Current Events > I thought the serial killer in Persona 4 was gonna be (SPOILERS)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Rise.

For some reason, I was under the impression that Rise was a controversial character with people arguing her merits and shortcomings. That's usually a sign that female character have done something fucked up in the native work, because people tend to paint complex women as irredeemable bitches, but I think I was just mistaken about her reputation. The way she presents herself - at least with the prior misconception I had - is kinda suspicious too, she moves back to Inaba and begins lovebombing the PC and gets involved in the whole thing fairly quickly.

The way I thought things were gonna work out is that Rise was behind the killings, and Adachi was like her enforcer. The killings are related to the media, and she's a media superstar - she killed the newscaster because she had some connection to the politician, she killed the schoolgirl because she was a witness and then she began getting Adachi to meddle with the heroes as they began to thwart her plans. She calls the shots, and Adachi follows her orders - then when shit starts to go south, she moves to Inaba to do it herself.

Though in hindsight, that's basically just one of the Persona 5 antagonists. Maybe I'm just biased.

I thought she was gonna drop the lovey-dovey act and go full yandere, and then her story would take a dark turn as she fell victim to serial abuse in the idol industry and vowed to get to the top and crush everyone who'd ever wronged her - internalizing the abuse she suffered and craving it as a source of power. To that end, she created her own dungeon, "kidnapped" herself and manipulated the narrative to make them think she had a change of heart. The Midnight Channel was born from a moment of sheer shock and despair, leading to a supernatural being latching onto her and manifesting her dark desires as the Midnight Channel to reflect her nature as a media personality, and then the rest of the narrative is more or less the same.

In that equation, I think Adachi would be a creep who was preying on her, only to get murdered by her as a pawn. Like when the abuse happened, Rise went to the police and Adachi was a fucking slimeball to her, and him mistreating her is what caused her to snap and manifest the Midnight Channel as a way of twisting everyone's darker impulses against them and killing them. But in that, she was able to string Adachi along and get him to do her dirty work. The damage he did was very real, but Rise manipulated his nature to get what she wanted and then killed him as a final act of revenge - his name was like #2 on her hitlist. It doesn't conflict with his characterisation too much either, he's already a misogynistic misanthrope.

I dunno, Adachi being the perpetrator just felt kind of flimsy and hollow. He's the goofy funny guy, then he's a serial killer who was Evil All Along. He's not familiar enough for the reveal to be a massive backstab, as likeable as he is, and the twist felt more repellant than engaging to me. It was kind of a wet fart of a reveal. I feel like Rise having a hidden serious side and calling the shots would be one more layer to the twist that could have heightened the conflict.

I also wasn't a big fan of the reveal that the god character did it for shits and giggles. idk, you have the grand scale and edginess of Persona 3 and the stylishness and insurmountable scale of Persona 5, and then the final boss of 4 is some hoity-toity dickhead who's all like "it was all a game to amuse me, *ojou laugh*". I dunno. The pacing and stakes just kinda began to fall apart after that incredible scene at the hospital with the TV.

I guess what I'm trying to communicate is that there was a desire there for a much more dark, substantial twist. I'd never played Persona 4 before this year, and I'd enjoyed the third and fifth games already. There was potential for things to get really fucked up and weird, and it never quite crossed that threshold - again, that hospital scene was probably the closest that the game came to crossing that threshold, it was really fucking good.

"spoilers for P5"

Persona 4 fucking slaps and that would have been a really fun direction to take it in. Having played 5 before 4, in hindsight, 5 still borrowed a lot of stuff from 4. The most obvious being the shared names of antagonists.

A*da*chi and A*ke*chi

I remember playing 5, and if they hadn't gave away Akechi's secret with a big neon sign 40 hours before Sae's Palace I would have bet good money on Haru being the traitor. She wasn't close to her father but she had her Metaverse powers before she officially awakened with the Thieves, and had motive to betray them since her father was the only person the thieves targeted that died.

Tag

Also as far as I'm concerned, Naoto is a trans man. That one's a total headcanon though, and I know the game steers headlong into "don't devalue your femininity, you don't have to crossdress to be taken seriously!". Like damn, in her social link after her dungeon, she outright goes "why couldn't I have been born a man...?", and Yukiko is the one who says "you dressed like a boy because you thought you wouldn't be taken seriously as a woman" in her dungeon. Using female pronouns in this post because canonically she is portrayed as a cisgender woman going forward, but Naoto has some fucking egg vibes.

I also think it'd be funny for Naoto to be Kanji's closet key multiple times. Like "oh fuck I think this boy is attractive I'm gay as fuck" to "oh fuck Naoto is actually a girl I guess I'm attracted to women" to "oh fuck Naoto is actually a guy after all and I'm super fucking attracted to him, I guess I am gay after all".

I will say though, Naoto was a better queer rugpull than Chihiro from Danganronpa.

MrMallard posted...

He's not familiar enough for the reveal to be a massive backstab, as likeable as he is

Golden tried to fix that with his SLink, but failed on account of the SLink being pretty obscure/"difficult" to access

Though if you want something cool, look up the accomplice ending

MrMallard posted...

then the final boss of 4 is some hoity-toity dickhead who's all like "it was all a game to amuse me, *ojou laugh*"

P5 spoilers wasn't that the motivation of ol' Yaldy too though?

I didn't know there's a serial killer in P4 until reading the topic title so omg spoilers!

teep_ posted...

Golden tried to fix that with his SLink, but failed on account of the SLink being pretty obscure/"difficult" to access

Though if you want something cool, look up the accomplice ending

P5 spoilers wasn't that the motivation of ol' Yaldy too though?

Oh yeah I heard about the accomplice ending. It's pretty cool tbh

it's been years since I played P5, but with Yaldabaoth impersonating Igor, erasing the Phantom Thieves from existence and feeding on like human apathy in a way that initially makes it invincible, I just felt like there was a lot more pizazz and drama to it. That being said, though, P4 is a lower stakes game that they made on the verge of bankruptcy, so ehh.

(looks around)

I like Strikers' Konoe and Ichinose as villains more than P4 and P5's villains.

Cemith posted...

"spoilers for P5"

Persona 4 fucking slaps and that would have been a really fun direction to take it in. Having played 5 before 4, in hindsight, 5 still borrowed a lot of stuff from 4. The most obvious being the shared names of antagonists.

A*da*chi and A*ke*chi

I remember playing 5, and if they hadn't gave away Akechi's secret with a big neon sign 40 hours before Sae's Palace I would have bet good money on Haru being the traitor. She wasn't close to her father but she had her Metaverse powers before she officially awakened with the Thieves, and had motive to betray them since her father was the only person the thieves targeted that died.

Because that was the point. They wanted people suspecting Akechi to slap the player with the true twist: The Phantom Thieves already knew what he was up to and had a plan in place the whole time.

I'll bump this

I mean, technically there was never a high enough body count for any single person to be considered a serial killer. Not for lack of trying at least.

Rise as the killer would have been interesting but I think they would need to flesh out her role at the start. She doesn't do anything and isn't mentioned until the summer (besides her commercial at the start of the game).

I'm glad they kept the game mostly light hearted. The cozy atmosphere is one of the best parts of the game. I grew up in area kind of similar to Inaba, and the the game does a near perfect job of simulating the nice cozy feeling of a small town but you know something is bubbling under the surface.

As a side note, Persona 3 apparently saved Atlus from bankruptcy, so that may be why it is oppressively dark with a much more grand ending than 4 or even 5. After that I can see why they wanted their next game to have a totally different tone, especially since the risk of bankruptcy was gone.

MorganTJ posted...

I mean, technically there was never a high enough body count for any single person to be considered a serial killer. Not for lack of trying at least.

While 3 may be the "official" number, a lot of people consider 2 to be enough.

Cemith posted...

A*da*chi and A*ke*chi

what an odd connection to make.