Understand that we need no purpose. Weep that we need no answer. This will play out as it always does, Nyarlathotep. When nothing matters, we'll make something up. When everything is doomed, we will adapt. When chaos engulfs reality itself, _we will make sense of it._
I just realized the glasses motif on the pic. P5 makes the point of glasses being a mask. Call it a persona in the jungian sense, or a way to look at the world differently. For example, Joker doesn't have a sight impairment. He wears glasses because he was self conscious about his eyes' expression which were "too fierce", or something along those lines. After his legal drama with Shido, he started wearing them to appear less aggressive and draw less attention. That's also why he takes them off in the ending; he accepts his true self. But I was going to talk about Sumire and Maruki in this case. Sumire has her glasses off, contemplating the dark and sour reality. She doesn't like it, her pain is there, but she's confronting it instead of hiding behind the sweet lies of the glasses. She still has the glasses on her hands, though. She may fall back or relapse, though. The temptation is there. Maruki's motion is harder to give an interpretation on. His glasses are halfway on, so maybe it means he's inbetween the harsh reality and his ideal world. Perhaps he's putting them on, representing his backstory that leads to him trying to warp reality into an idealized version. But by the position of the side piece, I think he's taking them off, signifying the end of his story, where he finally accepts the world as it is and tries to improve it without changing it.
MAJOR SPOILERS for vanilla and Royal: Honestly Yaldabaoth was right, which makes Maruki far more right in his beliefs. Yaldabaoth took control so that humanity could avoid ruin as he saw none would rise or change even with Jokers direct evolvement. Everything that was ever accomplished was by super natural means, the meta verse and the nav app. The good people like the confidants stood powerless against the oppressors while everyone suffered. Maruki took that even a step further of eliminating the factor of trauma thus also taking the need for personal growth out of the equation. Yes some people can overcome it and become far better than they were emotionally, however it is proven that a majority simply cannot and will fall prey to dispair or even suicidal thoughts to cope with reality. Just think about it, would Kamoshida stop if you didn't change his heart? No. Would anyone else that came after him? No. Not only that but the characters give away the only thing that granted them the means to fight injustice at the end. It is clear that by the end of Royal nothing changes in society, if they are ever to be met with an injustice or evil adults they would be utterly powerless to do anything as it could easily cost them their entire career or even lives.
