I was a bit hesitant to pick up Persona 5 Royal.
While it definitely isn’t without its blemishes, I really enjoyed the vanilla game and thought
that it was a ton of fun -packed with meaningful messages and amazing presentation, as I discussed
in my video on it.
But on the other hand, it’s also an enormous story and a huge timesink.
And in hearing that this new version would not alter the vast majority of that, it was
tough for me to scrounge up the motivation for what I thought would be a slightly improved
and glorified replay.
To put it bluntly, there is a big barrier to entry here for replayers, because with
the limited time that we have, not everyone, even those who really like Persona 5, is going
to want to go through roughly a hundred hours of a game that has such a large portion identical
to the original.
It’s totally understandable, and as I said, I had these reservations as well.
But it’s that smaller portion that ISN’T identical, and the new narrative seeds planted
during the timespan of April to December in-game, that yield a brilliant third semester with
a conclusion to the story that is as epic and meaningful as it is sobering.
For something that was added on, you may expect it to feel out of place or inconsistent thematically
- but while you can see some clunkiness in certain places, that couldn’t be further
from the truth, and it establishes Persona 5 Royal’s third semester and true ending
as an impactful and cohesive addition to the story.
And while there are substantial contributions through Yoshizawa and the increased role for
Akechi, the crux of why this conclusion works so well is down to Takuto Maruki.
Partly as a PR move, Maruki is hired as the school’s psychological councelor to help
students deal with the stresses of the Kamoshida situation as well as anything else that may
be bothering them.
He is a kind, compassionate, adorably awkward and empathetic man, and from the beginning,
he makes it clear that he is simply there to help everyone.
While there are initial suspicions that he may have ulterior motives or some hidden malice,
he just continues on with his counseling and proves to be just what he says he is: A genuinely
caring person.
Though, the specifics and nuances of how he goes about his philosophy, along with the
reason those ideals came to be in the first place, are very telling and important for
setting the stage for later events.
Just a little while after first meeting him, Joker learns a bit about who Maruki is - a
man deeply concerned about the concept of internal agony, who is very fixated on the
question of how to cure an individuals pain of the heart, how to help them and save them
from suffering and emotional turmoil.
He laments that try as we might, it’s just impossible to genuinely understand someone
else’s emotional pain.
We can attempt to relate and empathize, but in the end only we truly know how we feel
and no amount of communication gives anyone enough perspective to know what someone else
is experiencing.
Maruki finds this fact agonizing and is motivated from the beginning to make the world a more
compassionate place, and through pondering and experimenting with how this can be achieved
he wonders how he can fix this eternal dilemma to make life so much more harmonious.
And we later find out that he feels this way primarily because of an event in his past
- Maruki was once engaged with a woman named Rumi.
However, one day, Rumi’s parents were murdered during a robbery.
This scarred Rumi and sent her into a shock, causing her to experience a mental breakdown
which resulted in her memories being permanently tainted.
Maruki found that Rumi was unable to recognize him or remember their love when he talked
to her, and she was never able to recover from this.
Her perception of reality was entirely shifted as a result of her terrible pain, and this
completely turned his life upside down.
However, this fueled his determination to combat this and helped him form the beginnings
of his philosophy.
From here, he vowed to fight back against the unfairness of reality and it became his
cause to overpower the cruelty that the world thrusts upon it’s denizens.
And ironically, through continuously nurturing these ideals, he found himself thinking of
the very thing that took Rumi from him as beautiful from another perspective.
For Maruki, the idea of perceptions of reality changing due to cognition can be wondrous.
Because if we look at the flip side of his tragedy, we can see that the human heart can
feel or experience things differently due to simply thinking about things differently
as Rumi did.
As a result, our cognitive world can then affect our happiness, and all it takes is
a shift in viewpoint.
It’s a wealth of potential that can lead to holistic joy and healing for others, if
tapped into the right way.
So Maruki vows to find this, as he begins his journey into researching cognitive pscience,
explores the facets of the multiverse and cognition, and learns vital things through
his interactions with Joker and the rest of
the students.
During his farewell speech on his last day as Shujin counselor, Maruki says something
very important and indicative - that no one is obligated to have to face an unfair reality
that they have no choice but to confront.
It’s okay to find alternatives, to escape from the trials that the world puts us through.
Regardless of whether or not one agrees with this, it is a statement born of true empathy
from Maruki - existence is a miracle, and we all deserve to be happy even if it’s
a happiness that hinges on escapism and artificiality.
The power, feeling and impact of that happiness is what’s important, not the origin - And
he hopes for everyone to be able to find this one way or another.
Before he takes his leave, he reveals to Joker that he knew that he was a phantom thief the
whole time, or at least had strong suspicions.
But he never reported this or even thought of stopping him, because he believed in his
morals and intentions.
And this is because his goals were the same - to help free society from this darkness
and fix the world’s pain.
He says here that even though he may have a different path from Joker, they’re two
of a kind.
He sincerely hopes for them to meet again, and wonders if he could offer a helping hand..
even if Joker may think it’s meddlesome.
He then leaves, and we don’t hear from him again for the remainder of the Vanilla game’s
story events.
However, after defeating Yaldabaoth, the new year brings a slew of confusion for Joker.
Following a dream in which a strange voice questions his defiance and unwillingness to
accept some vague concept of truth, he wakes up to find a bunch of weird shit has happened.
Morgana is a human.
Futaba’s mother, Wakaba, is alive.
Haru’s father is alive.
Ryuji is a part of the track team.
Makoto is lucky enough to spend time with her father.
Yusuke has been taken in by a now compassionate Madarame.
Everything is different and everyone is living in some new reality where the sad events of
their past have corrected themselves.
But Joker and Akechi eventually realize that they’re the only ones unaffected, and they
meet up with Yoshizawa to discover the truth.
After entering a mysterious new palace, they find a huge, luxurious clinic of sorts that
accepts all types of patients and allows them to quote unquote become happy.
The workers and patients here all speak of finding this salvation, and though the message
seems positive, it’s all a bit strange and cultish.
It doesn’t feel quite right.
It is here where we learn the revelations of Yoshizawa’s past, though as she searches
for the truth that the palace teases to her, she’s told by workers here that there’s
no point in looking for sadness and pain, even if it is genuine truth.
The voice of Maruki booms from somewhere and says the same, encouraging her to return to
her current reality and avoid this heartache that comes with the truth.
We then learn that Maruki has gained the power to alter reality into a more painless one,
one that people wish for.
He shows us Yoshizawa’s truth and asks everyone to choose a reality here, offering all involved
the chance of a blissful dream-like escape to a personal heaven - a false reality, a
fake truth and a hoax of a life.
It is clear that he has found a method to go along with the ideals he held all this
time, and has at the same time exaggerated those ideals - believing that pleasant, warm
lies are a better alternate to a sometimes ugly truth.
And being granted the power to control the reality that people see, Maruki views this
as his duty, to create a paradise for everyone where no one feels any pain through this dream
world.
It’s an intent that is wholly good, but it’s the methods that he and our party butt
heads on.
While the party confronted their past and the true ugliness of the world and attempted
to enact a change within it by defeating Yaldabaoth and rejecting the false freedom of indolence,
Maruki instead believes in artificially changing the realities of the populace.
Joker believes in healing the world through changing it, and Maruki believes in healing
the world through avoiding the truth.
But while both of these may bring happiness, only one is real and earned, and only one
is true progress.
And it’s a blind spot that Maruki refuses to see a problem with.
To him, it doesn’t matter that it’s all false and he doesn’t care, as long as there
is no agony for anyone.
While his distortions were exaggerated, Maruki is a good man, just like he was in the beginning,
and what’s notable is that while the other palace leaders we fought had given in to their
extreme darkness, Maruki was never full of the malice that characterized the others.
His desire is to save humanity through this artificial cognition.
His distortion is a utopia for all.
It was just too much, because while well-intended, this is not a true freedom, and instead is
another subset of the indolence of the masses that we defeated before.
It isn’t just lying down and accepting a lack of agency as Yaldabaoth encouraged, but
it is indulging in a world while not using your power for your own wishes and while refusing
to muster up the strength to move forward.
There is no control here, no agency, and as such this is something of a dead life of passivity
and detachment where no happiness is real.
If he gets what he wants, with Mementos merging with the real world, Maruki’s actualized
dream world will become the new reality.
Forcing people to live in this fake world with no means to wake up and no ability to
grasp happiness for themselves - which, some would argue, would rob them of a huge part
of their true life purpose.
And that is too far.
It is removing the agency that the party has sought to advocate, the agency that they inspired
in the public after defeating the Grail that will lead to society’s progress.
And in the end, this agency and ability to change the world is what Persona 5 is advocating.
Not running away from these troubles, but coming together and tackling these things
head on.
Maruki opposes Joker sadly because he genuinely views him as an obstacle to peace.
And in order to defend what he believes, he must do whatever he can to stop him.
He resorts to unsavory methods, and he admits to not knowing if he is right - but this is
what he feels is right, and he will do anything to defend that.
The music for Maruki’s palace, entitled a Gentle Madman, is a terrific encapsulation
of this third semester through capturing the spirit and tone of this prolonged fight with
Maruki.
In this illustrious palace, in our final mission, we have a song here that is appropriately
grand and regal and epic.. but it is quite sad and somber at the same time, almost mourning
the fact that things have come to this.
Maruki isn’t the hero of the game because he becomes distorted by his ideals and fails
to see the truths of freedom, happiness and other viewpoints.
But he is the result of what the setting can turn a genuinely great human being into.
Someone who just goes too far in search of a solution to the torment, and fails to realize
the value and potency of slowly but surely making little positive changes and gradually
changing perception in society.
And the party see this as they languish in the comforting illusion that Joker and Akechi
refused to submit to.
That they are happy.. but running away.
And that isn’t true happiness, nor does it solve anything.
So they all break through the illusion and aspire to prove him wrong through one last
heist - and by the end, he finds himself able to continue living and looking for a proper
solution even as he sees his well-intentioned life’s work and the symbol of his love crumble
before him.
Taking everything into consideration, him not losing hope and not giving into grief
here is amazing.
It’s easy to sympathize with Maruki - his ideals are formed from his horror at the truth
of a world that took the love of his life away from him and changed everything through
changing her cognition.
This cognition change was very real, and had lasting effects.
So why not flip that, and turn it into a positive?
Could that not lead to widespread happiness?
He feels true pain at the suffering of others, so he wants to heal all of it.
But he doesn’t see that this happiness is a farce.
It may feel real and tangible, but it is not true and it does not acknowledge any attempts
to try to fix society’s true problems.
And in the end, that is just another form of running away.
And he acknowledges this, and admitted that he saw escape as a primary solution all the
way back during his farewell speech.
But he just doesn’t see another way.
He hates fighting someone with the same goal as him, but he can’t give up and stop what
he’s started.
He believes until stopped by the party in the end, until it is literally impossible
for him to continue, and that’s how important this is to him.
But we help him to realize the flaws of this, and through example, we help him to believe
that maybe we don’t need some revolution to change things.
Maybe through controlling our destinies and grasping things with our won two hands, through
little acts of kindness and little shifts in perception from everyone, society just
might be able to heal on it’s own.
Is this a surefire thing?
Of course not.
But we have learned through our journey that sitting on our asses and indulging in hopelessness
and falsities is no way to live life, and we transfer that lesson onto Maruki.
A man hurt by the world, who only ever became as distorted as he did because of how big
of a heart he had.
But at the same time, a man who, by the end, is also able to see the beauty in situating
himself in reality and going day by day, taking the raw pain and pleasure and darkness and
light, and shouldering it all in service of a better future.
Many thanks for watching.