ambiguity versus intentionality: tatsumaya in persona 2
warning: spoilers for persona 2, and mild spoilers for persona 1. mentions of suicide and grooming. i don't like tatsumaya, but i explain why in regards to each character's personality and actions above all else.
persona 2 innocent sin is a beautiful game hampered by tadashi satomi's older woman/younger man kink. it permeates parts of persona 1, and causes similar issues to IS in eternal punishment, but in innocent sin, tatsuya's feelings for maya are a critical part of the narrative... and maya's feelings are always left in this perpetual limbo of ambiguity in response, up until the final scene of eternal punishment and a few contacts of that game.
most players refer to the world book's "word of god" on the matter to clear things up: according to tadashi, lisa and jun have one-sided affections for tatsuya, and tatsuya has one-sided affection for maya. moreover, in EP, a player can choose whether maya has feelings for katsuya or tatsuya, and it's left there, ignoring maya's ties to ulala and baofu. easy. in this way, it's easy to sidestep the messy ambiguity of all the contacts and maya's reciprocation, alongside her boundary-pushing in general; a neat solution to an unsavory problem.
in my second run of p2is, i decided to look at every piece of dialogue, as tadashi and the writers intended (bearing in mind this is a game from the '90s), with one of the subjects i was interested in being this back and forth between tatsuya and maya. was it entirely one-sided, or was there reciprocation that tadashi chose to ignore, similarly to other things in the world book? i have multiple issues with the world books, from their simplistic views of shipping that erase the depth of homosexual relationships (tatsuya and jun being a major one where the developers treat it as more of a joke than a serious option for tatsuya), to contradicting canon in small ways (often around negative character traits, or anything revealed in contacts/one or two dialogue boxes around town).
naturally, i was surprised the moment maya started asking questions to tatsuya about his and lisa's relationship at sevens, before mimicking lisa's actions at stores around town to see how he'd react. the example that sticks out best in my mind regarding this is when lisa pretends she's weak and needs tatsuya's protection in one of the sevens classrooms, to which maya says it must be hard being him, to paraphrase; when kounan's first unlocked a couple of dungeons later, however, she does the exact same thing around carrying heavy loads of her journalism equipment, with yukino commenting it's out of character for her. hilariously, she also mentions maya's boobs at the same time... which is probably more telling of where the writers' minds were at the time, as it makes no sense for tatsuya to bring it up here.
god, that's another thing. the infamous boob dialogue with maya at the chiropractor. most people pretend that one doesn't exist either; it's painful to read, but maya's flirting back with tatsuya no matter which option he picks, with only one option reading anything near platonic (and even then, it reads more dysphoric to the players who choose to engage with this section of the game...)
kasugayama high's the first instance of serious boundary crossing, in the conversation that happens while everyone's asleep. this is where i had to accept most players either missed maya's actions, or were willingly ignoring them; on my first run, i took a break right after playing this section of the game (wonder why!), but playing it back, maya jokes with tatsuya about the conversation they had which everyone else missed, before playing the fool when lisa asks what they'd spoken about later.
normally, this conversation wouldn't be anything, but it's the first instance of tatsuya's blushing sprite (that only comes up a couple more times beyond this point), and it changes his and maya's relationship to "things are getting intimate." were this conversation nothing, that wouldn't be a change; as it is, it's noticeable!
obligatorily mentioning here that it's recommended for most players to play the ps1 version of the game with a fan translation, but i'm not sure whether that version keeps the explicit boundary crossing here. i've found that translation often misses nuances in the localisation that help get the message across to an english speaking audience (i.e. fuhrer relates to the jungian father, and isn't a strict censorship nerf; i'd also say his sunglasses are foreshadowing in hindsight for kandori's true nature in p2ep as being brought back from the dead by rumour), and i don't recommend it to newer players even if the combat is easier.
either way, tatsuya and maya's relationship stays at this point until the flag at the concert hall, which is shockingly easily to trip. on my first run, i did it by accident without a guide, and i have yet to see a single screenshot of someone reaching taurus shrine without having maya as a romance option. after this point, the intimacy levels rocket up with each point in the arc, and maya's frequency of taking the lead in contacts (anecdotally!) goes up in tandem. by the time they reach the caracol, they're "quite" intimate, and things are only set to increase once they recruit jun into the party, despite lisa finally understanding her feelings for tatsuya and jun having his own latent feelings. when they reach taurus shrine, even if tatsuya picks another lover, he still has "quite" an intimate relationship with maya, unless he picks her, in which case lisa's heart is broken, he and jun's relationship is dependent on his choices at leo shrine, and he and maya are now "incredibly intimate".
this leads to the first reason most players brush off maya's actions: tatsuya suou must be an unreliable narrator.
i have to argue with this on multiple fronts. first off, he recounts the events of innocent sin twice, technically; the first is during innocent sin, and the second is in eternal punishment. the closest he gets to unreliable narration in terms of events he can remember is omitting his reason for remembering in the new timeline until he reaches the collective unconsciousness, while his recollection of the events ten years before p2is is ambiguous, and technically reliant on the player's memory. if the player remembers, tatsuya remembers; if the player doesn't, tatsuya learns along with them. it's a cute gameplay-story integration, but one that's more a natural progression of p1's naoya-player relationship. the player isn't tatsuya's shadow, but they are the guiding force in tatsuya's life in a time where he's hesitant to make his own life choices.
beyond these moments, he's a remarkably reliable narrator at the most extreme interpretation of gameplay-story integration, to the point where he sees and comments on things like lisa's unrequited love, eikichi's narcissism, and jun's guilt long before other characters realise they exist. in the same vein, he's aware of the progression of his relationship with maya. there's never a moment where there's ambiguity in that relationship; hilariously, the only time he has any ambiguous relationship in p2is beyond first meeting other party members is when he questions whether he and jun are truly lovers despite confessing to him. that, however, is a case of him feeling uncertain in appearing masculine while being queer in 1999 japan.
so here lies the second question: is this simply a case of tatsuya only being interested in maya, and shaking off any other interest the moment he gets close with her?
i don't believe so. he notices when his relationship with maya progresses to "incredibly intimate" even when he's confessed to lisa or jun, but doesn't downgrade his relationship with lisa or jun. he doesn't do what he does when confessing to maya over lisa (walling out lisa before she can even talk when trying to contact with her). he doesn't change the "incredibly intimate" with lisa, or "lovers...?" with jun. he lets things progress with maya, while he's still with his lover.
in taurus shrine as well, his contact options show that he's least likely to confess to maya. is it because lisa's the one pushing him to confess? probably... but he's more likely to confess to jun than maya too, even if lisa takes that confession poorly as well (but not to the point of heartbreak; jun's a guy and she's a girl). this isn't super compelling evidence to me that he's got less interest in maya, but it does show that he'd prefer not to admit he's got feelings for her around others. jun gives maya a side-eye when tatsuya confesses, for goodness' sake!
but he still doesn't shake off her interest, and seems just as invested in his other relationships as he is with maya. this raises a multitude of new questions, and is also the crux of why so many people are uncomfortable with their relationship as a whole; tatsuya isn't good at setting boundaries, and often wants to please others before doing what he wants. in a relationship with someone five years older while he's still in high school...
maya pushes boundaries enough while in the p2is party that it's noticeable to the others, and in p2ep, her silence and protagonist-mandated passiveness gives her a pass for all her actions that have come before. instances like jumping into the burning plane (a mild one, in fairness), her shadow's pushiness in mt iwato (unchallenged except by yukino at points), driving the boat on the silver river, and keeping secrets in xibalba are all moments that aren't consequential on their own, but as a whole, point to a party that don't want to challenge their "big sis," and especially don't want to stop her when she's acting of her own volition. they all get resolved in the end, sometimes by the party [more towards the end], sometimes by things getting to such a drastic point that things need to change [more towards the mid-game], but it's noticeable when maya doesn't get challenged on flirting with tatsuya when lisa's on a hair trigger when it comes to anyone else (leo shrine).
tatsuya isn't good at setting boundaries normally anyway. lisa's one of the best examples of this, with her constant pushing of a romance between them one of the main reasons people don't like her, yet the reason she gets so much flack is because tatsuya doesn't push back. eikichi doesn't get the same passes, and yukino/jun simply don't push at all, which makes lisa the outlier when ignoring maya. and maya...
maya doesn't push him around so obviously or frequently, making her flirtations one of the only instances where there aren't immediate, "must rescue maya" consequences to her pushing, but i fear this makes it worse. when she needs rescuing from a burning plane or needs tatsuya to drive the boat for her, that's something that needs changing immediately (and tatsuya doesn't even take initiative for one of them!). the slow creep of grooming, however?
i didn't want to mention the grooming word, as it's definitely not tadashi's intention while writing these characters, but frankly, age gap romances have to be treated with a level of care given the subject matter. it's age appropriate for lisa to push tatsuya, and age appropriate for her to be shut down in turn when she makes him uncomfortable; it's one of the reasons i like tatsuya and lisa, actually, as it's a realistic portrayal of a relationship that's unhealthy on both ends, yet has the potential to grow into a healthy one so long as they listen to one another (although i believe a comphetting lisa won't be with him forever, and is pushing mainly to fulfill societal expectations at the heart of her conflict). for maya, however?
she doesn't push to the same extent, but there's little things that become deeply uncomfortable with a passive tatsuya. for me, the worst parts are their in-jokes at kasugayama high, the relationship escalating with no point of return after tatsuya offers to protect her at the aoba park concert hall, future escalations in their contact relationship whenever tatsuya protects or saves her, shadow maya calling him a "little boy," maya's suicidal ideation [with the expectation that tatsuya can save her] throughout the game, but especially at xibalba, and her always going to tatsuya for comfort, rather than anyone else in the party, especially after yukino leaves.
in isolation? most of these would be fine. some are '90s writing on steroids, some are tadashi's classic damsel writing that he often employs around tatsuya. maya's no shiori (holy shit...), but with all of these together, it paints a difficult picture, especially when tadashi considers maya tatsuya's canon love interest from p2is. don't remember where this is cited from, but it's fanon lore as old as philemon... probably that damn world book, in retrospect.
ultimately, maya confiding in tatsuya about her feeling she's bound for death throughout the last third of the game is what truly seals this relationship as unhealthy, erring on grooming even if the intention isn't there. these dialogues are the literal reason why tatsuya goes to the next universe, although they're not part of why he remembers; they do catalyze all his actions from there on out though. the last thing maya wants, as she says while dying, is to chain others down. problem is, she's talking to a group of teenagers... one of whom has been fostering an "incredibly intimate" relationship with her all through a dungeon that makes his thoughts reality. they've been flirting, possibly even while he's in another relationship.
the last thing she wants is to chain him down, so she wants him to forget about her. he tries. he really does try, even though he can't forget his friends, and it's her complex, multi-layered wish that ultimately drives him, rather than the wishes of his friends to forget each other too. he wants to make sure maya doesn't die, as well as protect his friends, by p2ep... but only one of those is the reason why he's chasing her down with a sevens emblem in the clocktower. lisa doesn't have an emblem on her at sumaru tv; that alone is proof enough that tatsuya's focus is warping around the woman who's been pushing his boundaries all game.
the question is, how does maya feel about this?
her feelings are left ambiguous on the surface to a comical extent, to the point where some fans will ardently argue that the only character she's ever had romantic interest towards is ulala serizawa (which is a reasonable read given the clusterfuck that is establishing maya's relationships in p2ep). often times, fans of her and katsuya don't even try to argue she has feelings in response; i've tried a few times, and it always drives me nuts having to make something out of very little in response to a ship considered potentially canon by a damn writer, with just as much evidence hinting she and baofu have had something between them. it's insane!
still, there's explicit detailing in the depths, even if i have to dip into p2ep to find it.
maya gets upset when ulala wants tatsuya for herself in their marriage contact in p2ep, in a way she never gets with anyone else. even with katsuya, she defends him, but never gets emotional; with baofu, she's pushing ulala his way despite their online friendship, and with nanjo, it's the clearest case of maya not being interested. the fact she gets upset and tries to play it cool is evidence enough to me that she's attached to him.
the playing it cool bit is what truly solidifies that she's trying to hide these feelings from everyone else. her shadow mentions she's sad to have to kill tatsuya in p2is, which, alongside the "little boy" remark, indicates she knows exactly what she's doing in regards to chasing a high schooler, even if he's 18. maya represses her feelings for tatsuya even with herself, but that doesn't stop her from subconsciously acting on them, or finding justification for acting on them.
deflection flirting is something she does. i think she thinks she's doing it with tatsuya, but as shown above, it's not really deflection.
tatsuya's prince contact shows her willing to contact with him, even if she doesn't want to lead like she does in p2is. why might this be? could be a few things: there's the fact his brother katsuya's in the party and is notoriously overprotective, there's ulala in the party, who also has an interest in tatsuya romantically (stupidly, as per p2is and p2ep; sometimes tadashi needs to chill...), and when baofu gets closer to tatsuya, he takes on a paternal role to him. none of these people would appreciate her hitting on a traumatized 18 year old, even if their reasons all vary markedly.
the kiss at the end of p2ep is a moment of desperation from maya, but also her most in character dialogue option. that sideswiped me on my first run; it's not signposted it'll result in a kiss, then tatsuya knocking her out, but it happens. it's something. it's the clearest sign the game ever gives that she's still the same maya from p2is, willing to cross lines and push tatsuya so long as she can find some catharsis or solace, yet it's treated as a romantic option.
it's also the option that proves p2ep isn't entirely from maya's perspective, like p2is was for tatsuya, but an ever-present guide... or ulala filling in events that maya misses. maya feels oddly disconnected from p2ep in a way tatsuya never was from p2is, despite being as silent as her, and the only reads i have for this are that either maya's a disconnected narrator reporting on events without invoking her own feelings, or the narrator of the main game is you, the player, guiding maya. i've always subscribed to the former, but now i'm debating whether it's the latter instead. maybe it's a mix.
tatsuya scenario is a different kettle of fish and involves maya's narration in chapter 3. i could rant all day about that for other reasons.
still, she has feelings for tatsuya. i could go through every moment with her and tatsuya in p2is and explain which ones feed into a relationship that grooms tatsuya into becoming her savior, but that'll take more than the hour and a half it's taken to type this up. there's something interesting about her, tatsuya's savior, to want tatsuya to save her, but i fear tadashi may have fixated on this above all else, making their relationship twisted and enmeshed.
ultimately, i think that was tadashi's intention; maya represents the mother archetype, and he wanted everyone in the p2is party to be enmeshed with her by the end. that doesn't take away that i don't like the way it was done here, nor do i like the subtext of the relationship. personally, i believe there was a way this could've been done, either by truly giving focus to maya's grooming at certain points of the story more than what was done to explore the ripple effects, the how and why, of what she did, or by undercutting the romance to truly make it one-sided and lacking in romance from her side, making it a true instance of tatsuya reading incorrectly into a relationship she wasn't feeding into at all, whether via a flirting contact or her shadow proving she considered him a little brother.
that said, i fear tadashi wanted more and backed out by the world book when it became clear tatsumaya was a far more weakly written relationship in comparison to tatsuya and lisa, tatsuya and jun, or, hell, tatsuya and the multitudes of other characters he comes into contact with! tatsuya scenario exists to validate tatsumaya as an ethical relationship where maya isn't predating on a high school student, but it ultimately comes off hollow when maya's not all that different to shiori, except in intent and consciousness. tadashi, as proven by the narrative threads running through all the older persona games, cares deeply about his art being taken seriously and understood, as i feel most artists do; the issue is, he takes public sentiment seriously to the point of changing works to appeal to said public. tatsuya and jun being a romance option was an attempt to appeal to fujoshi players, and arcs like maki sonomura's in p1, chisato kasai's in p1, and ginji sasaki's, of all people, in p2is, exist to explain the balance between creating art that comes from one's heart while creating art that others will love.
i'm not sure what to think. tatsumaya's a ship that suffers from its ambiguity, but is very intentional in enough aspects that it's clear the ambiguity is a protective shield of sorts. i dislike it more and more as i see just how intentional it was in p2is, and how p2ep obfuscates that intentionality, even if maya doesn't want to be aware of her feelings for tatsuya. even tatsuya had to reckon with his repressed feelings, like with his "lovers...?" with jun, and feeling pushed around by lisa; the fact maya never gets challenged on this, among the many other parts of her character that get swept aside when it's time for shadow confrontations, feels hollow. in a way, i could just as easily argue tatsumaya is one of the most artfully subtle ships, written in a way that won't ever get replicated in a post-'90s world, but i dislike it so much!!! i dislike that the narrative shies away from addressing their relationship, and that it shies away from confronting maya in general!!!
i dislike that the ambiguity of their relationship is a subject that's always getting brought up thanks to a stupid line in the world book.
i dislike that the world book dictates so much of fan sentiment and canonicity in general.
i dislike so much of how maya's character is handled in regards to her flaws, even when the game has perfect cause to bring up her pushing things with tatsuya, or her attachment to him. i dislike that she escapes having to reckon with her feelings because she only acts on them of her own volition right before the end of p2ep, and because she looks back at the crosswalk at tatsuya, people consider that she's moved on because she was able to move past him.
i dislike that it's so clear she's still hung up on tatsuya in that final frame of her face, watching him disappear down the road with a wistful smile. i dislike even more that people see her watch him go, and talk about how the ending is all about letting go of the past. is this letting go?
i dislike that people are incredulous as to how tatsuya and maya could possibly be together in that one "who's who" thing in persona 5 strikers. maya never got over him. tatsuya doesn't remember her, but neither does jun [or eikichi and lisa if you kept it together in the monad]. the world only requires one person to completely forget, and it's the easiest sequel bait in the world to make them all remember again to force them all together again. tadashi set up so much sequel bait in that ending to p2ep, and no modern game has ever used it. it's kind of funny actually.
still. i dislike that people thrive on ignorance and "how could they even be together?" when it comes to tatsumaya, because maya's proved time and again that she doesn't mind chasing tatsuya, even when her intentions are 'benign'.
i don't have much to add about fandom, but people do tend to dislike this ship because they hate the undertones; the pushing, the grooming, the savior of my savior is my lover who's going to stop me from killing myself of it all. even if people aren't processing this consciously, they're processing it on a subconscious level. for the people who like it, they like soulmates and saviors and don't mind the pushing when there's a payoff at the end.
more people have come around on tatsuya and lisa since the comphet theory's become mainstream, as it's given lisa a reason to act the way she is. for most people, they don't understand why maya's pushing, or might not even see maya's pushing; to them, tatsumaya's either a repulsive mystery they have no interest in solving, or they'd rather focus on other things. that's fair. it's just interesting, once more, that maya's ambiguities have, once again, given people an out when it comes to understanding her motivations that are very intentionally in the game.
maybe someday tatsumaya won't be such a mystery to those who play the game, and people can form opinions based on more than tadashi's stupid kink, and a world book that cares little for the small details that make up its characters within.