Discussion VideoGame / PersonaQShadowOfTheLabyrinth

I left it neutral as possible. Instead of removing it, I would instead clarify if you think I was biased.

The thing is, it's a Zero Context Example as-is. We need to explain why it applies, rather than just say that it does.

Seems like we've got at least consensus for at least Akihiko, Chie, Teddie, and Marie from everyone but MB. So we should probably readd those. Do you have any thoughts on them?

Yes "several traits are now more pronounced" is not the trope at all.

I meant individual traits in the cast, as in "several traits." I didn't mention anyone to remain neutral. I can edit for clarity.

Actually, I am a little offended you said 'everyone but MB', since I have made it very clear I have no problem with an entry in the cases of Akihiko, Chie and Teddie. Not Marie though, since she had 2 actual game appearances so far ( Her cameo in P 4 U 2 barely counts) and can thus not qualify for a gradual change in character.

That said, since Flanderization is clearly defined as a gradual process that consumes the entirety of a character, I still question if this trope actually belongs into a non-episodic work like this, where all characters still show facetted personalities aside from the running gags.

It's not a question that they're Flanderized like, for instance, Flanders himself, but flanderization is a sliding scale. I'm not claiming they're all bad or even mostly bad, but one trait is clearly presenting itself more and more with each iteration of the characters (Chie's meat, Akihiko's protein, etc.) It's not a matter of they're back to pre-CD selves, in P3 Akihiko didn't talk about protein that much. I can't even remember a serious joke about it, or a Running Gag about it either. It was mentioned that he supplemented his diet with a lot of protein; that's it. If it's a fault of the Enlgish translation, fine, but it is present.

I don't even want any specific characters in there. It's prevalent enough that some people see it in the characters. To prevent edit wars, no characters should be mentioned and we should leave the rule of cautious editing judgement in there.

MB, sorry for offending you. Surely you can see how I interpreted some of your comments as being against their inclusion, but I'm glad we're seeing eye-to-eye.

Suou, the thing is not putting specific examples in there is against the rules. Saying "this happens. Take our word for it" is less than useless. The Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgment isn't a replacement for context.

That context would require favoritism. Lots of entries that are constantly edit warred due to examples simply are replaced with a blanket statement and a rule of cautious editing judgement link.

If you have examples, add 'em. I've done my part to stop the edit warring. If you want to keep the entry, add some examples, if not, I'll just remove it. I already know the grief of choosing certain characters over others. Personally, I would just put Teddie in for now, as he is the most egregious example.

Going to readd with Akihiko, Teddie, and Chie.

What the hell, Suou? We had a lot of discussion. Most people are in accord on those examples. Stop making judgement calls without discussion.

tatsuya_suou did step over the line from what I can tell. He should have continued the discussion instead of going behind other people's back like this.

Fair enough, I apologize. The anti-flanderization crowd was just being a jerk and being a bit rude to me. I'm just trying to keep both sides happy, but it seems that isn't possible.

I take issue with the current way the entry is written. Not only have there been many analyses of the game that point out why exactly almost all of these characters' portrayals in the game are accurate and make sense in context with their changed situation, you don't even need such analysis to see that many of the claims above are flat out incorrect; Junpei has always been portrayed as a pervert who randomly drags his pals on date hunts and willingly tricks them into spying on bathing girls with them (both of this happened in the original Persona 3), Akihiko was literally introduced as a blood knights, this aspect of his character only ending up getting toned down in P3 due to his character falling entirely out of focus when the plot marched on, Marie has a whole sidequest dedicated to her, Theodore''s relationship to his sisters is portrayed exactly the same way it had been portrayed in Japanese supplementary material ever since the character was first introduced, etc. etc. etc. the only points that remain standing once you dispel everything that's conjunction, subjective impression or flat-out incorrect are the exaggeration of Chie's and Akihiko's diets and Teddie's flirting, and even with that, Teddie has plenty moments in the game where the claim listed above is simply untrue. Even the complaint about Elizabeth's personality doesn't stand, since she has been portrayed this exact way in every media that came out after P 3 FES, meaning the change is unrelated to Persona Q. In other words: this trope example is far longer than it has any right to be and colored by subjective ideas that should have no place in the main tab. Almost none of what happened is actual "Flanderization" as much as just players being surprised that characters don't act exactly as they thought they'd act based on their own impressions. If you want to dispute this, I can give screenshots from all versions of P3 and P4, side by side with screens from PQ, to back up my claims and show that these characters have by far not been "changed" as drastically as this entry would make people think.

The thing is, a lot of those aspects in earlier games are balanced out by the fact the characters have other traits. That's the thing with Flanderization, that aspect of the character does exist in the original, it's just exaggerated in later installments. The biggest difference is that the individual characters get a lot less screentime in PQ, so these quirks seriously dominate their screentime.

Though like I said earlier, I don't think Elizabeth's entry really makes sense anyway.

But not even that applies;,unless you completely ignore a cast majority of the game's script in strolls and mid-dungeon cutscenes (and trust me, I know this game's script; I translated about 70% of it for a liveblog of the game in it's first week of release and still read over my translation work of it sometimes, comparing it to the official translation). If you actually read the dialogue and pay attention to it, rather than to random gifsets posted on tumblr, you'll see that these character's other character traits are still very alive and well! Junpei still has issues with feeling irrelevant, Yukari actually acts MORE like the social butterfly she was always described as than she did in P3, Chie actually addresses her dependency issues with Yukiko a couple of times, Yosuke has a whole friggin' scene centered around his feelings regarding saki's death, which even hints at p4's worst ending in a really well executed way, Akihiko actually gets to show his relationship with Shinji as best friends in a much more convincing way than in the actual P3... Heck, even Teddie, the only character I think is actually a serious victim of Flanderization in this, gets a couple of really heartfelt scenes (some of them hidden or optional) hinting at his struggle with being terrified of rejection and abandonment! What happened in PQ isn't that all these characters were flanderized, it's that the script overall has a different tone from the two numbered games and fans are apparently unwilling to accept that.

Yeah... I've never seen a single gif or screenshot from the game.

I'll defer to you for Yosuke as I haven't played the P4 route, and I didn't put Shinji in as I thought he was more well-rounded than his P3 version (though not his P 3 P version).

But you're still ignoring what Flanderization is. It's not saying that other traits are gone entirely, just that the quirks are larger. Which they unquestionably are.

Actually, no. That's not what it is. What you are describing may be one of three things: Characterization Marches On or Flanderization, or the characters simply acting in a different "balance" due to changed circumstances. I think I don't even need to explain how Persona Q presents mostly the last of these cases. These kids are trapped in a parallel dimension with half a dozen people they didn't know before. Shrugging their characters bringing out their personality in a different balance from before off as "Flanderization" is not only ignoring the facts, but also the outright stated themes of the game .

Okay, we're basically going in circles for the time being. Our talks are boiled down to "well, that's not flanderization" "yes it is."

Personally, I fail to see how "the script focuses on different aspects of their personality" isn't Flanderization. It's still relatively minor parts of their personalities taking center stage.

Anyhoo, since we're just going in circles, maybe we should discuss individual characters directly?

Casual reminder that Tropes Are Not Bad, folks. Though I guess this one is kinda a contention point since it's kinda not usually seen as good....

First off, let's start with the definition of Flanderization, straight from the article. Emphasis mine:

So that second part actually would apply more if we were looking across the entire franchise and not just PQ. Also, I don't think anyone has hit full blown Flanderization yet, but some people are getting pretty close.

In the case of a single game though, it sounds more like Character Exaggeration, if spin-offs count as adaptations. (Then again, Haruhi-chan is quoted on that page....)

This is definitely not Characterization Marches On, though.

Anyway, I'm gonna go through the list of people that were on the original post, having played through a decent chunk of PQ myself:

I kinda agree that Akihiko's protien thing did get played up an awful lot. However, I do agree with the comment that he talks with Shinji a lot more in this game than he does in P3. SO I guess there's a bit of YMMV here? What one editor sees as them being bros is Shinjiro being aggressive to another?

I unfortunately have not started ESC on either route, however the meat thing seems more pronounced on P3 route?

Junpei.... PQ happens before the climax of Junpei's charater arc. His regular characterization seems to be there still, though. That being said, I do remember saying 'Dude, you have a girlfriend already, stop' a few times.

I actually don't know much about Yukari due to having not played her SL yet, so I can't comment.

I agree with this. If there's anything I'd consider Flanderization, it's Teddie. This is, of course taking into mind Golden's new content and this game. Granted, I could also apply the 'Before Character arc climax' sentiment to him too.

Ehhhhhhhhh..........yeah.

Yosuke feels normal to me.

Unfortunately, I messed up On Liz's quests in P3 and have never finished them as a result. I also don't know where to look for 'Theo's older sister's bullied him' save for maybe Fem C's route, which I have yet to play. Anyway, I can't really comment on her.

• Akihiko's ramped up Blood Knight tendencies are even worse compared to both his home game, and Persona 4 Arena, and the only thing he finds of interest to talk about is protein. He even says as such when he introduces himself in the P4 route! This causes Shinjiro to be hit with this, since it causes him to be more aggressive to Akihiko then he was originally.
  • This is the one I definitely feel the strongest about. Akihiko in P3 was a serious young man with Blood Kngiht tendencies, but those were mostly built out of a desire to become stronger to protect those he loves. When he does get competitive, it's generally to excuse something that he's been dragged into already (Operation Babe Hunt, for example). And protein? He mentions that precisely once in P3.

• Similarly, Chie's love of meat is just as pronounced, and in the Evil Spirit Club, she continuously screams in fear of ghosts.
  • Not going to lie, I don't really remember her fear of ghosts that much from the original game. That said, the Evil Spirits Club does make her full Cowardly Lion, constantly complaining about being afraid. And her love of meat it taken to a new level compared to P4, where it was already admittedly high. The fact many strolls and scenes take place in a food court doesn't help, of course.

• Most scenes with Junpei have his perverted side, something that was almost nonexistent in the orignal game, being played up. Similarly Yukari is also much more harsh on Junpei than before, and her inabilty to speak about her feelings gets played up more.
  • The tendencies of the two as a Boke And Tsukkomi routine are definitely played up. Junpei's perversions are pretty justified, though, as this is before he's undergone his major Character Development; at this point in time most of his characterization was "I'm chill, I chase girls, and I am SO JEALOUS of MC." I'd overall say the two are collectively a downplayed version.

• Teddie has his Lovable Sex Maniac levels turned up to maximum. Almost every line of dialogue is a shameless flirtation.
  • ... yep. This is pretty much accurate. Though as Stargirl mentioned, like Junpei, this is somewhat justified as being before the climax of his arc. But even so, he's even more of a LSM than he is at any point in P4.

• 'Since she's so Out of Focus, Marie offers little to the game other than her poems. To a few of her detractors, this is not a bad thing, as her poems tend to be pretty amusing.
  • Not sure if we should include the line about detractors (as that is a YMMV thing), but this seems about right. She's a goddess, a Tsundere, a fish out of water, and... well, the vast majority of her roles in the game were just freaking out about her poems.

• Yosuke fares better than the others, but also has more focus on his obsession with girls and the subsequent fear of their cooking (though this is not as bad since their cooking is legitimately that bad). When he isn't doing either, he's usually teasing Kanji in some way.
  • That... for the most part sounds about right for his characterization in P4.

• Elizabeth had a child like curiosity originally and was hinted to have a complex relationship with her siblings, but in here, most of it is played up to rather harsh meanings, such as using harmful objects on Theodore for no reason.
  • This seems less "they focused on this one aspect" and more "they changed these aspects." So not an example.

I think it's more her being a scaredy-cat in general. In her social link she freaks out about having a grasshopper on her, and in some of the new scenes in P 4 G she freaks out about a thunderstorm, and at the ghost stories the guys tell at the lodge.

From what I've heard, during her strolls in P3 she does some really strange things, since she's never left the Velvet Room (such as dumping an entire bag of coins in a fountain because she heard that's how people make wishes.) But, again, I've never played these sections myself.

That's exactly correct. She has vague ideas of how the outside works, but they're hilariously misguided. In PQ, the entry complains that she's shifted from naive and child-like to sadistic, which isn't a Flanderization because it's something completely different.

Junpei does call her Chidorita a few times in P3, so says the game script. I still maintain that "one letter away" is far too tenuous a connection for a shout-out especially since there's nothing else than other tenuous connections and fan considerations to back this up. Perhaps if she had forest-related powers or they called out collecting all of something specifically, but otherwise I think this is as far from a reference as it gets.

Ah, I couldn't find evidence that it showed up in the original game. Given that, I'm cool with cutting it.