The Maruki Debate With Tommylmao (Part 2)
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- Опубліковано 28 лют 2021
- The second part of a two part video; in this part Tommylmao, Wright and I debate the moral, philosophical and practical implications of Maruki's plan, and if it would ultimately be best for humanity.
Check out Part 1 here: • Persona 5 Royal: The M...
Tommy's channel:
/ tommylmao
Channel membership:
/ @fitherfith - Ігри
TLDW: 12:37
In all seriousness, it was a blast being a part of this series, and I hope everyone enjoys listening to it as much as we enjoyed making it! Also, I’d love to hear everyone’s thoughts on some of the ideas I brought up, so feel free to leave them down below!
"it's only a messiah complex if you aren't the actual messiah" is the best argument ever.
I feel like a lot of the things you are saying marukis reality would make better such as ending hunger world hunger, war etc, wouldn't be able to happen in any reality ever now his reality can minimize it but we can minimize it in our own reality as well it may be slightly harder but at least we would have our ability to still form relationships and our freedom of choice wouldn't be trampled on also I wouldn't be bored out of our mind unlike Maruki's reality
Maruki's reality is just death with extra steps.
Erasing and altering memories is murder, life without any change is indistinguishable from most theories of death.
I understand the draw, respect the drive, but if someone can stop him they should just like we prevent suicide and murder.
@@alfredwinchesterjr at least people who choose suicide have agency in that scenario. Even if you disagree with the suicide, that is still a choice. Maruki's brainwashing does the job for you but slower so you don't notice. The loss of agency is worse than murder imo
@@blaquephyrekendra1779 it’s not brainwash. It’s a new reality where everything YOU want YOU can have it. People do bad stuff because of things they can’t have. For example, extremely poor people steal, vengeful people kill, etc. So, if you make poor people not poor, there wouldn’t be a reason to steal. And the same with vengeful people. He’s not changing minds, he’s granting wishes.
I feel like an important point that was neglected by both sides is Shido. In Maruki's reality, Shido was still imprisoned. Whether that was for revenge or for Joker's happiness is another interesting topic.
Its probably just because Shido was a terrible human being with no redeeming qualities
Unlike say Akechi there's no tragic history showing his fall.
@@OriginalGameteer see working from both sides of the debate I can respond to that. I feel like they should have as well
@@OriginalGameteer But he doesn't do that for someone like Okumura or Kamoshida, both irredeemably evil people whom have hurt many others and deserve to be punished for their crimes. He makes them better because it would make Haru and Ann happier. So Shido is left to rot in jail because he either holds a grudge, which shows how his judgement is too inherently flawed to make him worthy of all this god-like power, or because Joker wants to keep living with his friends and confidants in Shibuya, which shows how his judgement is too personally biased to make him worthy of all this god-like power. Notice that it's a lose-lose in both scenarios.
@@briannab4037 what? Kamoshida never got redeemed. *Madarame* did, because a part of Yusuke still cared about and pitied him.
@@briannab4037 Maruki has been shown to be spiteful, when he went to visit his old professor near the end of the game. So this might have more truth to it than you realize
A thing that always pops into my head whenever The whole messiah like/reality changing individual helping or curating the future shows up - "is he a human? Does he breath and have blood? Does he age? Can he get killed? Does he have emotions - - if the answer to any of these is yes, than you shouldn't rest everything on this person - the implications would be disastrous if when things go south
EXACTLY
He is, but his persona isn't. And I think it's his persona that decides how it fixes stuff. Maruki only decides that he will change it.
@@grandbean9031 I'm pretty sure that his persona is only what provides the power to create actualizations, and that Takuto himself is whom decides how to use said power.
I stand with Akechi “ I refuse to accept a reality concocted by someone else, stuck under their control for the rest of my days. “ without struggle the soul decays and becomes stagnant. Freedom includes the freedom to struggle and when you come out the other side you come out stronger and with a better understanding of life.
You can say that because you have a choice. The people who would benefit the most from his world are the overwhelming majority of people who never get a singular chance in their life to live. If you count every person murdered, tortured, enslaved and starved, those who never had any say in the matter anyway, then they outnumber us. Us "everyday" people who actually have a say in the matter. Maruki is a villain to those who have the gift of choice, and the saviour of those who don't.
This is erens alt account lmao. But that's a nice point
@@grandbean9031 damn you said that well. I honestly don't even have anything to add, you just said that extremely well
*IF you come out the other side. What about the people that can't? Or don't? Are you saying they don't deserve happiness?
@@grandbean9031 You are exaggerating.
The people that are suffering (and can't solve it by any means) are way less, because if that weren't the case, then there would be no one who doesn't suffer to begin.
If Maruki were solving only the problems of the helpless, it wouldn't be too bad, but he isn't.
The bad people takes away the decision of those who oppose them, because they know they can fight back, in one way or another.
Maruki takes away the choice of ALL people, mainly to satisfy his own desire, and want to convince the PT so that no one can oppose him.
In that way, Maruki it's not that different from people like Kamoshida or Shido, is it?
I’m of the camp that his world would’ve made a lot of people happy but it doesn’t really solve any problems intrinsic to the systems in place right now. All Maruki’s reality does is distract people from the way things are. He doesn’t change people’s material conditions to ultimately change the world for the better, he just gives everyone high potency comfort dolls (which can be good for mental health in the short term). Maruki’s reality ignores the benefits of self actualization brought upon by hard effort of you and your friends together to be the best people you could possibly be. Yes being happy in the moment is good and all but I’d rather be fulfilled with hard work doing what I truly love then spend the rest of my life just doing what someone else thinks I want to do.
Daaaamn Philemon where were you in P5R? You could've said that and solved it instantly!
Nah, i agree with his reality. If i was given a choice of going to a better reality or staying on this shitty world. I’d rather choose maruki’s reality.
Maruki's reality only worked because it had a very narrow scope and focused on specifically making a handful of people's lives easier. When applied on a larger scale, it falls apart completely due to contradicting views. Although, I do think the game was actually a little vague on how much of the world was affected and it's possible he basically just rewrote a small pocket of reality, with a specific focus on the main Persona cast.
Basically, I think you'd need an entire game dedicated to this theoretical world to really dive into the subject. Don't get me wrong, P5R did a great job with the third semester, and, I think in the moment especially, you're not thinking too much about the grander implications of things and just focused on this small snapshot of how the perfect world affects all your party members. But, to try and discuss it on a grander scale just raises too many questions that the game rightly did not try to answer on to keep the focus on your characters.
@@paulg.4812 Nah, you got the right idea. The game heavily implies that Maruki didn't just simply "poof" the world into his happy reality. In fact, it makes it a point to show that he's constantly working on catering to individuals through a step by step process which was already very telling of the cracks in his ideal reality. On a smaller, more immediate scale, his philosophy and his actions to ensure the ideal society does have some merit to it. But anything bigger is not only problematic but as I'm sure you know, impossible. Well, maybe not impossible but it would take eons to achieve properly and even then its a mere possibility rather than being a for sure outcome. The world is too big and has way too many individuals with opposing ideas and the rate Maruki was going shows that the man, despite having god powers, did not possess all knowing knowledge to properly actualize a world built entirely on "everybody gets what they want for free". It was never going to work on a scale grander than what we're shown and he was clearly planning a world change rather than just targeting Shibuya. Eventually, something would give and his entire reality would domino into chaos regardless of his powers.
You also have to consider in game canon and what it would mean for existing Persona users if Maruki was able to continue his work on a global scale. If Joker failed to resist his ideal reality, that's not necessarily a sign that others would fall too. An individual like Yu Narukami would more than likely have a strong enough will to oppose Maruki. Aegis and Labrys being what they are could probably resist as well. That alone would probably lead to the P3 and P4 gang banding together eventually to stand against him 2 wild cards amd other Perosna users Maruki doesn't even know resisting this new reality spells out certain doom for him so its even more obvious that his plan would fail. But I guess that was the whole point. We all talk about world peace and how the world would be better if it wasn't so harsh all the time but such idealism often does lead to self ruin and societal decay when taken too far. As the saying goes "The road to hell is often paved with good intentions"
So... basically Maruki is Izanami.
"If there was no struggle, then happiness would be meaningless."
Well couldn't Maruki just make struggles that he knows a person could achieve. If a fighting game champion only felt happiness when he was fighting a tough opponent and wins, then instead of making that person always win Maruki could just pair them up with a bunch of difficult opponents who the champion would struggle with but still beat. Maruki can essentially be a game developer, making a challenge that isn't impossible.
Yea I always thought he would take more of the resident evil 4 approach. In that game the worse you are doing the more the game tries to compensate and help you out but on the sly (Like if you miss a bunch of shots you'll find more ammo, or if you keep dying it'll make a bit less enemies spawn. That way people can always fight challenges that they can actually overcome,
But he isn't doing that. He's forcing his idea of a perfect world onto the world, which also happens to be one without any hardships whatsoever.
@@ne0space No, he doesn't. Case in point is when that one artist Yusuke knew suddenly became an archer. That isn't a perfect world, that is Maruki making someone happy. He isn't looking for perfection, he's looking for happiness.
@@slayer-22 but he did that at the cost of something that guy loved [art in this case]. He took that man's choice away from him.
@@blaquephyrekendra1779 And made him happier. That's what matters.
My biggest point of contention with this is that if all he was doing was solving world hunger or preventing wars I wouldn’t have any issues with it. My issue is when you take what he’s doing to the individual level, because as Fither says, people’s interests are going to conflict and there is no feasible way to make everyone happy, at some point in order to maximize happiness he is going to need to in a way change what people want. At that point I don’t think there is any value in it to begin with. What’s the point in giving someone something you forced them to desire? At that point you aren’t satisfying the people you’re playing with dolls
Beyond that I think there’s a lot to question about if there is any value in fulfilling a person’s personal desires for them. I believe in an ideal world any basic tools/needs for survival would be met and that from there it is up to you where to go, Maruki’s world however doesn’t give you the option to decide what happens from there. He isn’t just feeding the hungry and saving people who have been dealt unfair hands, he’s also determining how you play the cards he deals you, I don’t think that at that point you’re even able to be considered a person if your circumstances and outcome are all determined for you
But here’s the problem with solving world hunger or prevent war, you need to control all 7 billion people mind.
Really wasn't expecting the anime girl song while a man talked about how we live in a society.
the disrespect is palpable, just putting the guy on blast.
Love the name and profile pic
@@ace0719 Oh shit yeah. I changed this like a minute after I finished watching the video at like 4 am and just realized how well it fits.
@@josiahjacinto4156 Yeah I made Fither
The way I understand it, humanity will keep wanting more and more until there’s nothing left to give EXCEPT the ease of not having to think, the exact end that Yaldabaoth would bring. The deadline ending I think is a glimpse into what happens a while into the reality when things start to break down, and it’s the only way to prevent despair
People keep saying this, but Maruki can actualize it so people don't want this. So they're happy with their wish. Joker and Akechi will be happy with their friends, the rest of the PTs will be happy with each other.
If the desire to become stagnant arises...Maruki could actualize them to not desire that anymore, and desire something more fufilling.
@@slayer-22 at that point there's really no value in granting wishes since your essentially giving people something that you forced them to desire in the first place. no different than playing with puppets
@@insertbetternamehere7148 In some cases, sure. I mean, should we really wish to grant the true desires of pedophiles, rapists, murderers?
That being said, he's not really granting wishes. He's making people happy. I would rather a world where everyone is happy, even if some are forced(like Akechi), than a world with child trafficking. Wouldn't you?
@@slayer-22 So what he's doing is, in essence, no different from a brainwashing cult leader. He doesn't actualize people's wishes, just what he perceives their wants and desires to be, or what he perceives they _should_ be. That is already rather reminiscent of a dystopia.
You can also create a world in where everyone is forcefully sedated and drugged with chemicals that make their brain and body perpetually satisfied, completely ridding said world of any strife or illness, as well as free will or thought. It'd also leave the environment of Earth totally safe. Would you take this over the world we have now, which has child trafficking, among many other sins and tragedies, in the spirit of self-lessness and the greater good? (And don't call this a false equivalence - I fail to see how it differs in principle).
@@briannab4037 yea, I see no issues here
Well, you know my opinion.
Yeah.
Me loading my gun Give me a sec I gotta reload I'll be right behind you taking him down.
There's two Goro Akechi's, this is now getting out of hand.
@@tohruadachi4977
It was always out of hand, now it’s uncontrollable.
Bruh
Tommy: Maruki could solve world hunger thus he should be trusted with fixing all the world's problems
*Meanwhile*
Maruki: I think Joker would be happy if i brought Akechi back to life. I'm sure there will be no problems with this decision.
Alechi: Joker...kill me. Right here why don’t y’a.
Maruki just really wanted the shippers to be happy.
Also, meanwhile: I think Sumire would be happy if I make her forget about Kasumi and force/coerce her into living as her dead twin sister unknowingly. I'm sure there will be no problems with this decision.
starting from 38:00 in the video when yall talk about him getting the god complex later on that arguement is null and void. because he already has the god complex. if his palace is the manifestation of his subconscious and the personification of his ideals and thoughts then why is it that further up you go it turns from a therapeutic almost science center to the litteral garden of eden. with the forbidden tree. his palace is already showing signs of a god complex and the fact the the forbidden tree is there could signifi that he knows even to himself that what hes doing is forbidden and wrong.
I feel like Fither and Right are missing the point of the discussion. It's not about whether Maruki CAN do it. It's whether he SHOULD do it. To decide whether he should or shouldn't you have to make the assumption that he can do it just to have a clear picture of the possibilities. Discussing whether it's possible or not according to our normal laws of the universe is pointless for a hypothetical and only muddies the water. It was really frustrating hearing the arguments about it being impossible. Like it's obviously impossible according to our rules for the universe, but hypotheticals and fictional characters are not bound by that.
"Is Maruki a Utilitarian" - the greatest thread in the history of forums,
Underrated comment
Yeah I think it's pretty cut and dry that he is
Yes
Specifically a hedonistic one, yes. I can imagine him as a sort of reverse Shido or more humanistic Yaldabaoth.
I'm not so sure because in the example he gave about the angry mob being mad at the one guy, we have to work within human means, we either kill the one innocent to save many or save the innocent at the cost of many. We are only human with no power so we only have those choices, Maruki has power that we don't so he has a third option, make whatever the mob is mad about not have happened in the first place, therfore the innocent man isn't being accused, the mob isn't mad and you save 100/100 people in that scenario
I think the biggest issue with Maruki's whole power and plan is that it's appealing on the surface, but the more you try to extrapolate it and consider the implications, there are so many questions it leaves you with. I think the idea of making people happy just by fulfilling people's desires as you see fit is an incomplete and potentially hollow way to make the world better. It would lead to a lot of good by solving a lot of problems that we can all agree need a solution, but it changes a lot of fundamental things about the human experience that I don't think anyone is equipped to reconcile with. Much of the human experience is defined by suffering, and to eliminate major and even minor stressors from people's environments would have untold effects on people's psyches, which could potentially backfire on Maruki as his actualization power is directly tied to the public's cognition, so when you go full-scale like that there is simply no telling what will happen. It could be ultimately harmless, or it could be disastrous for all of reality. What happens to people's sense of purpose if Maruki is solving everybody's problems? Does everyone just become passive and spoiled if they don't ever hit a wall in life? Fither himself said that a world such as this would likely become very dull, eventually.
And there's another HUGE quandry that I don't know if anyone has yet to consider. What happens to death in this reality? Does it just... stop happening? If Maruki is in control of reality, that means he can prevent death since ending someone's existence is like the most inhumane thing (at least imo but Maruki would probably agree). But that kind of becomes an issue if people can just live forever and people are still being born. Does Maruki just decide to literally vibe check you when you get old enough "Oh you've lived for like 100 years, and you seem like you lived a fulfilling enough life and are content with either living or dying, so I'll just make that arbitration for you by ending you".
Let's not even get into other living things like animals, etc, because that's a completely new angle with a whole other new set of problems, which I think his conscience wouldn't allow him to not act on. Speaking of Maruki's conscience though, putting him in an effectively all-powerful position is not a very good idea in the long term. Even if Maruki doesn't die since he can just actualize his body to be immortal, what happens to his psyche, aside from developing a god complex which he's already showing signs of? Having what is effectively infinite resources (control, time, etc) is something that the human mind is just NOT equipped to handle. Eventually he would go insane, right? Especially because he is in such an unfathomable position for a person like him. I know he did end up developing a desire to solve literally everyone's problems, but he hasn't ACTUALLY been in a position where the expectations for himself are even comparable to what he eventually attains, unless for some reason he's just always had the expectation that he needs to help everyone he meets/everyone in the world period. Then again, with infinite resources, I suppose he could actualize himself to be able to do all of this forever. But then at that point, what is actually in control if he is using his power on himself? Would he transcended humanity and become the embodiment of power and basically ascend to true god status? At that point I think Igor and Philemon would probably need to get involved, as from my understanding they are "those who preside over power" and Maruki just created a serious power vacuum. Assuming Maruki is still Maruki as we know him and he doesn't try to actualize himself because he is convinced he can't do wrong, he would eventually go insane because the human mind is simply not able to exist for infinity. I think this whole experiment would lead to Maruki going insane and reality just collapsing along with his mind.
The fundamental issue with this whole debate about "What if Maruki's reality was real" is that we are all arguing nonsense. The universe as we know it cannot have some unlimited cognitive power to do whatever. We came into being in a universe where that is impossible, we are built around the universe being the way it is. To alter reality is to place humanity in a world that we would find truly incongruous with our own nature and absurd for it. To argue against reality is to argue against humanity, vice versa.
True, the ramifications of what maruki plans to do are shown in his palace the further you travel. On the surface it's a clean new clinic that treats unhappiness but go behind the scenes and you see fafnir, which looks like a xenomorph, and even further in you see maruki's patients strapped into brainwashing machines which leaves to npcs with creepy smiles throughout the last semester.
@@Mysticgamer we also get even deeper in and see the garden of eden and how no one there has any thought or will of their own
The problem with Maruki is that he is so fixated on running away from his pain. It dilutes his overall purpose when he goes so far and pushes so hard to make this happen. He can't come to grips with the fact that neither he nor the Phantom Thieves can save everyone. He can't know what's best for them, either. The world seems to operate based more on coping than actually fixing anything. His world wouldn't allow for any future or growth in comparison to the individual cases of the Phantom Thieves. Everyone would be the same, eventually.
@@chasingthatguap
And thus we become nothingAnd thus humanity with cease to exists because there's no point of continuing on.
We need to have the bad to create the story to continue on living. If we are always happy then what's the point of living.
Do you have a child that never experiences pain what kind of being with that be a husk of a puppet that has no drive be anything else you have to have some bad to create a wish of wanting better.
Maruki is objectively wrong and there are so many layers to why that is. The thematic one is that he's another interpretation of the demiurge in gnosticism with emphasis on how losing eden to gain the knowledge of good and evil may have led to a lot of pain that wasn't there before but it also allowed humanity the ability to grow and learn in the ways needed to achieve true enlightenment. A lot of the bad parts of human desire can't be removed without losing the good parts too. A benevolent dictator is still a dictator and no single person should be deciding things for the entire world, which is why the Phantom Thieves didn't take Yaldaboth's place after defeating him and why the other persona protagonists don't just become unstoppable gods. They derive their power from the support of others and act on their behalf, but in a healthy and constructive way.
What Maruki does to Akechi and Sumire is super fucked up. For Sumire he violated the code of ethics for his profession, encouraged her suicidal ideation, assumed he knew what her problem was without checking if she had pre-existing depression before her sister's death and made her delusional instead of helping her cope with her trauma in a healthy way. He's so hung up on using her to legitimize his views that he traumatizes her to use her against the Phantom Thieves and forces her to live as Kasumi even if she tells him she doesn't want that and after he's gained the means to bring the real Kasumi back and make a reality where they're happy together. For Akechi, he basically holds his life hostage to guilt trip the Phantom Thieves into not stopping him, repeatedly ignores Akechi's disdain for getting stripped of his free will or forced to live on someone else's terms and guts pretty much his entire personality and life to make him into his detective prince persona except genuine this time. That's not really Akechi anymore. There's also the deadline ending where he interprets failing to stop him on time as indecision and decides that Joker should be put to sleep forever and stripped of the ability to make choices ever again because he thinks making choices is too painful to allow.
Another issue with Maruki is all the gaslighting. He keeps asking the same questions over and over again after already getting an answer just because it's not the answer he wants, insisting they'll change their minds or that they actually want what he does and just need to realize it. He also projects his own views on pain onto other people, claiming that pain is too hard to cope with for everyone even when presented with people who've coped with their pain and don't want it erased. Paired with his 'well-meaning' intentions it gets really insidious in a way a lot of people miss unless they know how abusers tend to act.
At the end of it all, nothing would really matter anymore in Maruki's reality. No one would really be making choices for themselves because everyone is essentially getting sockupuppeted by Maruki and his idea of what an ideal life would be for everyone rather than what they actually want. They could never want more for themselves because they're little more than dolls in Maruki's life sized toy set.
Something I feel wasn't touched on enough in the game was how the Phantom Thieves stealing hearts wasn't sustainable long term, didn't really address the core underlying issue and even benefited Yaldaboth. The conclusion was getting people to realize they have the means of doing something and working together to change things, as well as getting people to change their hearts in the mundane way of choosing to be better rather than through supernatural brainwashing is the more viable way to go. So the lack of real discussion on that in favour of leaving it mostly subtextual hurts the narrative somewhat. Especially when Maruki missing the drawbacks of what the Phantom Thieves were doing and building his plan on a flawed foundation feeds into why he was wrong.
Damn, you should have debated Tommy lol
Fucking thank you. I could not have said it any better.
THIS!!!
Maruki is the most “objectively right” antagonist I’ve ever had to fight in a video game. Dude literally saw how shitty the world was and just went “Y’know what? Imma fix that.”
Antagonist?
You mean protagonist
@@superpppants3820 He's... the definition of an antagonist. You don't play as him, he literally opposes the main character and supporting cast in the canon story. IDK if you were joking about the protagonist thing, because he's clearly not it.
@@superpppants3820 Antagonist ≠ Villain. It just means the people on the opposite side of the conflict from the protagonist. The difference is where our perspective is. There can be hero antagonists and villain protagonists. In Death Note, L would be the former and Light would be the latter.
Personally for me, Maruki was such a good villain. The finale really made an already great game and made it even better.
*Antagonist*, not a villan
@@izanagiforsmite4365 true
@@BobbyTheGamerOfJUSTICE
Antagonist?
You mean protagonist
@@superpppants3820 No cuz we're the protagonist.
Maruki’s world horrifies me in multiple ways. The primary reason is that ethically it is all done wrong. It lacks consent of the individuals effected unless they notice later on. It is in many ways creating people for the pure sake of another person which means someone can be alive for a single existent making them no better than robots. Lastly living people altered for the happiness of others, such as the eraser throwing teacher, are practically murdered and replaced with another person. That’s not the same person at the end of the day so eliminating the original may as well have been murder.
Then there’s the practical aspects as Maruki isn’t making a new world from scratch. What he’s doing is closer to modding a video game than making a new one. So it has multiple confinement’s, some of which I think are implied in game. It’s brought up by Fither but humans are not capable of eternally being content and happy. At some point they begin to want more so Maruki would have to be able to account for that and the buildup would eventually be incapable of existing in the end as the requirements for happiness will eventually grow too large for Maruki to grant or would begin to create conflict between people’s ambitions. This poses two distinct solutions. First is to strip humanity of its ambition which is horrific in its own right as it would only be able to lead to world stagnation moves forward only by Maruki’s hands. The other is a world on loop so that people are continuously at the point where Maruki helped them. This is the one I believe was taken as one of the bad endings has Joker asleep for all time which implies a partial erasure of time for that to never be noticed by anyone. This fundamentally changes humanity to pets at best or simply a movie for Maruki’s satisfaction at worse. I can’t really think of a way out of this scenario otherwise.
Thank you! This is everything I’ve been screaming at my phone through this whole debate. I adore fighting Maruki because he’s a kind enough person for me to not want to condemn him but with the power and ideals of someone I would fight without hesitation because of pure ideological dissent
If Maruki can bring people back to life, he can subvert the hedonic treadmill and make someone happy permanently. We can already do this in the real world with deep brain stimulation. No reason why Maruki’s powers couldn’t.
I think a great aspect to add to this debate is to look at the differences between Maruki and the Phantom Thieves.
Technically they were doing the same thing but the devil is in the details.
The Phantom Thieves came to realize the potential of this power right after they were suffering from abuse of adult abusing their power. They had resolved to not be like Kamoshida and put stop-gap measures in place to prevent themselves from abusing power, like the rule that they would only target people after a unanimous vote. They also took the time to investigate their targets to determine if a change of heart was needed.
Another big thing about the Phantom Thieves was that they never considered undoing the pain. They caused their targets to acknowledge the wrong and harm they inflicted and accept responsibility for their own actions. The Thieves accepted reality for what it was and moved forward.
Maruki’s first experience with his power was changing the cognition of Rumi so she would feel no pain, but caused her to forget their whole history together because of how he actualizas her. He forced Sumiré to live in a fantasy for months, making her ignore reality and to run away from her problems. Then when she could stand up to him decided to retraumatize her to manipulate her into agreeing with him.
He also sucks as a councilor because he tries to fix his patients problems rather than give them the tools to fix their own.
Maruki’s methods would not only keep people from growing as people, but would alter reality to such a degree that the freedom to even choose for yourself does not exist.
We also see with Sumiré that his methods are not 100% accurate. Sumiré thought she was Kasumi and kept trying to live like her but the fact that she is not Kasumi kept peeking through everything. She suffered the same crippling self-doubt she had before the actualization and was avoiding the problem. The problem was always there and Maruki could not remove it, all he could do was cover it up.
Give me a fan made manga of Maruki's reality STAT
YES
I feel that I would agree with Maruki if his actions did what he said they would, but Maruki's actions fail to achieve his goal of minimising suffering. This is because Maruki only finds the nearest _local_ minimum of suffering (a point where no small change in the situation can reduce suffering further) by changing things in ways that reduce suffering until no more of these changes can be made. However, this fails to find the global minimum of suffering (the situation with the least amount of suffering possible) as transferring from one local minimum to the next requires going through situations with a lot of suffering.
As an example, look at Ryuji. He's in a much better (and happier) place with the phantom thieves than he was with the track team, but getting him from the track to the phantoms required him to go through a lot of pain and suffering with his broken leg. Without that suffering, Ryuji would be in a worse place.
The fact that Tommy equated Maruki to “The closest thing to God in human form” tells me that he really can’t be trusted with that level of power based on that statement alone. He’s still a human who can make mistakes. He keeps bringing up World Hunger and Peace as things that are in favor for it but in reality Maruki might go insane having to micromanage everyone involved with maintaining it. Those aren’t issues that someone can just solve once and forget it.
This is a good video but I feel like a lot of the debate turned into a circular argument of the absence of "Free Will," and whether it's fine to give a person absolute power of your life. The problem with this argument is we already do this to an extent in the form of governments and trusting humans to work for the betterment of the masses, and the choices made in government directly affects the people. Ultimately, I feel this argument is not only pointless but also rather bad to cling to if you're Anti-Maruki, because Maruki as a person has shown to have the will and the ability to actually make people's lives better even if it's not the perfect world envisioned. None of this has to do with your will being forced away from you, because what Maruki is doing is giving people their desires to end their suffering.
The actual problem with Maruki's plan is that he's essentially an SMT "Law" villain where his plan is ultimately to destroy humanity on a basic level. Humanity must struggle in order to realize their potential, and the only way to struggle is to compete. To rid the world of pain and suffering, competition must end. If competition is gone, then humanity stagnates and they just become soulless bags of meat that are drifting through life. And while that sounds like a fine loss on the surface level (sacrificing competition for eternal happiness), the issues arise during the long-term where the world becomes so stagnant that humanity will just wither and die.
Of course, the short term effects of this would be amazing. The United States Government in particular right now is in shambles and tensions remain very high. Someone with Maruki's abilities could instantly change all of that and everyone's lives would be for the better. But if you go deeper than surface level one must realize that in order for that to be done, humanity has to essentially not exist as we know it as there are simply too many opposing viewpoints. People would need to literally die in order for full-blown happiness to occur. The only other option would be full-blown brainwashing, which Maruki is not against.
So who’s this Maruki guy? Is he that guy from persona 4?
No that’s Akechi
No that’s yusoke
He's in persona 5 royal
No that's Hulk Hogan
@@Mysticgamer you uh missed the joke bud
The matter of fact is, pain is necessary in the sense that it provides you the skills necessary to excel and tackle more pain. BUT the trajectory for human evolution seems to be predicated on minimising as much pain as possible and maximising pleasure.
Ultimately Miruki is simply offering the end goal well before we as a species are ready to accept it.
That said, the Persona cast are just fictional characters trapped in a game, no-matter their choice their reality isn't the true one. Morally as their gaolers would it not be better to maximise their happiness?
The end of your comment makes it an out of universe question that removes any meaning to your answer, there is no happiness they have for you to maximize if you stop treating it as though they live in a world just as meaningful as our own. Once you stop suspending disbelief and acknowledge their reality as lesser than ours your answer holds no meaning
I agree with Maruki up until A.) it infringes upon one’s autonomy, and B.) it inherently infringes on a person’s identity. I don’t have an issue with Sumire asking for something and her wish being granted, but when that wish involves her rejecting & forgetting her own identity and essentially stealing someone else’s it becomes akin to giving candy to a baby just because it asked for it. Is it her choice, yes, but I don’t think fundamentally that that in particular is okay just because Sumire chose it for herself.
I personally disagree with Maruki because he doesn’t give people a choice. He takes away agency, a key part of being human, and through that he takes away meaning. Any good experiences brought about by his power are hollow because they have been given.
Actually another quite good point is, based on the universe they live in and the nature of the cognitive entities that seem to keep manifesting throughout the Persona games; It might actually be better to have an actual human (especially someone like Miruki) in charge to keep the next Grail/Ameno Sagiri/etc in check.
i agree w/ tommy in that if there were a purely benevolent godlike being (maruki in this situation) who through omnipotent power could solve all of humanity's problems in one fell swoop - yes, that would be good.
i also agree w/ fither in that maruki's method of simply granting everyone's wishes is inherently flawed b/c people are not all good - thus not every wish would be "benevolent" and the conflicts caused by differences on the idea of what is "good" (not to mention "what i want") would tear everything apart pretty quickly (outside of the bubble scenario presented in P5 royal)
in fact, what fither just described is what yaldababidoo (aka the P5 writers) decided was the primary issue with humanity as well - and that the best way around this problem would be to hand all power (in the persona world, cognition, and specifically in P5, desire) over to a central entity
neither (yaldy's method or maruki's method) actually presents a solution but in the persona universe there really isn't one - so the P5 cast's conclusion that it's best to leave things as it is winds up being the most enticing path. the problems still exist, but you neither run into the practical issues that would result from maruki's method (which actually wasn't the primary reason the phantom thieves stopped him, and which is why i wasn't fully satisfied w/ royal's writing) nor the complete sacrifice of individuality that would result from yaldy's method.
this IS something i like about the persona universe - there ISN'T a solution to humanity's problems despite the fantasy setting, but with each problem addressed (death, lies, injustice) and conflict that results from the "easy way out" offered by a godlike being (nyx, izanami, yaldy), you realize that at the end of the day it's up to humankind to solve its own problems, in their own flawed ways.
P.S. in the whole debate between maruki and the phantom thieves i.e. "pain should not exist" and "pain is necessary to grow," i disagree w/ the latter in that pain is not necessary for growth, but rather the other way around - growth is necessary to adapt to pain. thus, if pain didn't exist, as maruki wanted to actualize, growth would also theoretically not be necessary. the phantom thieves pushing that point as the ultimate counterpoint to maruki thus wound up grating my nerves - it's a fact that "what kills you only makes you stronger" is only true for those lucky enough to not have actual calamity in their lives. if they instead argued that maruki simply doesn't have the resources to actualize his ideal, the natural point would be that because pain would still exist, growth would still be necessary, and all maruki would be doing is stunting that growth [and when shit happens in his world, no one will be prepared to handle it], THEN i would have been satisfied taking down maruki. instead, i felt stuck between a rock (maruki's imperfect world) and a hard place (the "good guys" completely missing the point) - thus, i found royal to have a very strong buildup with maruki's character arc, but an unsatisfying ending.
The world already run by rich people Who are on elected and we functionally have very little freedom under late capitalism. If I have to choose little freedom in System of use me as a disposable cog for profit production or a system designed for the happiness of mankind it’s not much of a competition.
This guy gets it
@@Alex_Barbosa Glad I’m not alone.
Maruki's reality is something that looks desirable at the first glance, but starts falling apart the moment you start to think about it. Maruki himself is a self righteous man of a limited and narrow perspective who believes he can be a benevolent god, but in my opinion it is only a question of time until he becomes a dictator, well he already kind of is. His method of solving problems provides no long term solutions, and the lack of separation of power and system of balances and checks assures that he has absolute power to do anything he wants, or rather, to do anything he THINKS is best. He may be able to warp reality, but he is still only a human, and a narrow minded one that is. It is unknown how his reality would apply in the larger scale and how he would solve conflicts of interests, besides he has no qualms of completely erasing people from existance and euthanizing them if HE thinks it is what they want, and in true dictator's fashion he fails to see how faulty the methods that he uses to achieve his goals, and tbh his goals are not that great. Yes, he is an idealist without a larger picture in sight. Ask anyone in the street "Do you want to be the world ideal"? Everyone would pretty much answer "yes." But ideal is impossible, everyone knows that. You have to have a clear and developed goal in the mind, and know what sacrifices and compromises you need to make, not some chilldish and infantile wish like "I want everyone to be happy and nothing bad should exist.* Well, this is my opinion. Maybe i am missing something - feel free to debate me.
There is a major thing that showcased in battle with Maruki that people are overlooking: he is VERY self sacrificial. It is heavily implied that his abilities has their limits and takes its toll on his psyche. However he was so blinded by his pain that he is willing cause self harm to get power necessary fulfill everyone’s desires. Even then there are cracks in already present with how there are discrepancies.
Say if even all of Tokyo did get under his control. What’s to stop the other Persona users, especially malicious ones, or Eldritch Gods to eventually to take advantage of those under his influence? His reach would only go so far until Maruki buckles the pressure of trying to please EVERYONE. Then all his deeds literally become undone by his lack of foresight and disregard of his own waning mental health. Leaving all those affected unprepared for the shock of a lie their livelihoods have become and unable to recover from.
IIRC Lavenza says if Maruki had won, he would become all-powerful and unstoppable by February 3rd (when Mementos and reality fuse again). At that point the pressure of having to please everyone on the entire planet would ABSOLUTELY make him crack, especially if the thought of "Hey, how come everybody else is getting their happiness but I'M leaving myself out?? Why do they all deserve it and I somehow don't??" nags at him until he can't deny it anymore.
We need a debate on Sumire now
Great video as always!
I was listening to this while playing strikers and it got to the part where the one guy (forgot their names) and I heard the guy start listing reasons on why Maruki may not solve world hunger, and when he said #2 an ad cut in at just the right time with "are your prescriptions too expensive?" Just a funny thing I thought I'd share
I know this is a year-old video but I have an idea I've never heard anyone address. People always say that they don't want to give up their free will and have their lives shaped by someone else just for the sake of happiness, but they don't seem to realize that that's kind of the world we already live in. We all live under governments who decide how we will interact with ourselves and with other countries. We live by codes, laws, stigmas, rules, etc. put in place by others. I don't think there's any real difference between our world and Maruki's world, save for the fact that Maruki is seemingly more genuine and caring than most people who are actually in positions of power in real life, and that in Maruki's world you're literally being GUARANTEED happiness. I feel like it's just a straight upgrade.
Except in our world, you can very well choose NOT to follow those rules and codes, if not revolt against them entirely- even if it means you get punished for it later.
So I have a problem with the "curing deafness". Is that Deaf people don't want to be cure. Now may someone who is hearing for all of their life and then became deaf, and want to be "cured". But most Deaf people see their deafness as a part of them. Deaf people almost see themselves as a minority group. With their own Language. For example American Sign Language ASL, Japanese Sign Language JSL, Mexican Sign Language MSL. There are many more I just can't think of them right now.
This was really engaging and fun, thanks for this debate! I didn't really like Maruki's story, but I think that's a combination of disagreeing with him and being tired because of playing all the normal P5 content again, just like one of you two. This did open my mind a bit more to Maruki
Blessed on my birthday💙💙💙
People put maruki's casual re-writing of peoples entire brains behind them when talking about the good he could provide to the world but honestly the knowledge that he turned that one teacher into an entirely separate human being while nobody even remembers his previous life is fucking terrifying and he would do this kinda shit for so many people. if he didnt think that you were contributing to a 'happy' world he would essentially erase you and put somebody friendlier behind your face. What is the point of a happy world with that kind of a price? at least when the phantom theives change a heart that only goes as far as restoring a person's sense of morals back to the beginning and the rest of their lives remain, i get kinda sick thinking about maruki's use of the cognitive world.
there's a lot of things maruki can fix but the abolition of the people's humanity isn't a line i want to cross to get there
From how I understand it his victory at the end of the would change the laws of physics to creat a benevolent guiding hand.
Alot of people on the anti Maruki seem to ignore two major problems. Technology and the future.
We already have the all knowing algorithms running the global library of human knowledge, the all powerful destruction and creation of worlds military's and global corporations, the only thing we lack are competent and moral central authorities. And when general purpose AI's are developed they at best will either act as Maruki ideal form and at worst every AI wipe out humanity. It's not a matter of free will because there is no say in the matter. They are being/have been developed as we speak, and quite frankly I would put more trust in that idealistic, messiah, dolt, of a student conciliar then I do in all worlds government's, CEO's, the generally idiotic population of the world or a general AI made by any of the latter. Because at worst he's another egotistical dictator with a magic toolbelt and at best will allow humanity to prosper forevermore.
As much as I would love for the free will of humanity to make the world better on it's own accord, it's clear to me that the likelihood of that happening decreases with every passing hour. With more problems being created and others spiralling evermore out of control, causing needless and uncountable amounts of suffering. Maruki is a shortcut, a shortcut with a heavy price to pay and alot of faith required but at this point you would need a metric butt tonne more faith to believe that humanity could solve even a one of its countless major problems in a dozen years where as Maruki has the potential to check them off like he's speed running a bucket list. No matter how I look at it, whether he winds up as a dictator in 100 years, or gets bored and wipes out humanity, or any of the myriad of things that could go wrong, he is at worst only doing what we're headed to do right now.
I Tommy finally said the thing I was worried about when he kept bringing up "world hunger". he said the dumb thing. The "If this rich person sold all his assets he could solve world hunger."
All I'll say is that people these days seem to have never heard the saying, give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, but teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime.
As long as we are talking about real life and not Maruki's magical powers I would implore you don't suggest that rich people should sell all of their assets and consequently layoff all their employees in an effort to give away all their money in a day to people who will go back to starving in a week.
Most of these rich people are creating jobs, thats a steady income for people, that's feeding people every day. Don't discount that or think it could all be discarded without consequence.
Maruki controls dominion over essential reality at this point. Cat's become human, immaterial false memories created along with the dead rising again as if they were never gone. Ending world hunger would be a snap of his fingers by simply willing it. Concepts, ideas, thoughts, consciousness, and subconscious to name a few are under his domain
Maruki shows no restraint on changing people's lives in order to fit in, if there were those who genuinely wanted War and Disease Maruki would analyze their life and direct them on a path away from where they were today whilst also being happy. We see this in his Palace as he analyzes cognitive patients as well as the Thieves'.
For his reality ending, he very well would have had to tackle all of these issues for a perfect happy reality. From what we can see in his ending, everyone is happy there is no more pain or suffering for anyone.
Actual factuals my dude
I think one of the issues about this debate is that one side keeps saying "Maruki is essentially God and can do anything, including fixing WORLD HUNGER", and the other goes "Mmm, nah, I don't think so plus he's human". As long as he has the will of the people (because remember, he ate God), Maruki can supposedly anything to anyone. However, even in P5R, it's shown that he can't 'fix' everyone. Just look at the Mementos missions from the 3rd semester, where a man is trying to kill himself because he hurt his little sister. Either something went wrong in the 'Get Happy' process or Maruki can't fix everything. I personally believe that issues like that stem from people who also realized that their world was a sham because something just didn't click, especially because of one of the other missions where a little girl is starving and being ignored by her mother who is still in her own reality. Both sides of the argument have their merit, but Maruki himself has shown that he has absolute power over the people that submit to his ideas, and that's cool enough for me
Maruki just didn't get to him yet lol.
@@Amirifiz that's how I saw it as well. Essentially 3rd semester seemed like it was basically like a demo version of Maruki's reality.... Actually it's not that it just seemed like it, that was basically the whole point of the deadline. He was still actively at work to make everyone happy
Ability vs capability. Can he do the things he does? Obviously yes. Is he fully able to understand and control the things he does?
For me, the world Maruki would create wouldn’t work because it would be temporary. Take Wakaba for instance, Futaba wanted her to come back. But people die, and Wakaba dying of old age would pain Futaba, so would Maruki make people immortal? But then, wouldn’t life become immensely boring? And if the phantom thieves wanted to be together all the time, how could they move onto the next chapter if their lives? And we experience greater happiness by comparing it to pain. If we never been sad, how could happiness be precious. Think of the world of “The Giver” when pain is taken away, everything became grey.
I mean beside that, there is the whole people forget. You forget faces and event. Without the fear of dying, we the human have no reason to make memory
I've actually talked about this with someone before, and the conclusion we came to is basically that people get to live great lives and die fulfilled. Everyone gets a fair and happy life so when someone dies everyone is a little sad but think "but they had a great life and now they get to rest". Or maybe Maruki just makes people see it as a natural thing that happens with old age. Like I for example don't really feel sad when people die if it's under good circumstances and the person was ready to go after a wonderful life, and that might be how he makes people see it. But like people wouldn't end up dead by murder or some shit, because that would suck
Excuse me, but when you reawaken the trauma of a 15y/o girl that you covered up in the first place just to win some points in your favor and coax her to join your side so you can re-brainwash her later, it doesn’t really count as “nothing wrong”. In fact, that makes you quite the shitty adult the Phantom Thieves would target. The means cannot be justified, period.
To say he did nothing wrong, yeah that’s not true. But he clearly did it with good intentions.
@@BobbyTheGamerOfJUSTICE The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
@@speedm222 but wouldn't that go against the whole point of hell, for it to be for bad people? If I ended up in hell because I was striving for everyone's good then I'd march straight in there
@@yeontanseyebrows5588 All of this will lead to stagnation, which for me seems like hell
@@speedm222 honestly in a way you are right. I mean you can't improve upon perfection, the end result of Maruki's world is 'perfect', so technically it will stagnate. Well at least stagnate as far as the world as a whole goes, as I'm pretty sure people would still learn and grow through their life because that's fulfilling for humans, so it'd make sense Maruki would strive for that
Isn't maruki's world just SJ's original law ending? It does the same thing zelenin song does to people.
They're not even remotely similar. Zelenin's song basically erases the humanity of its victims, leaving them as cogs in one great, harmonious machine. The people in Maruki's reality are still human, they just have their lives controlled by his actualization.
Marukis system falls apart when it comes to people who don't want to be happy or want to suffer in order to grow
Not really. He can just actualize them to be be happy, or to not want to suffer anymore. Call it mind control, yeah, but they'd be happy.
@@slayer-22 he's stripping away human agency for his own satisfaction and making those who don't want his "salvation" smiling drones
@@blaquephyrekendra1779 I mean, I'm 100% for the removal of human agency from serial killers and child traffickers. Aren't you?
@@slayer-22 not at the cost of everyone else. in order to do what Dr. Maruki plans, you would have to apply it to the whole of humanity. As regrettable or callus does this may sound, stopping some people from harming people or other bad things shouldn't come at the cost of harming everyone in such a way that What Makes Us human is completely Stripped Away.
@@slayer-22 Its like saying, sacrifice the whole of humanity to get rid a small portion of humanity.
I love these questions like it’s not wrong either way
P5 entries concept seems to be "Freedom Vs. ***"
In Vanilla it ends with just Freedom and security then Royal adding Freedom and Happiness which is pretty conflicting to not have either of them, but it is the decision you have to make.
I won't spoiled anyone who read this ,but the core theme in P5S is pretty intriguing as well. It's done as well as the main game too.
Playing Strikers im left wondering how the major characters introduced in the game would've been affected by Maruki (the jail kings, Zenkichi/Akane, and Ichinose)
And then there's sophia... which is kinda sad to think about (she isn't awake until the summer, meaning she'd probably go unnoticed by Maruki)
Also Jose. Hes not a part of the velvet room, he's just in Mementos. So does he just not exist? Is he stuck in the "real" world?
I think if you take is offer the second time you would got a different bad ending where Sumrie remains Sumrie and the PT get false memories of saving the day believing that the new reality is the original one they saved
What about the implications of Azathoth being the source of Maruki's actualization power? It seems to me like the promise of a zero-pain world is just a ruse for Azathoth to take control of humanity through Maruki, much like Nyarlathotep -- another elder entity from the PS1 Persona era -- tried to incentivize humanity to destroy itself.
Does this debate happen within the context of knowing that Maruki is potentially being manipulated by the most powerful lovecraftian entity ever conceived?
Maruki has two big problems, one is that he can't make everyone's ideals compatible, which has already been explained to death.
The second big problem is that he is only playing Messiah to run away from his own unhappiness, and if he could achieve his utopia then he would be forced to comfront his own sadness. I think he understands that he can never truly reach his goal of creating a peaceful world without pain, not without constantly making more work for himself. Because of thay he will never have to comfront his own problems, but as for those who's pain he does take away, they will be left with nothing to strive for for themselves.
PS. I say all of this from the perspective that if I had Maruki's power I would probably do the same thing as him, although I would definitely be more corrupt then he is in the game. There's no way I would give the Phantom Thieves an opportunity to oppose me.
I feel like generally anyone would be much more willing to try and use this power to solve the worlds problems as they see fit but it isn't really possible for one person to know what's best for everyone and with all that power there is no way you would care what people want if you happen to disagree with them, you would just change their mind by force to make them satisfied with your reality.
Quick note: world hunger isn’t just an economic problem, some countries if sent food often either the government or crime groups will withhold it from the people cause that helps keep them in power or cause they can profit in some way or another.
Personally, while I do believe there is some sort of necessity to have Maruki be able to help people out, it doesn't change the fact that he is incapable of truly understanding the problems and solutions to the problems of absolutely every human being on the planet. It is - by definition- impossible for any one human being to understand everyone completely. The experiences and stuff one person goes through not only shapes their view of the world, but simultaneously locks them out of specific views. For example; if you were born rich, you automatically are unable to truly understand being born poor. You can't just start over and have yourself be born again just to experience that. It's impossible.
Because of this fact, Maruki's ideal world ultimately was flawed from the start. Even if he ended up helping 99% of people and gave them good lives, there would always be the 1% of people who's chances of truly good lives would be undermined by Maruki forcing his perception of a good life onto them. Just look at what happened to the Phantom Theives. While they were given happy lives, it came at the cost of their personal growth that they obtained as a result of their suffering. None of them would have ended up growing and maturing within Maruki's world. Makoto likely would still be dissalusioned with trying to make herself "useful". Haru would still have trouble standing up for herself. Morgana wouldn't have learned to accept who he is, even if he might not like it. There's also points to be made for the other Thieves, but I can't remember all the details so I can't say for certain what they are right now.
Regardless, all of them loose the growth that they've gained over the course of the game within Maruki's world. And therein lies the problem with Maruki's ideal world; the lack of growth. Without any adversity to overcome, there no longer is a need to grow at all. After all, why would you bother to learn something new if you're going to end up equally fine if you don't? And without the need to grow, life becomes stagnate. It becomes an endless, pointless rerun of the same things day and day out. Life, emotions, and even existence looses it's meaning because you no longer have anything to compare anything to. It's all just the same. How can you tell what makes you happy if you don't know what makes you sad? Hardships and struggles allow us humans to figure out what like by process of elimination. If we are given something and we don't like it, then we now know we don't like it. And because we now know that, we can also better define what we do like because we not know what we don't like. If we have nothing to dislike, then how are we supposed to tell what we like? Everything would just seem the same.
Without change, humanity would stagnate and come to a screeching halt. In a world in which people have no fear or sadness, would that not also mean they would not fear or be sad about dying? And if that were the case, what's to stop them from just...... Not bothering to live? There no longer would be any distinction between life and death. No reason to continue to live, because there's no reason to do anything at all.
So even if Maruki's world might give the people who were just dealt a bad hand in life with no way out some form of happiness, it also strips the chances of true happiness from just as many by not allowing them to grow through handships. And even then, Maruki's world is ultimately doomed to stagnation due to the removal of any true meaning in the world. That's why his ideal world is flawed. Not just because he's forcing his perception of the world onto everyone, but because he's also creating a world that is doomed to fade into nonexistence.
What is the point of doing anything if you let someone solve everything for you? What's the point of your body? Your mind? Your will? If at the end of the day a person not an omniscient deity is "solving" your problems with his bias towards your "problems". This all seems like running away from problems rather than solving them.
"We can't expect God to do all the work" -Joshua Graham, Fallout New Vegas.
What about the fact that there are still people in mementos that need their hearts changed? Why did the phantom thieves have to change them, did maruki ignore those people for some reason? Is this evidence that he isn't able to make everyone happy?
Gameplay reasons
It's either that changing everyone still takes time and isn't immediate (the confidants aren't affeceted) or he intentionally left some unchanged for the Phantom Thieves since they still exist and wants an image of someone people can turn to for certain help (but wouldn't once the thieves become a part of his reality and the PT no longer exist)
So many people desire for there God but when we create one they reject it.
RIGHT?
I"ll keep this short: Maruki decided for me that I'd be happiest with Akechi alive in the world without asking for my opinion on the subject. That's more than enough for me to reject his offer.
The world is better with him in it after all, an objective improvement.
I think that's where the game actually characterizes Joker as a character of his own. Honestly it's possible the player didn't want that, but in the game, the protagonist truly did
That is Joker's wish, not yours.
Maruki: Brainwashes a teen to think she's her dead sister, attempts to kill a group of teens because they get in his way, makes a teenager relive her trauma in order to re-brain wash her, puts a teen in eternal sleep when he becomes a God just to be petty
Tommy: Maruki did nothing wrong
You must have *really* not been paying attention, huh?
He never attempted to kill the PT tho, and Joker's eternal sleep is only if he doesn't make a choice.
That Yoshizawa situation ain't ok tho.
@@Amirifiz "Yo you haven't made up your mind yet? Then that gives me the right to BASICALLY GIVE YOU A LOBOTOMY"
Joker: what am i gonna do today
Maruki on Feb 3rd: oh you can't make a decision? here lemme TAKE CARE OF YOUR BRAIN
@@sonoda944 "Your brain, hand it over"
17:01 to answer that question, if said person is in a mental and/or psychological state where they can properly make a decision of their own, yeah forcing them to do something that you percieve as "the correct decision" is not exactly okay. If said person ISNT in a good mental and/or psychological state, then yeah, i dont see a problem with you trying to force them out of something that isnt necesarily making them any good, like the example fither gave of the kid and the doctor. In that case, what the hell is a kid with an underdeveloped mind gonna know about whats best for him?
The one thing I haven’t seen brought up in the comments (could have been there’s a lot) or during the conversation is Persona usage in general. The universe is connected via the rules of power being all related and the velvet room one thing that Persona lore delves into is how Persona’s need to be used regularly or they lose their power and the other is that as people age their Persona’s grow “weaker” or even completely disappear even though there are cases of adult Persona users. The issue is that he is just a Persona user regardless of his ability at some point he’d lose control over that reality because of how much he’d have to use it. Hell it might of been the unexplained reasoning to why Akechi literally tells Joker it’s a fake reality in the first place...
*Warning spoilers in this message *
This is a fantastic debate! But my only problem is a misunderstanding about marukis power mostly involving healing injuries, and death. He can't just bring people back to life, or heal people's injuries and diseases. what he can do is rewrite the series of events that lead to these injuries and deaths, and causes a placebo effect. So ryuji for example his leg wasn't "healed", he just rewrote events so kamoshida was never at shujin, meaning the fight that broke his leg and disbanded the track team never happend in their minds. But we never actually see ryuji run , nor do we get anything saying his times were where they were at pre-broken leg in the true reality. So more than likely its a situation where Sumiere as Kasumi was no where near the level the real Kasumi was because he can't insert talent, only rewrite and block things like Sumiere 's cooking talents. Death is similar and is clearly shown by Makoto and Sae's. In marukis reality their dad is alive, but not their mom. That's because he could rewrite events that lead to their dad living, but since we can assume their mom died of natural causes, he couldn't alter anything to save her as well. If he could simply bring the dead to life why would he bring the mom back to life as well? since it would definitely be what would make their dad truly happy. Just something I felt I needed to add again great video!
That's actually a very interesting thing to point out, I kind of just assumed he could basically do anything since he is presented as a god like figure. Do you think he'd be able to prevent things like someone being born with and illness or a disability? Things like that are always what made me be more on his side as it'd only be fair for those people that they wouldn't have to deal with such unfair circumstances
Although technically even if he couldn't do that, I guess he could make someone just finally figure out a way to cure those things
@@yeontanseyebrows5588 for diseases/injuries when your born, it would depend on the root cause. If it can be traced back to somthing like the mom smoking/drinking while pregnant. It's somthing that could theoretically be altered to remove it, but whether or not it be actually cured, or a placebo effect like with ryuji I can't really tell with the information we have. As for Just making someone discover the cure, that's more difficult then it sounds. Either maruki would have to know the cure already which as a psychologist he probably wouldn't for things outside of mental illness. Or he would use his powers to make scientist focus and extremely motivated to find the cure above anything else in their lives, and change people's cognition to want to donate more towards the cause. That unfortunately would mean maruki would now be forcing ideas into people's mind that they wouldn't naturally do, thus moving away from just removing people's pain and into full on mind control .
I like maruki.
Is that the real Tohru Adachi
I too, like maruki, Tohru Adachi fron Persona 4 on the ps2
Dude same
Adachi is gonna use Maruki's ability to remove all bitches and whores from reality
Maruki probably got you out of prison, so of course you'd like him
Like... Say if you were a judge in New York city, and you found out your puppy had mind reading powers - so you bring the dog to court and he solves every case. 5 years pass - they've created a system where the you use the dog for every court case in New York- 4 years pass, court cases start without prosecutors or defense lawyers, ya go in front of the dog and it judges you, over, crime is at a all time low - 1 year later, the dog eats some chocolate by accident and dies... Then who knows.
Thats the big fear I have in a Maruki run reality. From Infinite tsukuyomi to the Black Mercy, Ya don't turn a living thing into a needed Utility, doesn't end well ....(also subbed for over 2 years, sick! )
Could they not just use samarecarm or some healing spell if he were to die? If the p4 anime is canon they could just de age him.
And that’s the problem with the idea of “benevolent king”
I have only one reason I hate maruki's ideals, FF14's Zodiark.
No god will ever be the salvation of everyone and they will always disappoint or choose not to bend to our pleas
So he wants to live a lie that is accepted as the truth, opposed to enduring the truths that come people wish were lies? -all for the sake of the objective good that comes from masking the subjective evils of the world?
I wonder if it’s acceptable to say that’s really living life your way when you’re coddled beneath the sole will of another... Perhaps this why free will exists in the first place in spite of the ideal of destiny and/or fate.
After all, the ideal of a perfect world (paradise) can only exist in one where the concept of imperfection exists. What we view as ideal after all is different than what would generally be agreed upon thousands- hundreds years ago and will differ just as much in the future. Or ideal of perfection is ultimately warped by our surrounding society and internal selves.
Who’s to say, really, which path is best?
All I know is, while *I’d* like for more good in the world, muh (Saiyan) PRIDE demands I can compete with others and compare myself to others and lose no matter how much I’d like to win, be right and outshine bystanders: At the end of the day, my happiness and ability to express anger, frustration- the whole package stems from emotion and it’s those emotions that breed bonds through positives and negatives that I can’t just throwaway for something so systematically, insensitively and abruptly indulging itself in my personal conflicts that it’d have to rewrite who I am just to create some self-idealized notion of peace ‘else see the chaos birthed from enforcing it.
And thank you for coming to my TedTalk. BYE~ONARA!!
what scares me about maruki is that, as you mentioned, all that power can get up to his head and corrupt him and thats not just a possibility, thats something that before the endgame can already be seen. Take a look at how his palace looks design wise for example. The red flags are there, it looks all heavenly and by the end, you can see the forbidden tree from the book of genesis. He already views himself as this almighty godly being with forbidden power but in reality he isnt. At the end of the day hes just a mortal, imperfect, flawed human being just like the rest of us. If his ideology means that ill live in a world where a single (probably egotistical) man who doesnt know whats best for me will decide my path in life and could just thanos snap me out of existance because im "an imperfection", then id rather not even live. Like yeah okay, world hunger, disabilities would probably be gone, cool, but thats just a couple out of the billions of problems in this world. Ok maruki wants to make a world where everyone can achieve their dreams and be happy but what about people who's dreams come at the expense of others? what about people who are only happy with, say, world hunger, wars, murder, chaos and other crap that comes at the expense of humanity? is maruki just gonna wipe them out of existance and run away from the problem instead of fixing it? is he gonna change their hearts right after taking shots at the thieves for doing so?. Heres another problem, if i want to become the world's best computer engineer and turns out theres another person who also wants that, whats he gonna do? is he gonna manipulate my desires and change them for his convenience even though they arent hurting anyone like the palace rulers' distorted desires from p5? if so, that would be against his own ideology of "making a world where everyone can achieve their dreams and be happy" cause by that point, hes not exactly making me or the other person happy and accomplishing our dreams, he is doing whats convenient for maruki himself. Ultimately, the biggest point people have in favor of maruki is "you wouldnt need to evolve or grow as a person in maruki's ideal world because its already perfect" but to that i say, what would be the point of living anymore? if life has no more surprises or anything exciting to show me, it would be nothing more than a boring, monotone and uninteresting world that doesnt go anywhere
If I was in the new reality my wish would be to have my genetic disorder disappear. Thanks Phantom Thieves for all the shit I need to do to have do if I want blood to pump into my brain correctly.
That's incredibly rough. Sorry to hear and I hope you find meaningfullness and purpose in living regardless of such a terrible situation.
@@KyngD469 I’m relatively lucky because I’m probably treatable but it did take 22 years to get diagnosed. I’m currently in PT for the problem. Lucky the problem can be corrected by building up muscles but I know I’m way luckier then most people with super rare genetic problems. Besides I still greatly benefit from a time line we’re I never had to suffer from this. When I 13 I was able to function academically at a college level and at 14 (when the dna problems caught up) I was struggling with basic math.
Here's my take on Maruki's reality. Using Sumi's situation as an example, Sumire had always been living in Kasumi's shadow and she admired her for her talent and the effort she put in. When Kasumi died, Sumire felt as though she was worthless and she should have died instead of her sister. Her wish couldn't simply be granted by making a cognitive Kasumi, since he didn't have power over Mementos at the time, so he made Sumire believe she was Kasumi. However, this only allowed her to ignore her trauma and didn't solve the root of the problem. She already had issues with trying to be her own person while never being able to compare to her sister, so "becoming Kasumi" only made the issues worse, as she could only try to mimic her sister, while never truly being her. This leads to her struggling with gymnastics and almost being abandoned by the school. Maruki's reality only helps patch things on the surface, while avoiding the root of the issue that comes from the pain and hardships. The only way Sumire was able to grow and become successful was to accept who she really was and move on from her sister's death. Hardships are necessary to overcome in order to develop as a person and understand who you truly are. Maruki's reality is not only one with no change, it also brings about other conflicts by removing the problem without getting rid of the cause. Like how treating the symptoms of an illness will always be worse than treating the illness itself.
I like maruki's goal but hes going about it all wrong and this is brought up, human nature. However manipulating the evil out of people is what the phantom thieves try to do with limited success and what jaldaboath took to far.
To be honest, if given the choice of "accept Maruki's reality," or "leave things the way they are," I'd have to go with the former. Assuming there aren't any practical issues with his plan (which is a reasonable assumption IMO) the benefits of it far outweigh the benefits of our current system. Maruki's reality does have some fucked up elements, but is it actually worse than keeping the current status quo in place? I don't think so.
This is sorta similar to the destiny plan from Gundam Seed Destiny
Could Maruki save Minato or is that not in the realm of possibility for him?
He definitely could. The real question is could he deal with Erebus and Nyx meeting. Maruki is powerful but is he that powerful?
If Maruki makes everything paradise, nobody would desire death
Beings like Nyx or Izanami wouldn't exist because humans physically can't desire those kinds of things
@@OriginalGameteer then we wouldn't get izanagi-no-okami and thanatos dlc since those events wouldn't happen in first place
@@JoelPerry1 He can just make a door that holds them apart..
I believe maruki is that powerful, he "can" manipulate reality.
did u take down the etika video?
I mean it brings no problem but will people evolve if this happens
What if someone gay and alone because they can't find any "nice guys" or something and Maruki just goes "nah he'd be happier if he was stright"
I mean, Maruki sorta already does stuff like that in-game. Not exactly the same, but similar. I forget if it’s in a cutscene or just dialogue you can find in the world, but there’s an art student you can find. When you listen to him, apparently he’s never done art and is a prodigal archer, which confuses his friend he’s talking to and makes him say “Aren’t you an artist?” The student merely brushes off the comment.
Maruki changed the boy’s entire desire to follow the life path of an artist, and instead changed it to that of an archer simply because he thought it would be less painful. I feel that’s pretty comparable to the situation you’ve posed here.
That.. is actually plausible. Honestly hard to say if it is what he'd do because it mainly depends on how he sees the subject, but I could actually see him possibly coming to that conclusion. Probably not for everybody who's gay, but we saw what he did to Sumire so if someone wished they we're straight he might really grant it
Fither made tier lists where he said people within 2 tiers of a thing can fuck with that thing. So using that as a baseline, if a thing fucks with another thing three tiers below it, the fuckee has no recourse against the fucker. There is a certain point where something has so much power that enforcing their will upon others becomes an invalidation of free will (as opposed to a struggle of opposing wills).
This is smt lawful vs chaos debate isn’t it?
That one's way easier lol
Maruki is the best Law Villain in the Devil Summoner universe.
... what?
I mean, that’s not an incorrect statement
Absolute power corrupts absolutely!!!
I'm just curious, is there even such a thing as competition in maruki's world?
No, unless people are content with being second place, since Maruki can't be the judge of who deserves winning or losing
@@chadeofspades This is the reason why I don't trust Law stuff that much in SMT stuff
For Chaos I'd probably ask something like how small of the precent can prosper or how much those not at the top suffer
@@chrisk3824 just pick chaos because lucifer is cool
That is actually a really interesting question. Tbh my first guess would be yes because competing makes many people happy, however I don't know how he could possibly make it fair. I mean sure he could make everyone content with what they get and enjoy the competing part itself instead of just the result, because tbf for many people it's not necessarily about winning, but what'll you do to the one's who do care? Everyone can't win all the time. I feel like that's one of the more light-hearted but also harder questions regarding Maruki's reality
maruki's plan more or less works until you go into the long term.
like he'll eventually either die of old age or change his mind after a couple decades. especially since he never showed the ability to actualize himself.
that or he'll eventually slip up and some trickster will get him or the people will want him gone.
typical mortal playing god issues.
@@chasingthatguap I'll admit I didn't think of maruki just cloning himself lol
but the point is that he can't keep the charade up forever and when it eventually collapses shit would probably hit the fan pretty damn hard.
like the whole world suddenly waking up from a brainwashing, realizing conflict is a thing and probably making a god pop up is an apocalyptic scenario.
he would also have to fight a god or 2 every couple years if he doesn't straight erase free will since those seem to keep popping up.
Depending on how much Adam Kadmon/Azathoth is "persona" vs "actual diety" its possible after Marukis death Adam exists forever and carries out Marukis will
Why do people even question Maruki's capabilities?
"Would he be able to change the fact that there's world hunger or avoid death, make it so that People's disabilities would just vanish"
I dunno, did you forget how when he didn't have full control over Mementos, he was able to bring back people from the dead and change the past?
The whole point is to have power over cognition, to make it so that Actualization can make what the best option would be for everyone, a reality.
Yes, stopping him is ethically incorrect, but at the same time, he destroys the concept of self achievement and sadness, which to be fair, what does that stuff matter for, if you can destroy depression, world hunger, unemployment and sadness in general?
In REALITY, the only reason why Maruki HAS to be defeated is because The Phantom Thieves need to show to the player that they need to have the strength to surpass their hardships, no matter how painful they are.
It's for the sake of Moral and "Justice".
Here's something that I don't see people talk about really, the consequences of the Phantom Thieves stopping Maruki. Remember, Maruki's goal was to create a world where people don't have to suffer, where people will be happy. So things like starvation, dehydration, murder, illnesses, and such would not exist within Maruki's world, as they would cause suffering. But because of the Phantom Thieves' actions, those things would exist once more. So if any more games happen in the Royal timeline, whatever bad events that happen would be a result of the Phantom Thieves' stopping Maruki.
The Persona 6 team are going to go through hardships because of their predecessor's choice. But the Persona 6 team will come out as better people. I'd wager that the Phantom Thieves' choice may have cost the Persona 3/4 team their potential happiness as well.
Nanako could have had her mother back, The Persona 4 Killer would have turned into a different person, a good officer of the law. Yu Narukami would've never been a lonely kid, his parents would've been there for him and he would've transferred to Yasogami and still made his friends, but in a different way.
Makoto Yuki could have his soul rest as no longer would Humanity unconsciously wishes/desire for death. Nyx would be at bay (As she has no desires on her own to destroy humanity, if she did then yeah Maruki is screwed) not being influenced by Erebus as Erebus would be permanently eradicated by Maruki's reality. Aigis could become fully human.
Games in the royal timeliness theoretically can't happen
Beings like Nyx, Izanami, and Yaldy exist because of humanity's darkness and worst desires. In marukis world desires don't exist. No one wants death, illusions, or control. Nobody wants... anything. As long as a "maruki" exists, a persona villain can't exist.
I think right. The big point missed is that without pain there can't be happiness and like yeah Maruki can go "Look everyone is happy." but they have no ides that it'd be what we see as happiness right? It's just sorta... Neutral. At best. That's even if we could consider it real happiness right? The logical extreme would be throw everyone into a stasis vat hook them up to an iv that pumps them so full of dopamine. Sure the person would "feel" happy but as a person I'd argue most people find that hollow and void. It's the sensation of happiness but there's no humanity in it. It's not real. I'd argue that's effectively what Maruki's actualization is. He has good intentions but it's not going to really do anything for the best. Actually and this is spoilers for Persona 5 Strikers so be warned:
Maruki and EMMA's goals are largely congruent. The thing is really the means to which they do it. EMMA as the Demiurge elects to literally remove everyone's Desires to make pain nonexistent, Maruki wants to fulfil everyone's Desires to make pain nonexistent. Both fundamentally end the same but EMMA's appears much more immediately. Morgana ironically hit the nail on the head in Kamoshida's Palace. Desires are how we grow and evolve as people it's what drives us forward and keeps us moving. Without them we become husks and would grow so apathetic we'd essentially have fucking Apathy Syndrome from P3 and eventually die. Removing Desires and ultimately fulfilling them in the end are the same. And in the end kills what drives man to grow. And I should cover my ass and say what the Phantom Thieves are doing is different. Removing a Palace Treasure is strictly a distorted Desire. What they do is essentially remove a tumor from an otherwise healthy organ. What EMMA does is remove the organ outright. And what Maruki make the organ cease functions and atrophy.
27:53 the perfect is the enemy of the good,
Imo Maruki as a villain didn’t make much sense around the end. He can rewrite reality but he loses to the phantom thieves who just makes a “friendship barrier” and shoots him with a gun? It makes no sense why he lost. You could argue that “he didn’t want to fight” but he fought them anyways... the writing at the end of Royal kind of ruined his character a but for me.
i mean, you could argue that there's a limit to what he can do, when paired against a will (or a group of wills) equally or stronger than his, every persona final boss should be able to just tap their fingers and wipe the party from existence but uh... there wouldn't be much of a story that way if you think about it.
Tbf, in the universe of Persona, bonds do actually lead to power (enough for a human to oppose a god) so I feel the criticism of the "friendship barrier" is rather unfounded.
They already explained that Maruki didn’t want to do that because he wasn’t that kind of person. He’d rather convince Joker through kindness rather than force him. His fight against Joker was his last straw
@@gastonzumbo9860 That’s too much speculation to be honest. He can literally bring people back from the dead so I can’t see there being a limit to his power. He even rewrote reality to get his own treasure back.
@@redman_10t39 You have to remember, Maruki is the strongest Persona antagonist in the series by far. He can literally erase the concept of death itself so nyx has nothing on him. So are you trying to telling me that the Phantom thieves barrier can stop Nyx? That’s what I mean. I get that they get power from bonds but enough power to beat an nigh-omnipotent being? That makes no sense... I thought the story was gonna end with Joker or someone getting a crazy new ability that can counteract this (maybe Naoto’s ability to rewrite Persona’s) but instead it’s a generic fight that objectively makes no narrative sense.
If you listen to people during the last part of the game all there life’s are doing better, also he save the life of little girls dog.
I stand with Maruki
See I am utilitarianist but I still can’t accept Maruki’s reality cause i think doing good isn’t defined by “happiness”
Let’s say If a starving child,
through maruki’s world,
lived a life without ever haven been hungry,
Without having any memory’s of the old world.
Would they even be the same person?
Couldn’t you say that there not?
I wouldn’t.
I’d say what maruki does is just replacing someone.
It’s basically murder.
Plus extend that to a whole human race and every other animal on the planet.
with that logic phantom thieves are bad as maruki or even worse since they do it to justify their own ends or to take revenge
justice my ass their actions are treated well because the world revolves around them the writer wants to make them the heroes
in the end maruki cannot complish his own desire to create a good world without essentially "killing" them and phantom theives cannot accomplish their own goals without being hypocrites
The way people act is based on context, so naturally, the child would act differently based on whether they were starving or not. But their personality isn't determined exclusively by whether they've starved or not. If the only characteristic about someone is that they are starving, they might as well be an object. But they aren't because there is far more to a person than their circumstances. There's a reason why most people don't act the same way around their boss and their friend: the situations draw out different parts of the person, but these are all ultimately connected to one core entity. People aren't static, so what makes a person is less about how they are at a given moment and more about their development.
The logic you're using is essentially the same as saying that if a charity (with plenty of resources) picked up an amnesiac who has starved their whole life, the charity shouldn't try to feed them. If they didn't feed them, the amnesiac would likely die soon after, similarly to the Maruki situation. Isn't that closer to murder?
I do think there are lots of issues with what Maruki wants, but this seems like flawed logic. Also, I'm only using an amnesiac as an example because of the no memories thing.
The greatest rulers like George Washington and that one guy in Rome knew when to stand down
8:10 or he could just make one guy loose interest in the girl and make him fall in love with another one.
By that point, hes not fulfilling the guy's desire anymore
All my homies hate Brave New World 💊