so vanessa and i have been talking about how like, the self-imposed "timeline limits" of p5's gameplay are clashing with the established Lore of the world, especially in relation to the deaths of Shadows and what it means for the person

basically we're told pretty early on if a person's shadow dies, they die, and when we look at like. yknow, previous Persona games (at least p4) this is something we get as Truth

but. it SEEMS like. because of the gameplay gaps, there CAN BE a 'delay' between doing something to someone's shadow in their palace and it reflecting on the 'real world'

and at first it seems like, well, change of heart effects might not be immediate because it's a reconcilliation of the shadow with the person, which can take Time and be yknow a complicated mental breakdown (as we see explained at least well enough for me with Madarame, Kaneshiro, ect)

but my fucking sticking point is Okumura lmao who we SEE. GET SHOT IN THE FACE. THE DAY YOU STEAL HIS TREASURE. which can be like A WHOLE MONTH before he dies irl

and the SIU director says something to that effect about "controlling" the right time things will happen, implying they are able to change and decide exactly when these effects will hit in the real world

so like. there has to then, be ANOTHER, SEPERATE trigger that is thrown to cause the effects IRL versus in a palace/mementos/ect. but then what is that

so. yeah. someone help. thanks

im pretty sure the real reason is "we didnt think this through" tbh, but

but it's kind of the same rationale as to why stealing the treasure doesn't cause an immediate mental shift

Mental shutdowns are pretty vague and largely just function as needed for the story. It's worth noting that a Mental Shutdown is NOT necessarily fatal, and depends on the health of the person in question. It's similar to Apathy Syndrome from P3 in that regard. They sort of just go invalid or mindless, which THEN leads into deaths via "accidents".

so it's at least consistent that there's a delay between "thing happened in palace -> thing happen irl"

To which it's then worth noting that, IIRC, in one of the chat message logs Haru mentions him being cooped up in his study and his voice lacking energy, which gets dismissed as "oh thats probably normal"

i dont believe its ever stated that the death is immediate after killing the shadow, just inevitable

"People just act a bit weird after their Treasure gets stolen, don't worry about it it's just settling in"

and we get a brief cutaway to one of the old dudes mentions making arrangements for the mental shutdown to happen at the right time

so they either have a way of timing it AFTER the fact or maybe they were just monitoring his health in order to time things right

i mean they have to have a way of timing it after the fact as seen with Okumura, because they straight up shoot his shadow at an arbitrary point beforehand and then trigger it During The Press Conference

and there's also a diff between like. the mental shutdowns and psychotic breakdown incidents, bc in some of the 'psychotic breakdowns' it's just akechi sending their shadow fuck bonkers which doesn't necessarily kill them

so we don't necessarily know a mental shutdown is 1:1 triggered by killing a shadow

like i am also of the opinion atlus didn't think about this very hard and simply fudged dates around for the rule of cool and like, gameplay mechanics, but it still leaves me here Mad JHKLDGS

thats the most likely option really shdflk

though they could've finangled some kind of excuse to delay it until a later date. Such as locking the boss fight until a specific date somehow and making it a hard mandatory.

similar really to running out of time during the Shido palace AFTER youve beaten Akechi... and subsequently then getting arrested by Akechi after he, yknow

that one is so funny

AHHSJLKGDSD WAIT REALLY IM CRYING

atlus you are KILLING ME

yeah the discrepancy is "because video game"

rule of cool and all that

also rule of video game crunch

sHLFKDSAF YEAH

AKECHI WILL STILL COME AND ARREST YOU EVEN AFTER YOUVE BEATEN HIM

ig his fight is close enough to the end of the palace that you're not gonna FAIL the deadline at that point unless you blatantly try to, but...

the deadlines are so long you really have no excuse for missing them regardless—

Akechi, finding the strength to shake off a deadly bullet wound to survive long enough to arrest Ren himself

arrests you, then keels over