ramenish

I usually don't post any thoughts publicly online but ON GOD persona 4 has been driving me insane for the past year you have to hear me out guys

can we please acknowledge the fact that saki was in the TV when yu, yosuke and chie first went there? like, SHE WAS THERE. AND THEY BARELY MISSED HER. THIS IS SO PAINFUL OH MY GOD. why don't I see anyone talking about this this is RUINING ME

we don't have the exact time when she got thrown in but I'd guess somewhere around the evening of april 13th because she still showed up for her shift on the 13th and then she didn't show up at school on the 14th. the mayonaka TV didn't show her as clearly as every other shadow, but she wasn't a silhouette, so that's why I guess that she was already in there during the cutscene.

also can we. talk about saki outside of her death. she was the only person who could understand yosuke and his situation, because she was going through basically the same thing. in "the magician" (non-canon, but STILL…) she gave yosuke chocolate out of sympathy and a feeling of like-mindedness. 似たもの同士に, as she said. same goes the other way around, because yosuke was the only one who could understand her and sympathise with her. again, as shown in "the magician", even before part-timing at junes, saki didn't hate yosuke. she still understood him, because she carried a similar burden of being seen as the same as her parents. "parents are parents, you are you," is what she said to yosuke (the persona 4 manga by sogabe-san).

despite the echoes of saki's shadow saying otherwise, I don't think she truly hated yosuke. she was able to separate him from junes, unlike everyone else in inaba, but, obviously, a part of her was still unable to do that and she was bitter about junes running her family out of business and having to work at junes to help her family out and try to save up for leaving inaba (the latter being mentioned by the girls in yosuke's rank 7, so take that with a grain of salt). also yosuke was obviously bending some rules for saki out of sympathy to lessen her burden, but that kinda inadvertently led to him making her situation a bit worse. and his crush was obvious to EVERYONE, so that too. she might have hated him for that, but she still denied it enough for it to end up as something her shadow talks about.

also also can we acknowledge the parallels yosuke has w/ the fool trio (yu, adachi & namatame). oh my god I'm crawling UP THE WALLS.

the adachi thing is pretty obvious just. compare yosuke's shadow w/ adachi's dec 7 monologue. both have been sent to the boonies despite their wishes, are spiteful about it and bored to death by the countryside. both used the case to entertain themselves. both acknowledge it.

the namatame thing though. good lord. sit down guys. I'm gonna sit down. yosuke's reaction to namatame saying that he threw people in because he thought that he was saving them and that "saving people" made him feel more important, like a hero, as if he's finally doing something important for once even though everyone hated him for him cheating on his wife, just kills me. it's painful. yosuke's shadow clowned on yosuke EXACTLY for trying to become a hero by going into the TV the same day saki died. obviously, yosuke cared a lot about saki, but you can't say that he went inside the TV just for her sake. a big part of his motivation was that he just had nothing to do in inaba, that there was finally something to do in the boonies, and that he wanted to feel special by solving the murders, becoming a hero, while everyone in the town hated him or disregarded him. they both were hated, they both wanted to be seen as heroes, as someone SPECIAL.

also a big part of yosuke's character is the feeling of powerlessness. he moved to inaba and couldn't do anything about it. saki died, his shadow showed up, and he couldn't do anything about it. everything happened around him and was out of his control, so gaining a persona, becoming a "hero" was him gaining power. I think the scene that shows this the most is dec 3rd. yosuke usually doesn't assert his opinion because he's an "ideas guy", as he himself has said, but the whole thing with nanako (at the time) dying really was out of anyone's control, so he tried to take it back by DEMANDING that the team should kill namatame. yes, this was revenge for namatame (as the team then thought) killing saki and nanako, but I also think that yosuke was also trying to gain power over namatame, who made him feel so powerless (due to him taking the lives of those he cherished, again, as everyone at the time thought).

this also kinda ties into the whole thing w/ yosuke having parallels w/ the fool trio. everyone (yu, namatame, adachi) was powerless at some point in time. yu being sent to inaba by his parents, namatame losing yamano, adachi being transferred to inaba. you know.

how to social media (by ramenish): 1) disappear for 2 months 2) post something gay 3) leave (again) 4) profit!