I do like the wonderful mix of Haru's conflicted feelings about Akechi - she hates him, but the way he acts sometimes gets her all hot and bothered, because inside Haru Okumura is a powerful woman waiting to escape, and power is attracted to power. She is the Empress, after all, and as part of getting over the process of changing from a scared princess into an empress regnant, she is going to have to learn a lot about power, and how to wield it. Goro Akechi knows about power, because he started out as someone who has never really had much of it growing up, and who therefore learned the value of it very early - he learned that power is something which is worth grabbing and scrapping for, and that when you have it, you need to use it effectively, or someone else will come along and take it from you.
At the moment, Haru is largely scared of power - her own power over other people (because she doesn't know how to use it safely) and other people's power over her (because she's been on the receiving end of a number of people - Sugimura, for example; and her father as well - who have misused their power and disregarded her own). Both Ren and Goro can teach her a lot about power. Goro knows how to wield power both as a blunt weapon and as a scalpel (he's learned from some of the best in that regard, after all). Ren knows how to use power both as a shield and a warm blanket on a cold day. Haru needs to know all four uses, really - and she needs to be able to pick and choose between them as necessary. So she needs to learn from the assassin, from the detective, from the phantom thief, and from the protector of the vulnerable, in order to become the best person she can for her company and its employees.
Also love Morgana venting to Ann about the whole business (because he's got to tell someone) and Ann (who is, after all, the one with the Lovers arcanum) basically dragging off their leader by the ear in order to sort things out. I get the feeling she'll be a hot partisan on Ren's side with this one (which may backfire a bit on Morgana, who really doesn't come across as comfortable with either polyamory or the idea of Ren hooking up with Goro Akechi) and will do everything she can to deal with getting Ren a favourable outcome. (I suspect Ann is much more comfortable than a lot of the group with handling the "poisonous viper" aspects of Akechi's personality - after all, she works in modelling, and the industry is full of people who are passive-aggressively shadow-boxing to a startling degree. Part of her Confidant line, after all, involves dealing with an example of such. She knows Ren can handle Akechi - he's already done so numerous times).
One thing I'd note: Haru really needs to acknowledge her feelings about both Akechi and Ren to herself. At present, she's busy trying to hide from the sexual component of how she feels about Akechi (almost to the point of building herself a second Shadow by doing so, something which is supposed to be impossible for a Persona user) and I think she needs to start acknowledging that human sexuality is a complex and interesting thing, and that it's possible to like two different people sexually for two different reasons, and that none of this says anything other than they're two different people that you like for two different reasons (and of course, she also needs to acknowledge that the core of her attraction to both of them is very much related to power, and the different ways they each use it).
Further thoughts - I think the argument/brawl/full-on-knock-down-drag-out-barney Crow and Noir had with each other was actually useful for at least partially clearing the air and getting a couple of the main disagreements out there in public. I would be hideously surprised if Joker wasn't listening in and taking notes on various bits of it. Particularly the bits which hit hardest on each of them.
Haru does need to accept her father, toward the end, was not treating her (or anyone else) right. He was treating her like a thing rather than a person, he wasn't acting with her best interests in mind, and she needs to stop blinding herself to that truth. She also needs to stop romanticising what might have happened as a result of the personality change. Yes, maybe she might have got her caring, thoughtful father back again. But equally likely, she might not have - or she might have got him, only to lose him to voluntary imprisonment. Akechi has a point when he points out that her father made the choice to have people destroyed in order to fulfil his plans with open eyes, and Haru has to stop disregarding this as well.
Akechi, meanwhile, needs to do something about his tendency toward possessiveness, jealousy, and his tendency to hold on too tightly to things. Because if he doesn't, he's likely to basically wind up driving Ren away through trying to clutch too hard. Yes, he didn't have a good relationship with his father. But that doesn't mean he gets the right to destroy Haru's relationship with hers, or besmirch her memories of him when he wasn't driven by corporate ambition. (Yeah, he has a tendency to be jealous, possessive and grasping... look at who his primary Persona is)
I think one thing which might help is for Akechi to actually share what it was like encountering Shido after his change of heart. Because of all of them, aside from possibly Yusuke, he's the only one who has been in contact with a person they knew well prior to a change of heart after their change of heart. Alternatively, it might be worthwhile for Haru to speak to Yusuke about what it felt like when Madarame had his change of heart - did he know his former sensei afterwards, or was it someone completely different? Has he visited Madarame since, or were the ties completely cut?
Comment on A Dream We Found Huddled Under a Cloak of Stars
Megpie71 on Chapter 6 Sun 24 Feb 2019 04:39AM UTC
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Megpie71 on Chapter 6 Sun 24 Feb 2019 08:29AM UTC
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