#random hyper focusing at 5 am woot 8U

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

Persona 5 Problems: “Goro can’t escape Shido” doesn’t make sense

Might be a pt 1. But before I get into it, what I mean here is “Goro can’t escape Shido” doesn’t makes sense in the context of the characters interactions that we see nor the rules or the world we see in Persona 5.” 

I probably could title this as “Atlus doesn’t know how to utilize it’s Metaverse and everything around it is shit pt 1: In relation to Goro” but that’d be too long, and it gives you more insight on what’s in store. 8U

Also this isn’t to rag on Goro, but the failure of the writing with P5. I mean I hate Goro, partially for his writing partially for how I think he’s a jerk and not in a fun way (cause I do like characters who are jerks but he just doesn’t jive with me)....this for full transparency (esp if you are new). 8U That being said I wont’ tag it as Goro cause I’m not a jerk, I’ll tag it as anti I guess but...........yeah in retrospect after typing this I do kinda take a dump on his writing so anti tag it is. 0u0 

Now why arm I talking about this? Well a new chapter of P5MM came up and.....well this picture appeared:

Now I love Saito, the manga is pretty good, so this is nothing against Saito. My issue is.....I guess the over victimization of Goro esp when it 1) makes no sense and 2) is contradictory.

Now do I think an antagonist that is a victim doesn’t make sense? No. What doesn’t make sense is that P5 doesn’t bother to develop it. P5 throws out the bare minimum of hints all while making NO SENSE how that could work. So fans have to fill in the blanks, and that’s either making him more sympathetic or like me who’s either deciding to start master blasting holes everywhere or is ready to throw this suit case out all together.

I know a lot of fans, and adaptations (such as this) kinda lean towards making Goro more sympathetic. I DON’T BLAME THEM. Like I said, there’s a lot of holes to fill in. And one of them is his relationship with Shido, something VERY crucial to the plot and is.....glossed over with like a few min worth of dialogue. 

Anyway what am I getting at? The issue that annoys me a lot, and that was shown in this picture that hair-triggered me into wanting to write this, was the fact “Goro is being controlled by Shido/Goro has no power and Shido has his claws into him/Goro can’t escape Shido.” As seen in the pictured above, you see Goro has hands to his throat and Shido has an overwhelming presence. Goro is trapped by Shido. And a lot of people will agree with this. It’s understandable because the game half assidly will say things like “you know what happens to people who defy me!” and basically threatening Goro’s life. EXCEPT IT’S ALL BULLSHIT!

“Woah that’s a little extreme what do you mean?” I mean it, Goro is not being controlled by Shido. It’s annoying P5 even INSINUATES that possibility in its writing! It makes no sense for Goro to be the powerless one here, not with the game we were given. And it’s amazing this wasn’t caught in the writers room. This is how that scene should’ve gone down given what we know:

Shido: You know what happens to people who oppose me! Goro: Yeah motherfucker, you send me! What do you want me do? Kill myself? What are you a 14 year old troll on the internet? Do you want me to kill you for threatening me-you scrotum looking asshole? 

Just freaking think about it, Shido or his confidants want a breakdown? Send Goro. They want a shutdown or to possibly kill someone? Send Goro. What the fudge is Shido doing threatening the guy who does his dirty work? Is he gonna kill him himself? No. Shido is a gd moron.

“But what about the cleaner guy?” Great question! And here’s my answer! What about him? No seriously what could anyone but the PT or a god do to Goro? Nothing. 

“But how is that nothing?!” Easy, Goro can take him out, breakdown or shutdown, before he could hurt Goro. If Shido sic’d anyone on Goro, Goro could easily take down Shido, the cleaner, and anyone related to either who know they should take Goro down. All thanks to the Metaverse. And because of that “Goro is trapped by Shido because he’s threatening Goro with death” is such a BS excuse by the game. 

“But what about Shido’s knowledge of the Metaverse? Didn’t he say he could utilize it?” Yeah what about it? The game doesn’t showcase HIM using the Metaverse. He always sends Goro. Which is REALLY FREAKING WEIRD considering he still acts this way, knowing full well Goro is missing. Like how are you going to do it Shido???? 1) you need an app first and foremost, 2) you’ll need a Persona or else you’ll get rekt’d! YOUR LOGIC MAKES NO SENSE! And him knowing about how the Meteverse works is just bs plot device so that we can shoo away how he could believe Goro in the first place let’s be honest.

The only people who use the Metaverse that we don’t know how they got there was the SWAT team that busted the MC, and while not explained it’s possible Goro had something to do with it (either giving someone his phone, since multiple people can go in with just one phone). That’s the only thing that makes sense, since only app users (aka PT+Goro) can got to that world. Tho the cut content seem to indicate even the police don’t know:

And it seems that you only get the app if you have a Persona (minus Goro, MC, and Futaba), cause that’s what Yadly wants:

(btw Ryu’s first pic is pre awakening and the 2nd is post awakening, Futaba’s the only one to get her’s before her Persona with the exception of Goro/MC, but Yadly must’ve thought she was useful or some shit judging by his dialogue early on in the game XP)

But yeah, bringing this up because it’s relevant to know who can and who can’t use the Metaverse. Goro CAN. Shido/Shido’s confidants CANNOT. Goro has the advantage. Shido does not. Goro holds all the cards. Shido’s a gd moron.

As for how Goro could end Shido and his Confidants. If for some reason Goro doesn’t know some of Shido’s confidants JUST BY WORKING WITH THEM, then he can find out through Shido’s Palace. Shido’s Palace literally contains every single one of his CoOps in Cognition form. Which means he probably knows their name, and all Goro really needs is a name cause that’s the hard part. Once he interrogates all the Cognitions and Shadow Shido, he takes Shadow Shido out, go after the real CoOps’ shadow, interrogates them (plus cognitions if they have a palace), and work his way down the latter until know one is after him. He can also squat in the Metaverse if for some reason the heat is really on him, and what’s the worse that could happen? They get pulled in with him? Well that’s bad....FOR THEM! Cause Goro has more powers there, his Persona, he’s stronger and more durable. There’s really no losing here.

So again, one last time. “SHIDO’S THREATS ON GORO’S LIFE MAKES NO SENSE BECAUSE GORO HAS THE POWER TO END SHIDO NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND!”

“Well what about his strangle on giving Goro affection?” Ok, ngl....been awhile....but I legit have NO RECOLLECTION of Goro or Shido showing any possible fatherly affection. I feel like I’ve seen more of the fans make this argument then the game. If the game did then it was just....such a throwaway line, and it’s a classic “P5 tell don’t show” move. Coupled with how contradictory the writing is with the way the story is built (like show literally above in how Goro’s life should not be threatened like AT ALL). P5 goes out of its way to show how much Goro HATES Shido and HE CAN’T WAIT TO SEE HIM GO DOWN! That doesn’t seem like someone hesitating cause he wants a hug from daddy. The only reason he waits so long was because he wanted him to be prime minister (or just close to election) and then bring him down from the highest pedestal. THAT’S IT. He has so much more backing that then “I really wanted a daddy figure that gave me pats on the head and told me I was a good boy.” If P5 WAS going for that then they did an even piss poor job than with the issue above. 

And listen, I’m NOT saying that’s not something that couldn’t have happened, I’m saying the writing makes it not really support it or have it make sense. (edit: after typing this I vaguely recalled Shido saying that all Shido had to do was tell Goro he was a good boy and he thought he had him wrapped around his finger-of course this could’ve just been a tumblr post I read that’s how much I remember Shido praising Goro XP, and lkfsd;lakvl;vs this is soooooo batshit all over the place, are you controlling him with fear of death or love???? cause neither are working here bro. Btw at the bottom I go into a route in which this COULD work, but it means dropping the whole fear of death bs argument I made at the very beginning, and even then it’s not Shido actually controlling Goro, it’s him thinking he does.)

And if anyone says “What about destroying his career and social-hood by revealing Goro is a bastard?” And give Goro the platform, the audiences’ full attention for him to be like “YEAH AND GUESS WHO MY DAD IS?! :D” Like, considering Shido figured out Goro was his son, it’d be even more stupid of him to think he could do that when it’d be social suicide for him. As for Goro? That was his plan all along, nothing to lose! Maybe it’s not as high of a fall that he wanted, but he’s still bringing him down!

Now despite this rant, I’m NOT saying Goro isn’t a victim. As a bastard/foster child in Japan, he is a victim for their horrible treatment towards that group. That can’t be argued and in all honesty if it was just that I’d be happy. What I don’t think he is a victim of is Shido, at least beyond the parental abandonment (he is a victim for his dad being horrible and not marrying his mother and stuff like that OBVIOUSLY), by Shido I mean the Conspiracy related stuff. Making it out so that Shido controlled Goro the whole time, that Goro had no agency, that Goro couldn’t oppose him. That’s what I hate. I hate how people make him such a woobie victim when....he very well probably wasn’t. When he made Goro kill, it’d make more sense for Goro to be scared of losing his connection to Shido (aka not being able to monitor him and continue his plan) than be scared Shido might kill him (I mean he had freaking superpowers what the fudge?). But if people looked at it like that then Goro would be more in the wrong no? Choosing to value his goals of revenge over other’s? Maybe he didn’t want to kill but he still CHOSE because his own goals meant more than someone else’s life. But noooooo that would hurt him being a victim right? We need to make it all Shido’s fault! Goro did nothing wrong! Right? So we made it seem like Shido could threaten Goro’s life, make it a kill or be killed situation, even when it made no sense. 

I think Goro could been good, could’ve been complex. A boy who was an abandon bastard son of a politician, mistreated and abused by society until teenhood, suddenly granted the power to get revenge on his father, and going to any lengths, even if it broke his own moral code, because he was that dedicated to bringing down someone? That’s interesting, it’s simple. But “ A boy who was an abandon bastard son of a politician, mistreated and abused by society until teenhood, suddenly granted the power to get revenge on his father, forced to go to any lengths because he ended up in a trap by said father he wants to take down, even if it MIGHT (cause Atlus be chickens and “ambiguous”) be against his own moral code but like he’s being forced by his dad so is it really his fault? That? Fudge that. That’s needlessly confusing, it’s bending itself all out of shape to try to purify this character....and I hate it. 

There’s also the weird contradiction on Shido’s end where it’s like “He’s super paranoid that he kills people, and he doesn’t trust Goro since he plans to kill him, but he trusts him enough for certain things that he doesn’t need to double check on himself even if it poses a threat to him like I dunno checking IF THE GD MC BODY IS DEAD?! >:(” 

I dunno, I just think Goro having the strongest conviction to take down Shido (even killing because he wants to take him down so badly for what he did), with Shido not knowing Goro is his son and actually trusting him (with maybe gaining suspicions later towards the end for plot drama) because he’s so confident he groomed Goro into being his perfect little follower, is just so much more interesting? Goro is still a victim, but he’s not the perfect or “bending the character out of shape” to be perfect victim. He was hurt horribly and chose to deal with it in an....unhealthy way. It also makes the two seem reasonable, Shido thinks he’s in control because he took this starry eyed follower under his wing not because he’s threatening him with violence. Even tho we know Shido isn’t in control, Goro just likes to think he’s in control. 

;tldr: I hate how people (and even Atlus/the game) try to twist Goro into being this perfect victim, all while saying “well he does do bad things but it’s because of Shido!” instead of letting Goro be accountable and have it make logical sense in the game (because the game is a hot garbage mess). 

So yeah this concludes a 5 am rant I started yesterday. 8U 

#persona 5 #p5 #anti-goro akechi #anti goro akechi #anti goro #anti-goro #this doesn't even cover the possibility that goro's real personality might be 100% shit bag and might be fine with killing #queue #q #random hyper focusing at 5 am woot 8U #persona problems #persona 5 problems #again this is more an issue with the illogical and inconsistent writing in P5