Pocky Balboa
Thus sayeth the Great Will: "ALL HAIL OPPAI!"
Still more upbeat than...
Dammit, Ongyo-ki'd
But the existence of the "you" that you believe in is so tenuous - Shin Megami Tensei/Persona General
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Still more upbeat than...
Dammit, Ongyo-ki'd
Pocky Balboa
Thus sayeth the Great Will: "ALL HAIL OPPAI!"
I'd contest that for the Neutral ends of Strange Journey and IV.
You could say everything will inevitably end up spiralling downwards again, but you've saved a lot of lives and will personally guide humanity back onto the correct path. (Presumably.)
Not to mention that's just using personal definitions. I don't doubt there's enough people who'd define Law or Chaos in most games to be a "happy ending". Or the White, even.
Meanwhile P3 ends on "yeah, you died; better hope no one in the future ever hopes they'll die. Good luck with that." You might've saved humanity from one cataclysm, sure, but you're unable to stop the next one that basically immediately happened in P4. "You" don't even really have a choice.
I can't call it more upbeat than the mainline games with a straight face.
P4, sure. Won't call that into question.
AuraTwilight
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Well, the P3 protagonist can apparently be saved and has atleast a couple immortal waifus looking out for his best interests with plans of elevating humanity to Enlightenment, and the prose suggests this is actually possible instead of a pipe dream like in mainline SMT.
Generally, whenever a Bad Thing is stopped in Persona, it tends to stay down, and humanity's collective consciousness subtly but demonstratably starts moving towards meaningful evolution.
Generally, whenever a Bad Thing is stopped in Persona, it tends to stay down, and humanity's collective consciousness subtly but demonstratably starts moving towards meaningful evolution.
Nyxistence
satisfied, jovial, wise
SMT has held optimism as a primary counterpoint to its' general thematic conflict, I don't know what else you're suggesting here. SMT ostensibly suggests that there is only two things humanity can embrace, sterile order or Darwinian chaos, and that the status quo will lead to their ultimate destruction. Therefore, every mainline SMT game reemphasizes the importance of personal freedom at the risk of that ultimate destruction, because it's a fundamentally important thing. Law guarantees basic yet meaningless existence, Chaos guarantees hedonistic anarchy. And then there's also the option to deny both and accept a balance, which is Neutral.
I'd rather not spoil myself too much on Final, but while yes, SMT is not known for being wholly optimistic, they're rarely exceptionally 'cynical' like is being suggested. Things move toward better possibilities, or at least the hope for one.
P3's ending is very much in line with that sort of rhetoric. Nothing is solved, really, the big bad isn't 'defeated'. P4A demonstrates that humanity's subconscious wish for death still remains. You basically just froze the clock in P3. P2 Innocent Sin's ending was a pretty dour affair, and Eternal Punishment was similarly not 'happy go lucky'. They're optimistic (but there's nothing in the text that absolutely suggests that 'everything will get better collectively', it's the characters trying to set their own examples), but things don't 'solve' themselves like is being suggested.
Persona, Genei Ibunroku, and SMT all essentially subscribe to the same general thesis on, yes, different tonal grounds, but optimism vs cynicism (on two polar ends) for the ultimate direction of humanity (and other things like self-definition) is core to almost all of them.
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Pocky Balboa
Thus sayeth the Great Will: "ALL HAIL OPPAI!"
Eh, generally Neutral pretty much seems to me a "doesn't really solve the ultimate problems with the universe and will likely resurface" or we get things like the White. That view was pretty much reinforced for me with the time in-between SMT I and II. Strange Journey's Neutral also returns things to the same as they were before the team explored the Schwarzwelt...which the opening stated was an overpopulated mess eating up the planet's resources quickly. Actually, Neutral ending's state of the world is worse than before the Schwarzwelt investigation since by the time team contacts their backers, demons were already invading outside the Schwarzwelt and making a mess. Not a very hopeful state for an overpopulated world with dwindling resources. Nocturne's Neutral also doesn't really stop the cycle of destruction and creation.
Eh, to me mainline endings feel more like they're presented with uncertainty being greater than a better tomorrow.
I don't know, Persona just seems to have a better foothold on being able to deliver on that better tomorrow than mainline, and the idea that people aren't shitheads in general and can learn and grow from their screwups.
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Neutral is, at best, a kicking the can down the curb ending. Neutral in 1 led directly to 2 (and you dying in a cave). Neutral in 2 leads to 3 and the Curse. Neutral in SJ is explicitly a delaying tactic until you find a way to unfuck humanity. Neutral in 4 sounds like it's the path to Final. 3 is a bit different but still very status quo "all this will happen again."
Nyxistence
satisfied, jovial, wise
I'm not saying things always work out in Neutral endings of SMT games. Sometimes aspiration for humanity is misplaced. I'm saying that there's fundamentally optimistic idealism over what humanity can accomplish outside the realm of angels and demons at the center of the decision SMT tasks you with figuring out. Law and Chaos are ideals so extreme that they've crossed over into fatalism on two polarized ends. Something purely cynical wouldn't empower the player, like SMT unfailingly does, to decide the fate of humanity. You need to say there's a better option to deny the big movers and shakers of the universe, and SMT always lets you do that, and SMT lets you know that there's a better, if uncertain (for who was it that invited the problem in the first place) option.
Hence, there is an inherently optimistic counterpoint that SMT keeps in its' overarching thematic death match.
It's not Dark Souls-esque 'everything is shit now and was shit and will be shit because it was written'. Humans sort of suck, so the same things might happen again, but if you're a SMT protagonist, you need to hope that they won't. Or you just go full shitbag and become king of the demons or something. I don't think you're ever supposed to really think of Neutral as 'put it off for another time', it's more like 'it might happen again but we could do it better or we could be better than it'. That is, somewhat ironically, a very cynical way of looking at it.
And that reflects itself in pretty much everything under the SMT umbrella, including the most optimistic of its' products, Persona 4.
Hence, there is an inherently optimistic counterpoint that SMT keeps in its' overarching thematic death match.
It's not Dark Souls-esque 'everything is shit now and was shit and will be shit because it was written'. Humans sort of suck, so the same things might happen again, but if you're a SMT protagonist, you need to hope that they won't. Or you just go full shitbag and become king of the demons or something. I don't think you're ever supposed to really think of Neutral as 'put it off for another time', it's more like 'it might happen again but we could do it better or we could be better than it'. That is, somewhat ironically, a very cynical way of looking at it.
And that reflects itself in pretty much everything under the SMT umbrella, including the most optimistic of its' products, Persona 4.
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SMT is never "Neutral is the best option." It's pretty much always "these two choices are absolutely horrid and I won't stand for them." P4 was so outside of the standard themes of SMT there's a good reason they dropped the SMT branding for what was really Scooby Doo with P3 mechanics.
Pocky Balboa
Thus sayeth the Great Will: "ALL HAIL OPPAI!"
And yet looking at the games where we are shown what happens past a Neutral ending (such as SMT I's ending and Flynn's previous incarnation in IV), we still wind up with a shitty result. I can't really say that's something that encourages such optimism.
Fenruer
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P3 MC's saved status means that his soul can pass on tho. PQ says as much.
Also when a Bad Thing happens in Persona its humanity's fault and the fact that even if you put down one, another can raise up in less than months means that Persona universe is not that much better.
SJ gives you a glimpse of humanity's potential with Gore's prediction which specifically says that humanity gets better. Nocturne's neutral is kinda weird because you are following both The Great Will and Luci's ideal at the same time. I and II I'll give tho.
P4 follows the whole "humanity is kinda flawed but still pretty good" idea that neutral follows tho.
Then again I will always say that DeSu is the best at presenting all the sides without shooting itself on the foot.
Nyxistence
satisfied, jovial, wise
SMT never gives you an outright 'this is the best' option, no. But there's a reason why the most good things happen in the Neutral routes of SMT games. The most characters survive in the Neutral routes, the less bad shit happens to things you care about, and yes, the threat of 'this will all go wrong again' hovers. But you press on anyways.
I am not using 'optimism' to say that SMT games are happy. Or that good things always happen. Which is what I feel like people are being confused on?
I am saying that SMT always, always, always leaves you with agency, and that agency reflects a fundamentally optimistic ideal. Which is that you can change something. You pursue the Neutral ending, because yes, the other two alternatives are terrible, but why are they terrible? What's the first thing they concede about the human race before proceeding toward their ultimate (and diametrically opposed) conclusions? Humanity, as it is, is doomed. Let's reshape it to be more like us. Neutral ending isn't supposed to say that humans suck and will always suck and we might as well just pick this because I don't know, otherwise what's the point of pursuing it? Why is it better than the basic but guaranteed survival that Law offers or the ultimate freedom at the expense of essential empathy that Chaos offers?
To say it's 'put it off for another day' denies that, and essentially puts up the agency that SMT makes so important to a farce. You are a powerful force of change in SMT, and always will be. You are in a position with meaning whether you're just a demon summoner or a scientist or the Demi-Fiend or a samurai. And mechanically, SMT rewards those who pursue the hardest and most uncertain route (with more content, you see).
Neutral ending is about self-determinism and trying to prove we can do better next time. I mean, we don't. But there's no such thing as one or two or three strikes and you're at. We don't need a hand to guide us one way or the other. Neutral doesn't mean 'things will become precisely this shit 100 years from now but at least we have 100 years'. It means 'in 100 years there's the off-chance we have our shit together and that's worth fighting angels and demons for', it thinks the human race is worth saving. To me, that's idealism. To me, that is optimism.
Persona dropped the SMT label waaaay before P4, BTW. SMT was a thing that Atlus USA stuck on the games since SMT3 was a reasonable-ish success and they wanted to unify the brand in a Final Fantasy-esque sort of thing. Same with titles like Devil Survivor, but I digress. P4 is not a game about Law and Chaos and the ambiguity of the human nature (at least in the sense SMT is), but saying it's totally removed from themes common to Shin Megami Tensei sounds ignorant. Persona 4 contrasts a cynical view of humanity's ultimate and self-inflicted downfall versus the hope that humanity will become better than it. It doesn't split Izanagi or Nyx into alternative means to the same end, but it and P3 both reflect that core idea.
(also the denigrative comparison to Scooby Doo will never make much sense besides surface level comparisons)
I am not using 'optimism' to say that SMT games are happy. Or that good things always happen. Which is what I feel like people are being confused on?
I am saying that SMT always, always, always leaves you with agency, and that agency reflects a fundamentally optimistic ideal. Which is that you can change something. You pursue the Neutral ending, because yes, the other two alternatives are terrible, but why are they terrible? What's the first thing they concede about the human race before proceeding toward their ultimate (and diametrically opposed) conclusions? Humanity, as it is, is doomed. Let's reshape it to be more like us. Neutral ending isn't supposed to say that humans suck and will always suck and we might as well just pick this because I don't know, otherwise what's the point of pursuing it? Why is it better than the basic but guaranteed survival that Law offers or the ultimate freedom at the expense of essential empathy that Chaos offers?
To say it's 'put it off for another day' denies that, and essentially puts up the agency that SMT makes so important to a farce. You are a powerful force of change in SMT, and always will be. You are in a position with meaning whether you're just a demon summoner or a scientist or the Demi-Fiend or a samurai. And mechanically, SMT rewards those who pursue the hardest and most uncertain route (with more content, you see).
Neutral ending is about self-determinism and trying to prove we can do better next time. I mean, we don't. But there's no such thing as one or two or three strikes and you're at. We don't need a hand to guide us one way or the other. Neutral doesn't mean 'things will become precisely this shit 100 years from now but at least we have 100 years'. It means 'in 100 years there's the off-chance we have our shit together and that's worth fighting angels and demons for', it thinks the human race is worth saving. To me, that's idealism. To me, that is optimism.
Persona dropped the SMT label waaaay before P4, BTW. SMT was a thing that Atlus USA stuck on the games since SMT3 was a reasonable-ish success and they wanted to unify the brand in a Final Fantasy-esque sort of thing. Same with titles like Devil Survivor, but I digress. P4 is not a game about Law and Chaos and the ambiguity of the human nature (at least in the sense SMT is), but saying it's totally removed from themes common to Shin Megami Tensei sounds ignorant. Persona 4 contrasts a cynical view of humanity's ultimate and self-inflicted downfall versus the hope that humanity will become better than it. It doesn't split Izanagi or Nyx into alternative means to the same end, but it and P3 both reflect that core idea.
(also the denigrative comparison to Scooby Doo will never make much sense besides surface level comparisons)
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And then we have SMT II, where the Neutral ending is a pretty solid good ending, SMT III, where you don't either commit omnicide or side with retards, and SMT IV, where the Neutral ending is basically a Golden ending.
Just because the mainline is darker than Persona it doesn't mean it has to descend into grimderp to be taken seriously...and that's coming from someone who generally dislikes Neutral route in SMT games.
Yeah but on the other hand every single time "X Persona users save the world" you know something new and bad will arise because humanity is that derpy.
Not exactly as directly crappy as say, Nocturne, but still not sunshine and roses.
DeSu (which was in many ways a remake of SMT1) definitely had some of the more satisfying endings and was one of the few times I liked Chaos.
SJ's neutral is explicitly resetting to the same circumstances in the opes that Gore is right and humanity can learn from its mistakes. You're passing the buck to the next generation. That's not particularly optimistic; there's a hope that your descendants will do better but it's nothing more than that. SMT2 Neutral is still the best ending (and easily the most depressing) and by god does it get me hyped for Final. Time to punch Zordon in his stupid face.
P4 is so completely outside of the SMT schema that I don't think it should be included in the discussion. It's not a bad game, but it's not really SMT. It's a much more personal affair about individuals rather than grand ideals.
Neutral is about inherently choosing to remove your own agency though! You reject the ability to change the world through this great power and instead reset it to before all the big players decided to make it their playground. It's the idea that even if, say in SJ, Gore is wrong and humanity is just going to blow themselves up, that's still better than being forced to go with either Law or Chaos. You're giving your agency to the human race, and if they shoot themselves in the foot by Demifiend it'll be their own decision to do so.
LupineVolt
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Not really? Your rejection of the two extremes is an outlet of your agency. This is you pursuing your agenda, not the agenda of Order or Chaos. It's removing humanity's fate from the hands of Angels and Demons, who would rather see humanity turned into reflections of themselves than continue to be human.
Pocky Balboa
Thus sayeth the Great Will: "ALL HAIL OPPAI!"
But those never show what's PAST that. And those endings still have uncertainty in them (SMT II: Big Yellow's I'll never die! I'll be back! and, if you believe Aleph=Hijiri, eternal torture for Aleph happens; Nocturne: The cycle of destruction and creation is still occurring; SMT IV: hardly a Golden Ending if you haven't permanently taken care of Divine Wakamoto).
AuraTwilight
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Also, SMT protagonists are usually elevated to being avatars of humanity's choices in the grand scheme of things, which is why they have that power to decide everything. Choosing "Fuck you guys we're gonna keep doing our thing" is the definition of agency.
You're also removing your influence; Neutral is about letting humanity go it's own way without a great power (of which you are one) influencing it. It's a passing of the torch. Demifiend ain't reigning over humanity and directing them, nor is Flynn, SMT1/2 heroes, or DeSu. The endings of 1 and 2 show this most vividly; you actively remove yourself from society where you would have agency.
Fenruer
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Souls Hackers is the one that's Scooby Doo anyway
...and?
Literally ANY ending has an element of uncertainty by the simple fact you're not shown what happens next (in SMT IV Chaos Ending you could very well be curbstomped by a demon the next year, for example).
Also, the whole "Oh no, bad things will happen later too!" can be easily applied to any single Persona game. It's not really a feature of the mainline.
Nyxistence
satisfied, jovial, wise
But it's not. Neutral is a decision you make and yes, ultimately, you leave the chance you give to people up to... well, people, but conceding agency entirely would be not doing anything at all to start with. You work for your endings, and for the Neutral one, more than any other. You take power so you can pass it down to the people you think should have it, and even if there's no 'direct guidance' you offer in the end, that's still an act of personal agency and presumably reflective of a set of ideals you believe in.
I'm finding this increasingly harder to argue over because I don't disagree with most of what you're saying, but our conclusions are falling on two different lines. Because like, why is just blowing each other up better than snuggling up to Law or Chaos? If it's already clear that humans will do this same song and dance over and over and over, what's even the point of anything? YHVH and Lucifer are right, aren't they? What's important about humanity that needs to be preserved if that's all we're capable of? I think SMT3 is the only SMT ending that explicitly 'resets' things back to the way they were, and even then it left it an open question. I don't think any SMT game ever fully concedes that humanity will never get better than it is.
I think if SMT really were absolutely cynical regarding stuff like humans, there would be no open questions. No 'uncertainty'. That's basically my point. SMT inherently pushes forward an idealistic standpoint over the ultimate fate of humanity by giving you the option to fight to preserve it as it is. Contrary to what you're saying, I think the idea of passing it to the next generation in SJ is absolutely optimistic. I mean, yes, it's totally uncertain, but that's better of being certain of something contrary to humanity existing as humanity. It's another open question, the kernel of hope that we can do better. Next time. SMT3 is really the only SMT game that straight-up gives you a button to set things as they were, and I think even in that case, he's not exactly throwing up his hands to say 'well if it happens next time it's not my problem, I tried'. SMT's reigning concept over humanity and the future you guarantee through the Neutral ending is the hope that you can do better.
P4's ending is not about the team totally convincing Izanagi that humans totally deserve to live. She sees essential spark in them that proves that there's still potential. The crew of P3 prove that they've accepted their ultimate ends but resolve to live life to the fullest. Persona is more individualistic (real, personal examples of 'we can do better') than SMT's more collective stance, but it's not exactly any further removed from it than P2 or P3.
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Soul Hackers is on way too much acid to be Scooby Doo. Johnny Quest is more like it.
The point is that YHVH and Lucifer's options are inherently worse than letting humanity have the choice of shooting itself in the foot or not. The agency of the human race is what is important, a statement that being able to make your own decision is an end in and of itself. SJ also does the whole reset, with Gore hoping that the human race will be able to do better given a second chance. SMT1's neutral ending is canon to SMT2. SMT2's ending ends up with the Great Yellow's curse on you.
Basically if you look at them one by one
SMT1: You die in a cave and humanity ends up decaying into SMT2
SMT2: The Great Curse, which is pretty terrible for the hero as it just leads to 3 although the whole "we will rebuild" is somewhat optimistic
SMT3: You explicitly reset everything and go hands off
SJ: Another reset with Gore hoping we won't screw it up this time, hands off
IV: Explicitly says that Man is a creature that always repeats its mistakes. Arguably the most pessimistic despite reviving Tokyo
DeSu actually has somewhat of optimistic endings, but the neutral ending of banishing the demons does give up your power as well.
Pocky Balboa
Thus sayeth the Great Will: "ALL HAIL OPPAI!"
Because the problems of mainline are still caused by the same groups and factions time after time.
Nyxistence
satisfied, jovial, wise
Hands-off is rather the point, actually. Being able to make a decision for yourself is important and core to what SMT is talking about, I'm absolutely with you there. But at the risk of sounding like a bad Philosophy professor, why leave it back up to humans? Law and Chaos are worse options for humans, but if we're doomed to go on repeat, then any suggestion of agency and self-determinism is farcical. Humanity therefore has no agency because it traps itself in its' own cycle. That's the first conclusion that the forces of Law and Chaos come to before proceeding to their respective solutions to that. Neutral is a rejection of that mechanically and thematically, and I don't think the message is 'we'd rather do this again if it means not getting YHVH or Lucifer in our shit' but 'we can collectively move beyond this'.
Regardless of how it turns out game after game, it's a persistent hope that drags along the Neutral end. That humans are worth saving and that you're doing something rather than actively working toward nothing.
And I wouldn't really take that quote at face value. Because, uh, the White aren't exactly people you're supposed to agree with.
Regardless of how it turns out game after game, it's a persistent hope that drags along the Neutral end. That humans are worth saving and that you're doing something rather than actively working toward nothing.
And I wouldn't really take that quote at face value. Because, uh, the White aren't exactly people you're supposed to agree with.