Reminder that Goro Akechi meant so little to Shido that even after the man was brainwashed into having a conscience, he still did not apologize for what he did to him or his mother.
Even at his most remorseful, he did not consider Goro at all.
“Please, you know I pretty much only talk to you.” He cringed as he said it, immediately visibly wincing at his words. God, he sounded sad. It was true- he spoke to his family, yes, but outside of that it was just Grayson. (By choice, mind you. He tried to limit what stressed him as much as possible, and talking to people were on that list, no matter who they were)
“Jogging sounds amazing. I- do you mind if I join you this time?” It was summer, and he usually avoided doing anything than light walking. Between his asthma and his binder (only one of those he had told Grayson about. He once had a coughing fit after jogging lightly and felt the need to explain) he was less than keen on it. But after a good few months of friendship with the man, a sense of the trust had built.
“You can- but will you be able to breath?” he asked, frowning at the man. Had he known about the binder- hed ask him to take it off for while they worked out, knowing how dangerous it can be but he didnt. “Your asthma will most likely kick in and make it hard for you to breath when we actually get to the real workout. Its 4 miles there” he worked out a lot- and had since he was a child. So his body was more then used to this. It was something hed grown up doing and everything about him had developed with it.
Over the year, I’ve seen various interpretations concerning the third semester and how “guilty” the Phantom Thieves are in falling prey to Maruki’s reality, and I wanted to throw out my own take and observation on the group. And this observation is based under the assumption that Akira has reached Confidant Rank 10 with every single party member, including Akechi and Sumire.
This isn’t to argue with anyone, and I’m not looking to make any sort of “I’m right; therefore, you’re wrong if you don’t agree” arguments here because at the end of the day, responses to media will always vary, and these characters are all human enough to have a multitude of interpretations. That does not make them badly written, it simply means that we as the audience may have different understandings based on our own personal experiences that impact how we view the characters.
With all that being said, I’ll get right into it. Do I think the PT were “bad friends” to Akira in the third semester? Short answer: It’s complicated, and different friends fulfill different needs. Long answer, below.
Starting with Akechi.
I’m gonna get this out of the way, but worry not, this isn’t an elaborate excuse to gush about their bond even if they’re my favorite characters. Bias aside, Akira and Akechi have a solid bond where they’ve finally come to rely on each other, and we finally get to see that come into play in this final arc of the game.
In Rank 8, Akechi expresses admiration for Akira’s strength and admits that he’d be relying on him in a pinch.
And this is exactly what he does when he seeks out Akira as soon as he’s let out of police custody. He notices things are odd and immediately goes to the person he knows he can rely on so that they can figure it out together. It’s painted as a deal, and obviously that appears strictly transactional, but that’s exactly how Akira has operated in his own relationships. He makes deals with his confidants; this is nothing new.
He even admits that he’d have snapped Akira out of the delusion, just like Akira does for all his other friends (albeit in a much less gentle way, but in his defense, he’s not exactly equipped for gently talking someone out of their happiness).
So for better or for worse, Akechi’s here with all the straightforwardness and sharp edges you could expect from someone dragged back from death’s door to deal with yet another manipulative adult trying to control his and his friend’s lives. He isn’t without his sympathetic moments, but for the most part, he’s clearly trying to be the consistent voice of reason when anyone may falter.
One of the most incredible displays of this is 2/2. By this point, all of the PT have been broken out of their trance, and they’re well aware that Maruki is going to confront Akira, especially because Akechi basically goes out of his way to point out that it’s the most likely scenario in their group chat.
Even though they all know this, they trust Akira to be able to handle this as their leader and to reach out if he needs anything. The problem here is that... Akira isn’t exactly known to do this. By now, they’ve all known him for a year, and they know that he handles most of his shit alone (mostly due to the Protagonist ProblemTM where the protag has to be mostly self-reliant to give the player something to do, but there are also instances of Akira deliberately hiding his pain and trauma from others to ease their minds [his headaches and responses to Shido]).
So why are they making him do it alone? Why isn’t anyone on stand-by? It’s possible they consider Morgana as enough support, so perhaps the thought never crosses their mind. Even Morgana is apprehensive about the whole thing, but doesn’t advise him to contact anyone else.
So who does give him back-up? Akechi. He doesn’t invite himself in, he doesn’t text Akira to let him know he’s just outside in case he needs him, and he doesn’t draw attention to it until Maruki calls him out.
He could be here for any number of reasons, and it doesn’t even have to be just one reason. But let’s assume he’s here because he wants to make sure Akira won’t be swayed by Maruki’s words or the temptation of his life without him being present to speak for himself. In both cases, he’s emotionally backing Akira up and going out of his way to help in his own way.
This speaks volumes for his strength of resolve and how far he’s come.
I don’t need to discuss the rest of this interaction because the primary focus is that Akechi demonstrates his friendship by being there for Akira even when his year-long friends weren’t (physically).
But are they bad friends for not doing this?
Not necessarily. Not everyone has this kind of strength and awareness to understand their friends on this level. Akira and Akechi understand each other well because they’re very similar at their core. This isn’t necessarily bias because the game goes out of its way to show and tell us this (hell, Arsene’s and Loki’s silhouettes are strikingly similar!). It makes them inconsiderate perhaps, but it doesn’t mean that they’re overall bad friends.
It’s not completely their fault that they buy Akira’s stoic leader personality. He doesn’t really give them much to work with, and as much as we all want to believe that we’d do better as friends, sometimes you really do think people can handle the problems they say they can and just hope that they’ll come to you when they need you. It’s human.
So rewinding now that I’m done focusing on what Akechi offered as a friend this semester and going back to the PT being under Maruki’s influence.
Each of the thieves offers Akira an apology during their third awakening, and I’m sure many people found this highly unnecessary because as far as we know, they were completely brainwashed by Maruki’s control on the world around them. However, if this were the case, then why would they feel so deeply apologetic? I have a couple theories about this.
One. This would be the second time Akira has to push them out of their own wallowing (the first time in the Velvet Room just before fighting Yaldabaoth), and their resolves back then would appear flimsy to them now having fallen under yet another form of manipulation. Where before they were ready to submit to the hopelessness and sloth, here they’re falling under Maruki’s spell because a strong enough part of them desired things to be different regardless of how far they’d come and how much they’d grown.
Two. Because they were at least partially aware things were odd and willingly chose to ignore it because they didn’t want to confront the truth.
This is said before the third awakenings, right after the group comes to rescue Akira and Akechi and help defeat berserk!Cendrillon. While the group had a conversation about vaguely remembering events that contradict their happy reality prior to this, this confirms that at least Futaba was aware things were odd even before Akira tried to snap her out of it. Whether this is due to her navigation abilities or her awakening having been linked to her desire to never again turn her eyes away from the truth, it’s hard to say. But this is important to note that while they were tempted by Maruki, at least one person in the group was aware that things were odd and willingly chose not to question it.
Can we blame her? Of course not. But it’s still worth pointing out that this situation isn’t so clear as “the PT had absolutely zero idea that they were in an odd situation until Akira tried to wake them from it.”
So what about everyone else? What do they really have to be sorry for?
Morgana apologizes for not holding true to his resolve, and he feels as though he’s let both himself and Akira down in doing so. He also acknowledges that he’s responsible for shoving all his own problems onto Akira and vows to change this.
While he doesn’t seem to admit to any awareness that things were odd before Akira put the idea in his head, it seems like he still holds himself responsible for having had doubts in his resolve that he’d reached with Akira in their rank 10. And these doubts caused him to rely on that false happiness and turn his back on Akira, even if he didn’t mean to.
I think it’s great that he brings attention to this and wants to be more independent. Of course Akira will still be there for him, but it’s not healthy for either of them for Morgana to have put him in this position, and now they can continue growing in their friendship. And so when he promises to protect Akira from here on out, it’s a vow that rings true because he had the strength to confront his own weaknesses, admit to them, and apologize for how they hurt someone he cares deeply about. Sometimes we hurt people we love without meaning to or when we’re caught up in ourselves.
And these characters are teenagers. They’re inherently pretty selfish, which isn’t an evil or bad thing so much as it’s a stage of life that makes it difficult to look outside yourself. Makoto even admits to this in her own apology.
When we’re fans of these characters, our instinct is to say you didn’t do anything wrong; you have nothing to apologize for, but these apologies aren’t coming out of no where, and they’re allowed to reflect and regret what they’ve done even if they didn’t mean to.
And I know I already touched on Futaba’s situation here, but there’s something else in her third awakening that shows her bond with Akira and adds to her guilt. She specifically fears that she’s betrayed him and hurt him greatly, even though he reassures her she hasn’t. Why does this stand out to me? Because all throughout Royal, one of Akira’s consistent fears is the fear of betrayal.
And this shows that Futaba knows him well enough to know this is something that hurts him personally, and she’s worried she did that to him. While the hurt isn’t as severe as she fears, it’s a fair assumption for her to come to after having admitted that she willingly turned away from the truth.
I’m going to cut the awakenings here because I don’t have much else to add about the entirety of the PT because it could end up redundant, but these were specific examples that show that they do have things to apologize to Akira for, and it’s not a matter of them blaming themselves for being “brainwashed” so much as them apologizing for once again putting Akira in a position where he has to snap them out of their weaknesses after they’ve promised to be there for him.
The overall impression I get from their responsibility in the matter is that to an extent, all of them probably experienced something similar to what Futaba described about having felt something was off initially but ignored/denied it until Akira came to them and really made them confront it out loud. Her sense of it may have been the strongest, but I still think there has to be some degree in each of them, even if faint.
This makes them human, flawed yet sympathetic. They’re allowed to mess up in their friendships, especially since a majority of them have close to no experience with friendship as is. Akechi isn’t the better support here due to his own skills in friendship; he and Akira have a special understanding of one another because they’re extremely similar and aren’t convinced by masks and appearances. And Akechi has been severely manipulated, so he knows damn well that Akira’s gonna need back-up against another manipulative person even if he thinks he can handle it alone. Akechi’s been there and he knows how that goes.
So it’s not necessarily a matter of him being the better friend overall so much as they’re all Akira’s close friends and support him in various ways. And ideally, Akira should have that in his friend group. There are things that the PT can offer that Akechi can’t, and vice versa. But I think it’s more than fair to acknowledge when the PT slip up and have a messy handling of their relationships.
Dean jumped when he felt the hand take hold of his, and he looked down at the small woman "Im fine" he said, his voice stiff as he looked back at the pyre before them. "Really"
Rupert hummed and closed his eyes as he felt his little one’s arms around him, always loving his son’s scent and the feeling of his heartbeat against his own chest. Holding the boy close to him, Rupert placed a loving kiss on his hair, before Arlo’s words made the widest smile appear across his features. “Aww, I love you too Arlo. So so much!” And his question made him smile even more, reminding him of how they’re little pack was just about to grow. “Yes, I think that can happen. Would you like that?” Rupert asked, playfully poking his son’s cute nose. “Would you prefer a baby brother or baby sister?”
“Both” he said, resting himself fully into him, his wolf softly purring long and loving and happy. “I want all kinds of siblings daddy. I want a biiiig family. We gotta make sure we can make all kinds of babies” he grinned up at his father “I bet mommy would love having lots of us too” the wolf in him- the omega in him- wanting to make sure the pack had its numbers.
