LogFAQs > #976036761

Cynrascal posted...

My guess it's because of Kanji and Naoto not being what they wanted. The fact that people still insist on ignoring how Naoto's shadow. . . Is mind-blowing

Not speaking for that poster, but generally the problem people (such as myself) have with the writing of the Shadows in P4 aren't criticising the game's internal self-consistency. That's a diagetic analysis of the characters: within the world, the reason they feel how they do and reject their shadows is explained fine. The issue is that P4, as a whole, depicts LGBT identity as absurd warped versions of acceptable variance in a heteronormative society.

People on the internet have tried to clarify this with the terms "Watsonian" and "Doylist", to contrast how a trait of Sherlock Holmes would be described to you if you asked his partner Watson, versus the author Doyle. Watson might tell you that Sherlock took a trip to Egypt after reading a curious pamphlet left in his mailbox. Doyle might tell you it was because he wanted to write prose about an exotic setting away from London.

You're looking at the game with a Watsonian lens and seeing that their motivations are accounted for in-universe. I'm looking at the game with a Doylist lens and asking why, every time LGBT identity and appearance comes up in the game, it's depicted as a character misunderstanding themselves, their inner psyche being out of its mind. Why is it that this game with themes of accepting yourself and others goes out of its way to depict LGBT identities in the manner it does, and then have characters reject that possibility? Why is there an extended cross-dressing gag where the subject is used for disgust and humiliation?

And when I lay it out like that, isn't the answer pretty clear? The writers don't see LGBT identities as something normal that people should accept about themselves.