#i labelled this mature because the thoth version of lust has Tiddies

[adachimoe]

do you have any posts about adachi's arcana and how it relates to him? i would love to hear your thoughts about it! ❤

sry i think i will finally be caught up on my asks now lol

I did post before about what Atlus said about both his arcana in the P4G lore book. My personal thoughts... ook tbh I think I haven't talked much about this over the past ~1.5 yrs because I am super duper not interested in tarot or the meanings behind it lol. The 0 card, Jester / Fool, feels pretty straightforward enough, but the 11 card, Hunger / Lust, is probably where this gets more interesting?

Like Marie and Aigis's Aeon, Lust is also taken from Crowley's Thoth tarot deck, and the design of the card is clearly inspired by it too. Instead of talking about the actual tarot meanings and the Book of Thoth, I will totally yap about what seems to be depicted in the art here and how it might correlate to the game.

From left to right, there's the Rider Waite Strength, Crowley's Lust, and the game's Lust / Hunger.

As Crowley's Thoth card is his version of Strength, both the Rider-Waite Strength and Crowley's Lust depict a woman and a beast with the woman seemingly taming the beast or holding it back in some manner. Strength shows the woman with her hand on the beast. The beast in Crowley's Lust appears to have seven heads, likely making it the seven headed beast from the Bible. Additionally, the art seems to imply that the woman is not actually in control - she holds the beast's leash, but she carelessly lays on its back. I get the impression that, rather than the woman having actually tamed the beast, it's more like the beast is allowing itself to be tamed; she believes she is in control.

The artwork of Adachi's Lust seems to have the opposite meaning to Crowley's. The beast is, I guess you could say, no longer allowing itself to be tamed. It's going to do something A Little Crazy!, it's gonna go postal!, and the woman is now in danger as she is about to be devoured by the beast. Her pose somewhat resembles the same pose she as on Crowley's Lust, where she carelessly lays on the back of the 7 headed biblical beast. Like the game's Lust doesn't depict her as in any sort of panic - perhaps she is oblivious to her demise?

Within the context of the story, Adachi seems to go from being "the beast allowing itself to be tamed" on Crowley's Lust to being "the beast who is gonna do something silly" on the game's Lust. His arcana even changes after he's exposed as the murderer, as if to show that he's no longer being held down.

Why Adachi would be associated with Lust to begin with... Might seem straightforward in that he's a single dude complaining about not having a girlfriend. But also of note is that in the existing Japanese translations of information about the Thoth deck, the card is actually called 欲望, which means "Desire" and not necessarily "Sexual Desire" as Lust would imply. And indeed, Adachi didn't just Lust for a hot wife who cooks for him, he Desired a whole life that he didn't have as a Cool Respected Hotshot Detective in a big city.

But while Adachi appears to be doin' the devouring, at the same time, the depiction of the woman being devoured by the beast also seems to correlate with Adachi's story.

His arc has a bit of "Fuck around and find out" to it - He uses the TV to murder people, jumps in the TV out of desperation, and assumes it's giving him everything he wanted; really granting his wishes and whatnot. But ultimately, Izanami seems to have been using him for her own ends. Thus, in some way, he can also be correlated to the woman holding down the beast in Crowley's Lust, only to have it backfire on her in the game's Lust.

When I read Atlus's thoughts about his arcana, I get the impression they only meant it to have the "Adachi is the beast" reading because they talk about it having a "do whatever the heck you want" meaning, so perhaps being able to see Adachi as the woman is unintended!

They have something interesting where they mention that the Lust arcana is also supposed to represent the protagonist... Aaand this is where the whole "Atlus thought they were naming it 'Desire'" thing comes into play lol. In addition to Adachi's bullshit, it's also supposed to represent the protagonist's "desire" to break apart from Adachi after seeing the truth about him. (So like, phrasing this as "the protag's LUST or the protag's HUNGER to break apart from Adachi" is weird as hell lol.) The arcana doesn't transform until after the protagonist tries to appeal to Adachi and get him to turn himself in, so it seems that, until that moment, their bond was still the Fool / Jester.

I feel like this is totally not what you asked me but I am reallllly not interested in Crowley/Tarot/etc sry