Headscratchers / Persona 5 Strikers

aka: Persona 5 Scramble The Phantom Strikers

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

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• This troper might have missed it, but was there an explanation for how the police knew where to find the Phantom Thieves in Kyoto?
  • Zenkichi put them up in a luxury inn and put it down as a business expense. They'd have the paper trail for that.
• At the start of the game, the head of the police says they want a thorough investigation on Joker's entire life. Wouldn't that be something they would already have on hand, even with Joker's record being cleared?
  • Probably they fabricated the past records for Shido in the past and they wanted to find it out on their own volition, since Shido (And by extension, Yaldabaoth) doesn't have control over them anymore?
• Also for start-game things. Joker still has Arsene, Ryuji Captain Kidd, implying they never lost their Personas.
  • A. Why then doesn't Joker have anything but Arsene, and why doesn't Mona have Mercurius, given he's a guaranteed result of the story?
  • In-universe you could see it as because the thieves are out of practice and in Joker's case because he didn't have the support of the Velvet room (Lavenza was somewhat blindsided by the new threat, especially its nature as an AI). Out of universe it's obviously because the base personas are better-known and not every player will have unlocked the others.
  • People don't "lose" their Personas because the Persona is a fundamental aspect of their minds. What actually happened is that the team lost the ability to summon their Personas when they lost access to the Metaverse. As soon as they return to another mental world, they'll have full access to their powers again, albeit weakened with lack of practice.
• Considering that Alice might had been around Shujin last year, why doesn't she actually go to Maruki at least, once during the time when he was part-time? That could at least have a chance to avert that specific incident...
  • She was trying to distance herself from Shujin. After what we know she experienced, do you really think she would go back?
  • Furthermore, she could had been a shut in throughout the year where he is in school, so she might not had been knew him to begin with.
  • Based on how Zenkichi calls her the senpai of the thieves, it's possible she graduated prior to any of them attending Shujin.
    • That's correct. Alice is Older Than She Looks, probably around the 20-21 range to account for former third-years like Makoto and Haru to have never heard of her before and her time studying fashion after graduating.
  • There's also the debate about whether Royal is canon or not.
• Just like in the previous game, many of the Phantom Thieves' hideouts are suspect. Imagine a bunch of teenagers talking shit about Alice on the same Shibuya crossroad hideout and talking shit about Konoe on the streets of Osaka alongside a police officer. If anyone hears that type of thing, would it be literally inviting a streetfight? And no, Yaldabaoth isn't there to protect you from crazies past this point.
  • I don't get why they would. So I think you should elaborate.
    • During that time, simply having any Alice fans hearing you say something among the lines of "Alice is a bitch who's trying to make quick bucks" will get them to beat you on the streets. The Thieves and Zenkichi doing exactly that on the Shibuya Metro Crossroads will be the exact way to attract this attention.
  • It's possible that in-universe they're speaking more quietly than it appears seeing as they already got in trouble for Ryuji speaking too loudly in public. Plus it's more interesting to have them talking in interesting outdoor spaces than always retiring to the Phantomobile to talk about anything mission-related.
• Were the Monarchs ever aware that what EMMA will do to them? Do they using it is just a last ditch attempt? Do they just tell it to "save them" without knowing the side effects?
  • It seems like Alice, Ango, Hyodo and Konoe obviously know what is going on as soon as they start using it. Akane however, doesn't.
    • They were aware they could brainwash people but they weren't aware of exactly how.
• How did Konoe become the Monarch of Osaka? He doesn't seem to be the very person to tell EMMA to save him.
  • It's possible that actually use himself as a test subject after improvising the function and requesting Ichinose to test it on Okinawa.
    • Or he simply used it on himself. That doesn't really need thinking about.
  • He has direct contact with EMMA and knows exactly what Jails are. Why would he not make use of one himself given his goals? All EMMA had to do stretch the truth a little to make Konoe think he would be in full control of himself unlike all the others.
• So who was the King of Ruin anyway? Was he responsible for the creation of Kuon?
  • The game explains that he's an A.I. genius from Okinawa and Konoe used him to experiment the EMMA app on the island before. (And thus it probably affected him)
• Where is Igor in this game, actually? He's not being seen anywhere in the game, nor does EMMA kidnap him somehow. He's for some reason simply just gone...missing.
  • In universe he's probably off somewhere. Out of universe they might have decided not to use him anymore with his voice actor passed away.
  • Another possibility is that Igor is away to find the next Wild Card, and the Jails aren't alerting him due to their artificial nature (extensions of EMMA, rather than true cognitive distortions).
  • Maybe for every spinoff he's absent in, he's busy setting up the next mainline Persona game? Like maybe his brief absence during Persona Q was because he was busy making that bet with the Malevolent God.
  • Emergence of independent party capable of subduing both him and Lavenza at the same time and compromising the VR itself and the whole deal with Metaverse merging with reality is no ram's sneeze. He's busy giving a detailed report to Philemon, and possibly even discussing it together with him and Nyarlathothep, deep in the Sea of Souls (and locating them first). Philemon might also be giving him an upgrade. Too bad that another crisis decided to happen during that time.
• Minor, but a throwaway line suggests that Joker hasn't explained that his habit of occasionally spacing out out of nowhere is in fact him going to the velvet room, but why hasn't he? The Phantom Thieves know it exists, and they all would have clued into something odd going on earlier had Joker told Morgana about Lavenza summoning him at the start of the game.
  • It may be that they assume the Velvet Room is GONE from their lives (as far as we know, no group of Persona users has been called twice), and assume that Joker is just spacing out. As to Joker not saying anything, perhaps he doesn't want to cause trouble with their planned vacation.
  • The Velvet Room and its Residents aren't supposed to interfere with people outside of their Wild Card guests. Even with them, they can't reveal too much information, even if the world as a whole is threatened. They're meant to observe and guide those with the potential to help elevate mankind spiritually to their destinies. Otherwise, they can't interfere without going rogue. The end of Persona 5 and extra semester of Royal were unusual situations that required every member of the Phantom Thieves to be made aware of them because the Velvet Room itself was also under attack and it was impossible for Joker to complete his journey without letting his team know. Since this situation wasn't quite to the point where the Velvet Room couldn't still fulfill its function, Lavenza decided to stick to standard procedure and keep herself out of the perceptions of everyone besides Joker. The real strange part is why Morgana doesn't seem aware. He's practically a Velvet Room resident, too, and has regained his memories.
    • All of them (except Sophie and Wolf) already know the Velvet Room exists now, so why can't he tell them? The thieves (again except Sophie and Wolf) have physically been inside the Velvet Room, have talked to Lavenza (and possibly Igor offscreen, but they've seen him for certain), I doubt they could interfere any more than that.
  • They were brought there by force, and later Lavenza summoned them outside it. Thus, they still have no contract allowing them to acknowledge it. And most likely actual duration of Joker's spacing out is measured in seconds, so he might just handwave it instead of further dragging them into the matter.
• Assuming Akechi is alive and both Akechi and Sumire are available to investigate the incident, how will they react when they encounter the Jails, Sophia, Zenkichi and Ichinose?
  • They aren't in the game because it was made mostly accounting for the story of vanilla P5. If you want to have it follow Royal, then how could they investigate? The Metaverse Navigator is gone. That assumes either would want to investigate: Akechi, if alive, is a wanted fugitive and borderline sociopath while Yoshizawa is probably focusing on her training.
    • Actually the question is how will Sumire or Akechi react if they were to encounter Alice (or any other Jail Monarch) or Ichinose (who has been clearly manipulating people in a way like Dr. Maruki did).
  • Sumire would likely react much like Joker (stepping up to fight back, likely reaching out to her friends). Akechi... well, I think we can guess he'd follow Sophie's first line of thought and "take care of" the problem...permanently.
  • Akechi, if alive, is a fugitive wanted by the law and the remnants of the conspiracy. Not to mention he's far from tight enough with the Thieves (he killed two of their parents, remember?) besides maybe Joker to be welcome on a long trip together. Besides, we know full well he couldn't care less about actually helping people. Sumire barely knows the Thieves outside of Joker (maybe Morgana on a good day?) so she likely wouldn't be up for a long trip with them, much less one where they act as vigilantes cross country. Not to mention that she just doesn't have the drive to reform society that the main eight do and has no criminal charges over her head that would force her to stay. She'd really just be risking everything by coming along out of love and admiration for Joker. Something that I'm sure he wouldn't be willing to accept with or without reciprocating her feelings.
  • I also think she's probably busy at a gymnastics training camp.
  • Unless they had the keyword for an active Monarch, EMMA is just a normal app to either of them. Since Strikers resolves the whole affair within a month, it's likely that even if Akechi is still alive and Sumire got a functioning phone, they may not even realize what's happening. If they did, find out, I doubt either would or could get involved. Akechi, alive or not, wouldn't contact the others: he's a fugitive assassin and has, at best, a rocky relationship with the Thieves besides Joker. Sumire is probably too busy training to go on a cross-country tour on a whim and her professional relationship with the Phantom Thieves was tentative in the first place.
• Why can't the Persona users escape from Akane's cage by breaking off their Personas and escaping to reality with the Metaverse Navigator? Or more accurately, even if they can't use their personas to cut off the cage, why they don't simply use the Metaverse Navigator to escape?
  • It's possible that Akane's cognition designed it to suppress their powers and prevent the escape. That or Konoe, who manipulated Akane and had extensive knowledge of the Metaverse thanks to Ichinose, would know how to create a trap specifically to stop the Thieves. Since they needed Futaba, a hacking genius, to open it, it was likely designed to keep them trapped even with their Personas.
  • It's acknowledged early in the game that the Phantom Thieves need to use certain areas to go in and out of the Jails because they need to find areas where the Jail is not as dangerous. Like in the original P5, these areas are likely spots where the Cognition is weak enough for them to leave and enter from, meaning they can't simply go into any spot or leave at any point.
  • Better question: why could they not slip through the gaps between the jail bars that are explicitly much wider than they are?
  • Even if they had a convenient "get out of Metaverse" button, we've seen that Palaces and Jails are far from being one-to-one recreations of the real world. If you try to enter or exit one of these worlds from a place you aren't sure is safe, you could reappear in a wall or something. Look what happened when Ann panicked and jumped into Madarame's Palace from a random spot in the real world location: she appeared high in the air right in the middle of the thing. It was pure luck that it was both open and low enough to be relatively safe.
• Crossing with Too Dumb to Live, what were the Phantom Thieves even going for when they were barging into Akane's Jail knowing fully that it was very obviously a trap? They could had been just enter the Jail and sent a recon like Makoto while the rest of the party stay put, then rush in to fight once they had fully confirmed that this was a trap. Or they can just tell Zenkichi to burrow the keys to his house (after he gets out thanks to Sae of course), then they themselves go check out Akane for abnormalities, instead of barging into a trap using all of their workforce?
  • It's explicitly pointed out in-universe that they panicked, and sincerely didn't think that Akane could become a Monarch, not realizing how it actually worked. It was not their finest moment, and they know it.
• So what is Ichinose actually? A human or another Ryoji/Marie/Teddie-like case? Lots of in-game clues did mention that she doesn't act very human, like, a robot or doll like thing.
  • Human. A human who's closed of their emotions, but a human nonetheless.
    • Explain how she can command Shadows or even attack the Phantom Thieves with that diamond thingy then.
    • EMMA gave her the authority to use those. That and she's also the one who made EMMA, so of course she'd know how to do things like that. And those (that Ichinose has no emotions, that she's essentially just a doll) were other people's interpretation of her. It's not actually the truth of the matter. Other people just just mistook her for being without a heart. To the point that Ichinose herself came to believe that was true. Look no further for evidence then the moment Ichinose threw Sophia away. Although she said that Sophia was a failure and that she abandoned her because she concluded that she couldn't understand people's hearts, in truth she looked like she had done so because Sophia had pointed out that she actually had a heart and she didn't want to accept or even acknowledge that notion.
    • A being from the collective unconsciousness might not have a heart at first but can still get one via some way, or gain the potential to get one without realizing it. Furthermore, her back story of her having both of her parents died and thus she closed off her emotions can be a cover story.
    • There is no indication that Ichinose came from the metaverse. She may have created an AI that could interfere with the metaverse but that doesn't mean she's not human. Also closing off her emotions was something that Sophia figured out, not something Ichinose said or thought. Ichinose just believed that she lacked them in the first place. The biggest proof that Ichinose is human is the mission she gave Sophia. "Be a good friend to humans." As Sophia figured, out the reason Ichinose gave such an order to her was because she wanted a friend who understood her.
    • We also hear people commenting on her lack of reaction to the death of her parents, indicating she was born and grew up normally.
• Here's something interesting about the situation between Ichinose/Sophia and some other instances from Royal's Maruki incident. Is it possible that they are in any form or way, connected incidents or are just cool coincidences?
  • Firstly, Sophia calls Morgana a "Tanuki" at first impression. Yes, the first thing that Sophia thinks of Morgana is a Tanuki. The only other character that does this is Jose, who barely has any role other than selling items in Mementos during Royal.
  • The way that Sophia awakens. She already has a Persona (or Persona-like thing) at the start and can actually use it, unlike Haru. Not like Sumire in Royal, either, Sophie also doesn't have a fake self. The only other character to do this is Maruki, who already can use a persona but needs to actually awaken it.
    • Sophia herself called Pithos a weapon. As she put it she seemed to have created it to imitate the Phantom thieves.
  • Pay attention to Ichinose's verbal tics when she's faking out emotions or kindness. It's obviously from Maruki, especially during the Beef barbecue restaurant in Sendai where the whole communication method she used obviously came from him.
  • One more thing I noticed. Sophie seems to also have the same hairdo as Rumi (Maruki's ex-fiance), just colored in a way like Kasumi (Sumire). Is this merely a coincidence, or?
    • It's all a coincidence in-universe.
• What kind of Arcana Ichinose would be?
  • Reverse Councilor? EMMA exploits the weak much unlike Maruki, and Ichinose displays just about many traits that are the polar opposite if his.
• Why is Joker wearing his glasses again? He's doesn't actually need them to see, and he doesn't have his criminal record anymore, so why's he wearing them again?
  • Habit?
  • Or, given that it's Joker, he may have decided that he likes them for being able to dramatically whip them off as he transforms.
  • Or maybe he just likes how they look.
  • Or maybe his eyesight went bad, and the glasses are real this time.
• Given how these incidents are said to be throughout all of Japan, how come we hear nothing of the other past Persona users, who would very clearly go "That shit...ain't normal."
  • The cognitive world isn't their ground like the P5 cast, it's unlikely they'd even know the first thing to do.
  • The time period over which the game takes place is also relatively short, so unless the Investigation Team also happen to be having some sort of reunion they're probably spread out and not in a position to act. The lack of the Shadow Operatives is stranger, but they could be busy on some other case. Alternatively maybe there were other Monarchs the Phantom Thieves didn't hear about and the other teams were busy dealing with them?
    • This seems plausible, as Zenkichi mentions such cases "all over Japan," but the Phantom Thieves only investigate three Jails before they hit the plot-important ones (Okinawa's test Jail, Akane's new Jail, Konoe's Jail). It's not too much of a stretch to say they were busy investigating the Jails they found until the Phantom Thieves solved their problem off-screen (to them).
  • Unless you have the keyword for an active Monarch, EMMA is just a convenient app for to you. The Shadow Operatives aren't omniscient, so the whole affair probably just went under their radar. At least until the Thieves announced their comeback, but by then they were traveling across Japan seemingly at random, so tracking them down and contacting them before they moved on wouldn't be an easy task.
  • It might be that the Phantom Thieves were the best-placed to solve the problem of Jails. Zenkichi goes to them because they made national news with their stunts, and actually returning peoples' desires requires the Phantom Thieves' Calling Card MO, so the other protagonists might have hit a roadblock trying to deal with the first Jail they found, while the Phantom Thieves were relatively easily able to get the Desires back. It's also possible that the Phantom Thieves made the most progress because Ichinose found them first, and without her information they wouldn't have been able to get nearly as far as they did.
• In Yokohama, Futaba talks about being excited to see her mom. Isn't she long dead?
• Why were PubSec so eager to scapegoat the Phantom Thieves? They'd just look worse when the next Meta-crime inevitably cropped up.
  • Because the police in general are still dealing with the fallout of Shido's arrest and the exposure of his conspiracy, and how they were seemingly unable to stop him because of Yaldabaoth's machinations, so they're jumping on any face-saving opportunity that comes up, and the Phantom Thieves, at that point in time, are the most obvious initial suspects for the incident. Not only that, but we learn later that Akira Konoe has been brainwashing people in the police and government, which at the very least would deflect suspicion away from the true culprit; notably, Zenkichi, who very obviously is not brainwashed, is one the few agents who suspects something else is up. Only after the Osaka Jail is cleared do they quickly close in on Konoe and Owada, suggesting that the latter theory is the only thing keeping the fuzz off of their trail at this point.

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