I'm So Lost.

[rionaleonhart]

Here is the last instalment of my Persona 5 liveblogging! (Until I eventually play Royal, I suppose.)



Unsettling thought: if you don't make it to rank nine with Haru on your playthrough, would that mean she has to go through with the marriage?

Oh nooooo, Haru's crushed that I said we were friends! Of all the romance options, I think she's the one who comes across as most into Rei, but I'm not really interested in them as a pairing.

I invited Ryuji to a theme park and he's worried that people might think we're dating. Spoilers, dude: we're dating.

It was a close thing, but I managed to max out all the optional confidants before running out of road!

'Let's go to sleep. You must be tired,' Morgana says, lying down and curling up exactly in the middle of my bed so I can't lie down myself. He really is a cat.

Ryuji literally just asked me, 'Do you wanna get married, Rei?'

EXCUSE ME, EVERYONE STOP DISAPPEARING PLEASE

These little scenes in the prison where we're talking our friends out of their slumps are a nice touch.

Did we just summon a super-god to kill God?

Nope; we summoned a demon lord to 'punish' the 'naughty' god by shooting it with a bullet made of the seven deadly sins, apparently.

I don't want my cat to float into the sky and disappear!

You know what, Sae? Screw you. If it's 'turn myself in to the police or Shido can't be convicted', let's just not convict Shido. He's already had a change of heart, so he shouldn't pose a danger any more; why should I lose my freedom just to get him convicted?

I can't believe you're making me do this! This is bullshit!!

Okay, accepting Makoto's invitation immediately after that conversation with Sae does feel a tiny bit like I'm going 'SCREW YOU, SAE, I'M GOING TO BANG YOUR SISTER OUT OF SPITE.' I'm not banging your sister out of spite, Sae; I'm not that sort of person. But I am going to bang your sister.

(We didn't bang because Makoto got worried because I was clearly hiding something, I.E. THE FACT THAT SAE'S FORCING ME TO TURN MYSELF IN, GODDAMMIT SAE, I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU'RE COCKBLOCKING ME ON TOP OF GETTING ME ARRESTED)

I'm really curious about whether my friends are planning to get me out by legal means or pull off a flat-out jailbreak.

All my confidants trying to help me and make sure I'm protected!

Oh, no, Mishima describing me as his best friend is making me feel slightly bad for hating him so much.

Aww, Sojiro came to pick me up!

Everyone's waiting for me at the café! Friendship!!

Running around Tokyo for the last time to say goodbye to everyone is pretty emotional.

Aww, and that was a lovely ending cutscene!

I waved back at Joker when he looked up at the camera after the credits. Love that kid.



And with that I've finished the game! Only took me a hundred and forty hours. Goodness knows what I'm going to do with myself now.

What an adventure. I'm filing Persona 5 alongside Final Fantasy VIII and Final Fantasy XV in the part of my heart devoted to flawed disasters of games I love with an intense passion.

Final thought: why is the gigantic, screaming, tentacled penis in a chariot not a Chariot-class persona? I mean, I can see where the Tower classification comes from, but there's a literal chariot involved. It's not a literal tower. It's just a giant screaming chariot penis.

Comments

[wolfy_writing]

Final thought: why is the gigantic, screaming, tentacled penis in a chariot not a Chariot-class persona? I mean, I can see where the Tower classification comes from, but there's a literal chariot involved. It's not a literal tower. It's just a giant screaming chariot penis.

...this may be the most fascinating and amazing question I've seen all year.

[rionaleonhart]

I just have a lot of questions.

[wolfy_writing]

Wow, yeah, that not a tower.

[batman]

I want to believe that Mara being in the Tower arcana because you can erect towers as well as having an erect penis and that dick jokes transcend all language barriers. It likely is not so, but I want to believe it.

[rionaleonhart]

I feel Mara's arcana is almost certainly a dick joke, and I have to respect that, but it's still disconcerting when the chariot's right there!

[batman]

Probably because you couldn't ride Mara all day long, as eventually you'd suffer chafing.

[pict]

Look. He's beautiful, okay.

[pict]

Don't play Royal. Aside from a few quality of life upgrades, there's nothing in it you can't get from the original game, and its story manages to make the plotline so much worse. However, this is just my opinion; but I believe very strongly there's remarkably little value you get for the money/time you spend. (Although I did enjoy spending hours alternating between complaining about it and trying to make it make sense with likeminded friends.)

You know what, Sae? Screw you.

Yes. Hop on the 'Sae is the fucking WORST' train with me.

If you don't make it to rank nine with Haru on your playthrough, would that mean she has to go through with the marriage?

Pro...bably? Honestly, the fact that - even though her fiance makes it quite clear he's a domestic abuser in the making - they never change his heart is really frustrating to me. That's such an unsettling plot thread to drop. I like to believe Haru killed him and dumped his body in the river.

[rionaleonhart]

Thank you for the advice! I don't expect myself to play Royal for a couple of years at least, but when I feel the desire to replay Persona 5 I'll probably pick it up, at least in part because a friend of mine has written a bunch of fanfiction for it. At least I've played the original now, so I'm in a position to dismiss Royal as playable fanfiction if it proves not to be my thing.

I was really expecting that we'd change her fiancé's heart! I was very surprised that we didn't. Haru's storyline does end up feeling unfinished; it seems hard to believe that her terrible fiancé wouldn't try to cause trouble after the engagement's broken off.

[queenlua]

I'm filing Persona 5 alongside Final Fantasy VIII and Final Fantasy XV in the part of my heart devoted to flawed disasters of games I love with an intense passion

omigosh. so glad to see another fan of my favorite flawed disasters :D;;; i have a probably-too-intense drunken ramble that comes out from time to time, about How FF8's Plot Is So Close To Just Nailing A Profound Tale Of Ambition & Alienation, Except It Doesn't, But Like It COULD Have Okay

(love all these!!! glad you enjoyed persona 5 too!)

[lassarina]

^^ this, all of this, except for me not having finished XV yet, lol.

[rionaleonhart]

I'd love to hear your intense drunken ramble, if you ever feel like typing it up! Final Fantasy VIII is such a mess of flaws, but it is also the love of my life, and Squall Leonhart means more to me than any other fictional character.

[runicmagitek]

Yay you finished it! It was a delight to read your journey through this weird game, even more so when your takes on things were wildly different from mine! At least we still got Ryuji as best boy :D

AND 140 HOURS?!?!?! DAMN! And I thought my 120-hour playthrough was obscenely long 🤣

What's next for you to play now that this massive beast has been conquered?

[rionaleonhart]

I'm really curious about our wildly different takes now!

I've got no idea what to play next, to be honest. I'm replaying Celeste for now, but that's not a long game, so I'll need to find something new within a few days. There's a part of me that's tempted to replay Final Fantasy VIII - probably a side effect of getting into a heavily school-based JRPG - but I'm trying to resist. I've played Final Fantasy VIII eight million times already; I can't justify this!

[samuraiter]

Congratulations. :-) P5 remains one of my favorite JRPGs, as well as one of the most polished games in that series. It has its ups and downs, but the sheer amount of stuff in there makes that inevitable, IMO.

I have Royal, but ... not yet. A game that long is no small undertaking, and there are other titles I need to finish first.

*KNOCKS OVER EMPTY BEER BOTTLES AND GENERALLY FLAILS*

[queenlua]

:DDDD

So, the thing that really got me about FF8 is: how terrifyingly & beautifully apt the GFs are as a metaphor for power.

Like, the scene at Trabia Garden? This fucking scene? The whole bit where Irvine reveals "hey, by the way, we all grew up on an orphanage together, and the GFs have just totally erased & continue to erase all your memories of these childhood friendships"?

In-game, this revelation is a blunder on the writers' part. It should've been better foreshadowed, should've been woven more concretely into the plot, and should've been highlighted more. As it's written, it risks coming across as Weird JRPG Kookiness, some bit of strangeness thrown up & then dropped just as quickly, a weird plot revelation for the sake of weird plot revelations.

And yet. Blundering as this moment is, it still manages to hold an inescapable, delicious fridge horror. You step away from the game, think over what the hell Irvine just said, and it's like:

* Everyone in this universe is fine with this? Like, the whole Garden is just fine with a partial gradual lobotomy? The "rumors" of this effect aren't something scientists are seriously interested in getting to the root of?

* Is Irvine fine with this? He must be, right? Since his home garden doesn't use GFs, he knows right away after meeting Squall & co exactly why they don't remember him. He doesn't have willful naïveté blinding him to the choice he's making. And yet he never tells them what's happened, and he never resists using the GFs himself, he just blithely goes along with it in a when-in-Rome fashion. (What? How??)

* Would you take that trade? There are soldiers who don't use GFs, after all, plenty of them. Balamb isn't the only Garden in the world. Would you take power, if it consumes the heart of what makes you "you" in the end?

And that's such a devastatingly apt metaphor for how power works in our own world. No one starts their climb up {the corporate ladder, the political world, the entertainment biz, etc} thinking, "God, I can't wait to forget all the little guys who loved me when I was a nobody." (Well, okay, some do, some are coming from bad situations etc. But most, I think, want to stay grounded and conscientious about where they came from!)

And yet. The more you throw yourself into this game, this climb[, this war], the less room you have to foster and cherish old connections and old friendships. Even if you're doing your damndest to keep in touch, connections will fade and fray, because these new ambitions[, these GFs], have to take up some part of your mind, and that has to push something into the background.

Then you return home, some random holiday, and realize you don't quite fit in anymore. You return home and realize you don't quite know anyone the way you once did. Childhood memories are funny; did that one playground incident your mother's telling you about really happen? or is it just some story, exaggerated from bits and pieces of something that once was you?

GFs are horrifying because no one* would accept this trade, if they were going into it with open eyes. No one would want to just wipe away the first n years of their existence; it's what so much of our selfhood is grounded in.

* barring, yaknow, significant childhood trauma that one would rather forget, etc

But the real horror is: this will happen anyway. Time will take it from you, GF or no. Maybe you ought to at least get some power in the exchange.

Hence Squall's chilling answer:

Squall: "What do you want to do? You wanna stop using GF now? As long as we
continue fighting, we're indebted to the powers of the GF. If there's a
price I have to pay for that, I'll gladly pay it."

And hence Irvine's fatalism:

Irvine: [...] You've all heard
this before. How life has infinite possibilities. I don't believe that
one bit. There weren't many paths for me to choose. Sometimes, there
would only be one. From the limited possibilities I faced, the choices
I made have brought me this far. That's why I value the path I chose...
I want to hold true to the path that HAD to be taken. I know our
opponent is Matron, whom we all love very much. We might lose something
very important on account of the GF. But I don't mind. It's not like I
drifted here on the tides of fate. I'm here because I chose to be
here. And more importantly... We all grew up together. But due to
various circumstances, we were all separated. As a kid, you couldn't
really go out on your own... There were no other paths to take... All I
did was just cry. But...But...somehow, we're together again. Just like
old times, though a lot's changed. We're not kids anymore... We're
strong enough to take care of ourselves. Make our own decisions...
We're confronting a big one right now. Do we fight Matron or not......?
I say we fight...Shoot for a common goal... Hey, at least it'll keep us
together a little longer.

In the end Irvine's answer is: well, I chose this. And we're here now. Fight now and fuck the rest. This, to me, is far more chilling than any iteration of killing God I've seen in an RPG—in-game, that sort of choice is always portrayed as a choice of freedom, autonomy, liberation. Irvine's choice genuinely scares me—is it that simple? cut all the rest away and keep moving forward, even knowing the past, clinging to the little bit you know while you still can? (I mean, at this point it's probably pointless, right? You have already gone down this path so far, and yet... I don't know if I could do that! I just legitimately don't know and that's what's so interesting to me.)

Oh, and also: the only reason we ever hear for Irvine's secrecy?

Quistis: "Yes, why didn't you tell us?"

Irvine: "'Cause you two seemed to have forgotten! It just kinda sucked that I
was the only one who remembered... Spunky little Sefie and bossy little
Quisty."

Ha ha, how funny, what a teenager-y thing. He just goes along with it because it would be awkward otherwise, lame, uncool, it would "kinda suck."

Laugh away. But then remember that the next time you see an old grade school acquaintance at the supermarket, someone you haven't talked to in years, and then look the other way, because saying hi & catching up & actually acknowledging that you remember them would be too awkward, too weird—and see that it's not so teenager-y at all. It's just human.

ahgeuahlihg omg i should really replay FF8, there's probably SO MUCH MORE STUFF i'm forgetting but this is the MAIN thing that i always ramble about, tyty for indulging me, this is basically the long-form version of this moody little post lol

Re: *KNOCKS OVER EMPTY BEER BOTTLES AND GENERALLY FLAILS*

[rionaleonhart]

This ramble is both fantastic and troubling. I'll admit I never gave a lot of thought to the memory-loss aspect of GFs, because, as you say, the game sort of skips over it. But now I realise I should have been thinking about it all along, because Final Fantasy VIII is one of my favourite games and weird things happening to memories is one of my favourite themes in fiction! I write so much about memory loss and memories that don't line up with reality! How did I let this pass me by?

It definitely seems weird that Irvine lets you equip him with a GF, now that you mention it. He knows exactly why the others haven't held on to their shared childhood memories, and it clearly bothers him!

I was already struggling with the temptation to replay Final Fantasy VIII, going 'nooooo I've played it so many times already', and you have made that temptation so much worse.

[rionaleonhart]

I had such a good time with it! Persona was always a bit of a hole in my JRPG knowledge, so I'm glad I've finally ventured into the series.

Re: *KNOCKS OVER EMPTY BEER BOTTLES AND GENERALLY FLAILS*

[queenlua]

weird things happening to memories is one of my favourite themes in fiction

HARD SAME. I'm so glad I have helped you see yet another lovely facet of this game :D

(and okay, yeah, i definitely ill-advisedly went and downloaded FF8 on my Switch right after writing this post. like, theoretically I don't have time for a giant RPG right now, but... it sounds like such a fun replay...! your ally in temptation, etc etc ;P)

[runicmagitek]

Anyone post-Makoto for the main group I had trouble connecting with and caring for. I think the length of the game didn't help for me in that department, especially when you're still being introduced to new characters and teammates 80 hours into the game. However, I was way more invested in the adult characters (Sae, Tae, Sojiro, Iwai, etc.) and even siding with them most of the time.

Also, not a Persona 5 specific thing, but wow do I get equally confused and intrigued when people are all "haha everyone is flirting with the main character!" Most of that kind of thing goes over my head in general, which is fine, but it's weird when I interpret scenes one way and what feels like everyone else reads it a completely different way.

There is the remaster of VIII! So you'd be justified to play that if you haven't already ;D