I keep thinking about Akechi's Black Mask like - I know not everyone had to rip a mask of their face to make the persona contract, and there's the whole shady deal with Yaldy-boy, but man. There's probably something to be said there symbolically about ripping his whole head off to contract with Loki. (Who came first the Robin or that funny striped egg?)
I know most fans believe–understandably so–that Loki came first, as that would mean Akechi had the berserker powers early on, thus why he’d be useful to Shido. I believe another popular assumption tied to this is that Robin Hood came after, but something that stands out to me is Akechi’s Black Mask AOA logo: it’s a Robin Hood figure reaching out to take the hand of a child who has been stabbed through the head. This makes me consider the possibility that Akechi could have even gotten them around the same time.
His heart is clearly in conflict with itself, torn between a sense of justice and his desire for acceptance and revenge. These two contrasting needs have clearly torn Akechi between them, but honestly, Robin Hood and Loki’s mythological methods of going against those in power aren’t that different at all.
Allow me to float another idea: Akechi’s “Loki” sense of justice is at the root of him speaking out against the PT’s methods of changing hearts through reformation, thereby forcing contrition in someone unnaturally. One of the poems in the Poetic Edda of Nordic lore is the Lokasenna (Loki’s Quarrel), in which Loki shows up at a dinner party of the gods and tells each of them why they’re hypocrites, why they have no right to hate him and treat him poorly, and basically just demanding that they own up to their worst behaviors. In response for speaking truth to power, Loki is imprisoned beneath a serpent who drips poison onto his face, bound in chains made from the entrails of his murdered sons. He will only break free at the doom of the gods, when he rises up to kill them all.
The reason why I think this connects to Akechi’s sense of justice as punishment/retribution is because Loki, in lore, absolutely refuses to let the gods get away with their own bullshit. Loki’s a trickster, sure. He has a blood-bond with Odin, he’s usually the one the gods call upon when they want a laugh or want something done, but he’s well aware of their problems, too. He works with them, but he doesn’t let them get away with behaviors that he personally can’t stand. With all this in mind, Loki stems from Akechi’s view of Japanese society conditioning a sense of coexistance and forced harmony, while also treating children like him as subhuman and anathema. Children like him are unwanted and cast aside yet are also expected to “belong” to the same world that does not want them. This is a pure Lokean conflict. One of the Lokean tenets of heathen pagan worship is “Bless the hated,” and that’s what Akechi is–the hated, blessed by a god.
I personally think Akechi’s goal of getting acceptance and revenge on Shido comes from Robin Hood, not Loki. Robin Hood’s whole MO is “rob from the rich, give to the poor,” an idea of taking something away from those in power and giving it to those in need. This “taking” is a metaphorical concept when it comes to Akechi and Shido: he wants to take away Shido’s moment of triumph, and “give” that victory to himself instead. Much like Ann’s cry to Kamoshida that she will “rob [him] of everything,” Akechi’s Robin Hood-sense of retributive justice wants to take his father’s confidence, arrogance, satisfaction, and feeling safe enough in his own power away from him.
Both of these feelings–hatred of the society who rejected him, hatred of the father who ruined his life simply by fathering him–are the two strongest emotions that are the cornerstone of Akechi’s cognitive distortion, and thus the foundation of his heart/mind and Personas. So. Robin Hood and Loki showed up together, because Akechi embodies both of their goals.
And yes it is absolutely brutal to consider child Akechi having to tear off half of his face and head to get the Black Mask off :(
