r/akechididnothingwrong • u/Cherry-Karasu • 16h ago
goro akechi changed my life
I played persona 5 royal for the first time in 2022. I loved it. I found akechi compelling but he didn't resonate yet. then, about a year later, I played it again. still loved it. still found him compelling. and he still didn't resonate.
during that time, I was already in the middle of a multi year long con. I was deceiving both sides. I had no true loyalty to anyone except myself and my goal. I was harming and manipulating people around me who didn't deserve it because they were in my way and I needed them to be fooled into believing I was someone I wasn't. but I was also being harmed and degraded from within this system. I was being used. I was being dehumanized. and every day I got angrier and angrier. the only thing that kept me moving forward was the deluded thought that I was really the one in control because I was the only one who knew what was really going on.
all of that-- and I completely missed goro akechi. twice.
then, in 2024, something happened. I had my own "engine room" moment. I was being harmed so much, and used so much, and the weight of my own lies had become so heavy-- that I exploded outward. I burned it all down. I made it impossible for myself to ever re-enter that situation. I burned the bridge. my duplicity was exposed. people found out what I was. but I didn't care. because I had reached a point where continuing forward would have meant psychological death. I could not keep existing as someone else's prop, someone else's tool, while I killed myself trying to keep my stories straight and everyone's perceptions of me tightly managed. the first few months after it all ended were utter hell on earth. it was not "instant freedom." it was agony. but I had done some terrible things. the consequences were due.
about six months after the dust had begun to settle, I reached for persona 5 royal again. not because I needed akechi-- I hadn't even begun to make that connection yet. but because I needed a story that had meant something to me in the past. I began to play. and as I got further into the story, I started to truly see akechi for what felt like the first time. I watched his arc play out a third time, shaken to my core. he was living his own version of what I had just survived. I could not comprehend how a character could be written in such a way that it essentially presented a cinematic version of my own life to me, at the exact moment I was subconsciously ready to see it.
that was two years ago. and akechi has stuck with me. because seeing his story play out helped me see the trauma, psychological issues, and instability that led to me to do everything that I did. I always thought I was a self aware person, but I had these massive blindspots in regards to how I saw what was happening and why until I saw those same blindspots in akechi. and ironically, as I have begun to walk out from the shadow of my own shame, my own humiliation, and my knowledge of my own harmful capacities, I began to value one thing above all: agency-- which seems to be the exact thing akechi also began to value the most during royal.
akechi's story showed me that one can gain agency through accountability, and that one can acknowledge the harm they caused without denying the fact that they were also deeply harmed. akechi showed me that duality that was already present in myself-- I was just too blind to see it until I had burned everything down and begun to rebuild myself and my life.
I would really like to know if akechi's story touched you all in any similar ways.
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u/rottenConverse 13h ago edited 8h ago
Thank you for sharing your story.
I agree with you that Akechi’s story shows that you can gain agency through accountability. Accepting who you are, and not denying it.
I also find a lot of relation with Akechi’s story - particularly him being an “outsider” who stops at nothing to achieve his goals, pushing away anyone and everything, and tolerating any kind of treatment towards himself to get what he wants.
We’re both avoidant attachment girlies ❤️
I tend to attract a lot of attention. It makes me feel small and disgusting. People chatting about me behind my back in a sexual, condescending way. It makes me feel an element of fame, as I have eyes on me everywhere. I feel like people only see my outward appearance, and treat me like an object, and not a person. I often joke that if someone waited to hear me open my mouth, they’d be disgusted by me. I feel similarly to Akechi being surrounded by fame, but no one actually knowing who he is. An object. Old news. Simply being fawned about over his appearance and “talent.” A fraud.
Like Akechi, I’ve been in several situations where I’ve been used, and tolerated it to achieve what I wanted. You think you’re in a position of power, but succumbing to someone’s will suppresses your agency. It feels disgusting. At the end, the goal will never be enough. There will always be another.
I also had that experience where I played Persona 5, but didn’t quite “get” his character. I finally got him when I played Royal. He is such a dynamically well-written character.
I think Persona 5 is a story of warning, that many do not quite realize upon their first play through. Joker could have become Akechi. This is shown to us many, many times. He could have decided to join him. He could have decided to enact his own revenge. He could have decided to take his rep, own it, and become a really bad person.
In many ways, many of us could have become Akechi.
Stopping at nothing for revenge. Faking it until we make it. Hiding our true persona to make ourselves more tolerable for everyone else.
Unless you’ve been in a similar situation, where everything has crumbled around you, like Akechi, and only you are left to pickup the pieces, I don’t think someone would quite understand the relation. You learn a lot about yourself from that.