Thread:Great Mara/@comment-35180808-20180624220035/@comment-35180808-20180625004219

Crok425, thanks for the in depth argument! Hoo, boy, that's a lot to respond to. However, there are a few key things that really stand out, and I'd like to focus on them one at a time. The first is less important: yes, 99% is an overstatement as far as Shido's involvement is concerned. I was merely making a point that his direct involvement with the plot is far greater, and yes, he is introduced as an antagonist right from the get-go; we, the viewers see the scumbag who assaulted that woman and put is in jail\got us expelled as a major antagonist from the very beginning, and his role only increases from there, especially once we know he's the monstrous politician he is.

Secondly, you say that his character revolves around a last minute twist. Same difference: how can a character who revolves around only being revealed at the last second be the antagonist of the entire story? And how is that a strawman in the least? You yourself said that his character doesn't exist without the twist; that literally means his character doesn't exist until the very end of the story, when the twist happens.

But the last and most important thing I want to focus on is what you said in the beginning: "It's not about the experience of the viewers, it's about the actions of the character in question."

That comes into direct conflict with what you said before: that Yaldabaoth wouldn't exist as a character because "the player wouldn't know this reveal at all, we wouldn't know he was the one putting Joker in harm's way."

If the viewers'experience doesn't matter, then why does a character's existence depend on the experience of said viewers? If Yaldabaoth didn't show up last minute and explain his involvement in the plot to us (the viewers) then even if he was behind everything all along, it doesn't matter, because we (the viewers) don't know about it.

After all, you say that Yaldabaoth's character depends on his twist reveal. Why is that? You said it's the actions of a character that matter, not the viewers--yet the whole point of a twist is to surprise the viewers!

The story--and the product in general--is designed for the viewers to be experienced by them. You can't say that their experience of the story means nothing. And yes, again, 99% on Shido was an overstatement for the sake of argument, and you can't deny that his on-screen role in the game was massive and impactful.

Now, one could argue that he isn't the singular antagonist--that the Targets in general are the antagonists as a whole. That, I could see, even though Shido is clearly top dog among them. But you can't seriously argue that a character whom you admit doesn't exist for the entire game until the end, who depends on being a last-minute twist for the viewers to experience, and whom said viewers don't even know about until the last few cutscenes is the main antagonist of Persona 5.