beginning but I guess they dummied it out for time. He absolutely should have gotten his own Palace. It'd be a far better climactic showdown for the Thieves to face a dark reflection of themselves and develop him beyond just giving a tantrum. Hell, let him use Wakaba's research and Yaldy's power to manipulate his place for real power to show why he and it are so dangerous. It could even hint toward's Yaldy's existence and act as motivation for the Thieves to make the final Mementos dive more than the vague threat of Shido's co-conspirators coming for them eventually. Akechi can be a really good villain with a bit of change.
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Aug 2, 2019 16:54
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so much about persona 5 could have been improved by deleting shido's character entirely
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Aug 2, 2019 16:55
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Geostomp posted:It is when they obsess over him as much as they do. The guy had a crappy life, but so did all the other Thieves. It doesn't erase that he was a willing villain whose only positive interactions with the characters were a shallow act that wasn't even convincing in-universe. He wasn't a mindless puppet: he was fully aware of what he did and was even running his own scheme to kill Shido and the party just to satisfy his own rage and desire for fame. I dunno man, Cabbage man isn't a pretty boy, and i'm sure he was in the top spots of japans character polls 
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Aug 2, 2019 16:55
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Geostomp posted:It doesn't erase that he was a willing villain whose only positive interactions with the characters were a shallow act that wasn't even convincing in-universe. He wasn't a mindless puppet: he was fully aware of what he did and was even running his own scheme to kill Shido and the party just to satisfy his own rage and desire for fame. like I'm a huge goro fan and even I can't deny he's kind of a brat throwing a tantrum, but he's also a teenager. and also he recognizes that he's gone too far and wishes things could've been different. it just sucks that Persona 5's answer to Kids Who Get Twisted By The Systems That Fail Them was "They have to kill themselves for redemption" i'm curious to how they'll re-write this because Goro is a symbol of everything the Phantom Thieves are fighting to stop so i hope he gets a better ending
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Aug 2, 2019 16:57
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Expect My Mom posted:i know it's a fictional character, but it's like way harder for me to hate someone for doing this when their brain hasn't even finished developing Akechi has been a hitman for hire for three years in-story. He then rose to fame by "solving" the cases where he himself metaphysically murdered someone or broke the mind of some poor slob to do the deed for him. His body count is in the hundreds, including the parents of two of the party members and, very nearly, Joker himself. Sure, he's twisted up, but at some point, the sheer amount of damage done grows too much to really hope to fix and a moment of regret really doesn't improve their status. The best thing he could have done is surrender, turn himself in, and testify against Shido and cronies, but Shido decided to not risk letting that happen. Yeah, it's tragic and all, but that's the point of his character. He could have potentially been a better person, but it doesn't remove the fact that he was an unmistakably horrible one. Oxxidation posted:so much about persona 5 could have been improved by deleting shido's character entirely Honestly, yeah. Shido was a terrible, one-note antagonist with no development or personality beyond "power-hungry rear end in a top hat". Granted, men like him gaining power from an unquestioning populace is disturbingly topical, but he isn't much beyond that. Akechi is supposed to be the evil conterpart of Joker and would make a much better climax villain than his dull dad. Geostomp fucked around with this message at 17:08 on Aug 2, 2019 |
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Aug 2, 2019 17:06
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Geostomp posted:Akechi has been a hitman for hire for three years in-story. He then rose to fame by "solving" the cases where he himself metaphysically murdered someone or broke the mind of some poor slob to do the deed for him. His body count is in the hundreds, including the parents of two of the party members and, very nearly, Joker himself. Sure, he's twisted up, but at some point, the sheer amount of damage done grows too much to really hope to fix and a moment of regret really doesn't improve their status. The best thing he could have done is surrender, turn himself in, and testify against Shido and cronies, but Shido decided to not risk letting that happen. Yeah, it's tragic and all, but that's the point of his character. He could have potentially been a better person, but it doesn't remove the fact that he was an unmistakably horrible one. it's really impossible for me to hate him.
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Aug 2, 2019 17:11
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the "hundreds of dead people" thing is also never stated anywhere and could only even be possible due to the subway crash, which was a loving stupid plot point that didn't jibe at all with his modus operandi elsewhere. the fact that it had an anime cutscene is proof enough that it was yet another piece of first-draft weirdness that should have been cut at the start considering that the game's ultimate resolution to its moral conundrums turned out to be "just relax now and let the adults handle things," it's hard not to feel a little twinge of sympathy with akechi's alternative of "keep killing people until the whole artifice collapses." though of course you've got shido rearing his head again to create the daddy-issues angle and infantilize akechi's motives even further
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Aug 2, 2019 17:15
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Expect My Mom posted:he was fourteen when he became a hitman Fourteen is old enough to know that murder is bad. At the very least he needs to be institutionalized because he's a clear danger to others and has hurt countless people with no remorse. Also dude kills multiple people on screen. The fact we keep going to 'well it was only some not like hundreds' is loving insanely lol. Zore fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Aug 2, 2019 |
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Aug 2, 2019 17:17
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Yeah the subway thing is so loving stupid. The game literally never says that anyone died or was even hurt from it. And when the most time we spend with Goro's victims before they die is Haru's dad, I really can't fault him. Thank you, Goro.
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Aug 2, 2019 17:20
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I'm still bummed we can't import social stats or personas.
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Aug 2, 2019 17:24
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like the murders were definitely "bad" in the sense that they didn't solve anything, were committed for an incredibly childish and shortsighted motive, and started with the traumatizing killing of someone who by all accounts was one of the game's moral paragons, but just waving your arms and going "look at all the people he killed" is an argument that does nothing for me because persona 5 is a story that reeks of wishy-washy liberal cowardice and that makes me cast a far more interested eye at the extremist positions that it sheepishly offers and then snatches away before they can be examined further the royal is probably going to do none of the things with its story that i actually want, besides maybe hacking out literally every single plot point or sequence that had an anime cutscene so that those tumorous first-draft story bits aren't clogging things up anymore, so rest assured that we will all continue to be miserable together
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Aug 2, 2019 17:24
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I'd also pont out the people who should have the biggest problem with Goro, Haru and Futaba, completely understand him. They don't forgive and love him, but they know exactly what he's feeling and beg him to come back with them, because they're all teenagers who have fallen between the cracks. Futaba is around the same age when Goro became a hitman, and Futaba needed magical mind surgery to fix her poo poo. So it baffles me when the people who played it can't extend that same understanding
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Aug 2, 2019 17:29
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Its 'wishy-washy liberal cowardice' to not be cool with murder done at the behest of the ruling class to consolidate power. Thats a take I guess. Goro put all his effort into helping Shido. He literally never does a single revolutionary thing in his entire life and serves as a frontline enforcer for the powerful. He's basically a personal attack drone who talks about one day finally turning on Shido... After making him the most powerful man in Japan first.
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Aug 2, 2019 17:29
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Zore posted:Its 'wishy-washy liberal cowardice' to not be cool with murder done at the behest of the ruling class to consolidate power. Thats a take I guess. Oh, now I get it. Goro is a tankie.
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Aug 2, 2019 17:31
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Zore posted:Its 'wishy-washy liberal cowardice' to not be cool with murder done at the behest of the ruling class to consolidate power. Thats a take I guess. shido exists to neuter or nullify any point the game makes that can't be twisted back into its final conclusion of "be good little kids and let your elders handle things." all but one of the previous targets' crimes weren't due to systemic factors or larger societal failings, it was shido. the dispossessed dead-end character working to violently tear down the system in contrast to the protagonists' rehabilitative angle was really just doing it for shido. and so on that's what i meant by "sheepish" in my last post. the game does have to acknowledge systemic faults on some level but it casts them all in the context of this bald bogeyman cipher who sucks up all the plot's oxygen for nearly its entire runtime, taking all of its conflict into himself. it's not until he's finally gone and yaldabaoth enters the scene that we get some actual incisive commentary again, but at that point the damage is done
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Aug 2, 2019 17:33
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Persona 5's liberal cowardice is that it thinks killing rich people overworking their employees is Bad and Makes You No Better Than Them and that The System Is Bad, But Trust The Good Adults To Save It. For the employees at Okumura Foods, it's probably pretty great that Okumura got a bullet in the head, now maybe they can negotiate workers rights with someone who isn't literally going to sell his daughter away because he doesn't love her. Goro's plan to undercut Shido at his moment of triumph and expose the faults of the entire system is stupid, but he is a Literal Child. I'm sorry the kid didn't have a better plan to fix all of society's ills. But at least it's a plan, which no one else in Japan seems to have. Except for No-Good Tora
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Aug 2, 2019 17:34
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Basically Goro would be way better if he was split into two characters. One who was the heavy for Shido and committing all the hitman murders and then Goro Akechi as a dark version of the thieves who has the same overall goal but kills people instead of stealing their hearts. That would have made Goro sympathetic and given like a theme and dynamic to explore. You would also have to change like 2 scenes to make it work.
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Aug 2, 2019 17:38
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I think it’s probable that someone at Okumura Foods will step in and continue the abusive work environment. Iirc even the game says that there are plenty of CEOs like Okumura who destroys his workers. He’s fish in a barrel. There are plenty like him and someone else will take his place.
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Aug 2, 2019 17:40
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Okumura 100% deserved what he got for treating his precious floofy daughter like garbage.
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Aug 2, 2019 17:42
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Expect My Mom posted:Persona 5's liberal cowardice is that it thinks killing rich people overworking their employees is Bad and Makes You No Better Than Them and that The System Is Bad, But Trust The Good Adults To Save It. For the employees at Okumura Foods, it's probably pretty great that Okumura got a bullet in the head, now maybe they can negotiate workers rights with someone who isn't literally going to sell his daughter away because he doesn't love her. You do remember that he did this right after the Phantom Thieves completed their plan that would have forced Okumura to change. Not because he wanted to change the system, but to ensure that the Thieves couldn't gain any vital information from him and to frame them for his murder. I'm not sure why you're getting it so twisted: he's not trying to reform anything. Reform is the last thing on his mind. He flat out screams that he doesn't give a drat about anone but himself. All he's doing is setting up a plot to take revenge on "daddy dearest" by forcing him to acknowledge his existence and then kill him. If he were trying to reform by killing abusers, I think it'd be far easier to just, I dunno, actually kill just the abusers rather than follow their orders for years, kill off whoever they demand, and hand them as much power as possible before considering acting against them.
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Aug 2, 2019 17:43
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Zore posted:Basically Goro would be way better if he was split into two characters. One who was the heavy for Shido and committing all the hitman murders and then Goro Akechi as a dark version of the thieves who has the same overall goal but kills people instead of stealing their hearts. pretty much. alternatively: get rid of shido! just get rid of him! he's like a loving prism of unearned conflict and everything he touches is worse for it! why was he in joker's nameless hometown macking on that woman when he's otherwise constantly campaigning in the capital? how contrived was it that he bumped into the thieves at the buffet on that exact day at that exact time? whyfore the SIU Director? akechi's character is a muddled, truncated, faintly embarrassing mess because he's the single biggest casualty of shido's deleterious influence on the plot. he could have been a decent examination on the resentment and cyclical abuse foisted on society's dispossessed and the righteousness or lack thereof of condemning an entire populace for systemic abuses, but instead shido's there to gobble up his entire motive and most of his brains and then eject him from the plot once his confession scene is over with i don't even care that much about akechi as a character, it's just that his arc, and its proximity to shido, is the best example of persona 5's moral cowardice
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Aug 2, 2019 17:43
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Zore posted:Basically Goro would be way better if he was split into two characters. One who was the heavy for Shido and committing all the hitman murders and then Goro Akechi as a dark version of the thieves who has the same overall goal but kills people instead of stealing their hearts. The hitman doesn't even have to be any one character. It could be a series of conspiracy goons abusing cognitive psience to get into the Metaverse to make the kills. Again, anything to show why Wakaba's research is supposedly so dangerous when it's near impossible to take advantage of without the Metaverse Navigator. As for a "Dark Phantom Thieves" group, I like it, but wouldn't want to fill the game up too much. It's the sort of thing that works best when everything's already established rather than in the first story. If there were some hypothetical sequel, it'd be perfect. Alternatively, just let Akechi succeed in killing Shido like the pissant he is and go on to be the big bad himself. Show that the abuses of the powerful not only trickle down, but can twist a victim into yet another perpetrator just for the sake a gaining control. Oxxidation posted:pretty much. alternatively: get rid of shido! just get rid of him! he's like a loving prism of unearned conflict and everything he touches is worse for it! why was he in joker's nameless hometown macking on that woman when he's otherwise constantly campaigning in the capital? how contrived was it that he bumped into the thieves at the buffet on that exact day at that exact time? whyfore the SIU Director? Shido doesn't need to be a character. If the one assaulting that nameless woman was an equally nameless politician and we never saw him again, it'd be all the more impactful: Joker got his life ruined for trying to do the right thing and the one responsible drove off into the distance, never to be seen again. It'd make the enemy corrupt society itself, reinforcing the themes.
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Aug 2, 2019 17:59
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Expect My Mom posted:Goro's plan to undercut Shido at his moment of triumph and expose the faults of the entire system is stupid, but he is a Literal Child. I'm sorry the kid didn't have a better plan to fix all of society's ills. But at least it's a plan, which no one else in Japan seems to have. This is an incredibly generous reading of Goro’s motivations. He had a plan to take revenge on those who wronged him; whatever societal benefits would accrue from Shido’s exposure were incidental. His motivations struck me as selfish and reactionary, not idealistic. Expect My Mom posted:he was fourteen when he became a hitman You don’t have to hate him to believe he’s beyond redemption. It is possible to have sympathy for the character and hate the systems and people who helped shape him into what he is, while still also recognizing that years of working as a hitman may have pushed him past the point of rehabilitation. There’s a huge difference between forgiving his crimes and trusting that he won’t harm again. I can deal with a redemption arc that sees the Haru, Futaba, and the Phantom Thieves forgiving a surviving Goro and encouraging him on a path of rehabilitation. I can’t deal with any arc that has them presuming his rehabilitation and allowing him to remain a member of the team with the same superpowers he previously used to commit murders, because that would be an insane thing for them to do.
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Aug 2, 2019 18:01
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Personally, I felt Shido was fine as an antagonist. Not fantastic and the conspiricy angle isn't the greatest but having the final villain in a game about systemic corruption be a corrupt politican willing to do anything to claim power and control over the population seems pretty solid to me. It's not even like the previous palace bosses were that directly involved in his plans, off the top of my head Kamoshida is not. Madarame at most is doing his painting scam as a way to move money around. Kaneshiro is bribing/paying Shido's faction to help with his mafia stuff. Okamaru of course was outright supporting Shido's political party in return for assassinations and eventual help gaining access to the political sphere himself. Sae is of course not directly related but works for the SIU Director who is also in Shido's pocket. Whilst the way it plays out may not be great, these aren't some wild conspiricy level connections, just a bunch of corrupt people supporting and running money through one another for their selfish goals. Lord_Magmar fucked around with this message at 18:18 on Aug 2, 2019 |
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Aug 2, 2019 18:14
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I can understand the palace bosses not being involved but honestly the conspiracy plot line comes out of nothing and generally just isn’t well done. It makes the conspiracy thing seem like an after thought rather than being a strong plotline on its own. I can understand the Thieves stumbling on it by accident after they put away a few people but ugh. The way it was introduced was so slapdash and lame. I hate it.
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Aug 2, 2019 18:26
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Blotto_Otter posted:This is an incredibly generous reading of Goro’s motivations. He had a plan to take revenge on those who wronged him; whatever societal benefits would accrue from Shido’s exposure were incidental. His motivations struck me as selfish and reactionary, not idealistic. That's the thing I see a lot of people in fandoms not get: being somewhat sympathetic isn't the same thing as being absolved. A good villain can make the audience see his or her point of view and even consider them to have some right ideas, but they remain the antagonist despite that because their motivations and actions are still inexcusable. You see why they are what they are, and even pity how unnecessary their suffering may be, but you don't have to excuse any what they do now. You don't have to redeem them for them to have value to the story. In some cases, seeing that the villain resulted from a victim being twisted into a monster only reinforces the story and themes. It could motivate the protagonists to do whatever they can to ensure nobody else shares their fates. That's the value that someone like Akechi can bring to a narrative, if done right. HIJK posted:I can understand the palace bosses not being involved but honestly the conspiracy plot line comes out of nothing and generally just isn’t well done. It makes the conspiracy thing seem like an after thought rather than being a strong plotline on its own. The Thieves did stumble onto it by accident. They interfered with a couple of very minor players, the conspiracy noticed they had abilities like Akechi, decided to bait them into being scapegoats, and the Thieves only realized what they were up against after they fell for the trap and Akechi knew who they were. It wasn't that good, but it did work out well enough. I think the problem was that we kept cutting back to the SIU director being generically evil and gloating to no one in particular. Geostomp fucked around with this message at 18:35 on Aug 2, 2019 |
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Aug 2, 2019 18:29
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You can think someone has done completely awful, possibly unforgiveable things and still think it's completely horrible that they went through the things they did. A lot of great villains are great because you can see the humanity in them, and understand why they might take the approach they did after they lives they've lived, even if it's wrong and they need to be stopped. Killmonger from Black Panther is an example. There's no apologizing for how he pursues things, but it's understandable why he might think his way is the only way to fix a broken system. Akechi is spiteful, petty murderer, but he didn't get to have as much say in what kind of person he became as he might have liked. He is not a good person, but he has the potential to be, as do we all. If he's willing to take the chance when it's offered, that should be a positive thing. Two wrongs don't make a right, and all that. Varinn posted:uh makotos confidant rules? joker and makoto squaring up in the middle of the street to tag team fight a dude is A+ content, sorry You mean spending 5-6 parts of it dealing with some rando I don't care about? A+ content! Cuntellectual fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Aug 2, 2019 |
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Aug 2, 2019 18:32
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Geostomp posted:The Thieves did stumble onto it by accident. They interfered with a couple of very minor players, the conspiracy noticed they had abilities like Akechi, decided to bait them into being scapegoats, and the Thieves only realized what they were up against after they fell for the trap and Akechi knew who they were. It wasn't that good, but it did work out well enough. I think the problem was that we kept cutting back to the SIU director being generically evil and gloating to no one in particular. Yeah, I just thought it was lame. The way they kept interrupting it with other subplots like Morgana’s running away from home thing made it difficult to understand on first viewing.
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Aug 2, 2019 18:47
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Akechi sucks, and I challenge The Royal to prove me wrong. It won't, though. Checkmate.
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Aug 2, 2019 19:04
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It would be cool if the ending of Persona 5 was they just burn down the Japanese government and everything goes to poo poo for a while. Would be more interesting than them stopping bad man and everything going back to normal.
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Aug 2, 2019 19:41
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CJ posted:It would be cool if the ending of Persona 5 was they just burn down the Japanese government and everything goes to poo poo for a while. Would be more interesting than them stopping bad man and everything going back to normal. Have I got an ending for you then! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WvBWru0ijUI
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Aug 2, 2019 19:59
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TheKingofSprings posted:Have I got an ending for you then! This is, in fact, the true happy ending. The Thieves are staying loved and famous, crime keeps going down, what possible bad can come from this? 
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Aug 2, 2019 21:44
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TheKingofSprings posted:Have I got an ending for you then! Naa that's the law ending. I want chaos.
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Aug 2, 2019 22:02
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Shido's weakeness as a villain feels like it's excacerbated by his boring design. He's supposed to be charismatic to the extent that he fools an entire country into blindly following his empty rhetoric, but he looks like an uninspiring and venal also-ran. It dosen't help that his shadow-self's outfit reveals less about how he views himself than any of the other villians in the game. If his design was more charismatic it would make his rise to power more convincing and would actually create a contrast between the real Shido, who we know from the start is a dick, and the Shido that the public loves. Vagabong fucked around with this message at 23:07 on Aug 2, 2019 |
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Aug 2, 2019 23:02
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Lord_Magmar posted:Personally, I felt Shido was fine as and an antagonist. Not fantastic and the conspiricy angle isn't the greatest but having the final villain in a game about systemic corruption be a corrupt politican willing to do anything to claim power and control over the population seems pretty solid to me. Yeah, even if Shido wasn't the Greatest Villain Ever, I personally prefer having a face to punch at the end* as opposed to something like Yaldabaoth, who just kind of pops out of nowhere. Like, I get that the game's about fighting the system, and making "the system" just one dude is a little lame, but at least the plot kind of builds up to Shido (and Akechi); it's far more palatable to me than a big dumb grail (and later angel thing) popping out of nowhere to go "actually it was me the whole time!" without being foreshadowed much, if at all, prior to the basically the endgame. *I guess you could make that face Igor/Yaldabaoth but it would really need some rewriting to make Igor seem like the bad guy earlier**... which is hard to do when the story/his confidant path has him helping you all the time. **You could argue that he seems like a bad dude because he puts your rear end in a jail cell and lops off heads to fuse your personae but a lot of that can be written off in a player's head (especially a player new to the series) as "weird game quirks" and forgotten about.
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Aug 2, 2019 23:55
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Hey, this is subbed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBgooaDAHE8
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Aug 3, 2019 00:53
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 A E S T H E T I C Is that a weird translation thing or is Ryuji really just obsessed with aesthetics?
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Aug 3, 2019 01:10
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CJ posted:
the game uses it as a catchall term for style/morals/ideology because this script's translation was overseen by geriatric japanese imbeciles
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Aug 3, 2019 01:19
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CJ posted:
there's a lot of weird translation in that trailer so almost definitely the former
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Aug 3, 2019 01:21
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Yeah somewhere before the sixth palace Ryuji says "That's the same as dumping our aesthetics again cause we only care about our hides!" Kinda wondered if it was meant to be read as a joke about Ryuji confusing the word with "ethics" but yeah probably just dumb translation.
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Aug 3, 2019 01:42
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