#but also all the fire departments in your country are corrupt so he wouldn't be expected to show up because it's not important enough | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

composeregg · 4 months

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wanted to join in on that meta post by saying yeah, even if we view joker’s and akechi’s relationship as special compared to the others, akechi is still written under the constraints of p5, and an antagonist to boot. like. vanilla had his confidant as automatic bc (iirc) they thought they couldn’t fit it in properly! which is crazy, even tho the automatic rank ups have an interesting implication (such as, akechi will always be rank 10 by the end no matter what you do). i understand that ppl probably wanted someone to talk sense into the thieves for their unwittingly callous actions, but not by the guy who decided to go thru with his 11/20 plan lol

(this post)

YEAH like, I love Akechi. I adore him. But I have SO many OPINIONS about this mans. like. I'm not going berate anyone for how they write characters, that's the freedom of fandom, but I am going to stand over here with my opinions and contrary thoughts and chitchat about them in my space

I know that very often it is because people want someone to refute what canon has shown us (because canon's writing disagrees with it's desired goals as mentioned in that post). They want someone to go "Look at Joker, look at what's happened to him, don't you care? How risky this was?"

But okay I'm actually going to back up a bit!

(this got long)

What other choice was there for 11/20?

Because the answer is not "they could have taken Akechi in a fight."

The goals of the interrogation room/metaverse plan:

Escape with Joker alive

Trick Shido and the conspiracy into believing Joker has died

and you know? you know? you cannot do that latter bullet point if you just beat up Akechi

So enlighten me. How, exactly, were the thieves supposed to come up with a different plan in under 20 days? One where Joker would live, where the conspiracy would believe he had died, and importantly, one that at that point in time cannot count on Akechi being a turncoat. They have no reason to trust that he would

"Don't you care about how risky this was? There had to have been other ways."

We don't get Shido's name as Akechi's employer here until after the phonecall reporting the death, I believe. They cannot change Shido's heart in time to avert this because they do not have the information. The interrogation room plan, genuinely, was one of the smartest ideas they had. It accomplished exactly what they needed to. These are teens in a life-or-death situation, who notoriously have MANY trust issues with adults for good reason, especially since society is so corrupt that a hitman can easily walk into a police department and assassinate a high-profile criminal and get away with it with help (remember the guard at the door?) The other options are basically "change your identity and flee the country" or "literally actually die" lets be real here!

Akechi, let's be honest with ourselves here, would primarily be pissed off that the thieves got one over on him! And if he is concerned about the lasting trauma of it all, or how risky the plan was, he is seeing this and approaching it from the angle of knowing it worked.

(Better options for sense-talking: Sojiro! Sojiro is right there! Takemi! Iwai! Kawakami! Yoshida! All important responsible adult figures to Joker and at least some of the thieves.)

In my opinion if Akechi wants to snark at the thieves about the plan in any way regarding how much it fucks up Joker and how it was risky, they are more than allowed to fire back shots at him for making it necessary and shooting Joker in the head in the first place.

I think people often use it as a shorthand, to show that Akechi cares about Joker, but also as a way to emphasize the importance of Akechi to Joker (compared to the rest of the thieves). It's easier to ignore the fact that he killed two of the thieves's parents when it comes to Joker being in a relationship with him, as long as it can be shown that he's the one that really cares. That he wouldn't put Joker through something so fucked up with his care (hilarious, laughable, he shot Joker in the head). It separates "Akechi and Joker" from all the phantom thieves in a way.

(Honestly sometimes it feels like ship bashing/character bashing but for ALL the phantom thieves with how intensely some people write it! beyond even the point of exploring Atlus fucking up characterization to pretend to have a blank slate silent protag)

BUT like I said in the post, it also points out a major flaw with convincing players that the rest of the thieves DO care in the game. Because the thieves are never really given a chance to show that. It's implied, and it's clear the game wants you to believe they care, but we don't get scenes addressing specific stuff like this enough.

Joker is confident, and cocky, we see that with that bastard smile in the interrogation room after getting "shot" in those cutscenes. It is genuinely a plan to be proud of, and it hails back to his original persona being Arsène. Arsène, who escaped from prison simply by disguising himself and pretending he had already escaped and put a body double in his place. Arsène, who pulled off a robbery while in jail. Arrogant and self-assured and cocky, the interrogation room plan is genuinely something the likes that would be worthy of Arsène's name.

He can be proud of the plan, and also traumatized by it. But he actively agreed to this plan, probably helped come up with it (where does everyone get the idea that it was Makoto's plan? genuine question). Joker is not a hapless victim of other's whims, he also had agency. So many of the parallels between Joker and Akechi are how they exercise what agency they have while being stripped of traditional power and victimized by society.

Honestly? Honestly? In my personal opinion, having Akechi berate the thieves for the plan is disrespectful to his rivalry with Joker, along with his own characterization.

He holds Joker as his equal. Equal in agency, in skill. If he looks at Joker and says, "why would you go along with such a foolish plan?" if he looks at the thieves and says "why would you ever put your precious leader through this?" he is taking away Joker's agency and choices. One of Akechi's focal points is agency. If he sees Joker as equal in this, and he denies Joker his agency, he is also taking it away from himself.

Akechi's cocktail of emotions regarding the assassination can manifest in so many different ways, and he can translate that to anger at the thieves rather than himself for putting Joker through that, but that would be his emotions regarding himself being misdirected more than anything.

Akechi has too much respect for Joker to deny Joker his agency in a plan that was good enough to fool him.

Respecting agency and admiring a brilliantly crafted plan also doesn't mean ignoring trauma that ocurred from actions taken under duress.

(At least, it doesn't mean that as long as you're not Atlus)

#egg speaks #egg answers #ask #answered #Anonymous #p5 #persona 5 meta #persona 5 #goro akechi #akira kurusu #akeshu #this also doesn't at all get into my thoughts on people making Akechi the PT leader in situations where it can't be akira #but that's another topic lol #unedited unbetaed it is 2am these are post-nap words pre-sleep words #enjoy!

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library-child · 5 months

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How Armstrong Feint became Hangfire

Re-reading ATWQ fueled my brainrot concerning the radicalization of Armstrong Feint. How did a loving father become a terrorist hell-bent on slaughtering children? So I did some research on common risk factors that can make people susceptible to terrorism and checked how they apply to Armstrong. Needless to say, this only made my brainrot worse. Anyway, here are the results.

Social isolation ☑️

The first risk factor is the lack of reliable social connections. You may be all alone or unable to open up emotionally to the people close to you. You might even have trouble interacting with other people in the first place. This can result in feeling alienated. There also is no one to support you when you are hurting or interfere when you start radicalizing.

While having only Ellington's limited and likely romanticized perspective on her life with her father, there are some hints Armstrong may have been lonely. He was a single parent who spent most of his time working alone in the wild. Ellington does say she contacted people who knew him, but she never mentions anyone but her father when talking about her past. This could imply they led a very isolated life. Also, Armstrong's enthusiasm about nature could have something to do with his having trouble getting along with other people. At least, he seemed to prefer plants and animals over people.

Hardship ✅

Intense suffering makes you vulnerable in many ways. If you experience hardship and don't get support, you might become more susceptible to radical views/groups. That's what's so seductive about things like cults or terror organizations, after all: They promise you a community, a sense of belonging, and an easy solution for your problems.

Again, we don't know enough about Armstrong's past. He certainly must have been stressed out by being a single parent and the only bread-earner of the family. And he must have gotten into this position somehow. We never learn why Ellington's mother has never been in the picture. Furthermore, as a nature-loving person, he must have felt extreme anguish at the destruction of his home region caused by the flood. Not to mention the destruction of his hometown and the life he had built for himself.

There is also one intriguing aspect that doesn't get explored in the books, so it's purely speculative: the war that made Colonel Colophon a hero. We don't know when exactly this war happened or how involved the Snicket country was, but it does open the possibility that Armstrong's generation had to fight as soldiers.

Lack of perspective ❓

You're in a bad place and don't see a way out. You don't see the point anymore and don't know how you want to go on. Another allure of terrorism is providing you with a 'meaningful life'.

This one is tricky. Armstrong did have a purpose in the form of a young daughter whom he undoubtedly loved with all his heart. We don't know if or how he intended to reunite with her had he succeeded. We can only speculate if he fell into resignation. Perhaps he was shaken by the futility of his life's work after one tycoon's decision had undone it. Perhaps he realized Ellington was growing up and wouldn't need him in a few years.

Powerlessness and injustice ✅

This is relevant both on a social and individual level. When you live under corruption, tyranny, etc without a way to defend yourself, you're more likely to resort to terrorism. It's also relevant if you personally feel you're being treated unfairly and there's nothing you can do about it.

The social injustice is blatantly clear: Ink Inc. was allowed to destroy Killdeer Fields for profit, and its inhabitants could not prevent it. The flooding must have started several years before the beginning of ATWQ. Who knows what Armstrong and the rest of the town did to fight it, all in vain? We also see how corrupt and incompetent the institutions, such as the police, the official fire department, the press, and the legal system, are in the Snicketverse. This might have been a reason the V.F.D. became successful in the first place: They fixed the failed state.

Armstrong's individual perception is more obscure. He certainly realized he was a victim and probably became increasingly obsessed over this. He may have started out being rightfully outraged by the injustice done to him by Stain'd-by-the-Sea and shaken by his own helplessness. But eventually, he got stuck in this state of mind until he forgot he still had agency and responsibilities.

Over-simplified worldview ✅

You tend to view the world in clear black-and-white categories: You are always the hero, and the others are the villains. You're always the victim, the others the oppressors. You're never responsible for your actions; it's everyone else's fault. You lose touch with reality as you sink deeper into a super simple, convenient narrative of how the world works, and spreading terror and violence is the only right to do.

Hangfire displays this attitude during his conversation with Lemony in book 4. He only points out Stain'd-by-the-Sea's crimes without taking ownership of his own. He equates humanity to beasts trying to survive. There are no morals; every act of violence is just self-preservation. It's kill or be killed, meaning kill the children of Stain'd before they can repeat their parents' mistakes.

Conclusion

What can I say? These books have messed up my brain.

#lemony snicket #atwq #all the wrong questions #hangfire #armstrong feint #fan theory #brainrot

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