minor spoilers Yoko's idea about how to deal with Sahori's bullies is stupid

[allknowingeel]

She asks Tao if she is willing to kill the girls bullying Sahori. So basically, kill them, dispose of the bodies, risk going to jail for murder, great plan Yoko. Bullying is horrible, but risking going to jail over it is a terrible idea. Although we do have demons that could probably destroy the bodies, but still.

[Cat]

It always bothered me you aren't allowed to step in at any point for that plot and just has to let it escalate further and further. At least she acknowledges it.

[allknowingeel]

Originally posted by Sunricer:

It always bothered me you aren't allowed to step in at any point for that plot and just has to let it escalate further and further. At least she acknowledges it.

Yeah but at the same time her advice is basically: "Kill them, find a way to get rid of the bodies, get our cover stories straight." And it actually takes quite a lot of planning to get away with murder.

But as for your point about getting involved, yeah it does seem strange, especially seeing as our character see's it happening and just watches as the girls walk away after slamming Sahori into a wall. Very little effort was actually done by characters to dealing with the issue.

[Part-Time Prick]

At the same time though, Tao's allegedly been trying the gentle supportive approach the whole time with Sahori refusing help, and informing teachers hadn't helped. Considering you couldn't do anything through proper channels, and that bullies tend to just get worse after receiving retribution that doesn't fundamentally remove the problem...

She is not wrong.

[allknowingeel]

Originally posted by Part-Time Prick:

At the same time though, Tao's allegedly been trying the gentle supportive approach the whole time with Sahori refusing help, and informing teachers hadn't helped. Considering you couldn't do anything through proper channels, and that bullies tend to just get worse after receiving retribution that doesn't fundamentally remove the problem...

She is not wrong.

Tao's gentle approach didn't do sh*t I agree. But suggesting literal murder and trying to cover it up isn't exactly a great move either. You just replace one problem, with an even bigger more psychologically taxing thing. Committing murder is not an easy thing to do because everything has to go right, you have to not be seen as the last people with them, you have to have alibis, you have to make sure there is nothing leading back to you, you have to endure the stress in interrogation. It really isn't a good plan to jump straight to murder of at least 2 people. That's assuming you can even murder them all in the first place.

[Part-Time Prick]

Originally posted by allknowingeel:

Originally posted by Part-Time Prick:

At the same time though, Tao's allegedly been trying the gentle supportive approach the whole time with Sahori refusing help, and informing teachers hadn't helped. Considering you couldn't do anything through proper channels, and that bullies tend to just get worse after receiving retribution that doesn't fundamentally remove the problem...

She is not wrong.

Tao's gentle approach didn't do sh*t I agree. But suggesting literal murder and trying to cover it up isn't exactly a great move either. You just replace one problem, with an even bigger more psychologically taxing thing. Committing murder is not an easy thing to do because everything has to go right, you have to not be seen as the last people with them, you have to have alibis, you have to make sure there is nothing leading back to you, you have to endure the stress in interrogation. It really isn't a good plan to jump straight to murder of at least 2 people. That's assuming you can even murder them all in the first place.

The idea was more for explicitly dealing with Sahori's bullying, in that nothing short of murder would work in their current situation, not in the practicality of it. That said considering Yoko and Tao have magic and they don't, yes they totally could, forensics I imagine probably isn't equipped to deal with someone being turned to ash without contact anyway, good luck making the charge stick with that anyway.

[Overeagerdragon]

Taking Yoko out of context of the game I gotta say I have to agree with her advice but I didn't take her advice as THAT literal either but certainly to an extent that Tao "might have to go to extremes" in order for her to help Sahori.
Practically (as the Part-Time Prick said) going through the proper channels doesn't tend to work or even makes it worse at times. With bullies usually being willing to go to extremes themselves (and mind you; sometimes without realising it themselves) it only leave the option to deal with it in a similar extreme measure.

It friggin sucks but it seems to be commonplace in this day and age to protect the bully and punish the victim in cases of bullying.... When bullying start verging on the edge of actual torture it can result in extreme consequences because that's the only way "out" for those people.

During the climax of that part of the game I wouldn't say I agreed with Sahori's actions but I definitely felt like the bullies had it coming

[allknowingeel]

Originally posted by Overeagerdragon:

Taking Yoko out of context of the game I gotta say I have to agree with her advice but I didn't take her advice as THAT literal either but certainly to an extent that Tao "might have to go to extremes" in order for her to help Sahori.
Practically (as the Part-Time Prick said) going through the proper channels doesn't tend to work or even makes it worse at times. With bullies usually being willing to go to extremes themselves (and mind you; sometimes without realising it themselves) it only leave the option to deal with it in a similar extreme measure.

It friggin sucks but it seems to be commonplace in this day and age to protect the bully and punish the victim in cases of bullying.... When bullying start verging on the edge of actual torture it can result in extreme consequences because that's the only way "out" for those people.

During the climax of that part of the game I wouldn't say I agreed with Sahori's actions but I definitely felt like the bullies had it coming

You can deal with bulies without murder, such as roughing them up a bit with your own friends, intimidating bullies with their own medicine inflicts more pain onto them anyway which is what you want for revenge. Murder gets them off too easily. And yes they do have magic, but that is more likely to draw attention from Bethel and other organisations. And murder also causes immense trauma to the people who commit it for the first time. Ending another human's life or multiple human lives for the first time is an experience that can haunt you on a psychological level. In a way, you can actually end up causing more trauma to yourself if you kill a person.

[0rion_09]

Some of you people might be taking her words way too literally. I don't think Yoko really meant Tao needs to resort to murder, in my interpretation She just meant that Tao needs to be more proactive in trying to help her friend as reaching out to the teachers and simply being there for Sahori wasn't enough.

She's basically saying "You want to help your friend? Then step in, be assertive, be persistent. Even when Sahori pushes you away you should keep trying, and don't hesitate to confront someone when you're convinced they're in the wrong even though it might get you in trouble."

The way Yoko delivered her line though did make it sound like she really meant what she said without implying there's an underlying meaning. Idk, this is just my opinion.

[The Seraph of Tomorrow]

Originally posted by Sunricer:

It always bothered me you aren't allowed to step in at any point for that plot and just has to let it escalate further and further. At least she acknowledges it.

Typical anime plot, you can't stop the bullies because.....................................
and the plot continues with the bully arc.

To be fair, the writing standards for the games industry is appalling. I can't remember a game in the past 20 years that had a story that from start to finish was actually well written. Most games plot is rushed, rough start, horrible fall after the intro, or just plain bad.

Honestly I can't really say why without just being plain rude about it. I can't help but think that the people who get hired for "plot design" in the games industry are just nepotism hires or maybe there are just a lot of morons in the games industry who couldn't write to save their life, but take the job title anyways.

[allknowingeel]

Originally posted by The Seraph of Tomorrow:

Originally posted by Sunricer:

It always bothered me you aren't allowed to step in at any point for that plot and just has to let it escalate further and further. At least she acknowledges it.

Typical anime plot, you can't stop the bullies because.....................................
and the plot continues with the bully arc.

To be fair, the writing standards for the games industry is appalling. I can't remember a game in the past 20 years that had a story that from start to finish was actually well written. Most games plot is rushed, rough start, horrible fall after the intro, or just plain bad.

Honestly I can't really say why without just being plain rude about it. I can't help but think that the people who get hired for "plot design" in the games industry are just nepotism hires or maybe there are just a lot of morons in the games industry who couldn't write to save their life, but take the job title anyways.

I can think of a few visual novels like fate stay night and Witch on The Holy Night, but they're not really games and more just another medium of media which happens to be sold on steam. As far as actual games, I also can't really think of any games in that time that had great writing from start to finish.

[Cat]

What aggravates me is less that the bullying happens as a plot device and more that you see it happen, do nothing about it and then just let it get worse and worse. Tao is also not helping, maybe it's not your place to step in and cause a scene, but at least walk up there when you see they are pushing her against a wall and being horrible to her, at the very least ask if she's okay afterwards? Instead you just walk off like it's not your problem until she turns into a full blown demon problem, it just irks me so much.

At least you aren't forced to morally lecture on her the evil of killing, the one time your non character mc at least isn't annoying, I don't know if the new version handles it any better, but the original story point was really the worst part of the writing for me as thee whole problem would have been prevented if someone just took some action instead of letting her get isolated to a point of letting a demon take control of her.

[allknowingeel]

Originally posted by Sunricer:

What aggravates me is less that the bullying happens as a plot device and more that you see it happen, do nothing about it and then just let it get worse and worse. Tao is also not helping, maybe it's not your place to step in and cause a scene, but at least walk up there when you see they are pushing her against a wall and being horrible to her, at the very least ask if she's okay afterwards? Instead you just walk off like it's not your problem until she turns into a full blown demon problem, it just irks me so much.

At least you aren't forced to morally lecture on her the evil of killing, the one time your non character mc at least isn't annoying, I don't know if the new version handles it any better, but the original story point was really the worst part of the writing for me as thee whole problem would have been prevented if someone just took some action instead of letting her get isolated to a point of letting a demon take control of her.

While we disagree about the whole killing thing (for different reasons with morality mostly removed from the equation for me tbh), I agree that the story has plenty of flaws, the original cannon of creation has even more problems, I have not finished cannon of vengeance yet but it's pacing and characters seem to be leagues better here than in the original, still not perfect as you have shown. I even rolled my eyes when the mc just looked at the bullies as they walked away and then just went about their daily school routine. The cannon of vengeance still has some problems from the og story, but overall is handling the pacing and character moments far better. The characters like Atsuta, Tao and other npcs can actually join you temporarily as party members now which helps make them feel more involved overall in the story, they show some actual character development and arcs now too. With Yoko and Tao influencing each other and rounding the lacking parts of their personalities off, with Tao becoming more firm in what she wants and not just being 'generic nice pretty looking girl'. And Yuko becoming more willing to open up to others and not just value her own life (I know she wasn't in the og but this shows some development for her). We see Atsuta actually get angry and show more emotion over events in the game and react. And Dazai's flaw of fear seemingly explored more and actually causing problems that have to be resolved instead of it being used to get him to like Abdiel. So far this is a far better plot than what the original had.

[Cat]

I'm not gonna advocate for killing your bullies or anything, but those girls were trash and I don't feel bad for them dying for their own stupidity, I'm on the side that while maybe not morally right to murder them, the victim is not at fault for giving in to the demon influence and having them killed for it. No matter how sorry they say they are when they face actual consequences for their actions. this is mostly what I mean by saying I'm glad the mc didn't lecture her on it. (The whole killing evil will make you evil mentality in anime comes to mind)

I imagine vengeance still suffers from not being a total revamp of the story as it still has to follow the majority of the story beats from the original, truth be told anything involving Tokyo storyline in the original canon of creation was a huge low point for me. It just felt poorly written and rushed. Glad to know characters get a bit more to work with this time.

[Frostea]

Yoko is a terrible character, another W for law enjoyers.

[Swimfan]

Originally posted by allknowingeel:

She asks Tao if she is willing to kill the girls bullying Sahori. So basically, kill them, dispose of the bodies, risk going to jail for murder, great plan Yoko. Bullying is horrible, but risking going to jail over it is a terrible idea. Although we do have demons that could probably destroy the bodies, but still.

Yeah she basically wears the "I'm the bad path"-cappy at that point. I have no idea what the devs were thinking with that scene, it makes NO SENSE.
Thankfully she is less stupidly "extreme" after that (which makes that outburst feel even more out of place).