#obviously im not perfect on my shadow self lore so blease do let me know im a SUCKER for how analytical psych gets used in this series

[caramellody]

Thinking about P5T again on like. Lore level and implications and stuff.

I dont think I've got anything concrete or a central theme. im just rambling, so be warned this is probably going to be a bit sporadic.

[MAJOR P5T spoilers]

I think what makes me SO facinated by the kingdoms is trying to make it fit to the persona lore. Because if you think about it, nothing technically contradicts what's been established already.

Marie and Yoshiki arent traditional shadow selves because theyre NOT shadow marie or shadow yoshiki, theyre just cognitive versions of said people taken from toshiros cognition (a la Wakaba in futabas palace) and given proper form by samael.

Hell, that's kind of the POINT with these kingdoms. To manifest toshiros cognition in its own pocket metaverse. It's kind of like one massive palace with toshiro as its ruler, except unlike the palaces, the kingdoms were created with the purpose to whittle toshiro down. If anything, they almost act like the jails from strikers in that regard (i.e., in the way their trauma causes them to remain in their position of abuse of power due to fear). Like, its noted how while this is very much all comming from toshiros own mind, its samael thays projecting all of this. And i genuinely wouldn't put it past this one god (who took one look at this guy and said 'yeah im about to absolutely crush this mans mental stability') to REALLY strech out some aspects of his cognition.

This is ALL preface to segway into my belief that the shadow toshiro in the 3rd kingdom isn't fully his shadow. Im not saying he's NOT his shadow self, but rather that he's only half of it. At least, i think so there might not be a reason, and he COULD really just be his shadow, and im just grasping straws. Who knows???

At least for me, what kinda tips me off is the nature of the kingdoms and their rulers. Marie and Yoshiki are, for the most part, eventually established as cognitive beings, hence why the nature of them being defeated doesn't cause them to ACTUALLY hurt the IRL marie and yoshiki. And despite all the theatrics, S.Toshiro follows that same rule: you fight him, you defeat him. Not to mention the way he comes back in the last kingdom. The rulers are to a degree all just puppets manifested by samael and created with toshiros memories as the blueprint. It's that same reason why i think s.toshiro is only half of the full shadow, with the other half having been fused with Erina.

Shadows in the persona series are meant to represent a persons repressed thoughts, feelings, and memories. Cases like futaba very much show that said repressed ideas do not need to be villanous. they're just something the person REALLY wants to avoid acknowledging or simply just have been unable to due to trauma or other mental reasons. And when you think about it through those lenses, Erina fits pretty well in being toshiros shadow self on top of everything else. erina is meant to represent

if theres anything that s.toshiro DOES remind me of its the fake shadow selves from ultimax where there is merit to what he says (like how the fake shadow selves are) but are ultimatly there to twist the truth than to give some sort of retrospective on it