Fridge / Shin Megami Tensei V

As a Fridge subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

Fridge Brilliance

• When starting a New Game Plus, you cannot summon Panagia Tao early on through the Demonic Compendium. There's a good reason for that. Tao is still a human at that point in the story. That also means when she joins the Nahobino as the Panagia, she is technically considered a demon because she has an entry in Demonic Compendium.
• Later in the game, we learn that a demon can only become a Nahobino if they fuse with a human that has their Knowledge. What exactly were the odds that the protagonist, who wound up in Da'at by mere accident and ends up being saved by Aogami seconds after his arrival, is the human holding his Knowledge?
  • Amanozako flat out states the main character is their Knowledge, as she's also created from a Proto-Fiend. So yeah, the protagonist just happens to be the Proto-Fiends' Knowledge, no matter which form they take.
  • The Demi-fiend DLC heavily implies that it's Lucifer who woke Aogami up and dropped him on the Protagonist—which, in turn, implies that Aogami vanished from the battle of Tokyo Tower because Lucifer captured him. The Protagonist is in the right school year to have been recently born at the time of that battle, and Lucifer has both God's Knowledge and the experience to know the only way to get things done in the SMT multiverse is to get either a teenager or a young adult to do it. It's possible that Aogami and the Protagonist's first encounter was fully engineered as Lucifer's idea of a Meet Cute.
  • Also, at the start of the game, Ichiro leaves the tunnel before the protagonist, but Aogami doesn't react to him. It's a quick way of showing that Aogami didn't fuse with the first human he saw, he had to find a specific person.
• Fionn becomes as powerful as a Nahobino whenever he licks his thumb. According to his legend, Fionn's thumb contains the fat of the Salmon of KNOWLEDGE. Fionn is actually regaining his Knowledge temporarily when he licks his thumb!
• Aside from Tsukuyomi and Abdiel, all the gods of Bethel are completely out of the running, meaning they hold the keys to the Empyrean with no hope of self-benefit.
  • Odin is having his Valkyries round up humans hoping to find the one with his Knowledge, with the apparent lack of understanding that only he can pick out the one that possesses his Knowledge. What his motivation is beyond such a mad quest remains unknown.
    • Perhaps this harkens to his unique demon conversation with a Valkyrie on how he's gathering humans in Valhalla for his benefit. What that is remains a Riddle for the Ages, but it's safe to believe that he's preparing to have his own band of devouts when he becomes a Nahobino and recreates the world. This way, he finds his Knowledge and gives himself a strong foundation for a new world in his image.
  • Zeus gripes before the boss fight that the human with his Knowledge was killed by demons, and that he'll have to wait a few centuries before he can try again. Without his Knowledge, he cannot become a Nahobino, and he knows it.
  • Khonsu is aware that trying to merge with Miyazu to become a Nahobino will kill her, and cares for her beyond merely a means to an end; he chose to remove himself from the competition for this reason.
  • Vasuki is aware that Shiva is intent on destroying the universe in an attempt to re-orchestrate the way of things; pursuing the Throne contradicts his master's intent.
• The process is different but you are essentially playing in a world post-Conception. And these differences can be attributed to the Demi-Fiend, who is implied to have taken the True Demon ending where he outright kills Kagutsuchi and ruins the Great Will’s system.
• The Demi-Fiend’s boss battle is easier than his boss battle in Digital Devil Saga. He doesn’t immediately kill your team if you’re immune to his attacks, he’s not immune to every attack, and he can still be afflicted with status effects. From a narrative standpoint, it would make sense why the Nahobino stands a better chance against the Demi-Fiend than the Embyron. The Nahobino is a full god unlike the Embryon, who while powerful are still just demons.
• Since Tokyo was recreated eighteen years ago, everyone born before then is a construct like the rest of Tokyo. That's why:
  • A third-year at the temple mentions that the faces of her teachers and some classmates are starting to look indistinct. They're fading like the rest of Tokyo.
  • All humans with Knowledge are eighteen years old or younger. This doesn't just apply to the main characters; a Macabre in Nordic territory wonders why Odin is harvesting souls who are "too young and weak."
• At the start of the game, Tao says that the end of the world was triggered by an event in Chiyoda. We know that the Conception started in Shinjuku, not Chiyoda, but what other world-ending event was in Chiyoda? The hatching of the Cosmic Egg on Massacre. Bethel was close, but was looking at the wrong universe.
• Why does Amanozaku praise herself instead of the hero after being rescued? According to her description, she often does "the exact opposite of what is expected". That's also why she's a Cute Monster Girl; who expected the tiny bird girl to be that powerful?
• Why does Bethel just leave the students in the Fairy Forest instead of taking them back to Tokyo?
  • First, to uphold the Masquerade; letting the students stay missing gives the police the benefit of the doubt. What would look more suspicious, the police being unable to find the missing students, or the police finding a fraction of them and refusing to say what happened? Maybe Bethel could cover it up better if they weren't busy with the war.
  • Second, Tokyo is fading. If Bethel's plan to restore it failed, then a reasonable contingency plan would be to evacuate as many civilians as they can to Da'at before it vanishes entirely. Every student they leave in Da'at is one less person to evacuate later.
• The Nahobino being aided by Sophia makes sense when you consider that the Nahobino's role is like that of the Demiurge from gnosticism, if less flawed by comparison. The Nahobino has to create a new world regardless of the ending you chose, and part of that process involves making a physical world.
• The Nahobino's unique skills cost less than the usual versions with similar power, but that is intentional. They belonged to Susano-o in the first place, who the protagonist is the knowledge keeper of. They are subconsciously familiar.
• The Condemnation prevents Nahobino from forming by keeping Knowledge and Life separate. Why doesn't anyone at least try to bypass this with the power of Shadows, since from previous games we know it can fuse together humans and demons? Judging by how Sophia says that she hasn't seen anyone with the power to see her in a while, only Nahobino can access the World of Shadows.
  • Alternately, they did try. Miman are failed Nahobino, and one mentions "we tried too soon." Maybe one tried using the power of shadows and it didn't make any difference.
  • Also, that's why Koshimizu has to give Yuzuru a stronger demon upon promotion; Yuzuru can't fuse a stronger one himself.
• The difference between the endings has less to do with law and chaos (though either one will probably follow, depending on the ending), and more to do with how many true gods are in power. The Law ending has just 1, the Chaos ending has many gods, and the Neutral ending has 0 gods. Without their knowledge, the "gods" in Da'at are just powerful demons and not true gods, so they don't count.
• Odin has two ravens (Thought and Memory), so why is he only shown with one here? Knowledge is a form of memory; Odin lost the raven called Memory either to symbolize his lost Knowledge, or because Memory held his Knowledge.
• Both of the Atsuta siblings hold the Knowledge of a moon god; Yuzuru with Tsukuyomi, and Miyazu with Khonsu.
• Why is the hero's unique skill called Murakumo and not the better-known Kusanagi? Susano'o originally named the sword Ame-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi; Yamato Takeru changed it to Kusanagi later.
• Why are Aogami and the hero weak to Dark by default? As we see with the Profaned Land skill, spiritual filth and corruption are associated with the Dark element. Aogami is a Shinto god, and a big part of Shinto is that filth and corruption (''kegare'') should be washed away, especially when visiting a god. Aogami's vulnerability to kegare is reflected in his weakness to Dark, which he passes on to the hero.

Fridge Horror

• When Tao returns late in the game as a Panagia, she said that she died as a human and her soul was reshaped into the Goddess of Creation by a mysterious entity. As if this entity has power to essentially reshape and reprogram human souls is scary enough, this also begs the question: Who or what is this mysterious entity?
  • Panagia claims it's the "great will of the universe" - a.k.a the Great Will.
• When you first meet Ichiro at the underpass, he's with another student who's filming him. When you arrive in Da'at, only Ichiro is nearby and he's quickly taken by an Angel to the Diet Building for safe haven. You find Yuzuru sometime later, who unlike Ichiro is capable of defending himself with the demon summoning program. However, you never encounter the student with Ichiro once throughout your foray into Da'at's Minato region. Which begs the question: What happened to him?
  • You do. He's at the dorm, and mentions that when he woke up, he was in the hospital. Of course, nothing tells you he's at the dorm, or that anything would happen if you visit when you don't need to, but he is there.
  • There's also an overworld NPC near the tunnel who tells you that a single student was rescued from the rubble.
• In the True Neutral ending, every god and demon except for the Nahobino vanishes. That would include Koshimizu, the current PM of Japan. What kind of political chaos would this cause?
  • Presumably, either there’s a different PM in charge now, or the protagonist made another Koshimizu, who really is human this time rather than a god in disguise.

Fridge Logic

• Abdiel, an archangel and a construct of the God of Law, has Knowledge just like any other demon. This doesn't make any sense since, despite "demon" being a catchall term in the game, angels and demons are described as being separate beings in the game's lore. The real Abdiel didn't even start as a god; he's best known as a fictional character in John Milton's Paradise Lost, and even then he was still an angel. It would make sense if she was a god that was demonized once indicted into another religious canon (which is the case for Baal/Beelzebub), but she isn't. Unless there's something missing here, how is it that Abdiel has Knowledge?
  • The four archangels are said to be old followers of Ba'al that got transformed into angels by YHWH, something that as far as I'm aware isn't backed by any real world text. The implication seems to be that YHWH didn't really create any of the angels, but that all of them are older deities that got their forms changed beyond recognition by religious syncretism.
  • There's also the issue of exactly how much power the Creator actually has. While hard limits haven't been set explicitly, it is telling that YHVH hoarded the Knowledge instead of destroying it outright, and couldn't salvage it once it became bound to humans. It could mean that he did create at least some angels, but couldn't do so without creating (and immediately sealing) the corresponding Knowledge.
  • Angels are treated identically to demons in all ways but social, and no-one corrects an NPC who lumps them together. They're more of a faction than a species. Dazai is even given three angels to presumably use in his Demon Summoning Program. But we really have no idea how Knowledge works or how it's assigned. Gods throughout the game discuss how they've been changed by human religious beliefs, so maybe Abdiel just got ascended hard enough by human beliefs that a corresponding Knowledge just started existing.
• How did Koshimizu get elected? At least one NPC on the Tokyo map notices that he has no records prior to his election, not even college transcripts, and he's suspiciously young. At least Shido was majority party leader before getting elected.

• The Condemnation prevents the existence of Nahobino by keeping Knowledge and Life separate. What about all the Half-Human Hybrids? Not just the children of demons and humans, but humans who fused with demons, and whatever's going on with the Demi-Fiend? Are they missing Knowledge or Life? Do they have both, but not count as Nahobino?
  • There aren't any example of demonic Half-Human Hybrids in this game other than Nahobinos (main character, Sahori, Dazai, Yuzuru, Yakumo). Children of humans and demons don't seem to exist in this game (at least not among the characters with plot relevance), nor are there any case of human demon Fusion Dance other than Nahobino fusions, but logically speaking if they exist, it's likely they have both Knowledge (from human side) and Life (from demon side) but aren't compatible to become Nahobinos (which, as explained, the proper form for gods in this universe). As for Demi-Fiend, it's emphasized time and again that he and the Fiends came from an Alternate Universe, "another place, another time" so whatever curse applying to inhabitants of this universe most likely don't apply to him and his cohorts, meaning they shouldn't have Knowledge or Life the way the beings of this world have it.
  • OP here. I just remembered that Fionn mac Cumhaill ate the Salmon of Knowledge before the Condemnation was lifted; it granted him Knowledge, but it didn't let him become a partial Nahobino until God died. In other words, yeah, beings with both Knowledge and Life can exist under the Condemnation, but they won't form Nahobino.
  • With all the Miman walking around, and the Miman being failed Nahobino, maybe some of them were Half-Human Hybrids that were cursed by the God of Law.
• The Law ending has the protagonist uphold "God's Law," but the protagonist becomes the God in this ending. Nothing technically guarantees that the protagonist will copy the previous god's law word per word, let alone that god's mistakes. He may just copy the previous God's ideals for all we know.
• If Tokyo was destroyed and recreated as a false world, what about the rest of the world? Was it completely destroyed and the false Tokyo is the only surviving fragment? Or was it completely restored? If so, then why wasn't Tokyo restored completely as well?