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Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth


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Why is there now this trope of people shooting themselves in the head?  We first saw it with Borderlands 2, then SMT IV: Apocalypse, then this game, among other titles I can't remember. Suicide is not to be taken lightly, much less to market a game. I honestly don't get what's "hip" about geeks killing themselves.

 

I know I'm slightly off-topic, but I saw the trailer and yet another rendition of someone stylistically shooting themselves and had to say something. This is not cool. Frankly, it makes me sick.

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14 hours ago, The Ultimate Mario Fan said:

I guess I'm just a bit riled up because Japan suffers from a major suicide problem, with one of the highest suicide rates in the world.  This trend of stylizing suicide is perturbing to say the least. It's not something to use in media marketing material, especially to an adolescent demographic.

For Persona 3 they aren't actually guns. They're more like magic wands. The way the game explains it is that, in order for the SEES members to summon their Persona, they need to undergo severe mental trauma. What's more traumatizing than putting a gun, whether real or fake, to your head and pulling the trigger? Also, the game's theme revolved around "Death" hence why the P3 MC dies at the end.

 

For Persona 4 you can see they have since changed to using tarot cards which requires them to crush their tarot card to summon their Persona and the theme for this game is around getting the "Truth".

 

For Persona 5 it changed again this time by ripping out their mask to summon their Persona. The mask signifies what they are hiding beneath and by ripping it out they are able to attain freedom from their struggles. As for the theme, this time is about "Freedom".

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How they mythologize the need to put guns to their heads isn't relevant, what's relevant is that they show characters putting guns to their heads. A first-time viewer seeing this is in the trailer is seeing it without context. And even within the context you explain, it suggests that traumatizing one's self and/or killing one's self actually accomplishes something.

 

My issue is not whether or not there is suicide in the game.  Many fictions deal with this theme and sometimes quite well.  The problem is that properties like these are trying to "stylize" suicide, to make it cool, to sell a game. For this there's just no excuse.

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