this is a really cheap update, as am basically borrowing other people's words

[gargantsurprise]

I have been meaning to make a Persona 4 post for a long time, but for various reasons I hadn't yet done so. However, a couple of days ago, I stumbled upon a dreamwidth post that captured my feelings on the game pretty damn perfectly

Comments

[theeternalmind]

As much as I love Persona 4 and nearly all of the characters in it... You/this article (I'll have to read the whole thing another time as I'm on my break at work right now) is right, it does a lot of objectification that only becomes "not okay" within the framework of the game when it crosses the line into murder. It's not just sexism and sizeism either; it's the idea that ugly people are also naturally unpleasant (Mitsuo, Morooka, Hanako, Kashiwagi (though she's less "ugly" and more "old")). I like this game--I would even go so far as to say it's one of my all-time favorites--but that doesn't mean it doesn't do things that annoy me, or that there isn't anything within it worth objecting to.

As for Yosuke's whiny homophobia, etc., I actually know someone who wrote an excellent character essay on Yosuke that touches on this matter. If you're interested, let me know and I'll hook you up; it might help give some perspective on the matter.

[gargantsurprise]

The Mitsuo and Morooka examples both really stood out to me, actually. I thought about mentioning them in the post, but, yeah. The continued massive disrespect for Morooka after his death doesn't help my opinion, either. Not that you should suddenly pretend that you liked someone just because they died, but would it kill them to call him by his name? ugh.

I've actually read quite a lot of really good meta on Yosuke, and I wish it would help my opinion of him. I just can't bring myself to stomach him, at all, no matter how hard I try and how much I come to understand about his character. That said, I would be quite interested in a link. Although I'm proving to be HOPELESS on this whole topic, I am still. interested in other people's thoughts. :|b go meee.

[theeternalmind]

Now, was this disrespect to Morooka from the party, or from the Inabans in general? Because I seem to recall even Yosuke, who hated his guts, going, "Geez, I didn't like him, but that didn't mean he deserved to die" (I can't recall if he called Morooka by name or not, though), and normal students/people like Kashiwagi tended to be pretty nasty, BUT this is a running theme throughout the game that you might notice if you talk to NPCs--the people of Inaba are, not entirely but quite a lot of them, awful people. Right after Mayumi and Saki died, there is this man in a suit you can talk to in the northern central shopping district who talked about how he was a fan of Mayumi's and how betrayed he felt when he heard she was having an affair with Namatame, and a lot of people feel like that, so he wasn't surprised when he heard she'd gotten killed. THAT offended me, that someone could be that self-absorbed and callous, though I didn't blame the game for that; sometimes people really are just that god-awful

[paperclipchains]

I think character essays are kind of superfluous for Yosuke because you can explain this and that until you're blue in the face but at the end of the day... he's just a very typical teenage boy, and not the kind you should make excuses for.

[theeternalmind]

As an OT side note, because this occurred to me a little while ago and you would know what I'm talking about: Chie and Yukiko's friendship, Shadows taken into account, reminds me of Shiori and Juri, save that both girls think that they are Shiori and the other is Juri, though arguably Chie (esp. looking at Shadow Chie) is worse about this than Yukiko.