Shin Megami Tensei 5's Neutral Figurehead

Maybe I should be more fucking careful what I wish for.

You may remember that after playing Shin Megami Tensei 4-1 and SMT Devil Survivor 2, back when each was still at least a relatively recent release, I wrote a rant in which I expressed dissatisfaction and concern with the fact that Shin Megami Tensei seemed to be headed in a direction of mistaking Neutrality for Indecision.  Isabeau and Daichi, the representatives of the Neutral faction in each title, were both irresolute hand-sitters completely paralyzed by an inability to make a decision or formulate a plan of action to further their cause.  In a series which takes pains to make its Neutral story path a distinct option unto itself rather than a middle-ground, this kind of figurehead for the faction is even less appropriate or satisfactory for Shin Megami Tensei than it would be for any other given game with plot routes based on diametrically opposed philosophies.

Well, the good news is that Shin Megami Tensei 5 has put that fear to rest!  Guess I got what I wanted.  Its Neutral Hero is by no means a sufferer of indecision!  This guy knows exactly what he wants to accomplish, and doesn’t hesitate for a moment to pursue that goal.  No wishy-washy whining like with Isabeau, no helpless navel-gazing like with Daichi.  THIS Neutral figurehead knows from the start what he’s about.  Because this time around, Shin Megami Tensei has chosen its Neutral representative to be...

Yakumo.

Yakumo is the one that Shin Megami Tensei 5 puts in humanity’s corner.

Yakumo.

Jesus Fucking Christ.

Okay, Atlus.  Let’s just...let’s just review something here.  The Neutral path in Shin Megami Tensei?  It’s the one whose motivations are necessarily founded on the concept of doing what is best for humanity as a whole.  It’s the side that recognizes that human free will should not be trampled by the forces of an overbearing God, and also recognizes that a human’s life has value even if he/she isn’t powerful and ambitious enough to compete against demons.  That’s why Neutral is generally all about finding a way to successfully spurn the forces of both Heaven and Hell, so that humanity is able to both govern itself with its own laws, and also possess the freedom to pursue its joys and desires without paranormal competition.  You can argue the potential virtues of Law and Chaos to the interests of humanity in the long term as much as you like, and that’s fine and good and interesting--but at the end of the day, Neutral is the only Shin Megami Tensei faction that by definition has to prioritize the welfare of human beings first and foremost.

So do you see, Atlus, why making fucking YAKUMO of all goddamn people your Neutral Hero is a really boneheaded move?  Tell me you get this.  Please.  Please tell me, Atlus, that you can, at least in retrospect, understand why it was stupid to make the hero of humanity a guy who has said, and I quote, “Listen, without the will to fight, the will to live is meaningless.  If someone can’t fend for themselves, they’re better off dead anyway.”  

Sure, that’s the guy I want leading Team Humanity.  Yup, yup.  I want a guy who thinks the life of a therapist or a retail worker or a plumber or a farmer or an artist is worthless because this average untrained, peaceful human being doesn’t want to be forced into a battle for his life against a 7-foot-tall bipedal leopard dual-wielding broadswords.  Yeah, I think that the best person to put in humanity’s corner is the man who thinks that cerebral palsy is no excuse not to be out on the battlefield, personally exchanging blows with a chimera the size of a tour bus.  Stop lazing about, Nana, you think that just because you’re a 94-year-old retired social worker, you’ve earned the privilege not to be locked in brutal combat with Chernobog, Slavic god of evil and death?  No special treatment, you doddering layabout, trade that walker in for a battleaxe and be useful!

As incredibly boring and stupid as Isabeau was, as much of a disgrace as she was to the Neutral faction that she supposedly represented, at least I believed the game’s claim that she actually cared about her fellow human beings and wanted what was best for them.  All of them, not just the ones who would be personally useful to her cause.  Isabeau, at least, is not a person who I could see brow-beating an orphanage about the fact that its residents weren’t all out on the front lines of a war, being horrifically incinerated by a towering fire giant.  Atlus, you made the narrative guardian angel of humanity a man whose philosophy resents infants because they aren’t coming out of the womb clutching an AK-47 and demanding to know where that son-of-a-bitch Lucifer is.  What the actual fuck.

Hey, correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t we have an entire long, meandering chapter in this game that was founded on what a terrible thing it was that a girl had been bullied so much that she’d been easy prey to the temptation of the demon Lahmu?  I seem to remember that when this weak girl, Sahori, had been harassed to the point that she finally did something to fight back, it ended in violent tragedy for absolutely every single person who got involved--Sahori, her friend Tao, the bullies, probably several students who just happened to be in the building at the time, and Lahmu himself all died at the end of this venture, and even the protagonist only survived because the chick he was standing near just happened to be the goddess of Tokyo.  I’m sorry, was the overall agreed-upon takeaway of that entire situation somehow not the fact that it was terrible and tragic that Sahori was bullied?  Were we not intended to feel sorrow for the weak and innocent girl who was cruelly driven into a corner where she finally lashed out, to the destruction of everyone?  And yet, after taking a clear stance of sympathy with the downtrodden and passive, Shin Megami Tensei 5 then offers us a hero of humanity who would have done no more than sneer at Sahori for not being strong enough to fight off her bullies by herself.

Oh, and it only gets worse if what his page on the Megaten Wikipedia says is true.  See, it’s like this.  This callous, shitty perspective on the value of human life that makes Yakumo a considerably worse person than a substantial number of the demons and angels he scorns?  It’s only relevant because his Neutral faction plan is to destroy God’s throne, so no one can ever control the laws of existence again.  This means that no one can abuse the power of the position and impose their will upon all of existence, but it also means that no greater Law- or Chaos-allied power is gonna be able to come riding in to save humanity from the existence of living in a postapocalyptic world inhabited by innumerable powerful and frequently hostile demons who usually view humans as no more than resources or collateral.  So of course, in this scenario of Yakumo’s success, humanity will no longer be subjugated by the will and whimsy of an all-powerful higher being, but it will also have to scrape and claw for survival in a violent, inhospitable world.  A fact that doesn’t bother Yakumo morally, though, because as we’ve established, he’s the kind of guy who’d look at the corpse of a 6-year-old who got caught in a crossfire, and sneer that it’s the kid’s own fault for not being strong enough to fight back.  What an asshole.

BUT, this incredibly stupid and obscenely immoral philosophy might not even be genuine.  Now, full disclaimer: I do not recall seeing the following information in the game itself, and given that I moronically played that pile of crap enough times to have seen all of its endings, I doubt it’s something I missed.  I am assuming that the Wikipedia page is drawing on other canon sources like developer notes, or manga tie-ins, or the like.  It’s not something I can verify myself, at any rate.  We’re going to proceed with the belief that the page is accurate, until given indication otherwise.

So like I was saying, Yakumo’s shitty ideology may not even be honest.  Because, according to the Wikipedia page for Yakumo, he and Nuwa’s original plan was not to destroy God’s throne, but to use it themselves, and decree a world for humanity alone, with no gods or demons in it whatsoever (as seen in the “true” ending of the game).  In this scenario, humanity as a whole would be protected from these external paranormal threats to its freedom and welfare.  There wouldn’t be a long, bloody war for humanity’s survival and freedom; the weak and the peaceful would be safe and content inasmuch as humanity itself would allow them.  But Yakumo later changed his plan to the throne-breaking one with the every-man-for-himself rationale, because he and Nuwa fell in love, and since she’s a creation goddess from Chinese lore, wishing for a world without any demons and gods and whatnot would mean a world without her, too.

Yes, that’s right.  Yakumo didn’t decide to plunge humanity into a brutal, prolonged battle for survival against horrible odds because of an earnest belief in fending for oneself; that was only a convenient stupid doctrine he adopted after the fact.  He didn’t pursue a path which would result in the loss of countless innocent lives, and ultimately cost our species its capacity for gentleness and civility as only the strongest and most vicious emerge from the constant battles, because he actually believed it was the best course of action for humanity.  No.  It was decided to condemn countless people to violent ends and countless others to a harsh life of constant toil and struggle because Yakumo didn’t want to stop getting his peepee waxed.

Now again, I need to point out that this information on Yakumo having changed his life goals based on whether or not a snake woman was gonna be around to suck him off is based on what I read on the Wikipedia, not on what I have witnessed myself in the game.  It’s possible that this isn’t canon, but rather some wiki-user’s educated and highly believable theory.  On the other hand, the users of the Megami Tensei Wiki also have a purview of many more official sources than I do, and it’s not exactly unbelievable that this pretentious absolute turd of a human being would sell out his entire species for a handy.  I see no reason to doubt this is part of Yakumo’s canon.

But it’s still worth remembering that even if that Wikipedia page is full of crap, even if Yakumo didn’t decide that human lives would have to end in pain and terror so that he could get laid, he’s still a man to whom human lives have no inherent value.  Sociopathic simp or not, Yakumo is still an apathetic, pompous dick who proudly boasts a belief that a human being’s worth begins and ends with his or her willingness and ability to leap into lethal combat with monsters and demons.  And rather than making him 1 of the less sympathetic spokespeople of a Chaos route, or the face of some shitty Meritocracy faction like SMT Devil Survivor 2’s, or a natural selection Reason like Chiaki in SMT3...Atlus had this loser be the representative of the Neutral faction.  The faction that’s supposed to first and foremost be about doing right by humanity, ALL of humanity.  Brilliant work, Atlus, you’ve actually made me miss fucking Isabeau.  Just truly amazing stuff, you absolute fucking wads.