Reach Out To the Truth: A personal exploration inspired by Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4

(I am going to do my best to avoid spoilers. With that said, the game is three years old. If there is the a spoiler or two in this piece, then forgive me.)

Who are you? What do you keep the outside world from seeing? Why do you keep that part of you hidden from those around you? These are questions that we rarely ask ourselves in our everyday lives because we don't need to ask these questions to live a hum-drum existence. It's certainly easier to to go through life without asking these sorts of questions.

So what's the point of wondering?

Throughout Persona 4, you get the chance to see those around you live their lives as would normally. You'll wake up, go to school, talk about rumors with your new friends and just be a normal high school student for a while. But eventually, they are forced to face the side of them that they feel they must repress. It's the side of them that they fear facing, because they want to fit in with the world around them, and it's easier to be what others expect you to be then to be who you want to be.

First, we need some context as to why these people have to face themselves; and in typical RPG fashion it is due to extreme circumstances. Your protagonist represents you, as you choose his actions throughout the game. Somehow, you find that you have a power that allows you to go inside of televisions and into another world of sorts. In this world, it is explained that the monsters are called shadows, and come from suppressed human emotions. These Shadows tend to be violent, especially if one denies their own Shadow.

The earliest case of Shadow rage comes from when you explore the Midnight Channel with Yosuke Hanamura, a classmate at Yasogami High and the son of the manager of the local department store. He urges you to help him inside the TV world to investigate the strange death of Saki Konishi, whom Yosuke has a crush on. When arriving to where Saki was last located, they find that is resembles her families' liquor store. They begin to hear the voices of her family and friends judging her for working at the department store despite the harm its been causing the Central Shopping District which has seen many shops closing in the time since the department store has been open.

While in the Midnight Channel's copy of the shopping district, a second Yosuke appears. He speaks of his hated for being dragged to a boring small town because of his father's job. The Shadow Yosuke says that he used Saki's death as an excuse to find adventure in the Midnight Channel because he was bored of the small town. Yosuke denies these feeling, but has to either face them head on or perish to his (now raging) Shadow-self. He eventually admits to himself, his shadow-self, and to you that those feeling are within him. By admitting that those negative feelings are within him, he's able to find closure and gain his facade to use when facing the world – his persona, Jiraya.

We typically don't go through the same trials as those in video games go through, but we should be able to relate to what the characters in Persona 4 are going through in an emotional sense. We have many aspects that define us; some of which we let the world see, while others we hide from the world and ourselves. We are afraid of being defined by things we are ashamed of that we suppress them until they consume us in a shame spiral that can be difficult to come out of, emotionally. When we can admit to ourselves the good and the bad about ourselves, we have a chance to become a better person.

I started this article to be able to try to figure out parts of myself that I'm suppressing. I hoped that I could find clarity into how I can be a better person for the sake of those around me... and I think I found something that I can admit to. I'm afraid of putting in the effort to become a better person and to get ahead in life, because it's always been easier to go along with those around me. I've been afraid that if I try and fail then I will be in a worse place than if I don't try at all. I'm still having trouble with this problem, but by admitting it I hope I can work to grow into something more than I am now. I want to be a better person, and only by facing my shadow can I accomplish this.