#smt5v spoilers

[sorenblr]

So I’ve seen some Japanese tweets where they talk about the Buddhist+Gnostic associations of SMTV. Nothing major but that that Murakumo(Tehom as well) uses the same Dharmchakra mudra as Seraph in DDS. Another one believes Lucifer might be a stand in for Kokuzo Bosatsu as well due to being the Buddha associated with the Morning Star and how good old Lord of Chaos “transcended” beyond being a mere god, demon, or Nahobino.

Both the vanilla release and Vengeance are definitely playing with the theme of Buddhistic transcendence- it's perhaps the reason that Goko/Amitabha is the one to shepherd you onto the Throne. I think the paradisical Pure Land sect is an awkward association for that role, but, you know, he's a very crowd-pleasing Buddha. It's also why this metaphysical cycle is the "Mandala System", as a very stupidly-named echo of Nocturne's womb world.

This team loves to harp on the Morning Star shit so much that I don't even think bringing Kokuzo into the mix is that much of a stretch; even if it wasn't literally the intended parallel, Lucifer certainly plays the intermediary Bodhisattva role, rejecting the Throne and waiting to usher the protagonist into a more complete transcendence.

The Dharmachakra mudra is a very on the nose signifier, in light of all that. It's also a thing that looks cool to do before your big sword attack. Bringing it back for Tehom is slightly silly in a vaccuum, but it's consistent with the previously implied dharmic interpretation of Abrahamic religion. Make of that what you will, though.

[loopingpyre]

im completely normal about this

[aokozaki]

Yoko's all like "to really save your friend from bullying, you need to have enough determination to be willing to kill for her" and then Tao enters the level up skill and learns High Savior Complex Pleroma.

[tbatthis]

malding/eating after a boss in smt5v owned me big time so i will now ramble about the alignment lock. spoilers etc etc

i think the vengeance route using a point system it tracks throughout the game to determine your ending is better than base 5 just letting you pick a bunch of shit from thin air without much context, but me being chaos-aligned created maybe the funniest realest scene of all time like. narratively nahobinoman is all in on remaking the world to be better :) his buddy tao told him to do it :) he is going with whatever she says :) and then at the literal last second a goth goddess appears behind him and says “we should destroy the world and start over” and he thinks for five seconds and wordlessly walks over to her and holds hands with her. like yeah man me too

[sorenblr]

So why does Eisheth need Mitra, Loki and Forneus as her fusion recipes?

I honestly couldn't tell you. She's a nasty fucker. Loki and Forneus? Nasty fuckers, also. Maybe something to that effect. There's not much to go on with Eisheth beyond her association with sin- or I don't know enough to extrapolate beyond that, anyway.

If anyone else wants to take a crack at this one, be my guest!

[sorenblr]

Now that we've finished the game on stream, I'll try to get around to the SMT5V asks that I've been sitting on since release, as well as some other asks that I've been procrastinating on, over the next couple weeks.

I'll use the 'smt5v spoilers' tag for anything that touches on endgame narrative reveals or whatever, so block that if you don't want to see it.