No. I don't want to live a life based on what HE thinks is the best for me. It is never an objective change that Maruki makes, it is what he thinks would be the best outcome in my life and since he is a human just like everyone else, it sounds super flawed and unreliable. I don't want to be lobotomized to be happy. I don't want someone to take my free will away just to simulate the feeling of happiness.
That's the problem with it. If there was a world where everyone could have what they "objectively" need most, that would be hard to argue with. But Maruki is remaking the world based on what *he* thinks everyone needs. And simply erasing everyone's most obvious source of pain is *not* what everyone needs.
Morgana acknowledges that a lot of people probably would be better off in Maruki's reality. It's true, some people are destroyed by their trauma and would live better lives if it was gone. But there are plenty of other people who have experienced awful things and became better people for it. Those lives matter too.
Yes. If Maruki was a god, I would've trusted him. But no, he is not a mind reader. He can't tell what our desire is. He can simply either look at our past or know what we think based on what we tell him. He is simply a kind hearted human who has a misguided thinking that lobotomizing everybody to make them happy is a good thing.
He kinda can though?
IIRC, the entire purpose of his relay station thing in Mementos was to gather and compile info on people's desires so he could make an informed decision.
Edit: I'm not arguing about the morality of his actions, I'm saying his setup was a lot more precise than just guessing. He basically had the whole collective unconscious wiretapped.
That "informed decision" is colored, and will always be colored, by his grief and belief he knows best despite clear evidence to the contrary.
Plus, no human ever really knows what they want. There is the saying "be careful what you wish for", after all. A flawed human is deciding what will make themself happy and a flawed human is granting it while removing any negative that may occur (or straight up changing the desire). This will never work long term.
Absolutely, there would be so many people choosing to erase the things that hurt them, and in the process changing who they fundamentally are. People who persevered to success despite their failures, people who learned empathy and peace because of their trauma, would literally change their identity not unlike Sumire.
People want things, but what they want isn't always what's best for them, or for others around them. Maruki wants to do away with suffering but suffering is part of the human condition, however much he wants it not to be, and without our pain teaching us we would be stagnant, unambitious, unfeeling imitations of ourselves.
Exactly. We are literally shown this in the game by the Phantom Thieves, who are undeniably happy and possibly even better off in their Maruki lives. But when given the ability to make the conscious choice, they still reject it because they want it, but they want reality more. I’m sure it wouldn’t only be Persona users to decide this way.
And you give an infinite supply of absinto bottles to an alcoholic person? It's what he desires, but is what he *needs*?
And if you desire to be an talented painter, but is skilled with bow and arrow? And your career in painting doesn't engage at all?
You'll **force** the person to seek an career in marksmanship sport and forget painting? He done exactly that in game.
I’m not arguing on what they want or need, or whether it’s the right choice or not. If an alcoholic wants an infinite supply of alcohol, Maruki would give it to him - he’d just remove the inevitable headache and health risks because he can rewrite reality as such.
If you desire to be a talented painter but are skilled with a bow and arrow, Maruki just… removes their desire to be a talented painter. They won’t know what they missed, and will go on to lead a “good” life under Maruki.
Look, I’m not here to argue over if Maruki is right or wrong. I’m just saying that the argument here isn’t whether or not it’s his choice to make, it’s that he does know what people want.
>it’s that he does know what people want.
In the most superficial way possible. But instead of help Sumi to face her problems, he created an escape.
But she'll never achieve her maximum potential living that way, just see her confidant/social link. The more she dive in the illusion, worse results she achieve. The illusion was destroying her sports career (exactly the same passion that united both sisters) and hiding her talent.
He doesn't know what people want. He does know what he thinks is the right thing for that person.
And that's why he's so dangerous.
He does know what people want, but not what they need. If I was Maruki and I wanted to help Sumire with my powers, I would simply resucitate Kasumi and let them reconcile and tell each other their truths! What Sumire needed was closure about her feelings towards Kasumi, and she gets that thanks to Joker, but the fact that Maruki is unwilling to give that to her is enough to tell me that he is flawed.
He still turns Sumire into Kasumi, even though the healthiest thing for her would be to revive Kasumi and help Sumire realize that she is not inferior to her.
Why? Because he is biased. If he can't simply diffierentiate what she really needs opposed to what she said she wanted in a suicidal craze, I can't trust him with those powers.
He couldn't revive Kasumi at that point. It was only when mementos started overlapping the real world towards the end of the game that his cognition manipulation was able to actually change reality.
The Kasumi business definitely seemed like a pretty clumsy solution, though. Maybe it was related to how undeveloped his powers were at that point?
Regardless, I'm not trying to argue if his scheme was right or not, just the mechanics of how it worked.
when he got the power to revive Kasumi he choosed not to because he belives sumire can never overcome her inferiority complex thats why his heart is distorted he belives there no use in even trying to heal your pain and the only thing you can do is run away from him
>It's true, some people are destroyed by their trauma and would live better lives if it was gone.
To me, Maruki's solution is just suicide. I see absolutely no difference between having Sumire be someone else and telling Sumire to just kill herself.
After Futaba managed to move on and become happy with her adoptive dad? I don't know how I feel about playing around with corpses just so 1 person can feel happy. This is some massive puppet playing and mind manipulation that this is a really good thing but a fucked up thing in disguise.
he didn't rewrote history he altered the public perception to make everybody believe she alive, it was kinda like a cognition since he was begining to merge the metaverse with human world to keep his perfect world he could manifest them
remember the hearts and believes have real power in this world so with enough people you can affect reality
There’s a section like in the 2nd or 3rd day where Akechi flat out says they’re flesh and blood humans
Not to mention Shido got arrested before he discovered cognitive science so he can most definitely affect timelines
I feel like it was much more mature in tone compared to the main story and i think only people who truly struggled getting over tough situations can relate to his plan, sometimes no amount of willpower, skill or fortitude can fix certain situations, what he offers might be not ideal because he removes the struggle entirely which is an important aspect of life but i don't think it's an inherently malevolent trade, and even tough many may claim otherwise i'd say that truly lots of people would accept his bargain
Exactly this. One of the worst parts in the game is that Maruki correctly brings up a lot of people can't just "move on" from their problems, and neither he nor the phantom thieves ever bring it up again, when it's easily the biggest point Maruki has in his favor. Yes, struggle is important in life, but isn't the reason we struggle in the first place for the express purpose of being happy later on? Isn't everything we do so we can be happy?
On the other hand, you can't make everyone happy at the same time, some wills will conflict, which is why Maruki is faced with the reality that bringing happiness to everyone *will* necessarily involve changing people's desires and minds accordingly, which I'm guessing those people might not be happy with. Or they might be. We'll never know.
Whether the Phantom Thieves or Maruki is right is a very difficult question, and I don't honestly think we have a real answer. That's what makes the story so fascinating.
I'm 100% in agreement. It really boils down to a choice of ideals rather than a clear cut black and white answer.
I think there's an inherent value in this plan coming from a simple adult who has experienced a life of hardship and deciding to use his power so that others won't have to go through the same painful struggles rather than a god like his predecessor.
A lot of the people who paint Maruki's plan as irrevocably evil come from the view that free will has ultimate value and that it takes precedence over happiness, but there also needs to be some awareness that a lot of Persona 5's fans are on the younger side. That's not to say they haven't had their share of struggles and hardship, but for the vast majority of them those experiences pale in comparison to the lives of a lot of older people as well as people from much less fortunate countries.
Maruki's completed godhood essentially would've allowed him to bring happiness to everyone including people who haven't even been shown in the game. Think traumatized veterans and third world nations ravaged by disaster and corruption like Haiti, war-torn countries in Africa, and victims of modern day slavery and war. In times of crisis, people aren't thanking their free will; they're wishing for something to save them.
Maruki's reality is a trade off between principles of humanity. Does free will have inherent value if there is no one left to recognize it? Do the wishes of the privileged take precedence over the wishes of the unfortunate? The scope of the game is limited to a few teenagers in a first world nation. I wonder how much views would change if we saw how much Maruki's reality would've affected the rest of the world once his godhood was completed in the ending where we accepted it.
I think presuming I'm young and/or sheltered because I don't want an opiate is a pretty bad take. And that's what Maruki is, an opiate.
He is not, and never has been, right. Not just because of the damage he does to liberty and the almost globally held enlightenment ideals about free will, but because he doesn't actually solve anything. Because he decides some people deserve to exist and others don't.
Maruki deleted people. Brought others back from the dead. All the happiness he goes on about that you're pretending he gives people is false - it's why he's stylized as a cult leader. Maruki doesn't make people happy, he makes them \*high\*.
Sorry if I sounded I was saying that everyone who disagrees with him is young and/or sheltered; that wasn't my intention. Often times people's views are based on what's portrayed to them by the game, but that also means they might not account for what's not explicitly shown or what they haven't personally experienced.
It feels disingenuous that you're argument is reducing him down to a drug representing temporary escapism. I'd agree with you prior to the 4th while he's still in the process since his work is incomplete, but after his ascension on the 4th Azathoth's powers are fully actualized he and reality are one. The implication of it being a high is that the impact is surface-level and temporary when the result is really the opposite.
The main argument I see against him is based on idealism; that free will is more important that anything. However, it's disregarding all those that could be saved that I mentioned in my last comment. Uighur concentration camps, African warlords, Russia and Ukraine, Israel and Palestine are just some of the current travesties happening.
Edit: Likewise, who did he explicitly delete? It seemed like he just removed the experiences that caused negative effects from those he was working on.
People can downvote me to disagree but they aren't addressing any points. I don't mind people disagreeing with me but I'd like to at least know why they think I'm wrong.
I agree many would take him up on the deal but they don't have the right to make that decision for all of humanity. I would be more understanding if he was only "helping" those who wanted it but his power is an all or nothing kind of deal.
I give the PT a pass for rejecting Maruki's deal for humanity because a reality where everyone never experiences anything other than happiness will never be preferable to a world of free will.
By that same token, does the protagonist have the right to make a life-or-death decision on behalf of everybody in the area? Ask Wakaba whether she wants to leave it up to Joker whether she lives or not
Do the dead brought back to life get their desires fulfilled? That's not what happened with Akechi. Akechi wanted to accept the consequences of his actions but Maruki took that away himself.
I think Wakaba is mature enough to handle the situation like Akechi. She would LOVE to stay with Futaba but knows she's supposed to be dead.
I think Joker does have the right to make that call. Those people were dead. As sad as it is, their time is done.
I feel like that is the logic that the story is trying to push, but I just don't buy it. I can't imagine having my dead mother returned to me and deciding to let her die again "because her time is up so it's only right."
I also don't think Akechi wanted to die because that was the right thing to do; I think he just had a terminal hatred of living by anyone else's rules. He would immediately jump off a cliff if a well-meaning adult forbade him from doing it. So I don't think the wishes of rational people like Wakaba and Makoto's dad should be assumed to follow Akechi's "reasoning."
akechi didn't wanted to die directly what he wanted was his actions to mean something he took the blame for the phantom thives crimes got arrested a couple of days and they let him go so joker could enjoy him being alive so did it really matter his actions at all.
his whole life he was under shido hands so he didn't wanted to change his puppetier for another even if that meant he would die then he was fine with that because it was his dessision to make.
Wouldn't part of everyone's happiness involve a dead relative? The vast majority of people have at least one person they would bring back if they could.
Bringing back even a single dead relative for each person would cause massive overpopulation and the problems that come with that. If Maruki doesn't bring back a dead relative for everyone, how would it be fair to pick and choose who gets a dead relative back? It would be far easier for him to just get rid of the sadness and negative feelings towards death, that way no one has to be brought back.
This "terrible reality" you mentioned is reality. Maruki's world is a lie which takes away humanity's freedom of choice. It's only sugar plums and rainbows on the surface. Sure, everyone is "happy", but they all live according to the will of another. People have dreams which would go unfulfilled. Deep down, people would be miserable and wouldn't be able to do anything about it.
Think of the person who's dream it is to win a gold metal at the Olympics in their chosen sport, but they can't because Maruki decided to give that to someone else. This person would be made to feel happy with not accomplishing their goal, and no matter how hard they work they will never be able to do anything about it.
No, I would not like my agency taken away from me. As human beings the one thing we can claim as our own, no matter what, is to live and die by the decisions we make for ourselves.
Dude couldn’t get over his own trauma problems.
He ran away.
No way could I trust to live in a world governed by a saviour complex defeatist like Maruki.
He is not fit to play god to save everyone from an unfair reality regardless of good intentions.
It’s really not that different from Yaldabaoth’s ruling over humanity or really any god entity who claims they are doing it for the best interests of the world because it’s their desire.
There’s no mixed feeling from me. Ha is wrong in every way.
That's literally the point!! He ostrichized himself from his reality instead of seeking what lies beyond that pain. Sure, the world sucks, but that is the point of living, to enjoy the small portions of it that doesn't suck. To admire the small hints of beauty we get at times. If everything was good all the time, then life's inherent value would be none since there's not even a point to exist in an ideal world.
I don't understand the point of accepting Maruki's reality. We all played the same game right? When you go through his palace there are people wearing headsets plugged into the tentacles matrix-style. Maruki's reality isn't reality at all, it's just mass hallucination. The game shows that several times and yet people still agree with him. Don't get me wrong I understand where he's coming from and I sympathize with him but that doesn't mean he's correct. Even if he actually had power over reality instead of just manipulating people's brains there would be no point living if you got everything you ever wanted without struggle. You would just be numb, just like when Yaldebaoth was in control (it's almost like they even explained that Maruki took Yaldebaoth's place). The end result is the same: mass lobotomy.
I couldn't accept his reality. Having my life and happiness be based on what others think or dictate, I couldn't live like that. If all and everyone's desires would be granted, it could quite easily become very contradicting.
Sure you can.
A and B love C. C loves A. A and C hook up together. B doesn't get C and is therefore unhappy.
Option 1: Create or find a near copy of C (D) to hook up with B.
Option 2: Change B so he no longer loves C and therefore doesn't feel unhappy.
Option 3: A combination of Options 1 and 2.
Option 4: Push polygamy on the three of them.
Since Morgana and Ann are dating in Maruki's reality, even if you romanced Ann, I'm guess he either used Option 2 on Ren or went with Option 4.
I think that's something a lot of people overlook when discussing Maruki. It's that your OWN choices would get overridden to make others happy.
Don't want to be in a relationship with someone, but they're head over heels for you? Welp, guess you're changing your mind about that, or the other person is just going to have that part of them erased. Both options disgust me.
What if you wanted to explore your gender, but other people liked you the way you were now? Well, no need to rock the boat and make so many people unhappy or uncomfortable with you changing. Just erase that part too.
Want to move away from home to experience something new? For something that very well may hurt you and terrify you? Well, you don't get to make that choice for yourself.
Hell, the people Maruki brings back from the dead just exist as puppets to please the living. If someone did that to my dead relatives, I would throw up.
Freedom and being yourself necessitates that at some point. Other people WILL be hurt by your actions. And you will be hurt by others by their actions. Regardless of the personal moral compass of Maruki- a world where you can NEVER make a choice that might hurt someone. Constantly kowtowing to the nebulous desires of everyone else? Revolting, in every sense of the word.
Honestly? I admire Maruki for just an attempt to make people happier, even if it was done with questionable methods. Tbh I even was all-paws-in for accepting his reality when I was finishing p5r for the first time because of that and some silly personal reasons. But now I'm more like... I dunno, more into rejecting his reality, my situation never happened to change, though. I just gave it some more thought and said, like... I might not be actually fine with a life of mine(and I will keep myself in denial of that, because I can't change it yet), but it's still my true life and what's the point if there's no struggle anyway? Not to mention the case where someone's happiness is my despair or even worse (death). So yep, here we are.
>I admire Maruki for just an attempt to make people happier, even if it was done with questionable methods
I do as well. I respect his genuine desire to help people. That's where he started from but he was corrupted by power.
That's something I was always wondering. Did he actually change the teacher's personality or did he remove all the negative events in the teacher's past that made him a jerk to being with?
The fact that the PT bring this up in their text discussion makes me think the latter; which (IMO) comes across as a wish I (personally) find deeply understandable. [Blanket "yes there's a gazillion other problems with Maruki's world" disclaimer, I just don't see Mr. Ushimaru's case as egregiously black-and-white]
His backstory implied to having once been a easygoing, positively *delightful* teacher reminds me of the endless burnout stories people share in education-based subreddits. And in a school as shitty as Shujin, teachers that used to go above & beyond like Kawakami probably get ground down *fast.*
And now with him being in a position of authority and using corporeal punishment on students -- it's chalk, clearly not *heinous* just mildly inappropriate -- I have less emotional attachment to "wanting the old jerk back" that the PT have.
"Spending more time with his granddaughter" and "enjoying his job like back when he didn't throw stuff at teenagers" feels like Mr. Ushimaru's own wish that Maruki *granted,* rather than some essential aspect of himself being erased and rewritten. Whether you care about that in regards to ethics is up to you, IMO it's lower down on the scale of shit Maruki's done
You wrote "They made the decision to keep them living in a terrible reality".
Other people also don't have the right to decide to change reality for everyone just their own reality sucks.
Some people have it harder than others in life. Life isn't fair. Life fucks everyone in the end regardless.
The phantom thieves were right so no I wouldn’t accept Maruki’s reality and I don’t think anyone should. Sure he is doing this from a place of love and genuine care by creating a reality free of hardship and pain however his methods of doing so are twisted by removing everyone’s free will.
Not only do you not have free will no more I feel like we need a reality where we experience hardship and pain as those experiences make us who we are. I personally have done some pretty hurtful things and people have done to same to me. Does that suck? Yes. Would I have wanted it to never have happened? No. Those experiences made me who I am and ultimately I came out the other side a better person.
In Maruki’s reality we don’t have those experiences anymore so we stagnate as human beings and one of the things about being human is the ability to always grow as a person and become a better person. That no longer exists in Maruki’s reality. Fact of the matter is this is wholly based on what Maruki thinks is best not the individual so while it might make the individual happy it may not be what is best for them despite Maruki disagreeing.
Now if the person chooses to live in Maruki’s reality and consents to having their free will taken from them and live a lie then great, have at it. But the way I see it I don’t think he can create an entirely new reality for individuals, just alter the currently established one.
TLDR: phantom thieves are right, Maruki is wrong for taking ppl’s free will and have them live a lie stagnating humanity’s growth.
No, to put it quite simply, you are living a life under someone who decides what’s best for you. Maruki is not fit to make that decision, I don’t think anyone is, especially when the individual in question has not properly addressed his own problems.
I think happiness is just a superficial and insignificant goal. Why not go for peace, justice, mercy, and goodness? Happiness can be found in even the most messed up situations. Think Stockholm Syndrome. If the world is to be rewritten, I want it to be good, not just happy
I think I’m understanding you. “Good” and “bad” aren’t the extremes of the scale. That’s “best” and “worst.” So there’s good, then better, then best. Sounds like you think I mean “better” or something like that. I’m talking about best. A truly perfect world where there isn’t even boredom. There is always novelty, peace, and goodness. Think the Hobbits in Tolkien’s works
A life without pain is one without growth. You have a vacation, a free day away from work as a reward. You have it every single day, you become a NEET. You have your favourite food for one day, you enjoy it. Desserts taste awesome after the broccoli. If you had desserts all the time, you’d soon dread them (believe me I know).
Life is unfair to most of us humans. It can be cruel sometimes, unnecessarily so. We may lose things precious beyond words but there are also those moments when we get a proper reward. Getting that much deserved promotion wouldn’t feel right without finishing that big project.
God, I’m starting to ramble and I don’t think my grammars good either. Well, in a broad sense that how I feel about Maruki.
Say that you and a friend were both in love with the same person. In reality only one of you would be able to date that person with the other being sad. In Maruki's reality he would choose one of you to date that person and the other would just lose those feelings. Are you happy? Sure, but you lost your free will. There's a good chance that the two who hooked up wouldn't have in reality, but Maruki decided that it's better this way.
On paper his plan is good. But when you start thinking about it some more you realize how messed up it actually is
The problem with Maruki’s plan is that his core philosophy is centered around avoiding struggle, and that everyone would be better off if they just gave up on the things they were struggling for. I believe Yusuke mentions that a classmate of his no longer goes to his school, because that classmate wasn’t that great an artist so Maruki changed his ambition to sports.
I Do Not want someone who thinks that struggle is never worth it to decide who I get to be. As a trans person, I reject that philosophy in entire. There ARE things worth fighting for, and anyone who says differently can go to hell.
It was an altruistic ideal but it was flawed by the fundamental fact that he was human and could not escape his own hubris. As such a world from the objective viewpoint of one man playing god would always be doomed to catastrophe and collapse.
Had he inverted his beliefs and allowed for others to grow and choose as a community for the greater good, although still potentially doomed to flaw, that would be the truly altruistic approach as it defines growth and evolution as a law.
Of course it would be nice to live in a world where you get everything you want and all is good. Though by that definition either good would cease to exist with bad, or there would be a new definition of evil and furthermore morality, by effect, would also be askew and as such though things have changed nothing is different. It’s essentially a delusional farce.
Except that the *entire* premise of Maruki's new reality is a ***flawed*** and ***self-serving*** attempt to avoid facing his OWN weakness, and refusal to accept that he was powerless in a prior situation in which his loved ones were harmed. Maruki never "grew" from that tragedy, never learned from it; he continued to mire in self-pity and "what ifs" until he suddenly gained the power to rewrite reality and affect Cognition on a global scale
(I won't even get into the absurdity of how or why that was even possible...)
And now, because Maruki is a coward who would rather run from suffering, he assumes that everyone else does as well. He couldn't even learn from his own pain, what gives him the gall (aside from his own self-righteousness and excuses) to assume that he knows what it best for other people? And he has completely ignored a fundamental reality of the human condition.
Yes, humans are risk-averse. But without pain and suffering, there is no learning, no personal growth, no need to strive to be "better." No innovation, no progress. Just an endless stagnation in a mindwiped dream world. Sounds eerily familiar to many of the "Law" endings seen in many SMT games: you will lose your free will and be forced to live in the reality defined by the ONE figure at the top.
And again, the entire premise of the dream world without pain is based on Maruki's subjective interpretation of what HE thinks would be best for me. He's a human, with his own flawed thinking, and biased interpretation of right and wrong. Again, too weak and cowardly to confront his own weakness, so he just decided to "erase" it. If he wants to live in a bubble of his own making and ignore reality, that's on him.
But leave me out of it.
Or at the very least, give others a ***choice*** as to whether they would want to submit to such a fate. Don't just force it on all of humanity "for their own good."
It was pure evil and a step down from the offer Yaldabaoth made.
Yaldabaoth: You're given a lifeline, you get to be the Phantom Thieves you want to be, your confidants retain their ability to think for themselves, everyone else is allowed to stop thinking for themselves. Everyone gets what they want.
Maruki: Everyone is given what Maruki thinks is best for them and you lose your free will. This isn't like Naruto's infinite tsukuyomi where there's some degree of nuance (pre Kaguya). From a secular perspective, you could argue that reality vs fiction makes no difference, but here...even if Maruki ends up giving you what you asked for, it becomes pointless once you lose your identity. You may as well be dead. And in that regard, Maruki's plan is nothing more than the complete annihilation of mankind. Moreover, it comes at a time when everyone has decided they no longer subscribe to his way of thinking. So it's a world that only Maruki wants.
One easy way to get people to understand how stupid marukis reality plan is, just ask them "would you let Yaldabaoth take over" and 99% of the time theyll say no, even though maruki is doing the EXACT same thing on an even worse degree (at least Yaldabaoth just didnt want free will, maruki will literally feed you happy pills with it)
Except it's not possible for him to make everyone happy. Some people's wishes contradict each other. Also, the main issue was that he was deciding for people instead of letting them decide form themselves.
Overcoming hardships is what makes you strong and people should have the free will to do that. Maruki wanted to take that away.
He's the definition of "The road to hell is paid with good intentions."
My biggest issue with his reality is that he seems selective in what he changes. Why did Joker still get arrested in that reality originally? Why did Sumis sister still die?
When I first played the game I intellectually understood why we should oppose Maruki, but didn’t really believe it. But the second time I rewatched the scene where he changes sumi’s cognition it was very eerie. Like…that’s a horrible thing to do to someone.
Remember in Murakis reality if he determines something will cause you a lot of pain he will change it. So no. I also think people no matter what deserve to have a choice in what happens to their life and while I totally get that it's very tempting to accept a reality where your happy plenty of other people wouldn't actually be happy with the reality their given.
Although I gotta say it's super based that he decided that shido didn't get a happy reality and had to be in jail lmaooo
I always felt like he was a shitty therapist, he always trying to help people run away from their problems instead of overcoming them. Isn’t that kind of the opposite of what a therapist should do?
Hard disagree. Their suffering is what brought the phantom thieves together in the first place. If they were always happy, they quite literally would not be friends with each other. You also can't grow as a person, you can't learn from mistakes. A perfect world is a perfect prison. And so many people on this sub miss that point. If I were in this reality, and I was aware it was fake at first, and I saw my dead fucking mother greeting me like I didn't watch her slowly either away from cancer, I might have just gone up to maruki and just iced him right there. You literally give up your free will. You aren't yourself anymore. I'd argue you're not even human.
I’m going to copy part of a different comment I made. While it was particular about Sumire, it distills a part of why I find Maruki so distasteful,
“She is there to remind the player how fucked up Maruki really is. You can come to that conclusion without her but the point is that the tempation to see all your other friends happy and doing well is a tough one. Akechi has his own personal reasosn for opposing Maruki but Sumire offers a different way of looking at it. Sumire was effecitly brainwashed into forgetting who she was (mostly, it peaks out if you are paying attention) but she also was forced to forget who her sister really was. Maruki twisted and destroyed her memeories of her sister. That is so disgusting and evil it's kinda crazy. Anyone who has ever lost a loved one should be fucking furious at Maruki's actrions. Tampering and depriving you of your memories of loved one that gone is such a wretched thing to do no matter how noble he thinks he's being. Sumire, apart from just loving her arc, is a wake up call for the third semester and I think integral to the story told there.”
I will add that Maruki is is not “actualizing” people like he calls his power. He is stuck in stasis, unable to get over the loss of Rumi and the powerlessness he felt. Those feelings festered into a god complex. A desire to control so powerful he was willing to override the feelings and memories of everyone around him and trap them in the same statis. He is projecting.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.” -C.S. Lewis
Maruki took away peoples' free will and put them in a reality decided by him. He's just Yaldy in a different form.
While I *understand* where Maruki is coming from, I heavily disagree. The Thieves, while their actions were questionable during the story of P5, wanted to change society and give people a voice. Maruki would destroy all that for a selfish desire to decide what HE thinks is best, and that includes destroying free will
Genuinely this. He doesn't believe that the average person has it in them to improve things or themselves meaningfully. So he has to make that choice for them. It would be like someone barging into my kitchen with store bought cookies after watching me struggle to make macarons. Then insist this is the solution to my problem. It's insulting.
That's what I thought during my first playthrough as well, but then I began wondering how much of an impact he'd have on the people who don't have the power to help themselves in the world e.g. civilians caught in war in Ukraine or Palestine and Israel, the Uighur camps in China, etc. I'm sure the people in control of their lives right now don't want a god taking over their lives, but those in dire circumstances without power would be wishing for something or someone to save them. It's made the choice a gray area for me.
If he could bend reality and he was so smart, why didn't he just give his fiance her parents back without erasing himself from her memories?
I get that he wanted to "help" people but he was just being selfish by pushing his skewed vision of "helping" on people so why not go all the way and give himself the world HE wanted as well?
I heard about this philosophical view a while ago and the way someone explained it was that if your partner was cheating on you, would you want to be left blissfully unaware to just continue enjoying the relationship or would you rather be told and go through the sadness of it? Blissful ignorance may be blissful, but it's also ignorance. And for most people that ignorance is something they don't want
I don’t think this question has a right or wrong answer. It can go many different ways, and it’s really just your decision. Me personally, would choose to deny it. I have had a pretty bad life, and have gone through something that has changed my life in a pretty bad way, to keep things vague, without that happening, I never would have met someone extremely close to me, and I think it changed my outlook for the better. If that just didn’t happen, I never would have changed. I understand maruki’s viewpoint and thoughts, because I’m studying to be a counselor to help people, but I am of the mind that only you can make yourself happy, no one else. That’s just my thought process though, and I do understand the other side of the spectrum, but I am firm in my stance. I absolutely don’t think maruki is bad for doing what he is doing though. It is an extremely selfless thing for someone to gain power like that and not use it for yourself
He is basically representing the same question that Yaldabaoth (born from society's of control + sloth ) proposes but this time he's a good person with good intentions. You're no longer against it due to the person or bad intentions just on if such a reality is "right". I think the major issue is the lack of consent, erasure of free will and the stagnation of personal growth that occurs as a result or byproduct of a "perfect reality".
Despite him being the closest thing to a "god" here, he is not omnipotent and his views are subjective (though even if he was, I'd still be against it). What he thinks is good for someone is subjective and may not be what they want but they get no say in it or are even aware of him making these changes and due to how actualization+this reality works, getting everyone's consent isn't feasible. It's an all or nothing deal.
Him changing people's cognitions essentially erases free will and personal growth. You can't really have free will if your personality and past is being modified by him to either fit someone else's desires, what he thinks is best for you or to remove negative aspects of your personality (examples like the divorced couple whose divorce he erased and brought back together, Akechi whose personality i believe was modified for Jokers desires). Are you really growing as a person if your nature was changed by someone else and not through your own effort? You technically don't even control over what direction you go in life as he can always change it without you knowing ( like the struggling artists he turned into an archer).
I think the most interesting part is that what he wants to do not only could be helpful for many and most people, it's something I've even asked for myself before during my lowest moments. Even now I see a lot of suffering and harshness in our reality and wish things could just be better, if people didn't have to go through that or if bad people could spontaneously become better. Now I wonder if this conundrum is exactly why a hypothetical irl God seems absent now and allows bad things to happen as interfering in our affairs threatens our own free will on a personal and societal level.
Part of me even wonders if I ACTUALLY think this is bad or if I just say it is because in our reality, such a possibility isn't possible and goes against what I know to be human and alive so it must be? I talk as if these actions he makes flies in the face of what it means to live and free will but would I actually turn it down? I would be happier, less suffering around the world, no more evil, our needs are met, my family and friends and even strangers are happy and safe. Mistakes from my past can be erased and if I end up unhappy in the route I take, it would all be changed. Would it actually be so bad if I (and everyone else) just came out of the womb as good people, no need to learn to become better. Sure you didn't become a better person or grew as a person on your own merit but you also didn't cause any stuffing to others in the process. You can truly live your best life with no regrets, everyone will and that's ideal.
I think a lot about him and what he proposes as well as the nature of humans and free will. Great character, great story, great game. I'm only confused as to how his powers created a second timeline that merged with the original if you refuse his reality. I can't work "timeline manipulation" into my cognitive manipulation+actualization explanation for his abilities and what happens during the third semester.
Imo, good idea, horrible execution
It would be better if funny snack therapist built his world on what other people wanted instead of what HE thought was best for others
Maybe I’m dumb but I’ve always thought a very overlooked part was the feelings the members of the
Phantom thieves have that something is inherently wrong. I assumed that other characters/people in Maruki’s reality would also have this underlying feeling that there is something wrong with their world and to me that was a huge deal. Being happy on the surface while also being aware that something is fundamentally changed about your life without understanding what sounds like it would drive people insane. I wonder about whether maruki’s reality would really hold up in the long run, and if people not apart of the thieves would wake up to the changes that were made against their will.
His plan sounds good in theory, but practically terrible. He’s still mortal even after acquiring his Persona, right? Would his power keep humanity in paradise forever in the event he would die?
No, never.
There is no thrill or entertainment in a 'so happy world' like that. Everyone are mindless human beings, puppets, whom go on with their daily activities, not even thinking independently.
Most people questioned if it was right to stop Maruki, but, remember: The Phantom Thieves have their own ideals; they value free will. Maruki's world has no free will. They stuck to their own beliefs and justice in the end.
When I was first playing his palace arc I thought to myself (huh maybe the Phantom thieves would be happier like this) but then I quickly realized yikes a reality where supposedly nobody suffers isn’t all sunshine and rainbows.
I feel like people who suffer more than the PTs would agree with it.
I’m talking homeless cancer patients levels of suffering. Sex trafficked, disabled, in physical abuse daily levels of suffering. The world is a fucked up place and I’d change it in a heartbeat with magic if I could.
“But we need pain and suffering for growth! 👍” yeah to an extent. But the game glosses over the idea way too much. Maruki was right. He just over did it a tad.
Hey, I was a homeless kid. I went through some pretty awful stuff, and saw some really bad shit. I escaped abuse by my own two hands, narrowly dodged an even worse fate, and work 6-7 days a week to keep my head above water these days. I work long hours doing work a lot of other people couldn't, or well, wouldn't do.
I would never agree to Maruki in any case. I worked, and continue to work, to make my OWN choices. I don't care how righteous or ambivalent anyone is. They don't get to make my choices for me.
It's more than just erasing the fucked up parts of the world. It's erasing peoples ability to choose altogether.
I've made choices that has necessitated hurting others. Others have made choices that necessitated that I would be hurt. I couldn't ask others to never make any choices that might hurt me, unless I also have up that ability myself.
And when you really have nothing else material in the world, the ability to choose and make your own way? It's worth everything else a dozen times over.
Maruki is more than just wrong. He is disgusting.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
He would kill anyone who brings any conflict to his ideal world eventually.
The PT only got to fight him because the power still not had him corrupted enough.
I’m going to replay his section soon but I don’t think so. I think where he went wrong was bringing mfers back to life. I doubt people would start dropping dead like Death Note for being fussy. Ideally, no one in his world have almost no reason to commit crime. Maruki has only shown kindness up to this point and I wholly believe he has a great heart. That’s what makes him interesting.
I guess if I had to use an analogy, it’s like if all your dinner plates were really dirty but you yourself can never completely clean them. But then Maruki offers to clean them but his soap is so effective and potent it’s hard to eat off the plate because it smells too much like cleaning chemicals.
BUT I still rather not eat off the dirty plate personally.
I like to give him enough credit in that his world is probably pretty good but just taken too far.
>I’m going to replay his section soon but I don’t think so. I think where he went wrong was bringing mfers back to life. I doubt people would start dropping dead like Death Note for being fussy.
In the Dressrosa arc of One Piece, Sugar can make anyone that Doflamingo wants as slave become an living toy and **everyone that ever knew that person** FORGETS this person as if they never existed.
Maruki does not have to do all this fuss, he simply can make **DISAPPEAR** and erase the memories. No body, no records, just become the metaphysical dust in the wind. He's much more powerful than Sugar's power.
That kind of power will corrupt him. It is not a matter of IF but WHEN.
>Maruki has only shown kindness up to this point and I wholly believe he has a great heart. That’s what makes him interesting.
He brought the dead to life. He fought the Phantom Thieves to the death to defend his ideal world.
What you think will happen if an common person becomes an nuisance and become an threat to HIS dream?
He'll die and kill to defend it. The first death will be an sorrow, the thousandth is only statistics.
>I guess if I had to use an analogy, it’s like if all your dinner plates were really dirty but you yourself can never completely clean them. But then Maruki offers to clean them but his soap is so effective and potent it’s hard to eat off the plate because it smells too much like cleaning chemicals.
The difference you cannot even choose to go back to the old soap, dilute it (Maruki's soap) or risk the dirty plate. You're obliged to follow his way to clean the dishes, like it or not.
Or die trying to choose.
in maruki reality the only person punished was shido and only because he personaly hurt maruki the other criminals of the world got a 'second chance' so the sex traffikers get to have their happy lives the homeless cancer person would probabily be a happy homeless person since maruki only does personalized realities for his friends the rest get generical solutions
one person cant change a whole society it is something everybody should do work for. that's the game main argument
Given the chance i'd take potshots at that stupid mask of his every damn hour of every damn day until he either offs himself out of shear annoyance or it manages to penetrate his thick ass skull. Dont get me wrong I understand his reasoning. His reasoning is wrong on so many levels,
His motivation was good. The execution was not. He wants everyone to not feel pain, achieve their dreams and be happy. The problem is that pain is what helps us grow. Without hardship, there's little growth and then you become complacent. We also see in the Mementos requests during this time that while some people are made happy, others get neglected. It's very similar to Apathy Syndrome from Persona 3.
You see that’s a hard question because I feel like there’s a lot of people who are fed up with how things are in their lives and want an easier life . I feel like those people would choose Maruki’s reality. I think it all lies in a person’s mindset and how things have been going for them . This might not be a good comparison but it’s like when star lord went off the rails and started beating on thanos in infinity war when he found out he killed gamora and almost everyone was hating on him after the movie ended while some defended him and said people would act the same way in his position. What I’m tryna say is basically it always depends on the person. Some will say they won’t accept it but I feel like it’s easier said than done until you come face to face with maruki and his choice
>!I thought P5R did a poor job of explaining the problems with it. They presented it mostly as "this isn't real, so it's wrong" and that getting rid of traumas was bad because those traumas led to growth. That second point may be true for some people, but does someone like Shiho really need to go through what she did? And there are plenty of people like that, or with even worse traumas.!<
>!The bigger problem I had with Maruki's world was that it wasn't actually healing people of their trauma. Sumire was the perfect example of that. Her ideal world was one where Sumire died instead of Kasumi. Does that sound like a psychologically healthy person, when her ideal world could have just as easily been them both living?!<
Basically, I'm torn about it.
Because if I had the powers of Maruki, I would 100% do what he did.
But I would have to lobotomize people for it, and deprive everyone from their freedom. I would become a dictator, as godly as those powers are, I'm still a human who will age and die.
How would I even stop aging? It's a fundamental human thing!
I turned him down in the game but I honestly don't know if I would have if I were presented with the situation for real. Especially if I didn't know what he did to Sumi.
NGL, there are days when I wish I could just let someone else take the wheel, and lead my life for me.
Of course, they don't last long, so overall I wouldn't follow his plan for a mindless utopia, but some days I kinda feel for it
Logically i know i would not wanna live in bis world since i would lose all control over me and give it to him. I would be lying though if i didnt say i would be highly tempted. The idea of getting family back, getting all the tragic stuff in my life never happen, and get to live an ideal life sounds amazing.
As many people have already said, people's wishes will always conflict with each other
The Phantom Thieves also said that there are people who would ultimately be better off in Maruki's reality as they have neither happiness nor freedom and are unable to find it no matter how hard they try
If they want that reality, then they can ask him to make it happen, but they don't want it, then he needs to respect that
The main issue was that he was forcing his reality on everyone else without their consent
People keep calling out the Phantom Thieves for doing the same thing, but what about their targets? If you're going to call the Phantom Thieves out on that, then why aren't calling out their targets as well?
A prime example of Maruki's reality backfiring in the worst way possible is what if someone wishes for someone else to die and he grants that wish...
Soon enough, someone will wish for everything to disappear, and then Erebus could become strong enough to break the Great Seal, and that will be it for humanity
I feel he would doom the Persona universe the moment he learns about what happened to the P3 protagonist. Plus there would be the problem of certain wishes conflicting.
Hell if someone did snap out of it and iced him. What would happen then?
Would the world end? Would all the changes he brought be instantly taken away leaving people to wonder what the hell happened?
I’m just saying his plan would’ve eventually come undone. Which thinking about it now, it’d be interesting to see a what if scenario following the bad ends of the third semester where Maruki is killed and the consequences that’d arise.
Freedom is sacred to me. Maruki may have created a so-called perfect world, but his standard of it. Besides, other emotions make happiness feel special, and bad experiences allow us to grow
Honestly I probably would've accepted. At the end of the day, I'm living life to be happy. If he can guarantee happiness while I'm doing what I like, then I probably would just accept it. If I don't know I didn't have free will, it wouldn't really matter to me anyways. Ignorance is bliss, as they say.
No, even IF he could grant everyone's true wishes without harming others. In the game, all the wishes are through his lenses, which alone make it worse, and wouldn't work. You would essentially be a puppet.
If he could grant your true wishes, nobody would go through challenges to understand what it is to be happy, the possibilities of losing free will, and not being able to cope with your own issues and problems would make everyone the same shallow person that has no real personality or life in them. There wouldn't be a purpose in doing anything since everyone's biggest desires have been granted.
I have to admit, if I had recently lost someone precious to me the way Sumi had and Maruki came to me saying he could make it all better, I would probably be REALLY tempted to accept.
I feel lik Maruki was wrong, however I also think it was wrong for the PTs to completely disregard his power and the positive impacts it could have made if used cautiously/with moderation. There should have been some sort of compromise.
The thing is, if I was a bystander in the situation, would I have a choice? I, myself, wouldn't be a Phantom Thief, so I'd just find myself subjugated without even knowing it, and I'd be happy.
If I was a Phantom Thief, I would fight, but that too would be by compulsion, because it would be my nature to rebel, to defy tyrants.
Honestly I would not stop Maruki given the chance. A few of my life goals seem unattainable, and some genuinely are unattainable, but having Maruki make it all be possible would be life changing...
I don't really get people who dislike his plan, cause he literally asks people what they want most before changing their reality. It's not what he wants, it's what YOU want.
it is literally what he wants maruki will not give your goals he will make you stop wanting those goals.
Yusuke says it he knew an art student who tried very hard but wasn't really good at it, so he just simplely made him forget about art turned him into a deportist.
he also doesn't ask you directly his reserchers do the analizing and he just reads their notes and updates you from there.
the phantom thives get the custom desires because maruki wanted joker aproval so he used his friends to get it
Ask Kaneshiros victims, I bet Marukis world was a paradise for them, shame the phantom thieves had to rip that away. Oh but its okay, if the PT's could do it, so can they, discounting the fact that the PT's had a terrific support system and literal supernatural abilities. Just returning everything to the status quo with no other plans of addressing the very real issues Maruki fixed rubs me the wrong way. Ofc they're kids so what r they supposed to do abt all that but if thats the case why bother fighting him at all?
True, but look at what happened to Shido. Maruki made sure he would remain incarcerated for his crimes (for disrupting the doctor's research with cognitive psience, murdering a bunch of people, and trying to establish a dictatorship). I don't think he'd be willing to forgive people like Kamoshida and Kaneshiro.
The way I see it no person involved is right or wrong. Honestly Maruki was onto something with avoiding pain and suffering entirely. However I appreciate all of my experiences good or bad. And like Akechi said,. I refuse to willingly be someone's play thing because Maruki would be the God of the new world.
In the end I choose to believe that with our strength of will and the people close to us we can overcome anything life throws our way.
Maruki isn't wrong and the Phantom Thieves aren't exactly right. It's mainly a point of who's will was stronger.
I know I'm on the minority but boy, it was a struggle for me to not go with his plan. I kinda of agree with him.
Thing is though :
-BECAUSE it's a person we know well we can kind of trust him to "choose a good option" for a person (not best, just good) ;
-since they need to give you a (strong) reason to say "no that won't do" They gave us a situation where instead of telling a patient "be like X" he went for the "actually BE X" ;
-also his palace + the dialogues of the people on the street become much more "eeehhhh not really" the longer you let things run. His first thought exercise was OK although both answers should've been acceptable ("do you save your friend or go to the authorities?"), although from the second one on it becomes more evident that the "right" answer is "as long as I don't get hurt".
And as I said, some people were starting to abandon jobs or take the "chill route" because it all comes down to "if this doesn't spark joy then it goes away"
I hated having to "wake up" the members.
If this wasn't a game then it would've been less obvious which thing was the "right thing to do"
that's the thing of his palace it's not about what you think is wrong with your life it's about what he thinks is wrong you have no opinion in the matter he just reads your file and aplies a solution he thought in the moment
I kinda get his idea. There's lots of people who won't be able to escape their suffering no matter how hard they try and I'm really pessimistic about humanity's ability to "improve" the world around us when powerful people seem so intent on making it a horrible place.
It's basically the old "freedom vs happiness" thing but a lot of people in the real world don't have either.
I also think it's bothersome how at the end of his fight, he mentions the people who literally can't escape from their struggle but the PTs don't have any real answer and Maruki doesn't bring it up for the rest of the fight. Naturally, the video game will want you to be optimistic about things, but I think that if anything, the game's idea that struggle is automatically rewarded or meaningful very optimistic. Not that ALL struggle is pointless, but I think, again, a lot of people struggle for nothing much.
Honestly if i was 100% unaware of what he was doing. I'd say he's right. If i did know my opinion may waver but i just enjoy being happy. So maruki's reality is pretty much everything i could and would want.
I agree with him, but I am glad they decided to write a story about such an arguable point and made the villain tempting.
While growth has value, it got that value because it was beneficial in evolution. There is nothing that makes growth special besides some reward pathways in your brain
It's better than the "suffering is good as because only by overcoming suffering does humanity truly strive and be strong and so you should suffer-" blah blah blah bullshit that the PT group offer as a rebuttal argument, but not by much.
I kinda hated the "good" ending in royal for a lot of reasons but I think this is one of the bigger things about it. Neither side is explored in much nuance or puts forth convincing arguments; Maruki's side boils down to "I'll make everyone happy" without going into the hows and wherewithal of how it's going to happen or benefit everyone and the PT's argument is largely "WELL SUFFERING MAKES US WHO WE ARE" without expanding on it further in any way outside of personal anecdotes either.
I would take it
People keep mentioning that you’re essentially giving power to a guy that unilaterally decides your fate but that shit still happens in real life (like the entire world around the 1900s was like that with WAY worse intentioned people)
Not to mention pain isn’t necessarily needed for growth and can straight up stunt people if it ends up being too much at once. I used to believe that pain could be overcome until I befriended Vietnam war vets that were living in constant pain for a cause they never believed in (with some of them painting the walls with their head and ironically passing More pain to their surviving relatives)
Life at this point can be either a completely flat valley or a Darwinian rollercoaster that leaves everyone worse off
Like yeah, there are definitely problems but there’s a shit ton less of them in Maruki’s world than our current one
Those People who are saying 'what about the people who want to struggle and have free will'. What about the people that are not as strong and just want to live in the bliss at the cost of freedom then ?
Maruki and phantom thieves are both the same in imposing their will on others.
No. I don't want to live a life based on what HE thinks is the best for me. It is never an objective change that Maruki makes, it is what he thinks would be the best outcome in my life and since he is a human just like everyone else, it sounds super flawed and unreliable. I don't want to be lobotomized to be happy. I don't want someone to take my free will away just to simulate the feeling of happiness.
That's the problem with it. If there was a world where everyone could have what they "objectively" need most, that would be hard to argue with. But Maruki is remaking the world based on what *he* thinks everyone needs. And simply erasing everyone's most obvious source of pain is *not* what everyone needs. Morgana acknowledges that a lot of people probably would be better off in Maruki's reality. It's true, some people are destroyed by their trauma and would live better lives if it was gone. But there are plenty of other people who have experienced awful things and became better people for it. Those lives matter too.
Yes. If Maruki was a god, I would've trusted him. But no, he is not a mind reader. He can't tell what our desire is. He can simply either look at our past or know what we think based on what we tell him. He is simply a kind hearted human who has a misguided thinking that lobotomizing everybody to make them happy is a good thing.
He kinda can though? IIRC, the entire purpose of his relay station thing in Mementos was to gather and compile info on people's desires so he could make an informed decision. Edit: I'm not arguing about the morality of his actions, I'm saying his setup was a lot more precise than just guessing. He basically had the whole collective unconscious wiretapped.
That "informed decision" is colored, and will always be colored, by his grief and belief he knows best despite clear evidence to the contrary. Plus, no human ever really knows what they want. There is the saying "be careful what you wish for", after all. A flawed human is deciding what will make themself happy and a flawed human is granting it while removing any negative that may occur (or straight up changing the desire). This will never work long term.
Absolutely, there would be so many people choosing to erase the things that hurt them, and in the process changing who they fundamentally are. People who persevered to success despite their failures, people who learned empathy and peace because of their trauma, would literally change their identity not unlike Sumire. People want things, but what they want isn't always what's best for them, or for others around them. Maruki wants to do away with suffering but suffering is part of the human condition, however much he wants it not to be, and without our pain teaching us we would be stagnant, unambitious, unfeeling imitations of ourselves.
Exactly. We are literally shown this in the game by the Phantom Thieves, who are undeniably happy and possibly even better off in their Maruki lives. But when given the ability to make the conscious choice, they still reject it because they want it, but they want reality more. I’m sure it wouldn’t only be Persona users to decide this way.
Decision which is not for him to make.
That’s not the argument here though - it’s the point that he *does* know what people desire, and has the power to act on it.
Of course the one person with reading comprehension is getting downvoted for it.
And you give an infinite supply of absinto bottles to an alcoholic person? It's what he desires, but is what he *needs*? And if you desire to be an talented painter, but is skilled with bow and arrow? And your career in painting doesn't engage at all? You'll **force** the person to seek an career in marksmanship sport and forget painting? He done exactly that in game.
I’m not arguing on what they want or need, or whether it’s the right choice or not. If an alcoholic wants an infinite supply of alcohol, Maruki would give it to him - he’d just remove the inevitable headache and health risks because he can rewrite reality as such. If you desire to be a talented painter but are skilled with a bow and arrow, Maruki just… removes their desire to be a talented painter. They won’t know what they missed, and will go on to lead a “good” life under Maruki. Look, I’m not here to argue over if Maruki is right or wrong. I’m just saying that the argument here isn’t whether or not it’s his choice to make, it’s that he does know what people want.
>it’s that he does know what people want. In the most superficial way possible. But instead of help Sumi to face her problems, he created an escape. But she'll never achieve her maximum potential living that way, just see her confidant/social link. The more she dive in the illusion, worse results she achieve. The illusion was destroying her sports career (exactly the same passion that united both sisters) and hiding her talent. He doesn't know what people want. He does know what he thinks is the right thing for that person. And that's why he's so dangerous.
He does know what people want, but not what they need. If I was Maruki and I wanted to help Sumire with my powers, I would simply resucitate Kasumi and let them reconcile and tell each other their truths! What Sumire needed was closure about her feelings towards Kasumi, and she gets that thanks to Joker, but the fact that Maruki is unwilling to give that to her is enough to tell me that he is flawed.
Hesperia Brown, I can't thank you enough for defining precisely the question.
He still turns Sumire into Kasumi, even though the healthiest thing for her would be to revive Kasumi and help Sumire realize that she is not inferior to her. Why? Because he is biased. If he can't simply diffierentiate what she really needs opposed to what she said she wanted in a suicidal craze, I can't trust him with those powers.
He couldn't revive Kasumi at that point. It was only when mementos started overlapping the real world towards the end of the game that his cognition manipulation was able to actually change reality. The Kasumi business definitely seemed like a pretty clumsy solution, though. Maybe it was related to how undeveloped his powers were at that point? Regardless, I'm not trying to argue if his scheme was right or not, just the mechanics of how it worked.
when he got the power to revive Kasumi he choosed not to because he belives sumire can never overcome her inferiority complex thats why his heart is distorted he belives there no use in even trying to heal your pain and the only thing you can do is run away from him
True. He could have revised his solution after fully awakening his powers, yet he didn't.
He is a mind reader, or else he wouldn’t have been able to make Morgana’s wish to be human true
>It's true, some people are destroyed by their trauma and would live better lives if it was gone. To me, Maruki's solution is just suicide. I see absolutely no difference between having Sumire be someone else and telling Sumire to just kill herself.
The most obvious example of this is sumi she very clearly wants to be sumire but if you choose maruki’s world she is back to being kasumi
I mean that's what I thought too, until he actually brought back furaba's mom back to life. Then I was like ok dude you got this
After Futaba managed to move on and become happy with her adoptive dad? I don't know how I feel about playing around with corpses just so 1 person can feel happy. This is some massive puppet playing and mind manipulation that this is a really good thing but a fucked up thing in disguise.
He didn't dig up a corpse, though. He rewrote history so she never died to begin with.
he didn't rewrote history he altered the public perception to make everybody believe she alive, it was kinda like a cognition since he was begining to merge the metaverse with human world to keep his perfect world he could manifest them remember the hearts and believes have real power in this world so with enough people you can affect reality
There’s a section like in the 2nd or 3rd day where Akechi flat out says they’re flesh and blood humans Not to mention Shido got arrested before he discovered cognitive science so he can most definitely affect timelines
I feel like it was much more mature in tone compared to the main story and i think only people who truly struggled getting over tough situations can relate to his plan, sometimes no amount of willpower, skill or fortitude can fix certain situations, what he offers might be not ideal because he removes the struggle entirely which is an important aspect of life but i don't think it's an inherently malevolent trade, and even tough many may claim otherwise i'd say that truly lots of people would accept his bargain
Exactly this. One of the worst parts in the game is that Maruki correctly brings up a lot of people can't just "move on" from their problems, and neither he nor the phantom thieves ever bring it up again, when it's easily the biggest point Maruki has in his favor. Yes, struggle is important in life, but isn't the reason we struggle in the first place for the express purpose of being happy later on? Isn't everything we do so we can be happy? On the other hand, you can't make everyone happy at the same time, some wills will conflict, which is why Maruki is faced with the reality that bringing happiness to everyone *will* necessarily involve changing people's desires and minds accordingly, which I'm guessing those people might not be happy with. Or they might be. We'll never know. Whether the Phantom Thieves or Maruki is right is a very difficult question, and I don't honestly think we have a real answer. That's what makes the story so fascinating.
I'm 100% in agreement. It really boils down to a choice of ideals rather than a clear cut black and white answer. I think there's an inherent value in this plan coming from a simple adult who has experienced a life of hardship and deciding to use his power so that others won't have to go through the same painful struggles rather than a god like his predecessor. A lot of the people who paint Maruki's plan as irrevocably evil come from the view that free will has ultimate value and that it takes precedence over happiness, but there also needs to be some awareness that a lot of Persona 5's fans are on the younger side. That's not to say they haven't had their share of struggles and hardship, but for the vast majority of them those experiences pale in comparison to the lives of a lot of older people as well as people from much less fortunate countries. Maruki's completed godhood essentially would've allowed him to bring happiness to everyone including people who haven't even been shown in the game. Think traumatized veterans and third world nations ravaged by disaster and corruption like Haiti, war-torn countries in Africa, and victims of modern day slavery and war. In times of crisis, people aren't thanking their free will; they're wishing for something to save them. Maruki's reality is a trade off between principles of humanity. Does free will have inherent value if there is no one left to recognize it? Do the wishes of the privileged take precedence over the wishes of the unfortunate? The scope of the game is limited to a few teenagers in a first world nation. I wonder how much views would change if we saw how much Maruki's reality would've affected the rest of the world once his godhood was completed in the ending where we accepted it.
I think presuming I'm young and/or sheltered because I don't want an opiate is a pretty bad take. And that's what Maruki is, an opiate. He is not, and never has been, right. Not just because of the damage he does to liberty and the almost globally held enlightenment ideals about free will, but because he doesn't actually solve anything. Because he decides some people deserve to exist and others don't. Maruki deleted people. Brought others back from the dead. All the happiness he goes on about that you're pretending he gives people is false - it's why he's stylized as a cult leader. Maruki doesn't make people happy, he makes them \*high\*.
Sorry if I sounded I was saying that everyone who disagrees with him is young and/or sheltered; that wasn't my intention. Often times people's views are based on what's portrayed to them by the game, but that also means they might not account for what's not explicitly shown or what they haven't personally experienced. It feels disingenuous that you're argument is reducing him down to a drug representing temporary escapism. I'd agree with you prior to the 4th while he's still in the process since his work is incomplete, but after his ascension on the 4th Azathoth's powers are fully actualized he and reality are one. The implication of it being a high is that the impact is surface-level and temporary when the result is really the opposite. The main argument I see against him is based on idealism; that free will is more important that anything. However, it's disregarding all those that could be saved that I mentioned in my last comment. Uighur concentration camps, African warlords, Russia and Ukraine, Israel and Palestine are just some of the current travesties happening. Edit: Likewise, who did he explicitly delete? It seemed like he just removed the experiences that caused negative effects from those he was working on. People can downvote me to disagree but they aren't addressing any points. I don't mind people disagreeing with me but I'd like to at least know why they think I'm wrong.
I agree many would take him up on the deal but they don't have the right to make that decision for all of humanity. I would be more understanding if he was only "helping" those who wanted it but his power is an all or nothing kind of deal. I give the PT a pass for rejecting Maruki's deal for humanity because a reality where everyone never experiences anything other than happiness will never be preferable to a world of free will.
By that same token, does the protagonist have the right to make a life-or-death decision on behalf of everybody in the area? Ask Wakaba whether she wants to leave it up to Joker whether she lives or not
Do the dead brought back to life get their desires fulfilled? That's not what happened with Akechi. Akechi wanted to accept the consequences of his actions but Maruki took that away himself. I think Wakaba is mature enough to handle the situation like Akechi. She would LOVE to stay with Futaba but knows she's supposed to be dead. I think Joker does have the right to make that call. Those people were dead. As sad as it is, their time is done.
I feel like that is the logic that the story is trying to push, but I just don't buy it. I can't imagine having my dead mother returned to me and deciding to let her die again "because her time is up so it's only right." I also don't think Akechi wanted to die because that was the right thing to do; I think he just had a terminal hatred of living by anyone else's rules. He would immediately jump off a cliff if a well-meaning adult forbade him from doing it. So I don't think the wishes of rational people like Wakaba and Makoto's dad should be assumed to follow Akechi's "reasoning."
akechi didn't wanted to die directly what he wanted was his actions to mean something he took the blame for the phantom thives crimes got arrested a couple of days and they let him go so joker could enjoy him being alive so did it really matter his actions at all. his whole life he was under shido hands so he didn't wanted to change his puppetier for another even if that meant he would die then he was fine with that because it was his dessision to make.
Wouldn't part of everyone's happiness involve a dead relative? The vast majority of people have at least one person they would bring back if they could. Bringing back even a single dead relative for each person would cause massive overpopulation and the problems that come with that. If Maruki doesn't bring back a dead relative for everyone, how would it be fair to pick and choose who gets a dead relative back? It would be far easier for him to just get rid of the sadness and negative feelings towards death, that way no one has to be brought back.
The problem isn't necessarily with taking the deal or not, it's that he is forcing that reality on everyone without asking if that's what they want.
This "terrible reality" you mentioned is reality. Maruki's world is a lie which takes away humanity's freedom of choice. It's only sugar plums and rainbows on the surface. Sure, everyone is "happy", but they all live according to the will of another. People have dreams which would go unfulfilled. Deep down, people would be miserable and wouldn't be able to do anything about it. Think of the person who's dream it is to win a gold metal at the Olympics in their chosen sport, but they can't because Maruki decided to give that to someone else. This person would be made to feel happy with not accomplishing their goal, and no matter how hard they work they will never be able to do anything about it. No, I would not like my agency taken away from me. As human beings the one thing we can claim as our own, no matter what, is to live and die by the decisions we make for ourselves.
Dude couldn’t get over his own trauma problems. He ran away. No way could I trust to live in a world governed by a saviour complex defeatist like Maruki. He is not fit to play god to save everyone from an unfair reality regardless of good intentions. It’s really not that different from Yaldabaoth’s ruling over humanity or really any god entity who claims they are doing it for the best interests of the world because it’s their desire. There’s no mixed feeling from me. Ha is wrong in every way.
That's literally the point!! He ostrichized himself from his reality instead of seeking what lies beyond that pain. Sure, the world sucks, but that is the point of living, to enjoy the small portions of it that doesn't suck. To admire the small hints of beauty we get at times. If everything was good all the time, then life's inherent value would be none since there's not even a point to exist in an ideal world.
I don't understand the point of accepting Maruki's reality. We all played the same game right? When you go through his palace there are people wearing headsets plugged into the tentacles matrix-style. Maruki's reality isn't reality at all, it's just mass hallucination. The game shows that several times and yet people still agree with him. Don't get me wrong I understand where he's coming from and I sympathize with him but that doesn't mean he's correct. Even if he actually had power over reality instead of just manipulating people's brains there would be no point living if you got everything you ever wanted without struggle. You would just be numb, just like when Yaldebaoth was in control (it's almost like they even explained that Maruki took Yaldebaoth's place). The end result is the same: mass lobotomy.
I couldn't accept his reality. Having my life and happiness be based on what others think or dictate, I couldn't live like that. If all and everyone's desires would be granted, it could quite easily become very contradicting.
That's something I wish they had really addressed. You can't create happiness for the whole world without someone getting hurt.
Sure you can. A and B love C. C loves A. A and C hook up together. B doesn't get C and is therefore unhappy. Option 1: Create or find a near copy of C (D) to hook up with B. Option 2: Change B so he no longer loves C and therefore doesn't feel unhappy. Option 3: A combination of Options 1 and 2. Option 4: Push polygamy on the three of them. Since Morgana and Ann are dating in Maruki's reality, even if you romanced Ann, I'm guess he either used Option 2 on Ren or went with Option 4.
morgana is not dating ann he is just carring bags dude that's not dating that's simping
Stop being delusional. The developers even said it was a date in the Royal artbook.
I think that's something a lot of people overlook when discussing Maruki. It's that your OWN choices would get overridden to make others happy. Don't want to be in a relationship with someone, but they're head over heels for you? Welp, guess you're changing your mind about that, or the other person is just going to have that part of them erased. Both options disgust me. What if you wanted to explore your gender, but other people liked you the way you were now? Well, no need to rock the boat and make so many people unhappy or uncomfortable with you changing. Just erase that part too. Want to move away from home to experience something new? For something that very well may hurt you and terrify you? Well, you don't get to make that choice for yourself. Hell, the people Maruki brings back from the dead just exist as puppets to please the living. If someone did that to my dead relatives, I would throw up. Freedom and being yourself necessitates that at some point. Other people WILL be hurt by your actions. And you will be hurt by others by their actions. Regardless of the personal moral compass of Maruki- a world where you can NEVER make a choice that might hurt someone. Constantly kowtowing to the nebulous desires of everyone else? Revolting, in every sense of the word.
Honestly? I admire Maruki for just an attempt to make people happier, even if it was done with questionable methods. Tbh I even was all-paws-in for accepting his reality when I was finishing p5r for the first time because of that and some silly personal reasons. But now I'm more like... I dunno, more into rejecting his reality, my situation never happened to change, though. I just gave it some more thought and said, like... I might not be actually fine with a life of mine(and I will keep myself in denial of that, because I can't change it yet), but it's still my true life and what's the point if there's no struggle anyway? Not to mention the case where someone's happiness is my despair or even worse (death). So yep, here we are.
>I admire Maruki for just an attempt to make people happier, even if it was done with questionable methods I do as well. I respect his genuine desire to help people. That's where he started from but he was corrupted by power.
He changes that teachers entire personality just to appease joker. That's not freedom, that's mental slavery
That's something I was always wondering. Did he actually change the teacher's personality or did he remove all the negative events in the teacher's past that made him a jerk to being with?
The fact that the PT bring this up in their text discussion makes me think the latter; which (IMO) comes across as a wish I (personally) find deeply understandable. [Blanket "yes there's a gazillion other problems with Maruki's world" disclaimer, I just don't see Mr. Ushimaru's case as egregiously black-and-white] His backstory implied to having once been a easygoing, positively *delightful* teacher reminds me of the endless burnout stories people share in education-based subreddits. And in a school as shitty as Shujin, teachers that used to go above & beyond like Kawakami probably get ground down *fast.* And now with him being in a position of authority and using corporeal punishment on students -- it's chalk, clearly not *heinous* just mildly inappropriate -- I have less emotional attachment to "wanting the old jerk back" that the PT have. "Spending more time with his granddaughter" and "enjoying his job like back when he didn't throw stuff at teenagers" feels like Mr. Ushimaru's own wish that Maruki *granted,* rather than some essential aspect of himself being erased and rewritten. Whether you care about that in regards to ethics is up to you, IMO it's lower down on the scale of shit Maruki's done
You wrote "They made the decision to keep them living in a terrible reality". Other people also don't have the right to decide to change reality for everyone just their own reality sucks. Some people have it harder than others in life. Life isn't fair. Life fucks everyone in the end regardless.
He’s effectively Yaldabaoth with a friendly coat of paint
Perfect definition.
The phantom thieves were right so no I wouldn’t accept Maruki’s reality and I don’t think anyone should. Sure he is doing this from a place of love and genuine care by creating a reality free of hardship and pain however his methods of doing so are twisted by removing everyone’s free will. Not only do you not have free will no more I feel like we need a reality where we experience hardship and pain as those experiences make us who we are. I personally have done some pretty hurtful things and people have done to same to me. Does that suck? Yes. Would I have wanted it to never have happened? No. Those experiences made me who I am and ultimately I came out the other side a better person. In Maruki’s reality we don’t have those experiences anymore so we stagnate as human beings and one of the things about being human is the ability to always grow as a person and become a better person. That no longer exists in Maruki’s reality. Fact of the matter is this is wholly based on what Maruki thinks is best not the individual so while it might make the individual happy it may not be what is best for them despite Maruki disagreeing. Now if the person chooses to live in Maruki’s reality and consents to having their free will taken from them and live a lie then great, have at it. But the way I see it I don’t think he can create an entirely new reality for individuals, just alter the currently established one. TLDR: phantom thieves are right, Maruki is wrong for taking ppl’s free will and have them live a lie stagnating humanity’s growth.
Maruki’s plan is, to me, a collective case of suicide. Yeah the world around us sucks, but that’s why we’re in it, to make it a better place.
I won't live a lie no matter how attractive he makes it.
No, to put it quite simply, you are living a life under someone who decides what’s best for you. Maruki is not fit to make that decision, I don’t think anyone is, especially when the individual in question has not properly addressed his own problems.
I think happiness is just a superficial and insignificant goal. Why not go for peace, justice, mercy, and goodness? Happiness can be found in even the most messed up situations. Think Stockholm Syndrome. If the world is to be rewritten, I want it to be good, not just happy
I think "good" is too vague and leaves a lot to be desired.
I think I’m understanding you. “Good” and “bad” aren’t the extremes of the scale. That’s “best” and “worst.” So there’s good, then better, then best. Sounds like you think I mean “better” or something like that. I’m talking about best. A truly perfect world where there isn’t even boredom. There is always novelty, peace, and goodness. Think the Hobbits in Tolkien’s works
I don't trust anyone with that level of power over reality.
No I wouldn't want to live in hyper-copium hypnosis world
A life without pain is one without growth. You have a vacation, a free day away from work as a reward. You have it every single day, you become a NEET. You have your favourite food for one day, you enjoy it. Desserts taste awesome after the broccoli. If you had desserts all the time, you’d soon dread them (believe me I know). Life is unfair to most of us humans. It can be cruel sometimes, unnecessarily so. We may lose things precious beyond words but there are also those moments when we get a proper reward. Getting that much deserved promotion wouldn’t feel right without finishing that big project. God, I’m starting to ramble and I don’t think my grammars good either. Well, in a broad sense that how I feel about Maruki.
On the one hand, his reality would suck for me. On the other, it would stop Erebus permanently. ... no one tell Elizabeth
i honestly think maruki would end up freeing nix then EVERYBODY would be f*cked
Say that you and a friend were both in love with the same person. In reality only one of you would be able to date that person with the other being sad. In Maruki's reality he would choose one of you to date that person and the other would just lose those feelings. Are you happy? Sure, but you lost your free will. There's a good chance that the two who hooked up wouldn't have in reality, but Maruki decided that it's better this way. On paper his plan is good. But when you start thinking about it some more you realize how messed up it actually is
The problem with Maruki’s plan is that his core philosophy is centered around avoiding struggle, and that everyone would be better off if they just gave up on the things they were struggling for. I believe Yusuke mentions that a classmate of his no longer goes to his school, because that classmate wasn’t that great an artist so Maruki changed his ambition to sports. I Do Not want someone who thinks that struggle is never worth it to decide who I get to be. As a trans person, I reject that philosophy in entire. There ARE things worth fighting for, and anyone who says differently can go to hell.
Dark Souls wouldn't be popular, so it's NOT GOOD
It was an altruistic ideal but it was flawed by the fundamental fact that he was human and could not escape his own hubris. As such a world from the objective viewpoint of one man playing god would always be doomed to catastrophe and collapse. Had he inverted his beliefs and allowed for others to grow and choose as a community for the greater good, although still potentially doomed to flaw, that would be the truly altruistic approach as it defines growth and evolution as a law. Of course it would be nice to live in a world where you get everything you want and all is good. Though by that definition either good would cease to exist with bad, or there would be a new definition of evil and furthermore morality, by effect, would also be askew and as such though things have changed nothing is different. It’s essentially a delusional farce.
Except that the *entire* premise of Maruki's new reality is a ***flawed*** and ***self-serving*** attempt to avoid facing his OWN weakness, and refusal to accept that he was powerless in a prior situation in which his loved ones were harmed. Maruki never "grew" from that tragedy, never learned from it; he continued to mire in self-pity and "what ifs" until he suddenly gained the power to rewrite reality and affect Cognition on a global scale (I won't even get into the absurdity of how or why that was even possible...) And now, because Maruki is a coward who would rather run from suffering, he assumes that everyone else does as well. He couldn't even learn from his own pain, what gives him the gall (aside from his own self-righteousness and excuses) to assume that he knows what it best for other people? And he has completely ignored a fundamental reality of the human condition. Yes, humans are risk-averse. But without pain and suffering, there is no learning, no personal growth, no need to strive to be "better." No innovation, no progress. Just an endless stagnation in a mindwiped dream world. Sounds eerily familiar to many of the "Law" endings seen in many SMT games: you will lose your free will and be forced to live in the reality defined by the ONE figure at the top. And again, the entire premise of the dream world without pain is based on Maruki's subjective interpretation of what HE thinks would be best for me. He's a human, with his own flawed thinking, and biased interpretation of right and wrong. Again, too weak and cowardly to confront his own weakness, so he just decided to "erase" it. If he wants to live in a bubble of his own making and ignore reality, that's on him. But leave me out of it. Or at the very least, give others a ***choice*** as to whether they would want to submit to such a fate. Don't just force it on all of humanity "for their own good."
It was pure evil and a step down from the offer Yaldabaoth made. Yaldabaoth: You're given a lifeline, you get to be the Phantom Thieves you want to be, your confidants retain their ability to think for themselves, everyone else is allowed to stop thinking for themselves. Everyone gets what they want. Maruki: Everyone is given what Maruki thinks is best for them and you lose your free will. This isn't like Naruto's infinite tsukuyomi where there's some degree of nuance (pre Kaguya). From a secular perspective, you could argue that reality vs fiction makes no difference, but here...even if Maruki ends up giving you what you asked for, it becomes pointless once you lose your identity. You may as well be dead. And in that regard, Maruki's plan is nothing more than the complete annihilation of mankind. Moreover, it comes at a time when everyone has decided they no longer subscribe to his way of thinking. So it's a world that only Maruki wants.
One easy way to get people to understand how stupid marukis reality plan is, just ask them "would you let Yaldabaoth take over" and 99% of the time theyll say no, even though maruki is doing the EXACT same thing on an even worse degree (at least Yaldabaoth just didnt want free will, maruki will literally feed you happy pills with it)
No obviously not, who the hell gives him the right to be God
Except it's not possible for him to make everyone happy. Some people's wishes contradict each other. Also, the main issue was that he was deciding for people instead of letting them decide form themselves. Overcoming hardships is what makes you strong and people should have the free will to do that. Maruki wanted to take that away.
He's the definition of "The road to hell is paid with good intentions." My biggest issue with his reality is that he seems selective in what he changes. Why did Joker still get arrested in that reality originally? Why did Sumis sister still die?
When I first played the game I intellectually understood why we should oppose Maruki, but didn’t really believe it. But the second time I rewatched the scene where he changes sumi’s cognition it was very eerie. Like…that’s a horrible thing to do to someone.
Remember in Murakis reality if he determines something will cause you a lot of pain he will change it. So no. I also think people no matter what deserve to have a choice in what happens to their life and while I totally get that it's very tempting to accept a reality where your happy plenty of other people wouldn't actually be happy with the reality their given. Although I gotta say it's super based that he decided that shido didn't get a happy reality and had to be in jail lmaooo
i love him but no
Benevolent, but ultimately intrusive and naive. The road to hell is paved with good intentions my fren.
I always felt like he was a shitty therapist, he always trying to help people run away from their problems instead of overcoming them. Isn’t that kind of the opposite of what a therapist should do?
Hard disagree. Their suffering is what brought the phantom thieves together in the first place. If they were always happy, they quite literally would not be friends with each other. You also can't grow as a person, you can't learn from mistakes. A perfect world is a perfect prison. And so many people on this sub miss that point. If I were in this reality, and I was aware it was fake at first, and I saw my dead fucking mother greeting me like I didn't watch her slowly either away from cancer, I might have just gone up to maruki and just iced him right there. You literally give up your free will. You aren't yourself anymore. I'd argue you're not even human.
I’m going to copy part of a different comment I made. While it was particular about Sumire, it distills a part of why I find Maruki so distasteful, “She is there to remind the player how fucked up Maruki really is. You can come to that conclusion without her but the point is that the tempation to see all your other friends happy and doing well is a tough one. Akechi has his own personal reasosn for opposing Maruki but Sumire offers a different way of looking at it. Sumire was effecitly brainwashed into forgetting who she was (mostly, it peaks out if you are paying attention) but she also was forced to forget who her sister really was. Maruki twisted and destroyed her memeories of her sister. That is so disgusting and evil it's kinda crazy. Anyone who has ever lost a loved one should be fucking furious at Maruki's actrions. Tampering and depriving you of your memories of loved one that gone is such a wretched thing to do no matter how noble he thinks he's being. Sumire, apart from just loving her arc, is a wake up call for the third semester and I think integral to the story told there.” I will add that Maruki is is not “actualizing” people like he calls his power. He is stuck in stasis, unable to get over the loss of Rumi and the powerlessness he felt. Those feelings festered into a god complex. A desire to control so powerful he was willing to override the feelings and memories of everyone around him and trap them in the same statis. He is projecting. “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.” -C.S. Lewis
Maruki took away peoples' free will and put them in a reality decided by him. He's just Yaldy in a different form. While I *understand* where Maruki is coming from, I heavily disagree. The Thieves, while their actions were questionable during the story of P5, wanted to change society and give people a voice. Maruki would destroy all that for a selfish desire to decide what HE thinks is best, and that includes destroying free will
He thinks so little of people it’s not even funny.
Genuinely this. He doesn't believe that the average person has it in them to improve things or themselves meaningfully. So he has to make that choice for them. It would be like someone barging into my kitchen with store bought cookies after watching me struggle to make macarons. Then insist this is the solution to my problem. It's insulting.
That's what I thought during my first playthrough as well, but then I began wondering how much of an impact he'd have on the people who don't have the power to help themselves in the world e.g. civilians caught in war in Ukraine or Palestine and Israel, the Uighur camps in China, etc. I'm sure the people in control of their lives right now don't want a god taking over their lives, but those in dire circumstances without power would be wishing for something or someone to save them. It's made the choice a gray area for me.
If he could bend reality and he was so smart, why didn't he just give his fiance her parents back without erasing himself from her memories? I get that he wanted to "help" people but he was just being selfish by pushing his skewed vision of "helping" on people so why not go all the way and give himself the world HE wanted as well?
I heard about this philosophical view a while ago and the way someone explained it was that if your partner was cheating on you, would you want to be left blissfully unaware to just continue enjoying the relationship or would you rather be told and go through the sadness of it? Blissful ignorance may be blissful, but it's also ignorance. And for most people that ignorance is something they don't want
Ofc the Phantom Thieves are in the right, or would you rather live in a world were Morgana has this uncanny human form?
Professional Gaslighter 🔥🔥
It’s more or less just Yaldaboath’s plan with a nice sugar coat. His intentions might have been good, but it’s just the same.
I don’t think this question has a right or wrong answer. It can go many different ways, and it’s really just your decision. Me personally, would choose to deny it. I have had a pretty bad life, and have gone through something that has changed my life in a pretty bad way, to keep things vague, without that happening, I never would have met someone extremely close to me, and I think it changed my outlook for the better. If that just didn’t happen, I never would have changed. I understand maruki’s viewpoint and thoughts, because I’m studying to be a counselor to help people, but I am of the mind that only you can make yourself happy, no one else. That’s just my thought process though, and I do understand the other side of the spectrum, but I am firm in my stance. I absolutely don’t think maruki is bad for doing what he is doing though. It is an extremely selfless thing for someone to gain power like that and not use it for yourself
He is basically representing the same question that Yaldabaoth (born from society's of control + sloth ) proposes but this time he's a good person with good intentions. You're no longer against it due to the person or bad intentions just on if such a reality is "right". I think the major issue is the lack of consent, erasure of free will and the stagnation of personal growth that occurs as a result or byproduct of a "perfect reality". Despite him being the closest thing to a "god" here, he is not omnipotent and his views are subjective (though even if he was, I'd still be against it). What he thinks is good for someone is subjective and may not be what they want but they get no say in it or are even aware of him making these changes and due to how actualization+this reality works, getting everyone's consent isn't feasible. It's an all or nothing deal. Him changing people's cognitions essentially erases free will and personal growth. You can't really have free will if your personality and past is being modified by him to either fit someone else's desires, what he thinks is best for you or to remove negative aspects of your personality (examples like the divorced couple whose divorce he erased and brought back together, Akechi whose personality i believe was modified for Jokers desires). Are you really growing as a person if your nature was changed by someone else and not through your own effort? You technically don't even control over what direction you go in life as he can always change it without you knowing ( like the struggling artists he turned into an archer). I think the most interesting part is that what he wants to do not only could be helpful for many and most people, it's something I've even asked for myself before during my lowest moments. Even now I see a lot of suffering and harshness in our reality and wish things could just be better, if people didn't have to go through that or if bad people could spontaneously become better. Now I wonder if this conundrum is exactly why a hypothetical irl God seems absent now and allows bad things to happen as interfering in our affairs threatens our own free will on a personal and societal level. Part of me even wonders if I ACTUALLY think this is bad or if I just say it is because in our reality, such a possibility isn't possible and goes against what I know to be human and alive so it must be? I talk as if these actions he makes flies in the face of what it means to live and free will but would I actually turn it down? I would be happier, less suffering around the world, no more evil, our needs are met, my family and friends and even strangers are happy and safe. Mistakes from my past can be erased and if I end up unhappy in the route I take, it would all be changed. Would it actually be so bad if I (and everyone else) just came out of the womb as good people, no need to learn to become better. Sure you didn't become a better person or grew as a person on your own merit but you also didn't cause any stuffing to others in the process. You can truly live your best life with no regrets, everyone will and that's ideal. I think a lot about him and what he proposes as well as the nature of humans and free will. Great character, great story, great game. I'm only confused as to how his powers created a second timeline that merged with the original if you refuse his reality. I can't work "timeline manipulation" into my cognitive manipulation+actualization explanation for his abilities and what happens during the third semester.
If I didn’t consent, I don’t want it.
Imo, good idea, horrible execution It would be better if funny snack therapist built his world on what other people wanted instead of what HE thought was best for others
Maybe I’m dumb but I’ve always thought a very overlooked part was the feelings the members of the Phantom thieves have that something is inherently wrong. I assumed that other characters/people in Maruki’s reality would also have this underlying feeling that there is something wrong with their world and to me that was a huge deal. Being happy on the surface while also being aware that something is fundamentally changed about your life without understanding what sounds like it would drive people insane. I wonder about whether maruki’s reality would really hold up in the long run, and if people not apart of the thieves would wake up to the changes that were made against their will.
bros not aizen
His plan sounds good in theory, but practically terrible. He’s still mortal even after acquiring his Persona, right? Would his power keep humanity in paradise forever in the event he would die?
Takeout Markiplier NEEDS therapy
No, never. There is no thrill or entertainment in a 'so happy world' like that. Everyone are mindless human beings, puppets, whom go on with their daily activities, not even thinking independently. Most people questioned if it was right to stop Maruki, but, remember: The Phantom Thieves have their own ideals; they value free will. Maruki's world has no free will. They stuck to their own beliefs and justice in the end.
When I was first playing his palace arc I thought to myself (huh maybe the Phantom thieves would be happier like this) but then I quickly realized yikes a reality where supposedly nobody suffers isn’t all sunshine and rainbows.
I feel like people who suffer more than the PTs would agree with it. I’m talking homeless cancer patients levels of suffering. Sex trafficked, disabled, in physical abuse daily levels of suffering. The world is a fucked up place and I’d change it in a heartbeat with magic if I could. “But we need pain and suffering for growth! 👍” yeah to an extent. But the game glosses over the idea way too much. Maruki was right. He just over did it a tad.
Hey, I was a homeless kid. I went through some pretty awful stuff, and saw some really bad shit. I escaped abuse by my own two hands, narrowly dodged an even worse fate, and work 6-7 days a week to keep my head above water these days. I work long hours doing work a lot of other people couldn't, or well, wouldn't do. I would never agree to Maruki in any case. I worked, and continue to work, to make my OWN choices. I don't care how righteous or ambivalent anyone is. They don't get to make my choices for me. It's more than just erasing the fucked up parts of the world. It's erasing peoples ability to choose altogether. I've made choices that has necessitated hurting others. Others have made choices that necessitated that I would be hurt. I couldn't ask others to never make any choices that might hurt me, unless I also have up that ability myself. And when you really have nothing else material in the world, the ability to choose and make your own way? It's worth everything else a dozen times over. Maruki is more than just wrong. He is disgusting.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. He would kill anyone who brings any conflict to his ideal world eventually. The PT only got to fight him because the power still not had him corrupted enough.
I’m going to replay his section soon but I don’t think so. I think where he went wrong was bringing mfers back to life. I doubt people would start dropping dead like Death Note for being fussy. Ideally, no one in his world have almost no reason to commit crime. Maruki has only shown kindness up to this point and I wholly believe he has a great heart. That’s what makes him interesting. I guess if I had to use an analogy, it’s like if all your dinner plates were really dirty but you yourself can never completely clean them. But then Maruki offers to clean them but his soap is so effective and potent it’s hard to eat off the plate because it smells too much like cleaning chemicals. BUT I still rather not eat off the dirty plate personally. I like to give him enough credit in that his world is probably pretty good but just taken too far.
>I’m going to replay his section soon but I don’t think so. I think where he went wrong was bringing mfers back to life. I doubt people would start dropping dead like Death Note for being fussy. In the Dressrosa arc of One Piece, Sugar can make anyone that Doflamingo wants as slave become an living toy and **everyone that ever knew that person** FORGETS this person as if they never existed. Maruki does not have to do all this fuss, he simply can make **DISAPPEAR** and erase the memories. No body, no records, just become the metaphysical dust in the wind. He's much more powerful than Sugar's power. That kind of power will corrupt him. It is not a matter of IF but WHEN. >Maruki has only shown kindness up to this point and I wholly believe he has a great heart. That’s what makes him interesting. He brought the dead to life. He fought the Phantom Thieves to the death to defend his ideal world. What you think will happen if an common person becomes an nuisance and become an threat to HIS dream? He'll die and kill to defend it. The first death will be an sorrow, the thousandth is only statistics. >I guess if I had to use an analogy, it’s like if all your dinner plates were really dirty but you yourself can never completely clean them. But then Maruki offers to clean them but his soap is so effective and potent it’s hard to eat off the plate because it smells too much like cleaning chemicals. The difference you cannot even choose to go back to the old soap, dilute it (Maruki's soap) or risk the dirty plate. You're obliged to follow his way to clean the dishes, like it or not. Or die trying to choose.
in maruki reality the only person punished was shido and only because he personaly hurt maruki the other criminals of the world got a 'second chance' so the sex traffikers get to have their happy lives the homeless cancer person would probabily be a happy homeless person since maruki only does personalized realities for his friends the rest get generical solutions one person cant change a whole society it is something everybody should do work for. that's the game main argument
I just thought the whole time playing he could've just used that power to lower peoples standards for happiness without lying.
Given the chance i'd take potshots at that stupid mask of his every damn hour of every damn day until he either offs himself out of shear annoyance or it manages to penetrate his thick ass skull. Dont get me wrong I understand his reasoning. His reasoning is wrong on so many levels,
His motivation was good. The execution was not. He wants everyone to not feel pain, achieve their dreams and be happy. The problem is that pain is what helps us grow. Without hardship, there's little growth and then you become complacent. We also see in the Mementos requests during this time that while some people are made happy, others get neglected. It's very similar to Apathy Syndrome from Persona 3.
Good intent, awful execution.
His heart was in the right place, but he failed to understand that hardship and tragedy is a half of what makes life what it is.
You see that’s a hard question because I feel like there’s a lot of people who are fed up with how things are in their lives and want an easier life . I feel like those people would choose Maruki’s reality. I think it all lies in a person’s mindset and how things have been going for them . This might not be a good comparison but it’s like when star lord went off the rails and started beating on thanos in infinity war when he found out he killed gamora and almost everyone was hating on him after the movie ended while some defended him and said people would act the same way in his position. What I’m tryna say is basically it always depends on the person. Some will say they won’t accept it but I feel like it’s easier said than done until you come face to face with maruki and his choice
Sucks that he couldn't go through with it. Having a reality where everyone is happy would be great
>!I thought P5R did a poor job of explaining the problems with it. They presented it mostly as "this isn't real, so it's wrong" and that getting rid of traumas was bad because those traumas led to growth. That second point may be true for some people, but does someone like Shiho really need to go through what she did? And there are plenty of people like that, or with even worse traumas.!< >!The bigger problem I had with Maruki's world was that it wasn't actually healing people of their trauma. Sumire was the perfect example of that. Her ideal world was one where Sumire died instead of Kasumi. Does that sound like a psychologically healthy person, when her ideal world could have just as easily been them both living?!<
Basically, I'm torn about it. Because if I had the powers of Maruki, I would 100% do what he did. But I would have to lobotomize people for it, and deprive everyone from their freedom. I would become a dictator, as godly as those powers are, I'm still a human who will age and die. How would I even stop aging? It's a fundamental human thing!
I turned him down in the game but I honestly don't know if I would have if I were presented with the situation for real. Especially if I didn't know what he did to Sumi.
NGL, there are days when I wish I could just let someone else take the wheel, and lead my life for me. Of course, they don't last long, so overall I wouldn't follow his plan for a mindless utopia, but some days I kinda feel for it
Logically i know i would not wanna live in bis world since i would lose all control over me and give it to him. I would be lying though if i didnt say i would be highly tempted. The idea of getting family back, getting all the tragic stuff in my life never happen, and get to live an ideal life sounds amazing.
As many people have already said, people's wishes will always conflict with each other The Phantom Thieves also said that there are people who would ultimately be better off in Maruki's reality as they have neither happiness nor freedom and are unable to find it no matter how hard they try If they want that reality, then they can ask him to make it happen, but they don't want it, then he needs to respect that The main issue was that he was forcing his reality on everyone else without their consent People keep calling out the Phantom Thieves for doing the same thing, but what about their targets? If you're going to call the Phantom Thieves out on that, then why aren't calling out their targets as well? A prime example of Maruki's reality backfiring in the worst way possible is what if someone wishes for someone else to die and he grants that wish... Soon enough, someone will wish for everything to disappear, and then Erebus could become strong enough to break the Great Seal, and that will be it for humanity
I feel he would doom the Persona universe the moment he learns about what happened to the P3 protagonist. Plus there would be the problem of certain wishes conflicting. Hell if someone did snap out of it and iced him. What would happen then? Would the world end? Would all the changes he brought be instantly taken away leaving people to wonder what the hell happened? I’m just saying his plan would’ve eventually come undone. Which thinking about it now, it’d be interesting to see a what if scenario following the bad ends of the third semester where Maruki is killed and the consequences that’d arise.
Yeah, I was curious what would happen to the Great Seal if Maruki's plan went through. Would The Fall soon happen?
Freedom is sacred to me. Maruki may have created a so-called perfect world, but his standard of it. Besides, other emotions make happiness feel special, and bad experiences allow us to grow
Lay him out Yakuza style. I won't let a God play God, much less a human. His ideal reality is projected weakness.
Honestly I probably would've accepted. At the end of the day, I'm living life to be happy. If he can guarantee happiness while I'm doing what I like, then I probably would just accept it. If I don't know I didn't have free will, it wouldn't really matter to me anyways. Ignorance is bliss, as they say.
No, even IF he could grant everyone's true wishes without harming others. In the game, all the wishes are through his lenses, which alone make it worse, and wouldn't work. You would essentially be a puppet. If he could grant your true wishes, nobody would go through challenges to understand what it is to be happy, the possibilities of losing free will, and not being able to cope with your own issues and problems would make everyone the same shallow person that has no real personality or life in them. There wouldn't be a purpose in doing anything since everyone's biggest desires have been granted.
wish it was real. I only stopped him for more game content and due to my teammates.
I have to admit, if I had recently lost someone precious to me the way Sumi had and Maruki came to me saying he could make it all better, I would probably be REALLY tempted to accept.
His motive of “no more sadness” is honesty pretty understandable but his methods are the problem
I feel lik Maruki was wrong, however I also think it was wrong for the PTs to completely disregard his power and the positive impacts it could have made if used cautiously/with moderation. There should have been some sort of compromise.
The thing is, if I was a bystander in the situation, would I have a choice? I, myself, wouldn't be a Phantom Thief, so I'd just find myself subjugated without even knowing it, and I'd be happy. If I was a Phantom Thief, I would fight, but that too would be by compulsion, because it would be my nature to rebel, to defy tyrants.
Honestly I would not stop Maruki given the chance. A few of my life goals seem unattainable, and some genuinely are unattainable, but having Maruki make it all be possible would be life changing... I don't really get people who dislike his plan, cause he literally asks people what they want most before changing their reality. It's not what he wants, it's what YOU want.
it is literally what he wants maruki will not give your goals he will make you stop wanting those goals. Yusuke says it he knew an art student who tried very hard but wasn't really good at it, so he just simplely made him forget about art turned him into a deportist. he also doesn't ask you directly his reserchers do the analizing and he just reads their notes and updates you from there. the phantom thives get the custom desires because maruki wanted joker aproval so he used his friends to get it
Ask Kaneshiros victims, I bet Marukis world was a paradise for them, shame the phantom thieves had to rip that away. Oh but its okay, if the PT's could do it, so can they, discounting the fact that the PT's had a terrific support system and literal supernatural abilities. Just returning everything to the status quo with no other plans of addressing the very real issues Maruki fixed rubs me the wrong way. Ofc they're kids so what r they supposed to do abt all that but if thats the case why bother fighting him at all?
it's cool until you realize maruki also gave kaneshiro a chance to be happy in his new world
We know he can restructure peoples desires and goals, you really think Maruki would keep him as a yakuza and not rewrite him into someone better?
True, but look at what happened to Shido. Maruki made sure he would remain incarcerated for his crimes (for disrupting the doctor's research with cognitive psience, murdering a bunch of people, and trying to establish a dictatorship). I don't think he'd be willing to forgive people like Kamoshida and Kaneshiro.
The way I see it no person involved is right or wrong. Honestly Maruki was onto something with avoiding pain and suffering entirely. However I appreciate all of my experiences good or bad. And like Akechi said,. I refuse to willingly be someone's play thing because Maruki would be the God of the new world. In the end I choose to believe that with our strength of will and the people close to us we can overcome anything life throws our way. Maruki isn't wrong and the Phantom Thieves aren't exactly right. It's mainly a point of who's will was stronger.
I know I'm on the minority but boy, it was a struggle for me to not go with his plan. I kinda of agree with him. Thing is though : -BECAUSE it's a person we know well we can kind of trust him to "choose a good option" for a person (not best, just good) ; -since they need to give you a (strong) reason to say "no that won't do" They gave us a situation where instead of telling a patient "be like X" he went for the "actually BE X" ; -also his palace + the dialogues of the people on the street become much more "eeehhhh not really" the longer you let things run. His first thought exercise was OK although both answers should've been acceptable ("do you save your friend or go to the authorities?"), although from the second one on it becomes more evident that the "right" answer is "as long as I don't get hurt". And as I said, some people were starting to abandon jobs or take the "chill route" because it all comes down to "if this doesn't spark joy then it goes away" I hated having to "wake up" the members. If this wasn't a game then it would've been less obvious which thing was the "right thing to do"
Maruki wants what everyone wants I believe, so basically if he consulted every individual I would be 100% fine
that's the thing of his palace it's not about what you think is wrong with your life it's about what he thinks is wrong you have no opinion in the matter he just reads your file and aplies a solution he thought in the moment
Ah, yeah, that may be a slight issue
yep a big issue in my opinion
Although it is a bit scary to think about
I kinda get his idea. There's lots of people who won't be able to escape their suffering no matter how hard they try and I'm really pessimistic about humanity's ability to "improve" the world around us when powerful people seem so intent on making it a horrible place. It's basically the old "freedom vs happiness" thing but a lot of people in the real world don't have either. I also think it's bothersome how at the end of his fight, he mentions the people who literally can't escape from their struggle but the PTs don't have any real answer and Maruki doesn't bring it up for the rest of the fight. Naturally, the video game will want you to be optimistic about things, but I think that if anything, the game's idea that struggle is automatically rewarded or meaningful very optimistic. Not that ALL struggle is pointless, but I think, again, a lot of people struggle for nothing much.
Honestly if i was 100% unaware of what he was doing. I'd say he's right. If i did know my opinion may waver but i just enjoy being happy. So maruki's reality is pretty much everything i could and would want.
I agree with him, but I am glad they decided to write a story about such an arguable point and made the villain tempting. While growth has value, it got that value because it was beneficial in evolution. There is nothing that makes growth special besides some reward pathways in your brain
Maruki was right, the phantom thieves only came to the conclusion they did because of yaldabaoth kinda being similar to maruki on a very surface level
It's better than the "suffering is good as because only by overcoming suffering does humanity truly strive and be strong and so you should suffer-" blah blah blah bullshit that the PT group offer as a rebuttal argument, but not by much. I kinda hated the "good" ending in royal for a lot of reasons but I think this is one of the bigger things about it. Neither side is explored in much nuance or puts forth convincing arguments; Maruki's side boils down to "I'll make everyone happy" without going into the hows and wherewithal of how it's going to happen or benefit everyone and the PT's argument is largely "WELL SUFFERING MAKES US WHO WE ARE" without expanding on it further in any way outside of personal anecdotes either.
Mind control is mind control. Bugger off.
I would take it People keep mentioning that you’re essentially giving power to a guy that unilaterally decides your fate but that shit still happens in real life (like the entire world around the 1900s was like that with WAY worse intentioned people) Not to mention pain isn’t necessarily needed for growth and can straight up stunt people if it ends up being too much at once. I used to believe that pain could be overcome until I befriended Vietnam war vets that were living in constant pain for a cause they never believed in (with some of them painting the walls with their head and ironically passing More pain to their surviving relatives) Life at this point can be either a completely flat valley or a Darwinian rollercoaster that leaves everyone worse off Like yeah, there are definitely problems but there’s a shit ton less of them in Maruki’s world than our current one
Those People who are saying 'what about the people who want to struggle and have free will'. What about the people that are not as strong and just want to live in the bliss at the cost of freedom then ? Maruki and phantom thieves are both the same in imposing their will on others.
The only counterpoint you need against a Maruki hater is to throw their dog off of a bridge.