Persona 5 - Traitor Revealed

Once the flu season hit in the game, I knew I had to level up all of my party with the Reaper exploit. Reaper only comes out when the player spends more than 5 minutes on a single floor of Mementos. Like any respectable optional boss, Reaper poses a tough fight. He has high defense and high attack. To make it even harder, he has one hit kill attacks as well. As the seasons change outside, different status effects come into play inside the Mementos. During the Flu season there is a random chance of the enemy to enter battle with the status effect of Despair. The enemy does not attack and dies in (I think) three turns. Once we enter Mementos during this time, the only thing to do is to wait until Reaper shows up and enter the fight. If he does not have the Despair effect, then escape the fight and keep doing it until Reaper with Despair shows up in the battle. He will die in three turns and the party will get tons of experience. Only a few battles in and all of my party was level 99. I did not do it the first time I played (since it felt too much like cheating), but I was itching to check this out right from the beginning of the game. I believe Persona 5 Royal got rid of the exploit. As it was explained to me, Despair stops the enemy from attacking but does not kill them. It lasts for a limited number of turns as well.

Last time we left off with Joker being tortured by the police. Once he is done telling his story, it is time for the reveal that I have thoroughly ruined in my past posts. The player is asked a series of questions. If they have been paying attention, they will be easy to get right. This group of friends has stuck together through thick and thin. It will be against the narrative to betray anyone of them at this time. There is only one person who we know very little about. He is also the one who does not have a back story tied to a specific palace (at least until this time). By the process of elimination, Akechi must be the one who betrayed us. There is a bad ending here which can be triggered by giving wrong answers to the questions.

Joker and his friends have gambled with their lives to get to this point. All hangs on how Sae will respond to their story. If she does not go along with them, then all is lost. Thankfully she has heard enough to shake her belief in the justice system. She is willing to save Joker even if it means ending her career. Joker and she go over the whole plan and she agrees to get Joker out of the jail. Before the plan can be put in motion, Akechi the wonder detective, comes over to talk to Joker as well. He bullies his way in and shoots the guard right off the bat. He is tired of Joker’s antics, and it is time for him to put an end to the Phantom Thieves. He gloats about how smart he is, and how thoroughly he outplayed the Phantom Thieves. The guard is already dead, and he will shoot Joker as well. When the people come in to find him, they will see two dead bodies and assume there was a struggle in which Joker shot the guard and was killed by the guard’s gun. Since the only two people who knew Akechi was here are eliminated, no one will suspect anything. Like I said, nobody will care because Joker has already been branded a terrorist.

Akechi finishes off Joker and walks out of the station. What he does not see is the dead bodies disappearing just like the shadows inside a metaverse. Akechi, in his arrogance, underestimated Joker and his friends. He was so sure of his own plan succeeding, he never even considered the Thieves might have set a trap of their own. Akechi, the guard, Joker, Sae, all of them have been inside the Metaverse this whole time. Specifically, they are still inside the Sae’s cognition. Sae was not aware of this at the beginning, but at this time Akechi is the only one who does not realize where he is. The person he assumed to be Joker was just a shadow.

The first time I saw this, I was left extremely confused. How come no one changed costumes when they were inside the metaverse? Why did Joker not die in the real world when he was shot in the metaverse? How did Akechi not realize he was entering and exiting the metaverse? Second time around, I think I have figured out most of the answers. The easiest one first. The change in costumes only happens when the host of the palace sees the in coming person as a threat. Since Sae is not even aware of the fact she is inside Metaverse, she never feels threatened enough to force a costume change. The reason Joker’s death does not affect him in real life, is because the Joker who got shot is Sae’s perception of Joker. He is not the persona of actual Joker, so his death here does not translate to death in the real world. I am still a little confused why Akechi did not change costume considering he came in after Sae already knew how dangerous he was and must have felt at least a twinge of threat from him. I also do not get how come he did not figure out he was in the Metaverse on exit, since it has always been shown as a jarring transition. And if he did then why did he not come after Joker again? My only guess is the transition was not as jarring when it was far away from the casino.

How was Sae’s cognition of Joker able to explain everything to Sae? It should not know anything Sae does not know. I think Joker was caught by the police but escaped into the Metaverse before Sae got there (they may even have been inside the Metaverse the whole time considering we never see them exit when the arrest happens). When she comes to talk to him, she is talking to the real Joker, but since she feels safe inside the police station, there is no threat, and she does not force a costume change. He tells her the whole story and convinces her to play along. Since he is in the Metaverse, he can use his powers to get out of the police station and exit Metaverse. This is why he just disappears from the police station. No one knows where he went and Sae plays dumb so they authorities just cover up his escape. I don’t think any of this is explicitly explained in the game, it is more of my head canon.

Joker is back home, but he has to go into hiding for the time being. He is presumed dead. The popularity of Phantom thieves has tanked after the smear campaign to paint them as terrorists succeeds. If Joker has any chance of living a normal life, his friends will have to figure out who was behind this whole frame job. Who has Akechi been working for? They do have an element of surprise on their side, now that all their enemies think Joker has been eliminated. The authorities have not moved against the rest of the friends because they are presumably waiting for the hubbub to die down before quietly eliminating the other Thieves. Digging into Akechi’s past should help shed light on who has been pulling his strings.

05-19-2020