Quote Originally Posted by Forsaken Lover View Post
I don't think it's handholding to have your first instinct be to help.

Looking up the other choices, I also didn't get Maya's second Persona because I didn't force the woman with the fear of fire to go walk through a blazing inferno. For smurf's sake, Maya's fear of fire is 100% valid and is born of horrible trauma. We've seen how she seizes up and freaks out because of it. Telling her to go save that girl on her own is wrong on every level.
She herself offers to do it on her own

The decisions really come at a point where the characters have the opportunity to get over their issues, and they want to do it. Of course, they'll accept your help, since it's the easier way out and part of them wishes for that to happen, but if you do step in, you kind of rob them of the opportunity that might not come up again for them. So it's really the best choice for them to leave it to them because helping them at that point isn't really help in the long run. And this is how it deconstructs friendship being the solution, among others - sometimes what a friend really needs to do is take a backseat.

Also, shout out to Maya who is, as far as I'm aware, the only person in the entire series to just outright deny her shadow self and win. This was always interesting to me and I think this partly stems from the fact that she's the adult of the group. She is actually very aware of the issue and probably realizes she resents the other party members for what happened to a degree, but she's already actively working to be better than that and is ultimately too happy to finally be reunited with her childhood crew to really give that voice the time of day. Her reaction is basically "oh my God stop whining already" and I love it. Maya is the best.