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Yaldabaoth Revision/ Persona Standing

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Dr._whiteee

Dr._whiteee

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So I noticed the Persona profiles are bit out of date, and it seems no real effort has been made to update some of the profiles/standings. Making this thread to have a discussion about evidence put forth to raise Yaldabaoth (and thus Satanael Joker) from his current standing, and discuss what level yaldabaoth may be. Discussion may also lead to changes in verse, but that will be canned for now.

So to begin let us review where Yaldabaoth is now. Multi SS+. This is from scaling coming from a ridiculously weaker Palace user. Said Palace user being able to maintain a dimension with countless stars, and having an ability which essentially galaxy bust. I don't think this needs to much elaboration but is noteworthy as a base for comparison as to why this current scaling is ridiculous.

So let's move on to the man himself. I think its best to start with the raw feats and move from there. For starters, Yaldabaoth is essentially a god born from the collective unconscious . It is known that the metaverse is a cognitive verse that also analogs as a spiritual realm (per Morganas word). It is well established that he has complete control of this domai , and is not only the ruler,but the treasure of Mementos itself .This is very important, as treasures are cognitive manifestation of desires,and thus drive the existence of palaces (in his case the metaverse/mementos). It's also important to remember some Persona lore from before the universal reset. The collective unconscious is thesource of humanities greatest power per Philemon. Yaldabaoth both rules and embodies this concept. We should also note that it exist parallel to the real world, which can be seen by the existence of save rooms where distortions are weak (reality flickers back and forth here from physical to mental/spiritual).

Now, how big is the metaverse? It is unknown, but we do know some things.There are numerous palaces apart from the ones encountered in the game. Both Mona and Akechi traverse them in the game. 1 palace alone from a mid game boss was large enough to house numerous stars, and that's one pocket dimension among many. Mementos is obviously the biggest palace as it's all of humanities and Makoto at one point point notes it may go on ad infintum. Suffice to say it should be reasonable to assume it is as big, if not bigger than physical reality.

Now let's move on. Yaldabaoth not only has complete reign over the metaverse, but his reign even extends to reality. In the beginning of the game he can casually stop time and reveal a projection of Joker's Persona to him. Later on he is also able to change the memories and cognition of pretty much all of japa , and even people extending outside of japan (as the phantom thieves were an international pheonoemona by this point as evidenced by the Hawaii Trip). His most blatant feat is his "encroaching upon reality" in which he fuses the metaverse with reality. This is clearly the merging of the physical and mental/spiritual planes. This alone should be outright regarded us a universe+ feat at the very minumum, and could very well be argued as baseline multiversal. We know his domain over reality in this state is his to rule over as he claims he can easily recreate the world (reality) for humans, and blatantly does this if theplayer chooses the bad ending . Here Yaldabaoth resets reality and makes it so the Phantom Thieves never lost any popularity and instead were praised for their acts. recreating/destroying reality is nothing for him . I think it's clear that this feat blatantly displays control over the physical and spiritual universes.

But surely that's where is domain ends correct? Nope. Yaldabaoth, unlike prior bosses in P3/P4 isn't content with simply ruling the physical and mental planes. Yald straight up takes over The Velvet Room . Thevelvet room is a dimension/existence beyond the confines of physical/mental reality and exist in the rift between them. With seemingly the utmost of ease, Yald takes over the dimension, Strips Igor (the master of the velvet room) of his powers, and seals him away, before splitting Lavenza (the VR attendent and active force of the existence) into two entities , and sealing her memory/extrasensory perception. This solidifies Yaldabaoth's ability to affect the physical, Mental/spiritual, and even existences in between the two.

Now that we've covered the major feats, let's look at this contextually. Alot of people like to argue "Philemon and Nyar are the god tiers and can't be approached! They are univsersal and only the P1/P2 protags get to that level!". There are alot of things wrong with this premise. Not only is it nonsensical to simply posit that god tiers can never be approached in subsequent games, but it also fails to realize the split between Persona games. Philemon clearly plays a bigger role in the prior titles, and while still present in the last 3, hadn't really shown up. This is why the final 3 are seen as weaker as they don't interact with these all mighty dieties.

Yaldabaoth himself is stated to be a god that derives from the Collective unconscious (CU). He is a spitting image of the lawful evil that is a mainstay in the parent SMT series. Yaldabaoth is not only the first antagonist (of the new persona titles) with blatant large scale control feats, but also the first ever protag to approach the velvet room with hostile intent. In earlir games Philemon and Nyarlothep were pretty much even, and their bet over humanity was influenced by Philemon via the velvet room/Protag, and Nyar's own evil antics. In P5, Igor and Yaldabaoth take on this same dynamic, but unlike the prior dynamic, Yald is completely hostile and dominates Igor taking his realm.

So what does this mean? It means Yald is clearly an enitity well above Igor. While Philemon and thus by proxy Igor, have pledged to only indirectly help humanity, nothing implies they would even let a hostile entity simply attack them and take over the Velvet Room. This means Philemon either

> Didn't care about the Velvet Room being taken over.

> Was helpless to the invasion.

> Got his ass kicked as well.

To me, I feel the second option is the most reasonable. It makes no sense for Phil to let another entity encroach on his territory. Likewise, I feel Philemon getting stomped would have been mentioned, or Philemon would have been sealed away with Igor. Thus unless Philemon doesn't exist anymore (we know he does in P3/P4), was unaware his realm was being taken over (extremely unlikely), or simply didn't care (completely contradictory to his purpose and prior actions), the most reasonable conclusion is that he couldn't do anything.

Further proof? In Persona Q the main villain is that of Chronos. Like Yaldabaoth, Chronos is born from Man's CU so that he can guide them in the afterlife. He splits himself into two halves; a humanoid named Rei, and an evil god called the Clockwork God. This god is capable of trapping Philemon in his web . Philemon is completely helpless to this God, and needs the party to intervene and set him free at his request.

So not only do we have confirmation from Philemon that the CU is powerful enough to remake reality. But we also know that gods born from this power are strong enough to overpower Philemon, even at half power. Yaldabaoth is not merely a god born from the collective unconscious, he is the treasure and administrator of this power. This means Yaldabaoth is much more intimitely connected to this power as he is literally the godlike manifestation of it, displayed by his control over multiple facets of reality.

Low 2-C Yaldabaoth

Support: Dr. White, Lukasolosyourverse, Edwellken (3)

Against:
 
But 4-A is more fun to debate at

In all seriousness this looks pretty solid, though a link to Atlus confirming that the aforementioned butterfly in PQ would be the icing on this cake. Enough to warrant a "likely Low 2-C" at the least.

Tbh I had thought that time-stop scene at the beginning of the game was just Ren hallucinating, but when taking into account that he was tapping tf out of the velvet room icon immediately before it becomes pretty easy to argue that Yaldy did indeed cause it.
 
LukaSolosYourVerse said:
But 4-A is more fun to debate atIn all seriousness this looks pretty solid, though a link to Atlus confirming that the aforementioned butterfly in PQ would be the icing on this cake. Enough to warrant a "likely Low 2-C" at the least.
Tbh I had thought that time-stop scene at the beginning of the game was just Ren hallucinating, but when taking into account that he was tapping tf out of the velvet room icon immediately before it becomes pretty easy to argue that Yaldy did indeed cause it.
Click to expand...
Yeah it was defintely happening realtime. Any other time cognitive shenanigans go on we see a distinct transfer scene to denote the change, but Rem simply exist in stopped time with the precurosor of the app happening right before. Rem seeing his future persona also ties it to Igor, who of course was Yald at this point.

As for the proof, atlus confirms in this interview that Philemon still exist as the Blue butterfly in P3/P4 and is still watching over the protags. Same blue butterfly we see in Q1 involving said games.

Here is the interview . Confirmation is last paragraph of first column.
 
Is there a person who reviews stuff like this I need to tag?

Chronos should prob also get a profile.
 
I would recommend notifying someone like Ultima, who is one of the most knowledgeable on MegaTen on the site if not the single most.

Yeah he probably does considering how Yaldy scaling to him is pretty important, also while we're on the topic of PQ is there anything interesting about the sequel's antagonist that you know of?
 
How do I get to his profile? I can't find a member search function.


I haven't seen any of the gameplay but I do remember reading somehwere that Enlil is another "administrator" of the collective conscious and someone arguing that makes her Yald levels, but I'm not sure how accurate that is or if I would agree to that. Something else of note for Chronos though is that when he made the seperate reality of the High school, he made the dimension outside of time itself. So if the party perishes in his reality, they would have been whiped out of their original timelines and history.
 
You can get to Ultima pretty easily by googling something along the lines of "VSB SMT explanation blog"

That prolly counts as some kind of hax as well as an AP thing
 
I wouldn't necessarily assume that every blue butterfly to appear in a Persona game is Philemon, especially when there's more stuff hinting at the one in P5 being Lavenza. Atlus only confirmed him to be the butterfly in P3/P4, before P5 and PQ even came out.

I'm not of the mindset that Phile and Nyar have to be the absolute strongest in the verse, but I don't think there's enough evidence to directly scale Yaldabaoth or Clockwork God above them simply because Philemon didn't intervene in their games. If they have their own feat on the other hand, I'll be all for it.
 
Edwellken said:
I wouldn't necessarily assume that every blue butterfly to appear in a Persona game is Philemon, especially when there's more stuff hinting at the one in P5 being Lavenza. Atlus only confirmed him to be the butterfly in P3/P4, before P5 and PQ even came out.
I'm not of the mindset that Phile and Nyar have to be the absolute strongest in the verse, but I don't think there's enough evidence to directly scale Yaldabaoth or Clockwork God above them simply because Philemon didn't intervene in their games. If they have their own feat on the other hand, I'll be all for it.
Click to expand...
That would be clearly ignoring the context. The Blue butterflies in P3/P4 are confirmed to be Philemon watching over them. PQ has nothing to do with P5, and in P5 game we are given direct evidence to the blue butterfly it being Lavenza and thus differentiated (and the confirmation is only for P3/P4). PQ obviously wanted to represent something with the "blue butterfly" (confirmed to be phil) being trapped by Chronos. Which is why they begin and end the game with it. Unless we are to believe it's a completely random butterfly, with no meaning as a cutscene, then the most evidenced answer is it being Philemon.

Why would Phil let yaldabaoth seal igor and take over the violet room?

As for the feats, they have been linked in the thread.
 
I'd say that the PQ butterfly could be more a use of imagery than anything else unless explicitly shown to be Philemon in that specific game, although with PQ only exclusively involving P3/P4 at that point, the butterfly being him actually makes sense in that context. However,

1, Philemon's butterfly form is just an avatar he uses when he interacts with the outside world, and one that he's never actually fought in.

And 2, even if he had, as an avatar, it wouldn't immediately scale to the strength of his regular form.

As for the Velvet Room, it holds his servants who guide the protagonists in his place, but other than that, it being taken over doesn't really directly affect Philemon since he exists in his own dimension which is completely separate from it. Seeing how Yaldabaoth assumed Igor's duties in "guiding" the player, Phil might not have even had much of a reason to intervene even if he wanted to. Of course this is mostly conjecture, but so is the assumption that Philemon tried or even wanted to stop Yaldabaoth during the events of P5. Philemon is by his very nature an observer, and even in the games where he explicitly appeared or played a major role, he did very little more than give the party advice and occasionally heal them.

I think there was talk of Yaldabaoth's merging of Mementos and reality feat being in the Low 2-C or 2-C range actually. Can you find and link the quote of Makoto saying Mementos may be infinite though?
 
> I think that is a stretch as a criticism Imo. What tension would there be if if a sliver of his aspect was captured? Atlus tells us that the butterfly is directly Philemon, and they clearly have given him a reduced role as opossed to the first team. The clear indication is that Philemon has been captrued by Chronos, and is helpless to escape by himself. I think it's a stretch to assume it's only an avater and thus has no strength in trying to escape. It also once again assumes that Philemon would let this happen.

> this is completely contradictory to Philemon's whole role in the story, and his reason for creating the velvet room.

A.) The velvet room was created to nurture the human mind and guide humanity. Philemon created the dimension and Igor for this explicit purpose which shows a direct intention. To claim he simply "doesn't care" that a foreign entity came in removed his servants, took it's role to deceive the protagonist, and exempted all control from Philemon, is just non evidenced and I'd argue contrary to all of the pool of evidence. Especially when you consider that when Yald first entered and began making hostile actions, there would have been no way for Phil to have known his intentions prior.

The argument that he let this happen because Yald was still training the protagonist is also really shaky. Yald was actively deceiving the protag, and set the whole game up against him. The only reason Joker wins is due to his bonds forged with the confidants, and the players ability to pass the Sae Check, which results in an Akechi (the anti trickster) winning. Seems like a pretty contirvied explanation that would an extreme amount of unwarranted assumptions.

As I said earlier, while Igor and Phil only passively help the protag, that in no means they are completely passive and would let evil entities waltz in willy nilly and take stuff over, especially when you consider that Lavenza actively fought this corruption and she is a servant.

As for the comment it was actually Yusuke

https://youtu.be/CnJyNKfxyPQ?t=14165

Makoto might have said something as well and he was reaffirming it, but I'll have to search.
 
Again, Philemon as a butterfly either can't or simply doesn't fight. The indication is exactly the same in the sense that he won't be guiding the players in the way he had been in the previous games. Philemon himself being shown as powerless isn't even necessary, as he wasn't in either of P3 or P4, and still didn't intervene during those incidents.

"Doesn't act" isn't the same as "Doesn't care", especially when we're talking about Philemon. Since his very first appearance, he's trusted in mankind's ability to rise above their natural evils without his direct intervention, and turning a blind eye to Yaldabaoth's test, which was rigged for the protagonist to fail, could be the perfect way to once again prove this. Making such a big wager is perfectly in line with his character.

Of course Igor and the attendants would intervene if they're being directly attacked. Philemon isn't. Each attendant has their own independent wills apart from both Igor and Philemon anyways, Elizabeth being the prime example.

The Yusuke quote by itself probably wouldn't be enough but maybe the Makoto one could add something to it.
 
> No? You are making an assumption that the form is powerless which is wholly unwarranted. It's his form he uses to watchover protagonist but he is still a casual universal reality warper. Getting completely trapped in that form by Chronos and being completely helpless means that Philemon was overpowered. That is the point of the scene fitted with the motifs of the spider (chronos) trapping its prey (butterfly). To claim, with that context in mind, that the scene is simply suppossed to represent some weak and irrelvant "avatar" of Philemon is pretty unevidenced and as I mentioned earlier kinda pointless, given it's signfigance as the opening and ending credits of the conlict.

> Yes it does. In none of those instances you mentioned, was someone attempting to both neutralize Igor, but also take over the velevt room. You yourself admit they act passively to help mankind. How do they do that? Via the Velvet Room and Igor. So for Philemon to idly sit by while Yaldabaoth stole his realm from him and completely sealed away his puppet, is gonna need actual evidence as to his intentions.

> Their wills being different has nothing to do with my argument and bolsters it. You keep claiming that Philemon is apparently some jelly spined entity who simply gets bullied in each of these stories and chooses not to do anything, whether it being trapped in a dimension, or having his dimension and attendants get trashed.

So Igor and Lavenza would attack but Phil wouldn't..? That doesn't make any sense.

Philemon doesn't actively interefere when it involves humanity' (and neither do igor or lavenza whom you admitted would fight back), you cannot confound that with Philemon acting passively when it comes to entities directly threatning himself or his realms'.

Well that portion of evidence is just supplemantary to what we know of the metaverse size even without it.
 
>Philemon's butterfly form was overpowered. The same form that hasn't ever been shown to fight anything in any of its appearances. This means that Philemon is either incapable of doing so in this form, or unwilling, but in either case it being overpowered wouldn't allow for accurate scaling.

>Yaldabaoth defeating Philemon arguably needs even more evidence. Without Philemon's intentions being explicitly stated, we can only go off of his behavior from his previous appearances, in which he almost exclusively leaves the solving of the conflict to mankind. This situation is no different.

>You keep putting words in my mouth. And either way you're clearly misunderstanding what I'm trying to say. Philemon isn't the one getting bullied. Losing his butterfly form holds no bearing on his true self's wellbeing. Losing the Velvet Room has no ill effect towards his goal if it's still being run. Yaldabaoth didn't "trash" anything. He sealed Igor, and split Lavenza. Aside from this, the room and its inhabitants were essentially unharmed. Philemon and his realm even less so.

I don't see why it doesn't.

There was never any threat to him or his realms in any of the above cases. Again, his own realm lies completely separate to the Velvet Room, and the residents were relatively unharmed.

I mean you're right, but an infinite sized Mementos could lead to a higher tier in the event that tier 2 stuff falls through.
 
> No? That isn't a logical conclusion that follows from your premises. "We've never seen him fight in that form" =/ "he can't fight in that form". Especially when Phil only has like 1 mission throughout the series in which he "fights". What we do know is that Atlus told us that butterfly IS philemon. No persona has him in the humanoid form past P2. You still have yet to go into my context arguments as well.

> No it's not. Once again leaving an MC to beat the evil forces THROUGH the guidance of the velvet room does not equal "Let any entity come into my house and take it over". Velvet room is Philemon's. It's the place that nurtures. And once again, yaldabaoth does this prior to the MC even being a thing. So you would have to prove when Yald broke in, that he he knew Yald would be attempting to take over as Igor, and prove that he'd be cool with that plan. Otherwise the most reasoned answers is that Yalkd focefully took it from him.

> No I am not I am using your exact words, I am not misunderstanding anything.

You are making post hoc arguments about Philemon. The Velvet room is his dimension. What makes you think when Yald entered and took the spacetime from him that yald knew what his intentions were? He just let Igor get overpower? Lavenza split in two? Because he both knew what Yald wanted to and trusted it? You are making some very large assumptions.

As for the butterfly thing, once again, you are going in the face of direct context of the scene wholly impart to your assumption that butterfly form is not truly philemon and some weaksauce aspect.

Yes they were? Your statements are demonstrably false.

> The velvet room is Philemon's territory. He created the room and the attendatns as the express means by which he indirectly helps humanity. He is no true nuetral, and this realms was his means of action. Yaldabaoth completely swallowed and distorted the realm per Morgana's words and took it as it's own, which is why it has the jail motif in the first place, and why your team gets jailed in the end game.

> The servants were far from "mostly unharmed". Igor got his powers stripped away from him and indefintely sealed until Yald was found out. Lavenza got her soul ripped in two and had her extrasensory powers stripped from her.

You can't reconcile these things with Philemon's whole character being helping humanity via the velvet room. Not only was it taken away from him, but also twisted from it's usual place of help to one of purely deception. So therefore the argument that "Philemon doesn't usually interceed and trust humanity" doesn't hold any water because he does interfere via the velvet room, and that room is what was overtaken and turned into something in the exact opossite of what it's intention is. So the whole reason he "trust" humanity is because of protagonist and his bonds in addition to the nurturing of the velvet room or else he'd have no need for it in the first place.
 
A majority of what we ended up arguing about relies on pure conjecture to support either side due to Philemon having literally 0 active role in P5 so I'm just gonna cut out and drop those parts. We can't assume things happened one way or another involving him without an actual appearance from him or statement from Atlus, which is basically my entire point.

The Velvet Room is there to nurture the abilities of the protagonists and nothing else. Outside of that role they never aided in the main conflicts of any of the previous games. The idea that Philemon uses the room to influence humanity is flawed and contrary to his very nature. Philemon trusts mankind's ability to overcome these odds of their own volition and free will, and nothing else.

Igor was sealed, and nothing more. Yaldabaoth didn't take his powers, he just masqueraded as him. Lavenza "getting her soul ripped in two" is intentionally making what actually happened sound far worse than it was. She was split into two separate beings and made far weaker than she was so as to not impede upon Yald's plans while at the same time facilitating the fusion function of the Velvet Room that Yaldabaoth himself couldn't due to you know, lacking Igor's powers.
 
> It really doesn't though. Atlus confirmed the butterfly is Philemon. The narrative clearly portrays him as being trapped and unable to escape until chronos is beaten. The assumptions are coming on your end as to why we shouldn't take it Philemon getting beat, involving the assumption that he is vastly weaker, and or letting his "avatar" get caught. But I'm fine for dropping that portion for now as it's overall not a crux of 2c Yald just more supporting.

> It's their to guide and nurture their abilities. Don't try to make light of it by simply listing what it does. It's clearly much deeper than that given he made the dimension and attendees in the first place. "The idea that philemon uses the room to influence humanity is flawed". No it's not. Humanity doesn't even really do jack outside of the protagnoist and those he forms bonds with. Bonds with are emphasized and their importance explained by who? Igor. It is clearly the the method by which Philemon chose to help humanity. And thus makes no sense for him to turn a blind eye to it getting taken over by an evil entity.

> No you are wrong. He explcictly seals Igor and we are told "my masters powers haven't fully returned yet" even after Igor came back from the seal.

I'm not really sure how you are trying to argue that sealing someone/taking their powers away, and splitting someone's soul in half/sealing their sensory powers, and taking over the whole realm isn't hostile and something Philemon just handwaves as "ehhh but did they die?". You are trying to make light out of his hostile actions while clearly missing the whole point.

Your whole argument making sense literally revovles around Philemon never doing anything, which stems from you trying to confound Philemon not actively fighting threats against humanity, which once again has nothing to do with people approaching on him, his realms, his avatars, etc.
 
>I'll agree to disagree.

>Yaldabaoth fulfills the exact same role. That's basically my point.

>Ok?

Again. You're putting words into my mouth. It is VERY hostile. It just isn't a threat to Philemon or his goal.

Your whole argument relies on the assumption that Philemon, who again, makes NO appearance in the game nor is even mentioned before or after the defeat of Yaldabaoth, acts contrary to his character as portrayed in literally every past game, is defeated off screen, and is never heard from again. Excuse me if I'm showing a little bit of doubt.
 
> So what? How does that erase the fact that Phil, with no knoweldge of Yalds intentions, should have responded to an evil entity taking his shit over? You assume Phil knew what his plans were, and even trusted Yald to follow through. Makes no sense.
 
> This is just more speculation and relies wholly on the assumption that Phil knew Yald's intentions and simply let the shit slide. I actually explcitly said the opposite. That I believe Phil was simply powerless to do anything, not that he got off screened like Igor.
 
My other point was that Stealing igor's power and sealing him and splitting lavenaza and sealing her ESP, is an act that threatens Philemon, as well as swallowing the velvet room. They can't be hostile and not threatening. Phil not interceeding directly with threats to humanity does not mean anything about his own realms/attendents.
 
You're assuming he didn't. You're assuming he was there. You're assuming he tried or wanted to stop it. We aren't given any information in regards to Philemon at all, so we can't prove he interacted with Yaldabaoth in one way or another. No interaction, no scaling.

Again, the belief that he was powerless to do something implies that he tried or at least wanted to. We aren't given enough information to suggest that. He doesn't make an appearance in the game and he isn't even mentioned. We can't scale to him if we don't know what happened.

It doesn't threaten him. Threats to his attendants are not threats to him. An ant can be hostile to someone and not threatening. We don't know how Philemon took the invasion of the Velvet Room. We don't know if he interacted with Yaldabaoth at all. Since nothing in regards to their interaction can be proven at all, at can't be used as a concrete feat. At best it could be used as supporting evidence if Yald ends up being Low 2-C through his own power, but requires far too much speculation for anything else.
 
> No. You don't get to play this "You're assuming" game when they are clear inferences from the game. "assume Philemon wanted to stop it". Uhm yeah I'd say that's a pretty reasoned and self evident assumption, given the whole room's existence is his way of helping humanity out. He created the dimension and attendants for a purpose and it's HIS realm. So yeah not sure at all how you are trying to claim Phil has no vested interest in what goes on there.

Yes but we have PREEXISTING data which indicates to use the Philemon clearly has a vested interest, in ya know, one of his realms. Irregardless of whether we see him or not that FACT does not change.

Yes it does. I'm not sure why you are being so obtuse about this. If I am CEO of a company and currently at my own home, and someone tells me that my company is being forcibly taken over, and my staff is being fired by some outside entity, that's a threat. Because it's my company, and I have vested interest in seeing it not be forcibly taken over. For you to sit here and suggest Phil is some jellyspined entity who lets this shit happen because "maybe he was cool with it since Yald impersonated Igor!" is not only unevidenced speculation, but completely contradictory to his story across the whole franchise.

Why do you keep bringing up feat? I never said Yald beat him just that Phil couldn't stop him from taking his shit, which is what happeed. Chronos DID beat him, but then you went on about speculation of Phil not being powerful, or it being an avatar despite us being told it's actually philemon and the whole point of the narrative context being Chronos trapping the actual philemon.
 
Philemon. Does not. Appear. In the game. He is not referenced. He is not mentioned. Any inference as to his interaction with Yaldabaoth or lack thereof is purely assumptions and speculation.

Having an interest doesn't mean he gets directly involved. He had a direct interest in the conflicts of Persona 1 and 2, and never got directly involved outside of aiding the party.

Your analogy doesn't work and you're yet again putting words in my mouth. A CEO's livelihood is (potentially) at risk upon losing their company. Philemon is safe on his own regardless of what happens to the Velvet Room. Not once did I suggest that Philemon was "some jellyspined entity". I gave one possible explanation for why he may not have felt the need to intervene when the Velvet Room got taken over, which goes in line with literally every single time he's made a direct or indirect appearance in any Persona game and decided not to involve himself. Nonintervention IS his character. I am not trying to prove that this exact scenario is how things happened. Again, Philemon doesn't appear, Atlus hasn't given a statement, nobody in game mentions him. We don't know for a fact what might have happened or not happened between the two outside of pure speculation.

Didn't =/= couldn't. Chronos caught his butterfly form, which has never shown any combat capabilities like, ever. I'm not outright suggesting that he doesn't have any in this form, just that he's never shown any, and we have a perfectly in character reason for him not doing so. Us being "told" it's Philemon is from a Persona 4 strategy guide, years before PQ was even announced. Assuming this is Philemon is at least partially fair due to that interview. Assuming that this was Philemon, he was using his full power, was still defeated and captured, we were given no clear references that this was him (especially from the Velvet Room residents), and all the while rescuing him isn't exactly a major plot point, is a bit too much. And would even be a massive outlier without comparable feats.

Also yeah, we should probably focus on Yaldabaoth's own feats since it could make all this arguing pointless anyway.
 
> "Philemon. Does not. Appear. In the game. He is not referenced. He is not mentioned. Any inference as to his interaction with Yaldabaoth or lack thereof is purely assumptions and speculation."

And none of this matters unless you are trying to posit he doesn't exist anymore and is no longer the creator of the velvet room. In NONE of those exampleswas an entity encroaching upon his control over the velvet room.

"Having an interest doesn't mean he gets directly involved. He had a direct interest in the conflicts of Persona 1 and 2, and never got directly involved outside of aiding the party."

Yes and here is where you are getting confounded. Stop bringing up the human realm, no one is talking about that realm. Philemon not actively getting ivnolved in human stuff outside of the velvet room =/ mean he would act the same against an entity performing a hostile takeover over one of his realms and it's subordinates.

"A CEO's livelihood is (potentially) at risk upon losing their company. Philemon is safe on his own regardless of what happens to the Velvet Room."

And here is your problem. You are positing that so long as Philemon is safe from direct harm that he will not care and thus has no reason to act. In my scenario the CEO is safe, as Philemon is in his realm. The point of the analogy is displaying that they can be passively threatened by their investments being forcibly taken over. It's still a threat to them even though they are in no physical harm. The Velvet room is Philemons. He has no reason to let an evil entity take it over and dismantle is staff that he set up for the express reason of helping humanity.

"Didn't =/= couldn't. Chronos caught his butterfly form, which has never shown any combat capabilities like, ever."

It doesn't matter. We are told that the butterfly is actually philemon. You are the one going against the blatant portrayal to add this extra characteristic of "the butterfly isn't him at full strength", which is a claim seperate form the confirmed fact that the being is Philemon (and thus unless stated otherwise should be speculation based on him being debuffed). Contextually why would they go out of their way to pose this god as a threat, by having control some weak sauce butterfly aspect of Philemon? What does that add narratively? If this was the case, why wouldn't Phil stop this? Because he doesn't care about a sliver of his power being taken? Okthen why would Chronos even go after such a sliver?

Nothing going down that rabbithole makes sense contextually.

"Assuming that this was Philemon, he was using his full power, was still defeated and captured, we were given no clear references that this was him (especially from the Velvet Room residents), and all the while rescuing him isn't exactly a major plot point, is a bit too much."

This is all blatantly false.

> The only character in P4/P3 that is a butterfly is Philemon as confirmed by atlus. PQ only inolves those games and incantations of those characters. What other Butterfly form being would have ANY signifigance to the game, showing Chronos (another evil antagonist god) captruing said form?

> Not a "major plot point". It's literally it's own mission, and the game literally begins by displaying this struggle, and it's the last thing we see before the game's fin end credit scene.Clearly Atlus was trying to drive this symbolism home.

As for Yald's feats, as I said it should be blatantly low multiversal, and it also tells us that he can effect the physical realm, the mental/spiritual, and the void reality in between mind and matter. It's just a matter of hammering down how low multiversal he is Imo.
 
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