Persona 5 is the schlockiest, most indulgent, most pandering game I’ve played in years

I’ve been playing Shin Megami Tensei games -a subsection of the Persona genre- ever since Persona 3 Fez for the Playstation Whatever and I’ve even looked at a few screenshots from Persona 1 and 2, so you know this fluff piece isn’t written by a fake geek girl, just someone for whom Persona 5, as of the 5th in-game month, has been ““““evoking”””” a lot of teenager emotions.
It seems clear that what the Persona series has attempted to shape itself into ever since 3 (and especially since 4) is a kind of gaming comfort food. Unlike other SMT games, when you pick up a Persona, you are settling in for a lovingly, expertly crafted piece of comfort media. It’s easy, it’s mostly inoffensive, it’s extremely welcoming despite all the murders and stuff. It’s comfortable in the way that marathoning an okay anime is comfortable. So, off the tail of that backhanded compliment, I want to talk about why, in that not-very-radical framework, Persona 5 gets me so gosh darn giddy.
I really don’t want that to sound as lukewarm as it does, but I cannot quite reconcile the fact that P5 doesn’t really do or say anything radical, despite its trappings. After all, it can’t possibly. It’s a big budget, fairly mainstream console RPG that’s trying to sell to anime fans of all people. It doesn’t exactly push envelopes in terms of queer representation, featuring one pretty cool drag queen, and then literally nothing else. No queer romance options, no female character select, even. Speaking of which, I feel a tangent coming on…
You come into my home and you tell me that Ryuji is straight???

That boy wears nothing but tank tops! He bleaches his hair all the time and specifically refuses to ever stop bleaching his hair. He hates school and loves doing crimes, he throws tantrums at the mere thought of shitty abusive adults, he was tormented by his teachers, he’s a big dumb goofball punk thug who just wants to work out all the time and fight for his friends. I can tell you from firsthand experience, that boy is queer.
Sorry, had to get that out of my system. But hey, that’s okay! It’s important to acknowledge our frustrations, after all. As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what I’m here to talk about:
Persona 5 as an extremely indulgent power fantasy for victims.
You quickly notice a trend among the protagonists of Persona 5, that they’re all victims of abuse. Some more extreme than others, of course, but that’s good! Trauma is not a competition: there’s solidarity between the hero who was sexually harassed by a teacher and the hero who was pressured by society to be an honor student. They’re all hurt, and they all help each other. This isn’t groundbreaking. There’s a long sordid history of exploitation films about victims seeking revenge on their abusers. Hell, I loved that recent Deadpool film.
What excites me about Persona 5’s depiction of such is the sheer audacity of it all. A magical mindscape where, if you have a skilled team of friends, you can pull off a heart-heist and rip all the monstrous traits out of a horrible person without hurting them, and without a shred of evidence that you were involved. It’s unrealistic, over-simplistic, childish bullshit that’s so far removed from real life coping. It’s nonsense. It’s pandering. It’s schlock.
But that’s not the kicker. The true audacity comes out during the deliciously edgy Persona Awakening scenes. Persona 5’s brilliance shines not just from the fact that victims team up and take revenge on abusers, but from the dynamic that their righteous anger and frustration at their victimization literally awakens their superpowers. There’s a wonderful scene I just played through in which a girl has to accept the fact that she was lied to about her mother’s suicide. It was easier to accept that she herself was to blame, and wallow in self-hatred in her room. It’s painful for her to acknowledge that her suffering was unjust. Her Shadow, the manifestation of thoughts she doesn’t want to accept, says “Get mad! Feel the hatred inside you! Take it, use it!”
Any other story of this kind would frame this scene as horrific. My god, she’s going to the Dark Side! She’s Going Too Far! She’s about to be corrupted by hatred and rage, and we’ll start the next phase of the boss fight where we’ll have to punch her monster form until she calms down.
In Persona 5, she accepts her hatred, and she takes it, and she uses it.
What?!? How can that be allowed?! How can this victim of emotional abuse be allowed this borderline cop out, this degree of satisfaction? This is the place where, within its not-radical-enough framework, Persona 5 manages to say something very exciting: It’s okay to be mad at bullshit. Persona 5 tackles a number of pretty heavy subjects. Tactfully? Hahaha no. But also not offensively. It’s clunky. It’s earnest. And in its clunky way, Persona 5 wants to say something heartfelt to victims: You and your feelings are valid.
And yeah that’s basically a dime-a-dozen Tumblr post of a message, but consider its context. What is a victim? What does society think of victims? Generally, victims are expected to be pure, timid, pitiable and utterly innocent people, in situations that are clear cut and unmistakably abusive, and always made all the sadder, purer, and gentler from their suffering. But Persona 5 knows that that is bullshit, and it knows that deep down, you know it too. Victims don’t have to be pure, they don’t have to be respectable, and they don’t have to suppress their frustrations to be valid.
In Persona, the key to your flashy superpowers is to accept the part of yourself that you want to hide from people, the part you’re scared or ashamed of. And in P5, that Shadow that you have to face is the feelings of frustration and anger that you have been told you have to let go of. You’ve been told to forgive and forget, but some things are unforgivable. The message isn’t to wallow in your hatred, but to acknowledge its existence as the first step of healing.
And when you can do that, you can be a kick-ass criminal superhero, and you get to be in a gang of cool fun losers, and you get to cast magic, and make lots of cash, and drive around in a talking cat bus, and do even more heists, and shoot lots of fake guns at demons. Victims don’t get to have fun like this! Victims don’t get to stand up for themselves with practically no consequences! Victims don’t get to be powerful and cool! It’s downright sinful just how validating this game tries to be!
It’s unrealistic. It’s childish. It’s indulgent. It’s pandering. It’s schlock.
I’ve written a good few things about schlock in the past (which I won’t link to because they’re old and stupid and embarrassing), but I love good schlock. Silly, dumb, weird, clunky, even amateurish stuff that could never be argued to be “high art” unless you’re as pretentious as I am. But a lot of schlock is lazy. It falls back on offensive shocking ideas, or mindlessly reinforces stereotypes because it can get away with it. Good schlock rises at least a little above that, and tries to actually say or do something beyond just existing. Even if it falls short, or is incompetent, or messy, good schlock at least tries.
Persona 5 is great schlock.
