Greetings. It is I, Leopardmon of the Royal Knights, here to grace you with my knowledge and wisdom! Now, on to the topic at hand. David Ishihara has requested me to lay my own thoughts on the events of October 4th from Persona 3. Now, normally, I wouldn't bother with something like this, but I've been hearing from a few other Knights that have played this in their spare time that the events of October 4th are among the most powerful and impactful scenes in the entire game, if not the single most powerful and impactful scene. And considering my dogma, well… There was just no way I was going to avoid this for long. Obviously, there's going to be a major spoiler alert. Do not read this if you hadn't gotten past October 4th in Persona 3.
Firstly, though… There are a few things that I would like to address before we get to the main review. The first of which is Shinjiro's moveset, which can be seen on Castor's page in the Shin Megami Tensei Wikia. And before anyone asks, no, it is not a hoax. Through Castor, Shinjiro really does learn all of the skills listed on it by level up. He's just probably never going to get there, outside of extreme grinding or a New Game+. Though uncharacteristic of me, I actually liked how the game did this. A lot of RPGs tend to blatantly spoil which characters are going to be temporary party members by the fact that they have much more limited skill sets, fixed equipment that can't be customized, and other things like that. With Shinjiro, they avoided this common interface spoiler by giving him a full learnset, and in fact, I especially loved the fake out they pulled by having Akihiko and Ken's learnsets end shortly before October 4th, if you've been levelling them properly. That would probably raise eyebrows for the player, but it turns out that it doesn't mean what you think it means. But any mythology buffs out there would probably pick up on it through Castor's backstory. In that yes, Castor does indeed die as part of his mythology. In fact, his brother Polydeuces was immortal and Castor was not. He died by being impaled through the chest with a spear. You can clearly see that on Castor's design. So, anyone who knows Greek mythology would probably know that Shinjiro was destined to die right from the start. Another interesting thing to note. The kanji on Ken's Shirt of Chivalry: Grudge. The kanji on Shinjiro's Shirt of Chivalry: Ironically, Life. Yeah, the developers had a very sick sense of humor there.
Now with that out of the way, I can finally discuss the actual story moment itself. Just a bit of a fun fact, in the Dimensional Heroes series, I actually share the same voice actor as Akihiko, so that is actually a more touching moment on a personal level for me, because Akihiko has been played so well here. But at the same time, I'm prepared, and I'm sure David is prepared, to get a lot of angry responses, because some fans feel strongly about this scene in certain ways...and I will admit that my opinion does, or very often, differ from the norm in times like this. It kind of does here, I'm probably going to get bombarded with criticism here, but I'm saying it anyway. In my opinion, I think I would agree with the other Knights that played this, in that this is the most powerful moment in the game. And considering my dogma, that's actually saying something. I will admit that I was almost in tears over this scene. What? I'm allowed to cry, too, aren't I? Don't judge me! Getting to this point, I had to get the others that were around at the time to remain silent and even put a "Do Not Disturb" sign on my door so that it wouldn't be ruined. I was really that emotional about this scene. Things like novels and games don't make me emotional that often, and this moment really did that. Across all of the RPGs in David's collection that I and the other Knights have scoured, we all agree that this has been, in our personal opinion, the best done character death that we've seen. They treat it with respect, they give it the emotion it deserves, they don't milk it too heavily, they treat the party's grief afterwards realistically, and show just how different people react to death differently, which is something that I personally like, because that's very true in real life as well. If anyone has been around people who've suffered a personal loss like this, you'll know that everyone does grieve differently. So, that was a bit of a nice touch being able to see all of the different reactions in your party. People like Junpei, who's unsure if he can live up to Shinjiro's example. Yukari, who's not sure if she can concentrate on anything anymore after that. And then there's Akihiko, who wonders why people are even sad when he died exactly the way he wanted to with no regrets. And just...the way Shinjiro decided to go out was very moving. The fact that he would sacrifice himself to save someone who openly despised him, and in doing so, prompted a change of heart in that person. It just feels really noble no matter how you look at it.
As a plot device, there are several things that Shinjiro's death does.
1: Raises the stakes. This is pretty much typical of any character death in any storyline, but Shinjiro's death shows the party that death is a real threat. That it's not a game, it's a real combat situation, and anyone could die at any moment. It gives a real wake-up call to the protagonists, who've been used to constant victory up until that point. The story has dealt with deaths in the backstory, but this is the first time it's dealt with one that's been so close to the party and so personal, and as a result, it forces the party to come to terms with some very hard questions, and for the party to know what it feels like to lose someone that close to you. How we cope with death and loss is a big theme of this game. This is where we really start seeing just how the party is going to relate to that theme. We've already seen it in Ken's past. He copes the wrong way, and that led him down a very dark path. I'll be talking about that later.
2: Shinjiro's death gave Akihiko and Ken a much-needed wake-up call for their characters. Both of these two had a lot of negative aspects of their character they hadn't quite gotten over yet, and in both cases, those were so deeply ingrained in them that they really needed a big shocking wake-up call to finally realize that they needed to grow up. You've seen how they both dealt with it and how they both awaken to new Personas as a result.
3: Blatantly, to make you despise Takaya and also to establish Strega as a real threat. Before this, Strega never really did anything particularly drastic. I mean, the worst they did was kidnap Junpei, but that was done by their least insane member, who by the time October 4th came around, seems to be slowly reforming. So, they had to hit you in the face with "Yes, Strega, your villains of the peace are in fact a threat."
4: Well, this is somewhat outside of the plot, and more of a thematic thing. It forces the player to, by proxy, come to terms with the death of a close friend. As I said before, how we deal with personal loss is a big theme of this game. To the developers, a lot of teenagers haven't learned to treat death with respect, at least in their opinion. Naturally though, deaths of young people like Shinjiro do happen in the real world. It's tragic, but it's a fact of life. You cannot predict when something like this will happen and you cannot predict who it will happen to. Shinjiro's death is in a way a virtual example of this, and in a lot of ways, the game treats this quite realistically. I for one like how the game emphasizes the different reactions of the people who never knew Shinjiro, to whom this death is just a statistic, compared to your party, the people who knew him personally, and show the player just how insensitive the comments of those people come off across as to the people who knew him personally. Hopefully, this teaches players, especially young teenagers, to whom the game is targeted in Japan, a good lesson. You may not have personally known someone who passed away recently, but if you're in contact with people who did know them personally, make sure you show empathy for them. Understand just how different the situation is for them, who actually knew the person who passed.
In summary, I feel like this is a very emotionally powerful moment that has a lot of deep resonance that many games and other works in popular media and literature tend to miss. However, some parts of the fandom… Their reaction to this event was probably not what the developers intended. And a discussion on the events of October 4th would not be complete without addressing this issue.
As a quick summary, what we're supposed to get out of October 4th was that Shinjiro chose to die with no regrets, he sacrificed himself to save Ken, and if we're meant to show bile for anyone in this situation, it's Takaya. However, to a lot of the fanbase, this is what October 4th is. Ken murdered Shinjiro in cold blood and deserves to die for it. I know this is a bit of an exaggeration and this is probably only what a vast minority of the fandom thinks, but these people can get very vocal. These fans place all the blame for October 4th on Ken, and act like this whole situation is no different than if Ken had personally killed him himself. It is the main reason why Ken is one of the most disliked characters in this game, and here's the thing. In a way, I can agree that the way Ken acts towards Shinjiro right before Takaya enters the scene, and even mostly after, right up until he actually gets his realization when Shinjiro actually dies. All of that is not meant to be likable, at all. You are meant to dislike Ken for that attitude. That's completely intentional. What these people don't realize, is that even Ken himself comes to dislike that attitude, and he grows out of it. And that's in some ways the whole point of the scene. Ken gets a harsh wake-up call. His hatred of Shinjiro, he has to come to terms with the fact that that was wrong, that he was just lying to himself, he was running away, he was coping with his mother's death, it was all a coping mechanism but he handled it completely the wrong way, and it almost led to complete disaster, but Shinjiro did save him at the last moment, and that is what he uses to turn his life around and realize "I don't want to live in hatred anymore. I'm gonna get rid of the old me, the old me who I hate at this point, and live a new life." So many fans miss that. So many fans see Ken as a remorseless murderer who can never be forgiven for what he did. And while it is in some ways kind of true that that situation would not have happened if Ken hadn't drawn Shinjiro there, I think it's really unfair to blame Ken for Shinjiro's death. After all, it was Takaya who fired the shot that killed him. And Shinjiro himself was basically the one who instigated his own death. He wanted to die with meaning since he was dying anyway.
I think the main issue here stems from this. Shinjiro is one of the most vastly popular characters in the game, and I mean absurdly popular. Ken, even before this, was one of the most disliked characters in the game. As a result, it is very easy for fans to latch on to Ken as an object of hatred, because they never liked him much to begin with. It's a general attitude of fandoms that I tend to find irritating and disturbing in a lot of ways, but in general, if there's a character that's not all that popular to begin with and then there's a character who is incredibly popular, the fandom is much more likely to blame the less popular character for anything that goes wrong. I feel like a lot of fans got a little too attached to Shinjiro and well… Yeah… Couldn't stand the fact that their precious Shinjiro got killed. Now I do understand that getting attached to Shinjiro, trust me, I admit that I was sad of him dying, is a good thing. But you're certainly not supposed to react to it by wishing death on another character.
In fact, think about it this way. Why did you hate Ken so much to begin with? Ken's mother died, he blames Shinjiro for her death, he developed an insane irrational hatred of Shinjiro, and wanted him dead by any means necessary, going to ridiculous lengths to ensure his revenge. Yeah… That's why you don't like Ken. So, Shinjiro dies, you cared a lot for him, you see Ken as responsible, you develop a huge hatred for him, and want him dead. When you think about it, aren't you guilty of the exact same thing that made you hate Ken so much to begin with? My sincerest apologies for being so extreme about this, but I feel that this has to be said. In a way, the fandom wishing death on Ken for Shinjiro's death is exactly what made Ken so unsympathetic to begin with, so really, those fans hadn't learned anything from this game. Some would even say that Ken should've died on October 4th instead of Shinjiro, get this, because he's not as useful in battle as Shinjiro is, and therefore wouldn't be as big a loss to the party! I-I'm breaking character by saying this, but do you know how awful that sounds? Even putting that aside, killing off Ken right then and there on October 4th, when he is at his most unsympathetic, that would completely ruin the impact! If the player's reaction to a death is "good riddance", then that's exactly what the developers didn't want you to feel from an event like this, so it would serve no purpose to do that.
On a less ranty note, I will point out one criticism that some people made that I do feel is valid. Some people say that after the whole Shinjiro arc, Ken has very little to do for the rest of the plot, and as a result, he kind of feels like he has less of a reason to be in the party. Now that, that is a criticism in the story that I understand, and in some ways that I can agree with. That is valid and does make a lot of sense. It's not a reason to wish Ken was dead, but still, it is a valid criticism.
This, and I'm sure it's just a minority of the fandom that feels this way, but this reaction to October 4th in some ways, sums up just how hard it is to kill off characters successfully in any plotline. You've got two extremes for this. The first is a lot of the deaths in Fire Emblem Fates, where they kill off a character without making the player get attached to them at all. They just suddenly kill them off out of nowhere, and the player's like "Huh… That happened. We barely got to know that person. Why are we supposed to care?" However, the opposite is just as dangerous. Here, you got a case where fans got too attached to the character who was doomed to die, and as a result, instead of feeling the sense of loss at the character's death, but the resolve to move on and feel like their sacrifice was not in vain, they instead latch on to someone else, blame them for their death, and develop an insane hatred for that character. This is what happens when you're a little too invested in making the character doomed to die likable. It is a definite problem, and one that's hard to offer a solution for. You've got to find that balance of developing the doomed character enough that the audience cares about them, but not too much that the audience reacts with sheer anger to the character being gone. So, it's pretty clear that the developers never expected fans to come out of this showing as much bile to Ken as they did. Because of this, many spin-offs have had to do major damage control on Ken's character to make him more sympathetic.
The Persona 3 movies, for example, offer a very different motive for Ken's whole revenge plot. Initially, in the movies, Ken actually doesn't know that Shinjiro killed his mother. Ken actually starts out idolizing Shinjiro. He doesn't actually find out until almost immediately before October 4th, and so his actions that night are more out of a sense of betrayal by his idol, rather than a long-planned revenge plot.
Persona Q gave Ken a lot of interactions with other characters, specifically forming an interesting surrogate younger brother relationship with Kanji. And pretty tragically, over the events of Persona Q, Ken actually considers giving up revenge against Shinjiro, but the end of that game erases everyone's memories, so… Yeah, canon still happens.
In Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, Ken appears as a playable character, now aged up a few years. And I personally feel that his story arc in that game is very well done. And I would highly recommend it for anyone who just kind of wants to be redeemed on Ken for a bit. I do feel like that they did handle his character quite well there. Something else notable about Ken in Ultimax though, is that Shadow Ken, it's not really Ken's Shadow, it's just a fake Shadow that's made to look like him, but it acts as if it is his Shadow, and Shadow Ken is one of the most terrifying Shadow Selves in that game by far. In a lot of ways, that makes sense, given how dark emotions Ken had buried deep in himself in this game. Ken actually fights his Shadow early on in the Story Mode, and Kanji and Naoto, who are both watching at the time, they don't realize that the Shadows are fake, so they actually completely mistake it for someone actually genuinely facing their Shadow, and in a lot of ways, it really is Ken's "facing his Shadow" moment. That's also a very good scene. At this point, a lot of the fandom has turned around on Ken, at least slightly.
Ultimax did redeem him a bit for them, as did Persona Q. It also helped that Persona Q made Ken's Hama skills a lot more useful. They are pretty much broken in that game. I find it a bit disappointing that in fandoms, not just this game, but multiple RPGs, Fire Emblem's a big one too, fans tend to look more harshly on a character's personality if they're not useful in combat.
So, anyway… Let's move away from the subject of Ken for a bit, and let's talk about a few other things about October 4th that I want to mention. Specifically, these all relate to the PSP remake of this game, namely the female protagonist's route. The other Knights obliged me to bring this up at some point, but the PSP version lets you save Shinjiro, but only on the female protagonist's route. Here's how it works. Shinjiro is the Moon Social Link for the female protagonist, and naturally, he's on a very strict time limit to max out. You start the Link in about September, so you've pretty much only got one month. It's also a nighttime Social Link. Shinjiro's Link does work like Devil, however, where you don't need any points to go up to the next rank. It doesn't matter what options you say, anytime you spend time with Shinjiro, it will always get you a rank up, regardless of whether you have a matching Persona or not. Once you get the Link to Rank 9, Shinjiro will mention that he lost a pocket watch. By going to the police station, you can retrieve it from Officer Kurosawa, who has the same voice actor as Omnimon's MetalGarurumon side in the Dimensional Heroes series, as well as weirdly enough Shinjiro, making this kind of ironic, but anyway, giving that back to Shinjiro will cause him to survive the gunshot that would normally kill him during October 4th, in the classic movie pocket protector way. However, so as not to break the plot, he still goes into a coma for the rest of the entire game. So sadly, this will not let you keep using him as a party member. They really didn't want to record more dialogue for him, which is a real shame. So, to preserve the plot, he goes into a coma. Because of this, Akihiko's speech that he gives on October 5th is actually mostly the same, just that he gives it over Shinjiro's comatose body in the hospital instead of his funeral. And like I said, it's mostly exactly the same, including his Persona evolution. The main thing that changes is that instead of saying "...and now you're gone, too.", he says something like "...and now you've ended up like this."
Now I'm pretty sure you don't need to romance Shinjiro to do this, you just have to max out the Link. I've probably said this before, but I should probably reiterate this. In order to start Shinjiro's romance, you actually have to spend time with him again after already hitting Rank 10, despite the game telling you that your bond can't possibly get any stronger. The main reason for this, though, is that Shinjiro deliberately wants to avoid getting into a romantic relationship, because he knows that he's dying, and so he doesn't want to cause anyone any pain like that. So you have to really force the issue in order to start his romance. The romance of Shinjiro and the female protagonist is by far her most popular option and I would pretty much agree. In fact, they're practically canon in the stage adaptation. Yes, that's right. Persona 3 actually does have a stage adaptation in Japan. There's actually two versions of this: one for male, and one for female. The female version very heavily leans towards Shinjiro romantically.
October 4th also plays into another Social Link in the game. That ironically being Akihiko's. And for the record, I only said ironically because we share the same voice actor and I'm discussing this. Anyway, the female protagonist's Social Link with Akihiko will freeze at a certain Rank. It won't be able to continue until after October 4th. If you try to spend time with him before that, you get a message saying something like "Akihiko needs to be more mature before your relationship can progress." This makes Akihiko one of the most annoying Social Links in the game for the female protagonist, because it starts very early, but you can't finish it until very late and especially if you're going for the romance, because setting that up requires you to select a very specific option in one of the earlier Ranks that won't pay off until Rank 9. So if you reach Rank 9 and realize that you missed something, you'll have to reload a LONG way back.
And with that, that ends my discussion on October 4th. It's a date that's always remembered in the fandom. In some ways, probably for all the wrong reasons. Though, I think those fans are in the minority. Anyway, this is a big turning point in this game's story, so I hope you enjoyed, and if you have any requests, leave them in the comments, and all of us here will see you next time.