Persona 5: The Purpose of Pain

In Persona 5 you play as a high schooler who is on probation after being falsely accused of a crime and is forced to attend a new school in a new city. You soon find out that you have the power to enter into a world that takes the form of a person’s cognition and that through this power, can make changes to an individual’s personality. While in this world you are able to manifest your personality into a persona that gives you power and acts as a mask to help you face hardship. Throughout the game you make a number of friends who also have a persona and have the power to enter the cognitive world. The one link that chains you all together is that you all have been taken advantage of by an adult in some way and together have vowed to change society by way of this new found power and form a group known as the phantom thieves. After the first major section of the game a new counselor, Takuto Maruki is introduced in Royal and arrives at the school. This is due to the student body experiencing traumatic events involving physical abuse, sexual harassment and an attempted suicide as the result of a teacher. The main purpose of the new counselor is a front put up by the school’s administration to regain public favor so the phantom thieves are initially suspicious. Over time the phantom thieves find out that Maruki genuinely wants to help the students and you all slowly interact with him throughout the game. Maruki along with two other characters that were added or expanded upon in Royal play key roles in the third semester. The other two characters being Kasumi Yoshizawa, a classmate and striving gymnast and Goro Akechi, a detective that is investigating Criminal cases involving cognition as well as the phantom thieves. These two characters both have personas and assist you through various parts of the story, though are not part of the phantom thieves and have differing ideals to you.

Cognition and the perception of society play key roles in the story and by leveraging worldwide infamy and belief you are able to gain enough power to affect the entirety of society from the cognitive world. After finishing the main story, beating the final boss, and saving the world you wake up in the third semester. You hang out with all of your friends and you have a great time. You even meet Akechi, who turned out to be evil and dies in the final dungeon, only to seemingly come back to life to take the fall for you and be arrested by the police as the evil mastermind, and is mysteriously released soon after. It almost seems like all of the hardships that you went through together in the past were mere illusions. Everything is perfect…. almost too perfect. Everything is in fact too perfect, you soon find out as your friends are in strange situations where their already failed dreams have come true. Your friends don’t even remember how you met and what was the catalyst for it all. Even stranger, people who should have been long dead have come back to life and no one seems to find this strange other than you and Akechi. Together with Kasumi you decide to investigate. Eventually you find that the cause of all of this is Maruki who has gained the power to alter reality as he sees fit. It turns out that the power that you received through society’s recognition and belief in the phantom thieves has been transferred over to Maruki due to your reliance on him through your various counseling sessions. Using this new found power Maruki manifested his ideology and has erased all pain in existence from the world. While investigating the strange occurrence you find out that Kasumi had a twin sister that died in a car accident, Sumire. When you find Maruki, he however reveals that Kasumi was in fact the one that had died in the accident. Sumire, being unable to cope with the loss of her sister, believes that Kasumi deserved to live much more than her and that she should have been the one who had perished instead. Maruki, being Sumire’s counselor, grants her wish by altering her cognition to make her believe that she is Kasumi and to live as her. Upon this revelation, Sumire breaks down and, unable to bear the pain, sides with Maruki’s ideology of a world without pain.

During this arc there are four major characters that clash with their ideologies. Maruki, who after witnessing suffering and the damage it causes seeks to erase all pain from the world. Sumire, who cannot bear the pain and wishes to be set free from it. Akechi, who Maruki reveals to actually be dead and is only alive thanks to his power. This revelation in fact causes Akechi to oppose Maruki. Having lived a life of a pawn he refuses to be manipulated any longer, even if it means his continued death. And finally you, who up till this point has fought for the ability to forge your own path. The phantom thieves refuse to accept a reality in which their hardships have never occurred or been overcome. As this means the events and actions that have shaped who they are as people have been void. Witnessing you and your friends attempting to face your own pain and suffering head on, Sumire decides to finally stop running away from her own past. Neither character is inherently wrong. As is pointed out by December Cuccaro in this article (https://sidequest.zone/2020/07/07/take-your-heart-and-tear-it-apart-the-moral-dilemma-of-persona-5-royal-new-endings/ ) Maruki’s ideal of removing pain isn’t a bad idea. In the bad ending everyone is at the peak of their happiness and their lives are perfect. At the same time to deny what made the characters who they are and to force them into a false reality leaves a bitter taste. What makes Maruki’s ideology even more complex is that his ideology is essentially the same as the main character’s. The entire game you have been going around and altering people’s personalities in order to reduce suffering in the world. The only difference is that you want the ability to forge your own path. This video(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRcUfIJicXY) talks about escapism and self actualization in this context. That escapism is healthy in controlled amounts and is something that is desired during hardships. Regardless, without the will and drive to change yourself you cannot grow as a person, and by accepting a false reality you undermine any previous personal growth and development. When everything is perfect there is no need for any self actualization or growth. Eventually Maruki comes to understand the purpose of pain and after returning reality back to normal, decides to start his life over.

Overall I think this story line says a lot to the player. Mainly that hardships and difficulty lead to growth and that they can alway be overcome. Avoiding hardships isn’t exactly wrong but continued escapism leads nowhere. Carving your own path isn’t easy, but it will eventually lead you to a better future. Persona 5 discusses a large number of social topics but the main takeaway for me is that you can’t go wrong by trying.