Moving Past Suffering: Persona 5 Royal/Strikers, the COVID-19 Pandemic, and the Atlanta Asian Massage Parlor Shootings
Note: This piece covers spoilers for both Persona 5 Royal and Persona 5 Strikers and speaks about possibly triggering content regarding the recent Atlanta Asian Massage Parlor Shootings and the COVID-19 Pandemic. This piece is also heavily inspired by the great work of Carolyn Petit, who wrote this wonderful article on The Last of US Part II.
“Suffering and pain bring nothing to people except their ruin! Why would you force yourself into that? Just… let me save you all, just this once!” — Dr. Maruki, Persona 5 Royal
“Nobody suffers anymore thanks to EMMA! Everyone gets saved! It’s what we need! What humanity desires!” — Ichinose, Persona 5 Strikers
There’s no doubting the similarities between the plotlines of both Persona 5 Royal and Persona 5 Strikers. A well-meaning researcher experiences trauma and decides to study the heart, ultimately resulting in them striving to rid the world of suffering and pain. In Persona 5 Royal, Dr. Takuto Maruki (referred to as Dr. Maruki in-game but as Maruki here), experiences his trauma when the parents of his fiancée, Rumi, are murdered during a home invasion, and Rumi herself is injured, falling into episodes of post-traumatic stress. Maruki, in extreme grief, makes a deal with a mysterious entity (who we find out is his Persona, Azathoth), to manipulate Rumi’s cognition purging her of her traumatic memories and the memories she shared with him. From there, he gains power through the events of the game and attempts to create a reality where humans no longer have to suffer, living in his fabricated reality.
In Persona 5 Strikers, Dr. Kuon Ichinose (referred to as Ichinose in-game and here) experiences her trauma when her parents die. She shuts her emotions down due to unknown circumstances, but when her parents die, she starts to be perceived as a heartless doll by everyone she encounters. Curious as to what a heart is, she creates the AI, Sophia, who then questions her about her own heart. Frustrated by this, she then creates another AI named EMMA, asking instead if humanity requires hearts. Through the events of the game, EMMA gains power and becomes a god whose directive is to grant humanity’s desires, by releasing humanity from its desires to end humanity’s suffering.
In both games, a central theme is the suffering of humanity and how we go about addressing it. Both of these characters [Maruki and Ichinose] wish to create alternate realities where humanity no longer needs to suffer. In doing so however, they eliminate human will and the freedom to choose and change. Both games position you, the protagonist and leader of the Phantom Thieves, as the driving force opposing their plans. The Phantom Thieves argue continually throughout both games that a reality without free will is in no way the answer to addressing suffering, as humanity would no longer be able to face the joys of life that occur before, during, and after suffering.
I played both of these games during this pandemic. Royal came out early on in the pandemic and Strikers came out a year into it. In a time where people were (and are) getting sick and dying from the coronavirus, and humanity felt collective grief, these games provided an escape for me. I sat down every night, booted up my PS4 (or Switch with Strikers), and hung out with my fictional friends, the casts of Persona 5 Royal and Persona 5 Strikers. My parasocial relationships (one-way digital communication or interaction with a fictional or distant other) with these characters were so strong already from my 140+ hours of playing vanilla Persona 5. I met and befriended them once again in Royal and met them once again a year later in Strikers for a summer vacation road trip. My partner can attest to us both crying when Joker enters Leblanc for the first time in six months and is surprised by his old friends welcoming him home. It was a warmth I hadn’t felt in a long time; for the past year, I haven’t seen most of my friends and family, and it made me hope for the day that I can enter familiar spaces and be greeted with familiar faces too.
And as of yesterday, March 16th, 2021, I grew even more scared than I had been the past year of never seeing certain family members and friends again. Robert Aaron Long, a 21-year-old white man, murdered at least eight people in a series of shootings at three Asian massage parlors and spas in the Atlanta metro region. A twitter user, @seanmiura, lists six of their names below.
My mother is a nail technician and owns her own nail salon. She’s worked as a nail tech for years and as soon as I saw the headline about shootings at Asian massage parlors, I knew what was going on. This is a hate crime. The working class Asian women working at those massage parlors were targeted by a white man who wanted to sexually and racially dominate them. It’s nothing new. But when it happened yesterday, my heart stopped. I instantly thought about the countless times I grew up seeing sexualized racism targeted towards my mom, a Vietnamese immigrant working in nail salons and spas, and how there has been increasing Anti-Asian sentiments during the pandemic. I worried that today maybe I would hear more news about other white male shooters inspired by Robert Aaron Long and that maybe one of those names on the news would be my mom’s. I cried to myself yesterday and this morning I tried to stifle the tears. Today I celebrate four years of marriage with my partner as well, and I feel an immense mix of emotions.
There is an immense history that underlies this sexualized racism towards Asian women, as well as the US’ racism and violence towards Asian-American and Pacific Islander people in general. Nancy Wang Yuen, Ph.D., speaks to this wonderfully in her article on SELF. A few tweets below also speak on this better than I currently can.
This is my first Medium article and you can probably tell that it is a mess. But I feel that it’s a necessary mess. I need somewhere to release these emotions and I need this catharsis. Last night, I finished Persona 5 Strikers, and right after, saw the news about these shootings in Atlanta. I felt sadness to leave my fictional friends behind and then immense anger and sadness to see people who could’ve been my mom leave this world behind because of an angry white man. I’m sick and tired of this shit. This took me back to the Charleston Church Massacre where Dylan Roof murdered nine Black people (Their names are listed here) It took me back to the Pulse Orlando nightclub shooting, where Omar Mateen murdered 49 people and wounded 53 more (The names of the deceased are listed here). Hell, it takes me to the past year of police brutality and violence against Black people (The names of those killed this past year are included in this memorial by Renée Alter) and the continued violence towards trans people (The names of those killed in 2020 and 2021 are listed throughout this tag on them.).
The characters in both Persona 5 Royal and Persona 5 Strikers wanted an end to humanity’s suffering, and the only way the antagonists could think of doing that was to create new realities where we didn’t have free will anymore. We obviously can’t do that here in the real world, and we deserve to still retain our free will, but I think it’s important for us to remember what both games teach us. They teach us that the human heart is strong and resilient and can stand up to suffering. It can choose to change in ways that allow us to find new and better realities. The realities Maruki and Ichinose dreamed of are realities we can create by the actions we take today. We need our free will and we need each other. We need to be able to stand up to white supremacy, homophobia, transphobia, capitalism, neoliberalism, xenophobia, and all the phobias and isms I could list.
I don’t want this suffering. I don’t want this pain. I don’t want these deaths from all the phobias and isms and white supremacy and COVID. But I know that I want to work towards a better tomorrow alongside my friends and family. Join me in doing that. Mourn today. Find comfort in the people around you and the media and activities that give you comfort, like the characters in a game you’re playing or the cakes you bake in your free time. Organize tomorrow. Donate, sign petitions, spread the word, do whatever you can through this Cardd and other various resources (and don’t forget the Cardds for Black Lives Matter and Black Trans Lives Matter as well). Our suffering will not be in vain.
