So I’ve been working on this essay which I’ll be publishing somewhere away from the usual places. I’ve been working on it for far too long and slowly chipping away, and it needed a lot of work and still does but I can’t keep working on it.

I hope you enjoy.

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Recently KBash (check his stuff here, here and here) wrote an article about Haruki Murakami or whatever his name is, or rather used a scene from Persona 5 Royal featuring him and a cat to springboard into the idea of the best of all possible worlds. I haven’t played the game and I don’t care much to so inevitably I will get some things wrong. Mainly I’m using some of the scene and what KBash wrote to write my thoughts on the characters.

I understand that the plot of P5R involves going to the top, and I understand that The Phantom Thieves take out the big bad dude at the end of it all. I also understand that after, they argue against the methods of the bigger, badder, gooder dude at the end of it all as, whilst he creates a reality where it’s happiness for all and people see their desires actualised, his way of doing so is unsound.

Part of Maruki’s way of achieving this is altering people’s experiences at a base level: essentially eliminating their personal history of pain and trauma to help better put them in a position of happiness and desire fulfilment. Anyway, there are a number of questions about this, such as whether it’s true happiness if we’re preventing people from experiencing the negative; If people seeing their desires realised is worth the trade-off of a perceived lack of choice, and so on. Consequently and naturally, there are also arguments for and against Maruki’s approach.

What I want to know is what’s going to happen if resources start getting thinner than they already are. What’s going to happen when desires come into conflict with other ones, especially in terms of approach to handling natural environments? How would Maruki resolve these? I don’t think it’s good that Maruki seemingly only considers humans and society, and part of having a solely human-centric view when trying to give people something idyllic isn’t good for the world overall.

Based on my limited knowledge of P5R and its characters, Maruki either lacks an understanding of resources, industry and the environment, or doesn’t want to think about them. However, this isn’t something the game addresses. Considering it offers a reflection of an idea of society and its ills and these are pretty prominent issues, especially in terms of how they impact younger people, I feel not considering these particular consequences is a missed opportunity.

Putting environmental concerns aside, there’s also very real possibility that Maruki could be putting people into a position where they’re happy to be overworked, and unless he knows how to make things better, he’s likely not going to be doing a good job of untangling industry and how society functions around it.

To me, part of the issue seems like Maruki thinks he’s creating a reality for everyone to be happy and painless, and have their desires granted and all that, but he’s actually just creating a reality for himself and he doesn’t realise it. Whether he is or is not, what Maruki does feels more like a temporary solution not addressing the issues me.

Sometimes the idea of escapism, if not escapism itself, is viewable as positive. It can be a source of necessary reprieve; of downtime to relax before thinking again, and even a source of inspiration, expected or otherwise. However, eventually you have to return to the room, so to speak, if you want to keep going. Otherwise (and especially in this case) you could end up with a range of problems, which has me wondering the following:

How much manipulation is Maruki capable of, and how far is he willing to go in order to preserve his idea of an ideal society?

The Phantom Thieves fight Maruki because they’ve decided that, whilst the goal for his plan isn’t necessarily bad, the way he’s applying it is problematic. Whilst Maruki is stripping away pain and suffering, my understanding is that they feel the potential for growth as well as freedom of choice are being denied, things that a lot of people associate with what it means to be human.

Before I keep going, I feel it important to touch on some of what has shaped my perspective and views.

I grew up alright, but I grew up poor, and until very recently have spent most of my life poor and being near or within toxicity. I’ve had people dismiss my views on how things were and are in the city I live, and it wasn’t until after I went overseas the one time I’ve been when the same people starting saying what I had been as though I never had. I’ve spent a lot of time hearing about how good we in Australia have it as a way to shut down conversation instead of engage and work toward improvement.

I’ve spent a lot of time seeing marginalised groups denied a place at the table of ideas and solutions so others can cover for them, or being given a tokenistic, rather than genuine seat. Too often it is that people know marginalised groups exist, but they don’t understand that marginalised groups exist.

I remember when I was doing my degree, having people in academia tell me that I needed to prioritise study over work. Not person; people. I was working to survive and relying on government assistance to cover the financial shortfall whenever I didn’t have enough work hours. In order to get that assistance, I had to be enrolled in a certain amount of courses at any given time, and I didn’t get it all the time as my working hours were variable. When I did get it, it didn’t always cover enough.

When I’d respond and explain that I had to work to survive, they didn’t have a response and moved from the conversation. They’d probably heard it before, but I wasn’t the only person in my position at the time who had been told similar things, and like the others, I was feeling as though too many of the academics were not aware enough.

The cost of living crisis came into the public view within the last few years. That a lot of people who were fine until then found themselves facing a lot of uncertainty sucked, but for a good few people it was business as usual; it just wasn’t in vogue beforehand.

You hear too many people say they aren’t interested in politics, and I find that most often this comes from people who aren’t affected, or at least don’t notice the effects of politics on their lives. Various people are going to experience varying ways in how they become aware and potentially galvanised. However, plenty stop caring when they feel they are no longer impacted. They get to return to comfort, so all is good. When you are in a marginalised group, if you’re active in politics, it’s difficult to have a say in whether you represent something or not. You often don’t get to disengage the same way other people do.

Whilst I’ve been through some pretty heavy stuff trudged through a lot, I’ve also been lucky in a lot of ways. I’m fortunate enough to have some solid people in my life, and I don’t think I would’ve made it to where I am now if it weren’t for them. Sure, I’ve put in a lot of my own work, but getting through life is more often a people effort than it isn’t, and It’d be wrong for me to deny the impact of those I care about on mine. I’ve been lucky, but there are too many people out there who haven’t been and still aren’t.

Suffering builds character, or so some say, but it also builds a lot of other things, including resent, and it can be difficult to pull out of a bad situation on one’s own. You hear people talk about doing something, but when called on to actually do something, anything at all, and in a position to act, suddenly it doesn’t happen. Suffering perpetuates unless genuine and continuous effort is put in to enact and reinforce meaningful change.

That said, there are plenty of people who live in privilege and engage with marginalised groups. They make a genuine effort to help, and keep on learning and trying to improve and uplift others, and over time it seems like the amount who try are increasing. There are plenty of academics out there who understand that not everyone is afforded the same opportunity as them. As such, despite my criticism, I don’t necessarily think it’s conducive to be staunchly critical of those who only engage once they are directly affected. There’s a good chance you weren’t aware of some issues until you were affected, directly or otherwise. It’s what happens in the aftermath and past its resolution; that’s what we should look at.

So what are The Phantom Thieves offering when it comes to betterment? What are they willing to do to take what Maruki puts forward and apply it in a way that they’ll feel is healthier? That will be helpful to society and the world?

I don’t think they care to work toward meaningful change. I know one wants to become a cop to work on reformation from the inside, but ultimately I think they want what they think benefits them. As far as my understanding goes, the protagonists mostly are in a position to be successful rather than struggle through life, despite the uncertainty of the future. At the end of the game they get their lives back the way they want. They retain their experiences and bonds gained through their pain and trauma, and they resolve to see their desires fulfilled on their own terms. Good on them.

Before the end The Phantom Thieves say they fight for what is as, despite the promise of happiness, denying people “the experience of being human” in a reality they perceive as false is something they disagree with. If someone wants to take on the world on their own terms, then it’s not great if they can’t. It’s not great that there’s all this suffering, but at least someone has the ability to choose. At least people have control in their lives, and can experience a full range of things… except for a good few out there often are denied opportunity due to various reasons, and a good few suffer needlessly. But that doesn’t matter, apparently.

As far as I’m aware, they don’t offer much of anything, if anything at all, when it comes to what they’ll do to help give people a better life. They’ll get what they want, so what does it matter? But plenty of teenagers have fought and keep fighting to improve and uplift people, and these ones aren’t. Rebellion is great and all, but the only thing The Phantom Thieves are rebelling against at this point in the game is change.

In having interviewed and had discussions with KBash I’ve been fortunate enough to speak with him about some of what we worry about. I think his concerns are valid, and I think we need to spend more time thinking about how we’re existing, and the existential crises we face. However, I disagree about the overall view of the world. Despite everything going on, I believe that this is the best of all possible worlds as we have the ability to make it as such, despite how monolithic the barriers seem. We can turn things around, but it requires a lot of work and quite possibly a good bit of sacrifice.

The ideas P5R puts forward in this scenario are, whilst well-trodden ground, worth exploring. The idea that someone can create this utopic, albeit existentially flawed, reality should be dug into. However, too often the argument against becomes something along the lines of “You can’t because escapism”, with varying levels of implied depth and it’s no different here. Essentially you get a bunch of people and Hero Cat arguing against someone in a Halloween costume manifesting evil demon, and the latter is wrong and the former is right, even though both manipulate people to achieve their goals. The protagonists doing it is okay as those people are bad, but the Maruki doing it is not okay as it isn’t true. Because letting society continue as it is is fine so long as what people deal with is real.

I know I’m criticising very little in a game that some might argue is more entertainment than art, but it’s entertainment that means things to people, and I really wish the writers treated what they forward with a bit more consideration. I’m a bit over writers implying they’re going to explore exitential dilemma, only to turn around and say “nah”, and in this instance I don’t think the game saying the protagonists are right justifies it. Ultimately, it feels like the push against Maruki is more about embracing and reinforcing libertarian capitalist fantasy than it is about exploring the issues and working out a progressive way forward.

And I know that there’s multiple endings, but I doubt the one where you agree with Maruki is considered correct.

As I said earlier, I believe the best of all possible worlds is our current one, but we’ve a lot of work to do. We should be putting the effort in where we can and how we can to try and better ourselves and assist others. I believe in the power of community outreach, environmental restoration, education and looking after each other where we can. There’s community and volunteer efforts in a lot of places doing all sorts of things, and they make small, yet continual movements toward betterment. These are done by people giving their time because they understand the value of doing so. The more we help and learn and apply what we learn, the easier the work becomes, and the closer we get to realising the best of all possible worlds. But it won’t happen if we don’t put in the work.