Would Persona 5's torture scene work with a female protagonist?

[FluxWaveZ]

A topic I've had in mind for a little while now, but do you guys think the torture scene at the hands of the cop in the interrogation room, during Persona 5's intro, would still play if it was left exactly the same but with a female protagonist?

Reference (at 6:48):


I've heard people say it'd need some modifications, while others have said that there's no reason why it couldn't work. So I'd like to see what people here think.

What of other scenes in P5? Would changes need to be made to the scene that puts the events of the game into motion for the protagonist, where

Spoiler: Minor P5 Opening Hours Spoilers

he attempts to help the woman from the man harassing her, but it backfires?

Trying to determine if they would have made considerations for a female protagonist while they were making P5. It did lack certain involved sequences like a gender-specific bathing scene from P3/P4, or P4's cross-dressing pageant. The fanservice bits were actually rather isolated and quick.

 

[Mary Celeste]

I don't think they'd need to change anything, off the top of my head

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

"Isolated and quick" the first dungeon is like 3 hours long and while it's about a rapist, the game is clearly trying to arouse the player instead of disgusting them with the statues of women's asses.

 

[Deleted member 5028]

It could work easily. Violence against women is a real thing (Shiho) and the framing easily tells that story with a few adjustments.

 

[feyder]

Would the makers of this sexist and homophobic video game care?

 

[FluxWaveZ]

"Isolated and quick" the first dungeon is like 3 hours long and while it's about a rapist, the game is clearly trying to arouse the player instead of disgusting them with the statues of women's asses.

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I'm talking about fanservice scenes which implicate the protagonist, not the player.

 

[sandboxgod]

Nah you can't be kicking the ladies around like that. I think people would get mad really fast

 

[BRSxIgnition]

Would it be fine if that male cop was swapped out for a female cop doing the same/similar things?

Legit question and possible solution?

 

[Deleted member 29660]

In the GBA port of Final Fantasy 6 they removed the scene of Celes being punched while chained up to keep them from moving up a rating.

 

[Dreamboum]

FeMC isn't happening, and there are far more violent acts done against women in this game.

 

[KillLaCam]

Technically yes but too many people would be upset

 

[FluxWaveZ]

FeMC isn't happening, and there are far more violent acts done against women in this game.

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On-screen? Like what?

 

[The Turbanator]

Doesn't Tomb Raider show way worse?

 

[Trejo]

Honestly, I think some changes would have to be made as I don't see those scenes carrying over well into a female character.

the game is clearly trying to arouse the player instead of disgusting them with the statues of women's asses.

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Would the makers of this sexist and homophobic video game care?

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Thread is off to a great start already!

 

[FluxWaveZ]

Doesn't Tomb Raider show way worse?

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Yeah, and other games do as well. But they're also not Persona 5, which has other reasons for people to look at it under a different scope.

 

[convo]

It would take more work than some rewrites, a female protagonist in this scenario would get a different sort of spotlight directed at them than the current male one. You need to say something more,direct things differently than what's being said in the base game. Atlus admitted in an interview how a female protagonist would require more resources and changes than what they thought was worth 2 years ago. Now with more success and a stable ground to stand under a different company maybe they can have something extra to add in a new edition.

 

[Chie Satonaka]

"Isolated and quick" the first dungeon is like 3 hours long and while it's about a rapist, the game is clearly trying to arouse the player instead of disgusting them with the statues of women's asses.

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This is... uh.

This sure is one way to think about it, I guess.

 

[Lant_War]

"Isolated and quick" the first dungeon is like 3 hours long and while it's about a rapist, the game is clearly trying to arouse the player instead of disgusting them with the statues of women's asses.

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Yeah if you completely ignore the context of the whole palace it can look bad. So can anything taken out of context.

 

[Richter1887]

It shouldn't matter but I feel people would be mad yes.

 

[Eros]

I think it would get complaints

 

[Aters]

Let the female protagonist go through everything the male protagonist go through. As long as the devs don't go out of their way to make torture porn, it's fine.

Nah you can't be kicking the ladies around like that. I think people would get mad really fast

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But people are not mad when a boy is kicked around like that? That's sexism.

 

[Dreamboum]

On-screen? Like what?

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On-screen, no. But this torture is already graphic, I don't see how a female protagonist changes the violence. That's still a teenager getting his ass beat and drugged either way

 

[jett]

I'm playing through Persona 5 right now for the first time man, what the fuck. :/

 

[closer]

It would play, like the trope of someone getting hit and staring back defiantly isnt exactly limited in this sense, but itd definitely have a different context.

 

[FluxWaveZ]

On-screen, no. But this torture is already graphic, I don't see how a female protagonist changes the violence. That's still a teenager getting his ass beat and drugged either way

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Hence the question. There are already people thinking it would need to be changed here, but then you think it could remain the same.

I'm playing through Persona 5 right now for the first time man, what the fuck. :/

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This scene is literally within the first 7 minutes of the game.

 

[sandboxgod]

But people are not mad when a boy is kicked around like that? That's sexism.

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We shouldn't have to think bout this too hard. Why would people be okay at all with watching a woman that is possibly pregnant get kicked in the stomach?

edit- Maybe you posted before watching the video, but my boy here got kicked in the tummy

 

[WrenchNinja]

There is definitely a specific treatment of the protagonist that hinges on everyone thinking of him as a violent delinquent and thug to begin with that makes them all think it's okay to treat him like garbage. I don't know if it would work the same if they swapped the gender.

 

[Shy]

Yes. You could have a female MC without changing a single thing.

I thought it was incredible dumb not having the option.

 

[Observation Platform]

But people are not mad when a boy is kicked around like that? That's sexism.

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You must be new around here. Male sexism isn't yet in vogue. Come back later.

 

[Alvis]

What the actual fuck, of course.

This reminds me of people saying back on GAF that shooters like Uncharted etc shouldn't have female enemies. Why not? Just do the thing you want to do regardless of the gender of the character. Like it's so weird, you can build a torture scene with a boy but not with a girl? If you choose the boy you get the torture scene but if you choose the girl you don't? Lmao

Also that "torture scene" is super tame, this is not like the GTA V torture scene, which did get complains, but not because of anyone's gender, lmao.

You must be new around here. Only oppressed minorities matter.

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Being presented with a dumb idea or concept doesn't justify mocking minorities and trolling, tho. So get out of here
EDIT: That ninja edit was quick, unfortunately not quick enough.

 

[Trojita]

Just unspoiler that shit OP. People are getting the wrong idea about what you are asking with the question.

In the GBA port of Final Fantasy 6 they removed the scene of Celes being punched while chained up to keep them from moving up a rating.

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I thought that had more to do with kidnappings occurring around the time of release?

 

[Remember]

Nah you can't be kicking the ladies around like that. I think people would get mad really fast

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Pretty much this. In real life, actual torture techniques and fighting were not changed for he better due to the gender of the person, they were simply tortured or hit. However in media it would upset too many people to keep it the same.

 

[Aexact]

In the GBA port of Final Fantasy 6 they removed the scene of Celes being punched while chained up to keep them from moving up a rating.

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I thought that was in response to kidnappings in Japan at the time.

But yeah, I saw people asking for the female MC for P5R but I really don't think Atlus would go for it. Not saying it's right but the power dynamics changes when the drunkard accuses a high school girl of assault, what the cops do in the intro. Shiho was a abused yeah but offscreen.

 

[Dale Copper]

Yes. You could have a female MC without changing a single thing.

I thought it was incredible dumb not having the option.

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It very much is.

 

[convo]

On-screen, no. But this torture is already graphic, I don't see how a female protagonist changes the violence. That's still a teenager getting his ass beat and drugged either way

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The real world does treat females differently and just copy-pasting models is the lazy way to portray things here. A lot more can be said if things are handled differently, a female protagonist would get different sort of rumours about them in school and around them. The protagonist may get shit on, but some reasonings in the story would need work to make sense of things. I'd rather they actually put in effort than swap models and nouns, scenario's need to get expanded upon and looked at in a different light.

 

[egg-on-curry]

I don't think the first few scenes matter as much as this right here

There is definitely a specific treatment of the protagonist that hinges on everyone thinking of him as a violent delinquent and thug to begin with that makes them all think it's okay to treat him like garbage. I don't know if it would work the same if they swapped the gender.

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The real world does treat females differently and just copy-pasting models is the lazy way to portray things here. A lot more can be said if things are handled differently, a female protagonist would get different sort of rumours about them in school and around them. The protagonist may get shit on, but some reasonings in the story would need work to make sense of things. I'd rather they actually put in effort than swap models and nouns, scenario's need to get expanded upon and looked at in a different light.

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Kamoshida's dialogue among other things would have to be overhauled re: protagonist, and her experience overall would be different. That said, has the potential to be an even harder hitting game.

 

[Comic Obsessed]

Sure.

I just want to play as female.

 

[chrominance]

I don't feel like the brutality of the interrogation would be inherently more sexualized if you swapped the gender of the victim. You could potentially play the scene exactly as is and still get essentially the same message across.

You'd probably have to change aspects of the game in general to make a female protagonist work, especially given that Atlus made changes above and beyond just the gender swap in P3P and would probably want to do the same here if they made the attempt. But this specific scene I think would work fine as-is.

 

[Dreamboum]

The real world does treat females differently and just copy-pasting models is the lazy way to portray things here. A lot more can be said if things are handled differently, a female protagonist would get different sort of rumours about them in school and around them. The protagonist may get shit on, but some reasonings in the story would need work to make sense of things. I'd rather they actually put in effort than swap models and nouns, scenario's need to get expanded upon and looked at in a different light.

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Sure but we're not talking about the aftermath here. It raises eyebrows either way that they feel they had to go to the distance regarding this scene.

 

[Alvis]

Just curious: Would people feel better about the scene if the agents were female instead of male alongside the gender swap of the proganist?

 

[sandboxgod]

Just curious: Would people feel better about the scene if the agents were female instead of male?

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I would not. Because if the protagonist was a female and possibly pregnant, I would not enjoy watching a possibly pregnant girl get kicked in her stomach

(It doesnt matter if the police are male/female)

 

[Skyball Paint]

It would be downright cowardly to change it for the female protagonist

 

[PaperSparrow]

I say yes. The fact that it's a girl will probably make it harder to stomach for some, but it wasn't some wholesome scene to begin with. A man is beating up a defenseless teenager either way.

There is definitely a specific treatment of the protagonist that hinges on everyone thinking of him as a violent delinquent and thug to begin with that makes them all think it's okay to treat him like garbage. I don't know if it would work the same if they swapped the gender.

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A female mc could definitely be treated like garbage and a violent delinquent. It happens in media (Deltarune being a recent example) and real life all the time.

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

The way to do Persona 5 female is to rewrite the female MC as being viewed as a liar who tried to smear a Good Man tm.

This would require fairly heavy rewrites, yes.

 

[Alvis]

I would not. Because if the protagonist was a female and possibly pregnant, I would not enjoy watching a possibly pregnant girl get kicked in her stomach

(It doesnt matter if the police or male/female)

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But this means that, when designing a game with a female protagonist in mind, you arbitrarily get more restrictions as to what scenes you can and can't make. Isn't this super stupid?

Like, we advocate for mole female protagonists in games, and more female representation in general. But at the same time, if your protagonist is female, you can't build y, x or z scenes.

And I guess you are against having female enemies / soldiers in games like Uncharted, CoD, etc? That's also part of having female representation. Sure, the women you'd kill in these games "may be pregnant"...but... so what?

First of all, they are *not* pregnant. They are poligonal characters in a videogame, and the writers wouldn't randomly say "Oh yeah this character you kill is gonna be pregnant LOL" and if they do they'd make it obvious or noticeable in some way, you don't have to think about how she "might" be pregnant.

And second of all, the man you kill in videogames "might" have a family, no? You "might" have put a bullet in the head of someone who has a daugher back home waiting for him!

Or...not, because he's a poligonal character in a videogame.

Same concept applies to the Persona 5 "torture scene". This hypothetical female protagonist would not be pregnant. You know that fully well.

EDIT: Also, what do you think about the female protagonist in Assassin's Creed Odyssey? The enemies can stab you, a possibly pregnant woman, through the stomach. lol

 

[convo]

Sure but we're not talking about the aftermath here. It raises eyebrows either way that they feel they had to go to the distance regarding this scene.

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You can't ignore the aftermath or rather the story preceding the torture scene. Once you do this kind of violence against a female it needs more introspection and effort in the direction of the events in the whole game. Sure it would be a biting scene but if everything else is the same it would be lazy and mean no effort was put into making it meaningful. Not just a teenage punk getting unjust voilence, the context would inevitibly change. If they left everything the same except some romance routes it would portray the struggles of a female protagonist in a honestly dissapointing manner. Portray her as a hard-ass, extremly resilient person who gets more shit because she's a girl and you will be saying something.

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

This is... uh.

This sure is one way to think about it, I guess.

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lol, come on. Those statues are meant to be fanservice, the game is the Hopsin of video games in wanting the moral high ground but also being super creepy.

 

[Chocobo Blade]

"Isolated and quick" the first dungeon is like 3 hours long and while it's about a rapist, the game is clearly trying to arouse the player instead of disgusting them with the statues of women's asses.

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I'm mostly disturbed that anyone could find that part "clearly" arousing.

tfw you're looking for creeps but should look in the mirror instead

 

[sandboxgod]

But this means that, when designing a game with a female protagonist in mind, you arbitrarily get more restrictions as to what scenes you can and can't make. Isn't this super stupid?

Like, we advocate for mole female protagonists in games, and more female representation in general. But at the same time, if your protagonist is female, you can't build y, x or z scenes.

And I guess you are against having female enemies / soldiers in games like Uncharted, CoD, etc? That's also part of having female representation. Sure, the women you'd kill in these games "may be pregnant"...but... so what?

First of all, they are *not* pregnant. They are poligonal characters in a videogame, and the writers wouldn't randomly say "Oh yeah this character you kill is gonna be pregnant LOL" and if they do they'd make it obvious or noticeable in some way, you don't have to think about how she "might" be pregnant.

And second of all, the man you kill in videogames "might" have a family, no? You "might" have put a bullet in the head of someone who has a daugher back home waiting for him!

Or...not, because he's a poligonal character in a videogame.

Same concept applies to the Persona 5 "torture scene". This hypothetical female protagonist would not be pregnant. You know that fully well.

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Why write such a long response?

I think the solution is simple: If the protagonist is a female, then simply do not let the cops kick her in the stomach if you want to appease the masses.

I'm mostly disturbed that anyone could find that part "clearly" arousing.

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Same here!

 

[MayorSquirtle]

I would not. Because if the protagonist was a female and possibly pregnant, I would not enjoy watching a possibly pregnant girl get kicked in her stomach

(It doesnt matter if the police are male/female)

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Why do you keep going on about pregnancy? The character is a high schooler and wouldn't be getting pregnant at any point in the game, it's irrelevant and reducing women to their reproductive organs.