#wowie its been a minute since i made a p3 meta post

[kotoneshiomiofficial]

one thing that gets on my nerves when it comes to persona 3 lore (but i cant correct people on or i look like the nerd glasses emoji) is that shinjiro doesnt actually need persona suppressants. strega has always needed them ever since they awakened due to EL experiments, and assuming that theyre roughly the same age as the seniors, they've been using for about 10 years. and while the side effects will kill them in ~2 years (see chidori's convo with junpei about what he'll be doing in two years), not taking them will make their personas kill them in a matter of days, if that.

meanwhile, shinjiro has never needed them because he awoke naturally, not artificially like strega. strega guilt tripped him into taking suppressants after he accidentally killed ken's mom. akihiko says he "lost control for a moment" but we don't know what precisely he means by that. the answer clarifies shinjiro accidentally hit ken's *house*, so i interpret that as shinjiro missing a shadow with an attack, and akihiko not being able to cope with it in any other way, rather than his persona going berserk. (the movies may have portrayed this differently, im talking strictly about the game) we also never see him lose control of his persona again, its an isolated incident.

i really think that what happened to ken was just a freak accident, and i like it better that way. arguing shinjiro literally lost control of his actions takes away his responsibility for what happened despite it being unintentional, which is a really important part of his character, not to mention akihiko, mitsuru, and ken's! as well, it ties in much better with p3's themes of feeling burdened by and guilty of the past, and moving forward by learning to live with them and allowing others to help you carry your burdens.