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Persona General Revisions Thread Part 2: Hax & Additions

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Solacis said:
It's only one of the three. Not all verses have plot manip. The phrase goes "erasure from all aspects of existence, such as from history, narrative/plot, or conceptual/information destruction." Notice the "or" that denotes that it is any one of the three, not all three at once, which would warrant an "and".
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The idea is that a character has to recover from absolute destruction to whatever degree that means in the verse in question, but including at least one of the examples.
 
Anyway, what DarkGrath has accepted can probably be applied, unless there has been considerable valid disagreement afterwards.
 
Antvasima said:
The idea is that a character has to recover from absolute destruction to whatever degree that means in the verse in question, but including at least one of the examples.
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They did, given that Yaldabaoth’s erasure covers all fundamental aspects outlined within the verse(mind, body, soul, concept, and information). Sol mentioned this detail awhile ago, but didn’t include a scan. It was about the Thieves being completely forgotten about, such being confirmed by this piece of dialogue here post-reclaiming their existence.
 
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This may be late, but, as I said earlier with Bufula and Absolute Zero, I'm not sure I agree with Vorpal Blade being spatial manipulation just because of its name. If there are other reasons for it to be spatial manipulation, that's fine. However, if it's only the name, I disagree with that.

I think that's my only other disagreement.
 
Shift_Ctrl_Alt_Delete said:
This may be late, but, as I said earlier with Bufula and Absolute Zero, I'm not sure I agree with Vorpal Blade being spatial manipulation just because of its name. If there are other reasons for it to be spatial manipulation, that's fine. However, if it's only the name, I disagree with that.

I think that's my only other disagreement.
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There's more backing for it because of the name is far more direct than Absolute Zero, Personas and Shadows having already established spatial-manipulation, and while this may be seen as far more minor than the other two points - is a direct reference to "Judgement Cut End" from DMC. When it's used, there isn't even any form of visible blade being used, just slash marks appearing out of nowhere in the space that surrounds the target.
 
I'm currently taking an in-depth look through the scene in which the Phantom Thieves are erased to make sure I'm not incorrect in any information.

To be honest, it's actually very difficult to tell what the intention of the developers was here; for people to no longer believe in the Phantom Thieves, which wouldn't necessarily be historical erasure, or for people to have forgotten the Phantom Thieves entirely, which would be fair enough evidence for it. The scan listed above is in good favour of the latter. There are, however, other similar examples of people on the street directly referencing the Phantom Thieves and simply remarking that they "felt stupid for believing they existed", which would suggest that people do remember them and just no longer believe in their existence. Contextually, this example comes when the PT's are still in the middle of being erased, so you could possibly make the argument that people still remember them at this point. I feel the most difficult piece of evidence to wrap around is the fact that the Phansite is still active, and specifically shown to be active, even after the last of the Phantom Thieves are erased. Though this is also potentially explainable; given that the Phansite was started by Mishima, who is also one of the few people to recognise how the world has been warped by Yaldabaoth, maybe it could be argued that the influence of the Phantom Thieves was somehow erased from everyone else's history but not his? Maybe? If that even physically makes any sense? And then there's also the issue of the Shadows; the Phantom Thieves spend the whole game locking away shadows in the Prison of Regression unintentionally, and there's no sign given by the game that they've suddenly left, or that Yaldabaoth would even allow this. If the PT's were erased from history, then their actions would have also been erased, and the Shadows would have been returned to their real world counterparts. Yet nothing really refers to this, even though it'd be an incredibly major plot point if it happened.

In the end, I find this extraordinarily difficult to evaluate. There is some level of evidence that they were erased from history, and if you make a ton of assumptions, it doesn't technically contradict anything. But with the amount of "ifs" and "buts" you have to jump through to actually come to this conclusion, I'm heavily uncomfortable with listing it as a definitive statistic. It's not as cut and dry as "a statement or feat shows they were erased from history and everything they did disappeared", it's based on heavy extrapolation from very little given information. Which isn't necessarily invalid by any means, just heavily prone to causing issues. I can't really give any strong agreement or disagreement either way.
 
Starversal said:
There's more backing for it because of the name is far more direct than Absolute Zero, Personas and Shadows having already established spatial-manipulation, and while this may be seen as far more minor than the other two points - is a direct reference to "Judgement Cut End" from DMC. When it's used, there isn't even any form of visible blade being used, just slash marks appearing out of nowhere in the space that surrounds the target.
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Hmm... since Personas already have spatial manipulation, I guess I don't have a problem with it. It was more the op only using the name as justification.
 
Starversal said:
That's fair, although I'm personally of the opinion that "Spatial Killing Method" would be direct enough, and what essentially would amount to the closest known thing to a move description we have in Persona(sadly).
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Huh, does Persona really not have move descriptions? That's weird. I've never played a Persona game before, which is part of the reason I questioned it, but I've never played an RPG where the moves don't have some sort of description to them.
 
Shift_Ctrl_Alt_Delete said:
Huh, does Persona really not have move descriptions? That's weird. I've never played a Persona game before, which is part of the reason I questioned it, but I've never played an RPG where the moves don't have some sort of description to them.
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Nothing like Pokemon, no. Most of them just amount to detailing how it does more damage and what ailment it inflicts. Really makes it hard to argue anything for the meaning of spells past the animations and whatever the name may mean.
 
DarkGrath said:
I'm currently taking an in-depth look through the scene in which the Phantom Thieves are erased to make sure I'm not incorrect in any information.

To be honest, it's actually very difficult to tell what the intention of the developers was here; for people to no longer believe in the Phantom Thieves, which wouldn't necessarily be historical erasure, or for people to have forgotten the Phantom Thieves entirely, which would be fair enough evidence for it. The scan listed above is in good favour of the latter. There are, however, other similar examples of people on the street directly referencing the Phantom Thieves and simply remarking that they "felt stupid for believing they existed", which would suggest that people do remember them and just no longer believe in their existence. Contextually, this example comes when the PT's are still in the middle of being erased, so you could possibly make the argument that people still remember them at this point. I feel the most difficult piece of evidence to wrap around is the fact that the Phansite is still active, and specifically shown to be active, even after the last of the Phantom Thieves are erased. Though this is also potentially explainable; given that the Phansite was started by Mishima, who is also one of the few people to recognise how the world has been warped by Yaldabaoth, maybe it could be argued that the influence of the Phantom Thieves was somehow erased from everyone else's history but not his? Maybe? If that even physically makes any sense? And then there's also the issue of the Shadows; the Phantom Thieves spend the whole game locking away shadows in the Prison of Regression unintentionally, and there's no sign given by the game that they've suddenly left, or that Yaldabaoth would even allow this. If the PT's were erased from history, then their actions would have also been erased, and the Shadows would have been returned to their real world counterparts. Yet nothing really refers to this, even though it'd be an incredibly major plot point if it happened.

In the end, I find this extraordinarily difficult to evaluate. There is some level of evidence that they were erased from history, and if you make a ton of assumptions, it doesn't technically contradict anything. But with the amount of "ifs" and "buts" you have to jump through to actually come to this conclusion, I'm heavily uncomfortable with listing it as a definitive statistic. It's not as cut and dry as "a statement or feat shows they were erased from history and everything they did disappeared", it's based on heavy extrapolation from very little given information. Which isn't necessarily invalid by any means, just heavily prone to causing issues. I can't really give any strong agreement or disagreement either way.
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Ultimately, it's not really a matter of whether or not they were actually erased from history, specifically, but as Ant said, that they were erased from absolute destruction to the highest degree outlined in the verse. This is, ultimately, conceptual erasure.

Virochana (Vairocana?) cites absolute destruction as the erasure of the physical and mental realities, that is, the physical multiverse and the Collective Unconscious. Similarly, the true death of Umr-at-Tawil is described as causing the end of all existence with the collapse of the CU against the physical reality. Thus, at an individual scale, "absolute destruction" in Persona is equivalent with "erasure from both the physical reality and the Collective Unconscious".

We know just by watching the scene that the Phantom Thieves were completely erased on a physical level. Their bodies completely disappeared, after all. We also know that this was achieved via their erasure from Cognition, that is, as directly stated by Yaldabaoth: "You imbeciles are about to disappear from the people's cognition." and "Thus, those who have disappeared from cognition cannot exist anywhere". Additionally, the PTs' 'existing' in the Velvet Room doesn't count, because Lavenza flat-out says that they currently didn't exist while explaining to them who Yaldabaoth is and what he can do.

From this, we know without a shadow of doubt that the Phantom Thieves had been erased entirely from every aspect of existence outlined in the verse, and came back from it under their own power. This fits the 'spirit' of High-Godly Regen, while also meeting the technical criteria of returning from having their "underlying concepts and information needed for them to exist" erased; as the Collective Unconscious is composed of all the concepts in the verse.
 
Yeah, actually, that makes sense.

The thing about Lavenza saying that they don't exist while they are in the Velvet Room is a little bit iffy, as wouldn't existing in the Velvet Room still equate to existing in some bizarre form? Other than that, though, I'm in agreement with your argument.
 
This does make me remember that there is a thing on top of this that probably needs at least some level of discussion. I don't want it to be a huge deal or massive point, but it's worth bringing up if we consider this to be valid.

Being erased by Yaldabaoth is not the only way for the PT's to be sent to the Velvet Room. We see that, whenever Joker dies and a game over screen appears, it explicitly shows the inside of the Velvet Room with Igor talking to Joker, indicating that this happens if Joker ever dies. Similarly, this appears to be shared across all the Wild Card users, as this same thing happens in Persona 3 and 4 (I'm unsure if it happens in P1 and 2, though; I'll have to check). This game over screen will appear both before and after coming back from the erasure by Yaldabaoth.

The obvious difference between these cases is that, when the PT's are erased by Yaldabaoth, they manage to regain themselves and walk out of the Velvet Room alive. While it's comparatively indicated in the game over screens that Joker isn't capable of doing this, both before and after the Yaldabaoth erasure incident. I don't have an issue with implementing this information about recovering from Yaldabaoth's erasure onto the profiles, but with this in mind, we need to conclude what exactly the difference in these cases is. After all, it'd be a very questionable topic in Versus Matches if someone is able to only sometimes demonstrate such high levels of regen, and otherwise just dies like any normal person does.
 
I remember you brought this up before. It's because Joker during game overs lacks the sufficient willpower to 'reclaim his existence' the way he and the Phantom Thieves do in Yaldabaoth's case. Prior to Yaldy, he just didn't have the ability yet, while after Yaldy, Lavenza's dialogue clearly indicates that the Game Over only actually occurs in the event that Joker loses his will of rebellion; i.e. the source of his regen. Basically, Joker only stays dead if he loses the will to keep going; kinda like Bloodborne.
 
Yeah, I remembered bringing this up before, though I couldn't recall what conclusion we reached.

I don't see any issue with that explanation. It's worth bringing up on the profiles when this is added, either alongside the Regen justification or perhaps in the weaknesses section.
 
Yep, I agree with the whole regen thing.

I believe there were a few things in the original post that I hadn't yet talked about, so now that this part of the debate is pretty much settled, I'll look through those.
 
All attacks performed by or through Personas, Shadows or Deities affect the Mind, Soul, Information and Concept of their targets, in addition to affecting the physical body.

This is pretty much okay, though as usual, something affecting a concept is admittedly always a bit of a contentious topic. I'm not entirely certain of what standards there are for Conceptual Manipulation, though I think the argument for it being Conceptual Manipulation in this instance seems reasonably straightforward. Maybe ask another staff member for further input if you haven't already? I don't quite trust myself on this one.

All Deities and Rulers of Power possess Cosmic Awareness and Dimensional Travel on a Low Multiversal scale.

Seems surprisingly straightforward to me. I agree.

All Persona-users' Empowerment via willpower extends to the point of Reactive Evolution in the face of desperate situations.

Yeah, this makes sense.

All Deities in the Collective Unconscious possess Acausality (Type 4)

I'm unsure if this would be Type 4 Acausality. There's definitely something worth mentioning and adding to the profile here, but I don't quite understand why having been created in such a way that made it so that they retroactively existed in the past would equate to being bound by a separate system of cause and effect entirely. oh my lord this wiki makes everything you say sound so pretentious

All of the Phantom Thieves are able to summon their items and equipment from a shared inventory.

This is an incredibly weird one to evaluate. On one hand, there's so many examples of this occurring that it feels wrong to ignore it. But on the other hand, this is not too uncommon in fiction, and rarely an indication of a supernatural ability. It's similar to the famous example of "Nobody goes to the toilet in movies unless it's specifically needed for the plot". These things sort of just pop out when they're needed, since people don't really pay attention to this stuff, and they wouldn't want to depict everyone dragging around a giant bag at all times to explain such a minor detail. All in all, I'm neutral.

Abilities possessed by Shadow/Boss-variants of Personas should be normally usable.

Seems fine.
 
DarkGrath said:
All attacks performed by or through Personas, Shadows or Deities affect the Mind, Soul, Information and Concept of their targets, in addition to affecting the physical body.

This is pretty much okay, though as usual, something affecting a concept is admittedly always a bit of a contentious topic. I'm not entirely certain of what standards there are for Conceptual Manipulation, though I think the argument for it being Conceptual Manipulation in this instance seems reasonably straightforward. Maybe ask another staff member for further input if you haven't already? I don't quite trust myself on this one.
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Shadows and Personas are also referred to as archetypes in P4G's Edogawa Classroom, the same source of the statement referring to the CU being composed of archetypes, which is the basis for information and conceptual attacks. Doesn't get much clearer than that, methinks.
DarkGrath said:
All Deities in the Collective Unconscious possess Acausality (Type 4)

I'm unsure if this would be Type 4 Acausality. There's definitely something worth mentioning and adding to the profile here, but I don't quite understand why having been created in such a way that made it so that they retroactively existed in the past would equate to being bound by a separate system of cause and effect entirely. oh my lord this wiki makes everything you say sound so pretentious
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It's a case of technically existing before you were created; thereby existing before you came into existence. The "cause" of the gods and demons' existence occurred after the "effect" that is them existing. Sounds like a pretty clear case of the gods and demons following a non-standard system of cause and effect to me.
DarkGrath said:
All of the Phantom Thieves are able to summon their items and equipment from a shared inventory.

This is an incredibly weird one to evaluate. On one hand, there's so many examples of this occurring that it feels wrong to ignore it. But on the other hand, this is not too uncommon in fiction, and rarely an indication of a supernatural ability. It's similar to the famous example of "Nobody goes to the toilet in movies unless it's specifically needed for the plot". These things sort of just pop out when they're needed, since people don't really pay attention to this stuff, and they wouldn't want to depict everyone dragging around a giant bag at all times to explain such a minor detail. All in all, I'm neutral.
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I agree, it is pretty weird. But considering we have plenty of cases of them already summoning their equipment, such as with Joker summoning his gear when he regains his will of rebellion in the Velvet Room, then it's not like we have no precedent.
 
Ahh, right. The Acausality one makes more sense to me now. I think that's okay.

The summoning one is still, as you mentioned, weird. But it's really not that consequential in the end whether we explain it with an ability or just wipe it off as one of those weird writing things. If you guys think it's appropriate to list as summoning, I won't contest it.
 
Considering Ant was only waiting on Grath's further responses, and has already said that what Grath has agreed to can be applied, then I'll take it to mean that this CRT has officially been settled, now that Grath has more or less agreed. To sum up, the only thing from the OP that will not be added is Absolute Zero.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it's finally over.
 
Finally done, have a sexy dancing Naoto for all the lurkers reading. Shows over.
3de.gif
 
It's an absolute miracle this was settled so smoothly. Part 1, which I expected to be far less controversial (stupid in hindsight), is six times as long as this thread.
 
Nice!

(I can't wait for the next thread (which I presume to be about the 2-B rating discussed in the last thread unless I'm wrong and it's Low 2-C Palaces) to take 27 pages of arguing about the meaning of a single word).
 
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