Shin Megami Tensei Series

And as asterism points out of there, I'm sure a desire to just flip the table on everyone and everything is something probably everyone has once in a while.

The logical conclusion of those mentalities, the soul being deemed evil and so it is destroyed for Law, and bloodthirsty animalistic life trapped in massive primeval cages on chaos, will lead to the extinction of humanity.

So its nice that Redux actually answers that yes, that is the only proper outcome.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Apr 10th 2020 at 11:09:15 AM

I just like Jimenez so ill go chaos with him. Simple as that.

I hated Jimenez. I just found him too much of a jerk.

I'll say something about Jimenez that I like about him compared to many of the other Chaos reps in the games that I've spent time with is that he has a well-defined character arc. Like Walter has all the ingredients to be sympathetic yet in the end he's driven by selfish, short-sighted individualism, Naoya spends almost the entirety of his game being holier than thou, Yamato's an interesting take but his character development is confined to optional scenes that don't bleed over into the main plot and the game bungles the execution of his ending, while Dagda (he's not technically Chaos, but the closest that game has to a Chaos hero outside of Walter/Lucifer himself) comes off as a misanthrope ranting on about how woke he is.

Jimenez you can trace his path of becoming a better person and warming up to the rest of crew of the Red Sprite before he gets his humanity literally torn from him for committing his most compassionate act in the story up until that point so there's a nice layer of tragedy there until he jumps right off the deep end. As far as the original endings went I wouldn't side with him for any reason other than getting that icon on my save file, but I can appreciate how he got to that point, and I understand that Chaos + in Redux brings him full circle.

Though I'll always champion Devil Survivor 2's Kingmaker ending as the best Chaos end for being the first to realize that you don't have to tie that philosophy to the law of the jungle.

Edited by ComicX6 on Apr 10th 2020 at 9:28:17 AM

Dagda's whole thing is less he's woke and more he's miserable. He got interpretted as more angry in how he showcases his despair and less...tired of it all like in Japanese. Returning to his original form as part of reality is his greatest wish.

Yamato actually sticks by his beliefs even in main story on his route, considering despite his actions he spares Ronaldo because he does see the mans skill, and like the backstabber he is Ronaldo tries to pull a sneak attack after being offered mercy, and Yanato dies saving them on Ronaldo's route. Only Alcor beings out the worse in him where he refuses anything but being killed in a fight.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Apr 10th 2020 at 7:50:37 AM

Dagda's accent makes my teeth hurt.

Apologies if his VA is actually Irish, but it sounds so fake it actually angers me.

Edited by asterism on Apr 10th 2020 at 4:06:25 PM

Bad accents are my thing. I love engrish for a reason.

kill your friends, boyo

I love Devil Survivor 2, but it kind of bugs me that "we should all work together to build a better world" and "we should all be dicks to each other" are treated as equal ideals.

Ditto. As I've mentioned before, while he's not completely void of redeeming traits, I see Yamato as largely an overprivileged brat born with a silver spoon in every orifice. Reads lots of Rand, probably.

Silver Spoon implies he didn't work for it. He was chosen amongst his family to be the leader and literally denied a childhood to work for it, and as we see with A Child Shall Lead Them, everyone being dicks is not correct based on the child who became the leader of a group of adults(Implied to be the ones from Makoto's S Limk) that said Child Leader even seeks to protect with a teenage girl as his second in command.

Yamato pretty much understands entirely why human corruption exists and finds a means to curb it via God, and if he is removed from power for being incompetent and replaced by someone with greater merit that's a good thing in his eyes.

Unlike a certin someone where IT JUST WORKS cause Imperialism.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Apr 10th 2020 at 9:35:38 AM

He has that position because he was born to the Hotsuin family. All the effort in the world couldn't get you that. He had a better education than almost anybody else in the world because his family had money to pour into it. He literally calls people "parasites", which is very Randian.

And he very much has a problem with people beating him if they don't share his ideals. I'm pretty sure he could've avoided the tower collapsing, and just let himself die given that his line before that was saying that he would rather die than live in a world of equality.

Edited by MisterTambourineMan on Apr 10th 2020 at 9:48:01 AM

His family was forced into that precisely because of what Alcor entrusted to them. They literally don't have a choice. Alcor apologizes to him for that reason. He was forced to be a leader as a child and grew up in the most toxic of Japanese lifestyles: The Soulless Salaryman.

Him being forced to work to be worthy of his position groomed him in an unhealthy environment, and he got to see the corruption of societies leaders up close. It's a big part of why his FATE is about him realizing all the things he was denied as a child like sweets.

We actually see what a bad commander of the Hotsuins is like when Canopus replaces him with his Opposite-Sex Clone / Triangulum-Human Hybrid Miyako Hotsuin.

Edit: He says that but his immediate response to realizing he used too much power, and that he was going to get them all killed by accident, was to blast them away before they all die in that tower collapse.

He even says Ronaldo is worth acknowledging for trying to recruit him.

This is completely different from Alcors route, where he would rather die or kill everyone than accept the world Alcor seeks to create. He intentionally tries to force a situation where he kills them or dies, but Ronaldo's his first reaction was to save everyone else.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Apr 10th 2020 at 10:03:10 AM

He's not a salaryman. He's way above working class.

I do agree he was a product of a bad environment, but that doesn't make Social Darwinism an acceptable outlook.

I can't agree with Miyako being a bad commander, either. Especially since, despite being an Eldritch Abomination, she's nowhere near as big of a dick as Yamato.

Edited by MisterTambourineMan on Apr 10th 2020 at 10:05:08 AM

Merciless competition and self-flagellating false equality are both bad.

I was having this talk earlier on actually. There's apparently this thing called the Law of Jante in Nordic countries that I just learned of.

It boils down to "You're not to think you are as good as we are." you're worth less then anyone around you, "You're not to think you are good at anything." you have no skills, nothing you contribute is of any real note, "You're not to think anyone cares about you" no one cares about you."

I noted that it seems to me the right way is a fine line between American individualistic egotism (which I guess would be Chaos) and this sort of leveling everyone down to mediocrity (which I guess would be Law).

Tthe party are a group of geniuses. Their genius should be recognized. But genius demands an obligation to those who aren't geniuses. You gain nothing by pretending we're all just equal but it's just as wrong to use your superior talents to hurt others.

At least on DS 2, the law route isn't about creating Harrison Bergeron.

She outright is shown to throw all her men at the triangulum as disposable pawns and actively refused to let the group that defeated Polaris face them because of her The Needs of the Many mentality. Alcor even tells her to her face her plan would stagnate all humanity and deny humanity any potential, amd her response was to lock him up so he can'f stop her and she can make him an Admin.

Like this is a distinxf difference. She comes off "nicer" but intentionally disposes of her men for her goals, while Yamato has no expectations of his men but doesn't send them on jobs that will get them killed. We actually see then being Too Dumb to Live and he admits he gives them jobs he knows they are capable of doing and not much else.

And the Soulless Salaryman lifestyle is more how ones life is consumed by work that you get literally nothing else in your life but eating, sleeping, and work. That's what Yamato's life was like. He had a powerful position in JP's as it's leader, but his life was little better than a Salaryman despite it. His FATE's all about him realizing all the things he was denied in his childhood for a reason.

x2 Yeah, not helping matters is Ronaldo is being more of a reactionary towards Yamato, so he goes the entirely opposite direction and runs into a similar problem.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Apr 10th 2020 at 10:21:19 AM

So you think Social Darwinism is genuinely going to improve the world?

It's not straight up darwinism. It's a strict meritocratic hierarchy and is actually pretty structured.

It's dangerous in the fact it does have a ruthless, cold logic that it runs on, but I can understand Yamato wasn't going for chaos dumb "world of str" and his society allows everyone who contributes to be part of it. Thus a child becoming a leader and seeking to protect the people under him. Canonically humans can beat up demons also means some of the dumber parts of Chaos like demons being naturally stronger doesn't happen.

Basically he's "Edelgard but It ACTUALLY WORKS HOLY SHIT!"

Edit: Forgot to mention but the fact Polaris alsl ensures human corruption can't break the system even nulls one of the many hypicrisies of Chaos. Like money = power is not a thing in Yamato's Meritocracy.

I like that he actually understands and circumvents the flaws in the system he seeks to create; for good or ill.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Apr 10th 2020 at 10:31:03 AM

So I've realized that another reason I find Jimenez and Zelenin so likable is that, in their transformations, they're both ultimately victims, unlike most other alignment people who jump headlong into things. As mentioned, Jimenez grows over the course of the game from a greedy, borderline nihilistic asshole into a true selfless comrade, ultimately giving up his very humanity to save another. And Zelenin's straight-up gaslighted into making her choice.

The glaring issue with Yamato's society is that people who are physically or mentally incapable of contributing what he deems necessary are probably fucked.

Yup that's a massive flaw with his ideal.

His idea of what constitutes "strength" isn't even very consistent. He calls the heroes weak after they beat him on the Egalitarian route.

Having olayed Record Breaker some time ago he calls them monsters if I recall right.

But well with a literal (Alien) God doing the heavy lifting he doesn't have to worry about what the specific standards for merit are since Polaris will handle that. So that is cheating in getting things to work as he intended.