Here's the problem with people asking, "Why couldn't Akechi just quit?" First and foremost, he's only powerful in the Metaverse. Shido controls the law. Shido controls the police. Shido has his cleaner. The very moment Akechi signed on with Shido as a fifteen year old, he was trapped, chained, and any moment of rebellion would turn him into a fugitive if he was lucky. Second, even if he quit, who would he turn to back then? He had no allies and started off as a fifteen year old who had probably been booted out of the system (IIRC, you are left to your own devices once you hit 15 in Japan if you don't have an existing guardian). Sure, he could run away and hide in Mementos, but he'd basically be left to hide from the law without any means to protect himself and without any allies to turn to. He could make connections, maybe, but when society had repeatedly crushed his spirit and treated him like shit, he had no reason to believe it'd work. By the time he met Joker, someone who was willing to just be around him, listen, and just let him be at least a little more true to himself, it was too late because he had blood on his hands, was going to have to turn against the Thieves and thus Joker, and it was all a "sacrifice" he would have to make for a plan that was never going to work. A plan made by a broken fifteen year old who had nothing but a false god's "blessings" to give him even a semblance of power in a world where he had been nothing but powerless. And to ignore this aspect of Goro Akechi is to ignore the message the game was trying to convey the entire time. The Phantom Thieves acknowledge his role as a victim- Shido's greatest victim, in fact. They do so without condoning what he did, but also with an understanding that any one of them could have become him. Akechi is a foil to the Thieves in the truest sense, a combination of the individual themes each Phantom Thief represents, stripped of the unity that allowed them each to find power and comradery.
And the greatest tragedy is that the game was rigged against him from the start. He was always chosen to be an agent of chaos by Yaldabaoth, to be alone, angry, and carve a path of destruction. But at one point, he was a traumatized child in a society that condemned him for the circumstances of his birth, which he could not control.
unwanted child [ sticker sheet ]
in spirit of finally reaching the third semester in my p5r playthrough, you may have these
I like yusuke, he's cool ;)
raison d’etre + sushi = profit
待ち合わせ
hello everyone i drew goro akechi today
I still think one of the more frustrating aspects of Ryuji in P5 is there’s this ongoing undercurrent of how he does see himself as this punching bag and think of himself ruined while everyone else is more of a victim than he is, which is why he’s so ready to put himself in harms way or stuck his neck out for people, and it would be really compelling character writing if they had gone anywhere with it besides a few jokes that like…validate him? Lol?
the kiss
happy 11/20 everyone