Suicide is Sexy
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Writing a game with mature themes, as Persona 3 has, is a dual-edged blade. On the one hand, you’re able to explore situations and characterizations that touch on things ranging from teenage social awkwardness to self-mutilation to alien sex (no, really) to death…oh, so much death.
On the other hand, by embracing such a mature theme as suicide into the combat system, you inspire the entire LiveJournal-obsessed angst-ridden mascara-drowned groups (whom I lovingly refer to as ‘emo-fucks’) to gush and squeal about how cool this game is, because it’s all about shooting yourself in the head and people with hair fashionably and annoyingly draped over half their face (you are exempt from this, Mitsuru). Glamorizing such a tiny part of such a huge game that deals with so many deeper things is just as ridiculous and inexcusable as blaming it for an increase in actual suicides.
But teenage fascination aside, why is this unique method used to summon Persona?