[Music] hey everyone and welcome to tony for the forces of good and evil i mean tony for you i've had a thought about alignments and most likely if you've played a good amount of games in the shin megami tensei series you've had this thought too most of the alignment endings in mainline smt games are not that compelling or at least heavily skewed for or against one side don't get me wrong i love these games and i am youtube's number one law fan but even i have to admit sometimes atlas plays favorites depending on the games it's interesting to know that this is a problem with main lines specifically as almost all of the spin-off games that do alignment do it really well like devil survivor or ryto 2. i dug a little deeper into this topic and wanted to make sure it wasn't crazy so let's talk about each alignment ending in every mainline smt game and see if they really do have clear biases starting with smt-1 and finally ending with the newest release in the series smt5 needless to say there will be spoilers ahead so jump between the timestamps as necessary the game's disgust will be smt one two three strange journey four and five for the endings we'll go in the order of law chaos neutral and then my final thoughts smt-1 law is portrayed as a group of people called messiahs subservient to yahweh and aimed to establish the thousand-year kingdom to bring order to the world after the bombs fell demons began invading the world and as a natural reaction the people turn to a higher power whom can salvage some of what was lost understandably many people are drawn to this as they seek safety and flock to a community of like-minded people what's less amazing about the messians is they are building a grand cathedral to serve as god's throne and when it's built a second great flood will wash over tokyo and kill any who are unprepared or not inside the cathedral at the time the portrayal of law is realistic as in desperate times many would forsake personal freedoms in exchange for seemingly assured safety and are willing to turn a blind eye to the most horrendous of crimes the ending itself is hopeful as a messenger of the messians congratulates you what states there is still much to do and aims to gather any and all people who are left alive to be brought into god's kingdom in exchange for their faith showing sincere care for those left behind and genuinely wanting to bring about paradise to all humans on earth a world of happiness law security and prosperity all it costs is unwavering faith and living under god's iron fist chaos is difficult to pin down in smt-1 as most of the time the ring of gaia is a cult of anarchists who aim to destroy any and all established order so that only the strong may survive power does not come from justice power is justice that sort of thing sounds pretty ordinary so far but near the end of the game you side with lucifer the prince of darkness's aim is to free the demons residing in the abyss that is to say gods from other religions banished from yahweh's celestial realm once he became the dominant god of the world sort of a bait and switch but one that's interesting the concept is thought provoking and even one that's revisited in the series later but it's difficult to get a grasp on the ideology of chaos itself does it aim to destroy order and pave a way of human strength conquering all or is it a unification of the old world's gods to topple the dictatorship of yahweh one could say they both shared the same ideal to a degree but the real ending would result in human subjugation unquestionably lucifer promises to give humans a degree of freedom but then goes on to say that only the strong and beautiful will survive and reproduce and the cycle of death and rebirth will continue forever no safety is guaranteed but nature is sure to take its course neutral is a compromise between the other two ideologies law's kingdom has great aspects but living under god's iron rule and swearing on questioning faith in him goes against many people's need for freedom chaos's world may seem exciting as returning back to a primal time of true freedom would give rise to many great individuals willing to do anything for their goals the world would inevitably lead to innumerable conflicts death and destruction would be the norm as ideologies clashed and only one would come out on top and even then only for so long one must not try to pursue either extreme as in the end it will only produce sorrow beating back the extremes of law and chaos is imperative to ensure true happiness for humanity smt-1 has a clear neutral bias but not to such a degree that i couldn't see someone going for either other ending i personally view law as the most ideal outcome for the world go figure the first shin megami tensei games has a great precedent for the alignment system but sadly is the only one in the series where i like all the endings smt-2 law has the messiahs again the canonical ending of smt-1 is neutral however the messiahs rally their forces perform a hostile takeover of the country and establish a theocracy law is a draconic almost insane belief of subservience to a god filled with nothing but hatred for his creations spurning all life the messiahs aim to destroy any who do not worship yahweh that isn't the ending however well kind of the real law ending is inciting with a character named zain who is in great opposition to the current messiah regime and speaks out after learning the truth behind their heinous actions seems good so far but eventually zain is revealed to be none other than satan created by fusing zayn with seth claiming he finally understands who he really is and his true purpose as satan the agent of yahweh's vengeance he accompanies the player to the grand cathedral and fights off every one and everything that gets in your way eventually you make your way to the megido arc a machine designed to go into outer space and destroy all life on earth when you finally confront yahweh you and satan end up killing him as he himself is most guilty of causing suffering for his people sounds amazing but after you kill yahweh what do you do you pull the switch and kill everyone on earth anyway of course it doesn't matter that it goes against everything zain believed in and probably everything you believe in as well you do it anyway this completely invalidates the decisions you've made leading up to this point and destroys zain as a character both literally and figuratively chaos is a surprisingly reactionary alignment with their only goal being to fight back against yahweh's destruction of the world seeing the destruction wrought by the messians you engage in attacks on their facilities and make your way into the abyss itself the abyss is a place where the gods of other religions were banished to when yahweh took the celestial throne and threw them out to become the dominantly worshiped deity after defeating the archangels misguided by a fake yahweh you meet the ruler of the abyss the fallen angel lucifer the prince of hell sings your praises and explains that he wishes to prevent yahweh's destruction of the world in turn saving the abyss together you fight against incredible odds destroy the megido ark and save the world as we know it along with this lucifer frees the inhabitants of the abyss and allows the myriad gods of the world to roam free once more without the oppression of yahweh the mutants of the underground are also free from the oppression of the messians this game portrays chaos as an almost objective good ending as it's an underdog story where you get to free the gods and create a new world for everyone physical and spiritual neutral is once again a middle ground between the other two where you fight against the forces of law and chaos there is nothing for humans to cling to in times of trouble this is a world destroyed but a world where humans alone can rule despite this as long as there are people who wish for salvation outside of humanity's capabilities the will of the universe will bring yahweh back all in all the chaos bias with this game is incredibly evident i hear it was due to the english translation that chaos is so obviously the most appealing ending but looking at the events of the game it would be pretty hard to justify any other ending being better for humanity the law ending essentially destroys the vast majority of the world to start anew with a chosen few completely destroying the nuance law had in smt-1 neutral is delaying the inevitable as it is confirmed by yahweh that humans will always seek guidance from a higher power and from that wish he will return chaos is the only outcome where humans from all walks of life can be free while also having a guiding force with the freedom to choose your affiliation much like smt-1 conflict will be inevitable but there will be a ruler in lucifer and possibly a-lift to keep order smt-3 nocturne for this game i'll be treating all reasons to be law freedom and demon to be neutral and true demon ending to be chaos if all reasons are law then honestly it's portrayed very well as a set of traditions and beliefs a world will abide by for the greater good of the people hikawa shijima is the reason that springs to mind immediately as what most people would interpret as law with the world of stillness a kingdom that will flourish in the silence of time this is the ending i would think most people would be against i understand the ideal to eradicate all hatred war and strife but ridding humans of all their ambition and seemingly their individuality is a steep price to pay humanity is terrible at points but becoming a hive mind simply working towards the ambiguous goal of progress is crazy chiaki's yosuga reason is a pretty stereotypical chaos survival of the fittest ending with the twist of most of the demons following her being angels this is an interesting take on law as an smt it explains that yahweh was not the original creator of the universe but rather the strongest force within it thanks to his strength he banished all the other gods to the abyss and became the almighty sounds pretty chaotic to me it stands to reason that the angels would have faith that in a world where might makes right yahweh would win again isamu's musubi reason is a world of isolation everyone is their own yahweh in this ending and it's in my opinion the truest essence of law a world that adheres to the creator's divine will with strict laws and rules the chaos ending in nocturne is called the true demon ending the ending where you heed lucifer's call and break the cycle of death and rebirth by killing everything this ending was only added after the maniacs edition of the game and you can tell they put a ton of effort into it nocturne was an amazing game already then they pumped tons more content into it and by far the most involved ending throughout the entire amala network dungeon it makes lucifer out to be a very wise and cunning entity most people crave closure and in almost every alignment ending in smt they make it a point to say the cycle will never end the true demon ending fills that need for people to feel as though they made a permanent impact on the world in doing so you kill all your friends destroy the world's ability to recreate itself and become lucifer's general to destroy yahweh on his throne without the worship of living creatures you have a good shot at taking down yahweh permanently this time in truth what is more chaotic than destroying the very fabric of reality and the rules the universe abides by reigning chaos heaping death upon death becoming the most powerful being in the universe i'm a law advocate and even i have to admit i prefer this ending hands down the neutral endings of nocturne consist of demon and freedom endings demon is a more poetic take on neutrality where once in the series there was a belief that neutrality was the ideal in nocturne it's portrayed as apathy and ignorance a body brimming with strength but with an empty soul the inability to choose even though your power could sway the creation of a new world is not something worth rewarding you are stuck in a world with no chance of recreating itself but not a finale simply a planet-sized waiting room kagutsuchi explains how he will have to wait for the next opportunity to change the world and even if you kill him nothing changes at least lucifer shows up again to offer you his blessing but then he promptly leaves in the ending dialogue lucifer says the world will have chaos reign but i would consider this a more neutral ending due to the fact that requirements to get it are not choosing a side much like the more obvious neutral ending freedom speaking of freedom this is the reason of yuko a world with no set future the freedom the great will gave humanity led them to great heights but also destruction if you are willing to go back to the way the world once was let no one not even the great will tell you you can't reshape the world this is an ending i've thought a lot about and decided it's a profoundly hopeful ending where once i thought this was a cosmic snooze button due to the text at the very end saying in time your true adversary will appear before you until then stay strong now i believe it to be the essence of the neutral alignment to get this ending you must disregard all that was told to you about the creation of the world the entire game you're told you lost your humanity and yet you are not a true demon you cannot reshape the world as you are and you must choose to pick this ending is to say no to the lies you were told and take the world you want by any means necessary regardless of anyone's rules the forces of law the forces of chaos and even the forces of the world be damned i love it with all the endings out of the way chaos is clearly biased due to the maniacs port adding so much surrounding it the ending is by far the one with the most closure not to mention content in the original game by virtue of them wanting to do something different one could argue that they have a neutral bias but not to such an obvious degree when you think of smt nocturne you think of the true demon ending the endings of the base game all share an era of anti-climax as understanding the cycle of death and rebirth of worlds is integral to the plot this entire journey will be a blip on the cosmic timeline of events unless you think outside of the box and tear away the rules of the universe doing so will strip you of any and all humanity you have left but there's no such thing as humanity anymore so who cares smt strange journey for the sake of discussion i will lightly cover both original and redux endings for the strange journey segment law in the original is one of my favorite alignments with zelenen and mastimo being some of the most interesting characters in smt as a whole except not anymore i'll elaborate more on that later when you're on the law path you along with zelenon achieve incredible heights and zelenen even ascends to becoming an angel mastima wishes to usher in the thousand-year kingdom much like the messians in smt-1 but with something a bit more impactful complete subjugation and suppression of humanity's will to force adherence to god's word much like the other games throughout the story you're faced with moral choices the law aligned decisions make a lot of sense and lead up to the ending well such as when faced against jack's crew an antagonistic force in the schwartzville the law outline solution is to pacify them by stripping them of their ambition through the angelic hymns of the lenin the choice to give up aspects of your humanity for the greater good while also retaining your soul and personality is the goal of law in the ending the force of law chose the pious to spread the word of god and returned those clung to their greed back to shapeless form whatever that means humans are freed from demonic ambition as well as human ambition and live in perfect harmony with one another and seek nothing past salvation a peaceful world but a stagnant one the new law editions and redux have alex come back from the future when humans who were not impacted by zelenen's song were rounded up and killed with a little deliberation a new outcome was proposed where humans are only stripped of demonic ambition and do not have to adhere to god's rule by doing this humanity reaches utopia and i hate it the redux law ending has the lenin go against mastima and he curses humanity for turning their backs on god with the new ending even law portrays yahweh as evil and nothing but a detriment to society there is no downside to turning your back on god and in fact it's the best thing to do for humanity this is a trend started back in smt 2 and will go strong into the later games yahweh is consistently portrayed as evil chaos and strange journey is represented by the series's second favorite chaos boy jimenez when you're on the chaos path jimenez slowly begins to change his philosophy from the beginning crash into the schwartz fell his only aim is to escape but as the story progresses and he bears witness to the demonic invasion he does something strange jimenez begins to relate to the demons viewing them not as evil and even seeing them as having a way of life preferable to humanities gimenez was a soldier before the mission a warrant officer to be exact so he's no stranger to war and he even makes his living from it his strange mix of compassion for demons and belief that strength can overcome all problems leads him to his ideal world after fusing with the demon bugaboo he aims to create a world of chaos pulsing with the power and freedom of humans and demons alike the ending has human civilization wiped away and it seems as though most of humanity is purged as demons work to regain their godly forms an insane ending that essentially spells the doom of humanity as we know it and would lead to the end of progress towards anything besides killing each other it might make sense why humanists would want it but the world is doomed to eternal bloodshed in the redux editions alex comes back to express the truth of the new world turns out it was worse than i already thought humans don't even work together as she says that you have to prove your strength to everyone and death is an everyday occurrence a new outcome is proposed after jimenez realizes that not everyone that dies deserves it sympathy does deserve a place in a human's heart and the ability to kill shouldn't be the only deciding factor in decision making pretty crazy this had to be explained to him but oh well after a great cataclysm wiping away civilization demons and humans live alongside each other with demons acting as guardians nothing restricts humanity from freedom and the many gods regain their power the chaos ending goes from a pretty standard survival of the fittest to striving for freedom and cohabitation with demons much like smt-2 a desirable outcome benefiting most of humanity neutral is an ending completely centered on humans it aims to beat back the forces of law and chaos in the same vein as smt-102 with the help of the reanimated commander gore the crew is set on a path where humans can attain freedom outside the realm of gods and demons to work towards true prosperity before fading away uber gestalt gore imbues the main character with his power and tells them how to bring down the schwarzvelt to destroy it arthur will die your helpful robot leader but the sacrifice will hopefully be worth it the ultimate goal and hope of this ending is that humanity takes what they learn from this experience along with the power bestowed by the ubergestalt to prevent the need for the schwarzvelt if humanity never exceeds the limits of earth and becomes too sinful the planet will not require a purge the redux edition recontextualizes the original neutral ending with the main character becoming a god-like guardian of humanity this new ending outright says that humanity cannot and will not learn from their mistakes the game ends with the main character's seventh time saving the world with presumably several hundreds of years passing the final shot being arthur asking the player do you still feel human two completely opposite endings and yet they still have the same belief at their very core humanity always deserves another chance after brushing up on the endings of this game it seems like there is no bias it seems like this is the first mainline game in the series with no bias even with the addition of the redux endings i can still see the pros and cons of every choice the original one could argue has a neutral bias as the fate of humanity is left ambiguous in an immediate sense with redux they restructure the themes of each ending and make them all equally viable to a degree i much prefer the original diaz strange journey as a game but for the sake of argument we'll say that strange journey portrays each ending equally well smt4 law is portrayed as an other out to literally destroy with prejudice all indigenous people of tokyo and set up a new world order for the chosen few initially law could be interpreted as an end goal of a separate kingdom outside the main world under god's rule as the game progresses and the black samurai taints the sanctity of mikado's citizens and caste system the angels are spurred into action jonathan our resident law representative is written to hammer home the unwavering adherence to authority law is often associated with blind faith is definitely an aspect of law worth exploring but as the story progresses it gets less believable eventually when mikado is under the direct control of the archangels in yahweh the obvious brainwashing is apparent and seemingly it's against the people's wills law is completely portrayed as the powers that be using flynn as a pawn and the end goal being very similar to the thousand-year kingdom but without any of the implied upsides the citizens of mikado are ruled by fear and at the end of it all the entirety of tokyo along with merkaba the literal chariot of god is destroyed in a black hole it's outright stated that anything that even touches those deemed unclean by god is to be annihilated there is no attempt to convert the people of tokyo to the belief system of mikado there is only complete genocide this is the worst depiction of law in smt so far completely unbelievable for anyone to choose this i love the characters of smt4 and i enjoyed law up until the alignment lock which is a pretty insidious bait and switch unjustifiable and almost completely evil in every conceivable way chaos and smt-4 is the obvious good choice kind of walter is the resident chaos representative of this game and initially is an amazing character that easily garners sympathy from the player in mikado there is a strict class system of luxuries and casualties where there is a clear gap in quality of life casualties are general laborers who work to keep the kingdom running through things like agriculture and construction luxurers are born into nobility and are the governing body that hold the vast amount of authority through the government and church walter is portrayed as the true underdog due to his unwillingness to accept the clear classism in his kingdom and he stays true to his philosophy entering tokyo as well he deeply respects the people of tokyo for fighting tooth and nail to stay alive and help each other walter accepts the black samurai even after her turning into lilith for aiming to educate the general public of mikado and work to tear down the main force in tokyo being taiyama tayama is what you could consider the law of tokyo but he literally scoops out children's brain matter to feed to demons i guess that would be dark law on the alignment chart pretty despicable if you ask me once again though this game pulls another bait and switch where after the alignment lock chaos pivots from a freedom fighting anti-classism war to a hostile takeover of mikado where you flood the land with demons lucifer even tells you that in the world you created the sons of man will only kill each other with their freedom what they really want is a new king we can only hope that flynn is better suited to rule than any other neutral is portrayed once again as a middle ground between the other two extreme ideologies if you exhibit unwillingness to fully support either extreme along with an exorbitant amount of side questing you can bring the two worlds of tokyo and mikado together in a spectacular way isabo this game's neutral representative relates to the people of tokyo yet holds love for the people of mikado as a luxury herself together you work tirelessly to find a way to bring the two nations together and end up having to overcome the forces of law and chaos pretty standard for neutral at this point after obtaining the sword of masakado the guardian of tokyo you transport the people of mikado to the newly emancipated land of tokyo to start a new life of coexistence this destroys the kingdom of mikado but is a small price to pay for preventing the loss of so much more potential life and the bright future ahead of them smt4 quite obviously has a neutral bias the ending has the highest quality of life for both sides of the conflict and the least amount of innocent blood spilled bringing back the status quo isn't the end goal of smt4 is neutral in fact its only goal is peace this is so objectively the best option it almost hurts i would think less of it if it wasn't so rewarding to get like i said before the characters of jonathan walter and isabo are fantastic but for the sake of this argument all i'm taking into account is the end goal of their alignment endings the white ending is disqualified due to this so sorry about that the law ending literally has angels bursting out of beehives to allude to them being drones and chaos ends on a shot of mikado burning down and lucifer telling you you need to rule over humans anyway neutral just makes the most sense smt-5 this is where things get complicated law in the newest edition of smt is hard to pinpoint yahweh is dead but his angels remain to enact his will his will being the preservation of humans and the banning of nahobino nahubino being a means by which demons fuse with a human that carries the individual god's soul and ascend to a power rivaling yahweh to take the imperial throne and rule the world yahweh's realm presumably was running smoothly up until lucifer ended his life the angels vehemently deny yahweh's passing and fight as though he were still alive including abdiel who along with dazai are this game's law representatives law's end goal is to reinstate god's rule over earth and banish demons which makes sense what actually ends up happening is dazai fuses with abdiel breaking yahweh's edict against nahobinos and then she immediately dies sounds pretty ridiculous when you just outright say it like that but this ends up happening with each representative in almost every ending it's especially egregious in the law ending however because they make a big point to show the severity of the decision abdiel comes to by fusing with dazai to become a fallen angel nagobino dazai's descent into fully embracing god's importance and maybe going crazy is also a main plot point that they really do nothing with law in smt5 is portrayed as a strict dogma of contradictory ideas that inevitably lead to destruction the ending proper is surprisingly good despite all the weird story decisions made throughout the game the player reinstates yahweh's old rule creates a new tokyo and brings back almost every life lost in the conflict with the majority of the story being underwhelming but the ending being fairly good i really don't know how to feel about this becoming god is a pretty enticing reward for going this route but i can't say it was built out very well chaos is portrayed very similarly to the way it's portrayed in smt2 that being that the aim is to emancipate the gods of other religions from banishment at yahweh's hands initially it's the most understandable alignment to choose the knowledge of yahweh's death is stated to the player extremely early and teaming up with the angels is simply something the player has no choice in the moment koshimizu and yuzudu express their aim to disband from bethel there is very little reason to go against their plan aside from maybe your new friend dazai tao dies pretty early on and no one really seems to care about it that much so i doubt they really had that tight of a bond the aim to bring back the world before yahweh's takeover of the heavens would be interesting but thinking about the concept of nahobino it changes things considering every god has vastly different domains personalities and goals fusing with humans to create a physical form to carry out their will with god-like strength would be very problematic they outright say many people will find life extremely difficult and the irreconcilable differences between gods will lead to constant war and bloodshed the narration leaves very little opportunity to consider this ending even kind of good so in a way it's the opposite of this game's law ending a bait and switch much like chaos and smt-4 but this time at the very end which makes it more upsetting neutral in smt5 comes in two flavors regular and secret for the regular neutral you come across nua and yakumo who convey extremely chaos-like views yakumo constantly explains how humans must fight and those without the will to fight should be dead nua sees some potential in the player and the pair expressed their discontent with you remaining a pawn of bethel slowly yakumo begins to express his true belief system humanity and humanity alone should survive by any means necessary never trust demons whether they claim to have humanity's best interest in mind or not demons are to be eradicated and not put on a pedestal to be worshipped yakumo justifies this by saying demons have never made a human's life easier and they are a blot on this earth to be stamped out if you resonate with any of these ideals the player can decide to destroy the throne of god the imperian to prevent any god or demon from vying for the power to rule the world ever again many people got the chaos and neutral endings mixed up in this game but to those who are experienced with smt's general ideas towards neutral and chaos this was fairly obvious chaos wishes to emancipate the demons banished by yahweh and neutral aims to beat back the forces of law and chaos it just so happens that the forces of chaos are fought back off-screen this is my personal favorite ending of the game smt5's secret ending is a variety of neutral that is much more passive in doing a series of side quests throughout the game whose link to the actual ending is tenuous at best you can achieve the goals of the original neutral by finishing konsu's questline amano zako's quest line finn mccool's questline and shiva's questline you can decide to erase them all from existence for this neutral ending instead of destroying the imperium to prevent another hostile demonic takeover you can assume the imperium yourself and simply will all demons and gods to cease existing forever this ending ostensibly achieves the same goal as the neutral ending but without any of the bloodshed while this ending might seem like an objective improvement to the basic neutral ending the world presumably is reverted back to before the demon attack there's no change in human mindset but there is nothing to any religion or mythology anymore there are no revelations to prophets no deliverance of the faithful no judgment of evil nothing the earth will simply go on without interference until the heat death of the universe that is if humans don't end the world themselves before that the ending gives me a profound feeling of emptiness and finality which i suppose is what they were going for but it just seems so hollow smt5 has an interesting way of portraying their alignments the bias is hard to interpret but there is one the story as it goes on has a clear preference towards chaos as law is the group bethel which is a failing organization of gods who are constantly waiting for their opportunity to betray each other and claim power for themselves the endings themselves are a different story law is my personal favorite but secret true neutral is clearly the ending with the most involved lower connotations it's the only ending that isn't just the narrator talking to you as you walk through space the ending with the most involved requirements to get it and the ending with the highest degree of finality to it that covers every single alignment ending in all current mainline smt games aside from smt-9 with all that out of the way let's finally answer the question posed in the intro smt-1 has a neutral bias smt-2 has a chaos bias smt-3 has a chaos bias smt strange journey has no bias smt-4 has a neutral bias and smt-5 has a neutral bias a grand total of three out of the six games have neutral biases not as bad as i thought but here's where we get to the real point of the video we now have to talk about the endings that are clearly the bad endings or at least portrayed poorly smt-1's worst alignment is chaos smt-2 smt-2's worst alignment is law smt-3's worst alignments are law smt strange journey's worst alignment is chaos smt-4's worst alignment is law and smt-5's worst alignment is law four out of the six mainline smt game's worst alignments are law that is a staggering amount of times law is portrayed in a negative light the common thread in most of these negative portrayals is yahweh himself yahweh is consistently portrayed as a being with nothing but hate and a lack of respect for the human race after realizing smt's propensity to portray law and specifically yahweh as evil i had no idea why they view the abrahamic god in such a negative light i wanted to know more so i asked someone who might give me a better understanding of the topic so the western religions of catholicism and christianity have had quite the history in japan and it's quite a tragic one at that and by the way i do want to throw out a disclaimer that i'm aware this can be a sensitive topic for a whole variety of reasons i don't want to diminish any hurt any of you may have experienced at the hands of those who claim the christian faith yet at the same time i also don't want to diminish the hurt that was perpetrated towards believers in christ and so with that said i'll be discussing the persecution of christians in japan's history and how that's helped shape the current landscape of the country where only one percent of the total population identifies as christian i just think this is especially important to understand in smt5's case since i find that its endings share many parallels with the history of christianity in japan so catholicism first landed on the islands in 1549 via portuguese missionaries during a very turbulent time in japan's history you see hundreds of feudal lords called daimyo were embroiled in a war for power during what would come to be known as the sengoku era in the following decades since catholicism's first introduction as many as 15 of these lords mostly located in the western half of japan converted to christianity and not only that but the religion also did well among the poor so in general christianity was allowed to thrive and prosper for a time while everyone was busy fighting each other however that all changed in 1587 when the coalition of three powerful figures oda nobunaga toyotomi hideyoshi and tokugawa iayasu finally succeeded in their campaign to reunify the entirety of japan under one central government this meant that with the war finally over the new government could now set its sights on any perceived threats to the new budding nation one of these threats being the growing number of christian converts the fact that catholicism was an organized religion was enough to trouble the new government since the militant buddhist sect known as the ito iki caused much trouble for toyotomi and tokugawa during their initial campaign to reunify japan furthermore it came to their attention in 1596 that some of these western nations would send missionaries in the lead-up to them launching their own conquest of these territories so taking extra precaution to squash any budding religion that could potentially take up arms and also in hopes of defending japan from foreign powers in general the new government issued the first executions of christian missionaries and converts in 1596. this persecution continued sporadically in the decades following until finally in 1614 the tokugawa shogunate officially banned catholicism while in the meantime established buddhism as the official religion of japan the temple guarantee system went into effect at this time which required all people to produce a certificate of affiliation with a buddhist temple now it should be noted that tokugawa didn't utilize these temples out of any particular faithfulness to buddhism but to simply squash out the threat of christianity all while honoring the ways of japan's heritage since buddhism on top of shintoism are the two cornerstones of japanese mythology but going back to the persecution of christians the tokugawa shogunate produced these things called fumiye which were items depicting the images of the virgin mary and christ all with the sole purpose to be trod upon you see the policy of the tokugawa shogunate was to have these fresh converts renounce their faith so that eventually there would be no more practicing christians in japan anyone who is reluctant to trod on the fumier was sent to nagasaki for further torture and if they still did not turn from their christian beliefs then they were sent to mount unzen for execution the overall ban on christianity continued from 1614 all the way to 1873 but by the time it was lifted the narrative had essentially already been set by that i mean that catholicism's last christianity was so firmly tied with danger and the distrust of foreigners for so many centuries that there was really no way for the faith to gain a footing on the island nation ever again to this day less than one percent of japanese people identify as christian now this is a topic that always hit close to home as someone who has grown up in the japanese-american protestant community my entire life though i've personally never agreed with their mostly fundamentalist interpretation i.e what evangelical christianity is largely based on my mother was a native born japanese woman who came to know christ's teachings from my father a japanese american who taught english in japan for three years it's the real compassion and non-judgmental attitudes of my parents towards every person regardless of their gender or sexual orientation race and or other background that has always stuck with me and for us it has always been guided by a christ's teachings and the study of the bible in its historical context and all that has always been and continues to be a big part of my life a lot of people from the community i've grown up in have served as missionaries in japan for many years now but still the reaction to the small church communities established are normally viewed with suspicion or just completely ignored now this is understandable to me considering japan's huge history with homegrown cults but that's a topic for another time it just makes me kind of sad on a personal level that there's so much skepticism towards christianity in the country but back to the topic of snt 5 when it comes to the endings i can't help but notice how they fit the narrative regarding religion in japan as a result of the tokugawa shogunate what with tsukuyomi and the other japanese gods eventually coming to view abdiel and bethel as outsiders who don't have tokyo's best interests in mind and so speaking of all the endings i have to say that the chaos one weird how it's labeled that by the way resonated with me most out of the four possible also i should preface this part that in any given medium i'm very much biased towards humans i think that's referred to as being anthropocentric so in other words humanity's potential to be okay slash relatively at peace without fallible autocrats governing them is normally the most important part in any ending to me so that essentially disqualifies law and neutral endings and leaves just chaos for the fourth ending now i was having a hard time deciding how to feel about that hidden ending especially since it seemed so weirdly removed from the themes of the game's side quests but i was talking with tony and he brought up a really great point that i never thought of before and that was how the removal of all this supernatural demon side of things meant there was really no point to anyone's spirituality or faith in other words there would still be people who believed in a wide variety of gods fairies or demons but there would be no actual connection with that side at all and since i consider myself a follower of christ whose spirituality has helped get me through the toughest times in my whole life the reality of this ending just seems so profoundly sad so in the end the chaos ending seems the fairest to all parties to me especially since the side quests all game tried to sell this point that not all demons are bad so i feel like this ending allows the good demons to choose a side for themselves and though there would surely be many human casualties as they try to find a way to fight back at least society wouldn't be beholden to one of the flawed orders allah law or neutral routes but i've hogged enough time in this video by this point so i just want to give a big thanks to tony once again for letting me have this opportunity to talk about this topic with you guys and now i'm passing it back to him the perception of abrahamic religion in megaton is a product of the culture surrounding the region it's made in it's impossible to strip away that aspect of it but when it becomes so easy to see the biases it becomes a problem having a twist where the organized religion has a dark underbelly is fine having a government use religion as a guide to rule over the populace is fine examples of this can be seen in real life as well and can make for an excellent tale in shin megami tensei however consistently portraying yahweh who shares the same name as the real-life abrahamic god as an evil tyrant who cares nothing for humans is getting tiring to be clear i'm not implying that the abrahamic god of real life and yahweh of smt are interchangeable of course they aren't this is a video game with its own lore but to say that they aren't obviously drawing parallels would be disingenuous moral ambiguity in story choices has always been the appeal of shin megami tensei this is the only series where you can shape the world in almost every single game by the end having a big bad evil guy is okay in other rpgs but in smt i expect more i expect better yahweh being portrayed as an evil mind controlling tyrant is cliche tired and doesn't often lend itself to good storytelling spending the entirety of the game saving people and being kind regardless of who they are like in the choices of smt-2 in sparing daelis life or an smt4 in the coliseums and even sparing the dullahan only to kill everyone in the law endings anyway is just silly all because law drones doing genocide is a meme people generally tend to steer towards the law-like choices in these games but when the real alignment defining choices rear their ugly head no one in their right mind would choose some of the options given i love shin megami tensei it's probably my favorite series ever so that's why i expect better from it a game where you can recruit and fight alongside gods and demons from every world religion demonology and regional folk tales all while shaping the world to align to your beliefs out of nothing but sheer determination and force of will is truly something special having a story like the guy in charge is actually really evil and wants to kill everyone for no reason is not what i want having a story like don't you think having no personality or freedom is a good idea is not what i want i want more law representations like strange journey more nuance more interesting moral dilemmas and less one-dimensional antagonists i believe atlas can do it here's hoping for a great shin megami tensei six special thanks to auto shift frankie stoned heavenly potato john mr eight eyes next 666 video gamer 75 and many others for supporting the channel on patreon if you'd like to support check the link in the description below and as always thanks for watching this tony for you have a good one