Theory
Haven’t finished Persona 5 Royal, but, grrr-the idea of Akechi as a cognition? Incredible.
He’s not real, he’s never been real to you, not to anyone probably. He’s honest in the boiler room, tells you he hates you. He won’t let you take him home. He kills himself-not like that, not ever like that. Too pedestrian, probably.
There has to be some part of him that liked you. You could tell he wanted to come home-but he died. Died and was gone, and you couldn’t save him.
It’s your dearest wish, to bring him back, for love, for his unrealized potential, for being the one person you couldn’t save-give or take a few, but they don’t matter. He’s not happy in this world. He can’t ever be happy. He was a tool, and he can’t stand being a tool again. (That part sticks with you. You don’t like remembering the things he said about you, about being alone.) Your team fights side-by-side with him, and it works, and nothing goes wrong. And it’s the day before the infiltration, and Maruki comes to you, and says that Akechi’s fake. Not like that, he’s too tactful, but he wasn’t real the whole time. Maybe you knew that, but you don’t think so.
Akechi’s a doll-made from your wishes-Maruki did it for you, maybe he took some things from your friends, maybe from his landlord-you’re sure he didn’t put anything from Shido (are you sure? Shido’s known Akechi so much longer than you have-) It explains why his mother’s not here. He’s a puppet. Puppets don’t get their own families, not just from wanting it. The only reason he’s not happy is because you can’t imagine him that way, not in a world like this. And you needed to save Sumire, but you couldn’t have done it without Akechi. He was there to support you-he was your desires given flesh. Awfully unlucky of Maruki, huh? Your greatest desire was still to rebel, even when he had a face of his own. You couldn’t leave reality the way it was, couldn’t let Maruki destroy himself-the reasons spiral aroudn in your head again and again. But Akechi was the thing that made it possible, and he wasn’t real.
Maybe it’s your fault he couldn’t be happy like this. Maybe if you listened to what he said in the engine room-you noticed he was different, but it’s not like you ever knew him in the first place. Maybe if you’d held onto what he wanted from you-beneath him, groveling at his feet, maybe he would’ve been happy.
And it’d be wrong, but he’d be more than what you needed him to be. But he’s dead, and you’ve never known him, not really, and you loved him and you can’t get him back
I don’t want Akechi alive. I want reality to bend around you. (I see so very many people write him as alive, as the same person he was before, but I don’t love goro. He’s interesting, but I don’t love him-and the truth- that there never was an Akechi here at all, that you were struggling for a puppet who’s strings you pulled yourself- It’s incredible. )
