Powerscaling

Powerscaling or battleboarding is a way to depict a character's power level via contrast against other characters, often using various kinds of battles, and descriptions of what powers they might use in them as a way to gauge the comparison in strength.

Megaten games are known to have many misconeptions about them in battleboarding communities, often scaling the characters much higher than their canon power levels. Many of these misconceptions tie to specific events, such as true demon ending, which are ranked overly high, and then this is used to extrapolate to other characters from this. But here we will list various points of interest that show that the games are intended to have much lower of a power level than many of these rankings imply. Much of this page will be unsorted, due to simply being a list of various plot points, rather than having a cohesive narrative flow.

First, in order to describe these misconceptions it will help to list some terminology. The term planet buster, or planetery delineates someone capable of destroying a planet fairly quickly in one, or a few hits, with direct power. The term universal refers to someone capable of destroying entire universes in this way. Terms for much lower levels are street level, building level, town level, to delineate what they can destroy, and so on.

Megaten characters and demons tend to be fairly low on this scale. Most are barely higher than street level. Building level implies being a fairly strong demon, and anything larger than town level tends to be fairly rare. Even planet busting tends to be far beyond the scale of something any demon can do as a direct feat of strength. There are very few exceptions for entities in megaten, such as nyx from persona 3, due to the technicality of it literally being planet sized.

Where some of these misconceptions come from is that in many of the games there will be something akin to a seat of power, or specially prepared process that allows one to perform much bigger feats than characters can individually. But despite these, their personal battle strength will not be infinitely high. I.E. In p5, yaldabaoth has the ability to transform the world, but this is not a personal strength issue, but comes from being the one presiding over mementos, and being able to utilize its power to influence the world.

## Interview

Although this is an indirect point, it is worth looking ahead of time at this interview where kaneko mentions that characters being too strong would be boring. And so this mentality should be kept in mind when contextualizing the following descriptions of character strength.

https://jojowiki.com/Interview:THRILL\_(September\_2001)

## Anti-feats

Anti feats refers to cases where it is shown that a character's power level is not any higher than a certain scale due to what they are shown either unable to do, or unable to surpass. In essence, it uses depictions of what a character is weak against to highlight a limit to their power.

These anti feats will be listed first, because many of the points in the commonly misunderstood points section are cases where people will see an event as establishing a high, potentially universal or higher power level, and that section will explain why they do not do so. However, merely showing the absence of something establishing a high power level doesn't on its own establish a much lower one. So we will show the list of anti feats first to establish in general, that megaten tends to be a universe that doesn't pass much beyond building level. After this is established, it will be more clear why in the absence of cohesive reasons to think otherwise, that one should hold to the more standard lower powered interpretation.

Note that many of the things on this list should be taken as feats not just of durability, but also speed. Not being able to dodge bullets, be they from guns, planes, tanks, shows that the demons are not moving at overly fast speeds.

### Grip strength

Although many indirect means can be used to judge the strength of characters, one explicit one is in soul hackers 2, where the canonical grip strength of the zoma zenon is stated on the official website to be 500kg, which is around 10x that of the average real life human. Since zenon is depicted as meant to be a super strong superhuman threat in the context of the game, it presents a low barrier for what is considered super strong in the games.

### Guns

One thing worth noting is the nature of what the stories are. Mainline smt generally revolves around being a post apocalyptic story that involves salvaging human guns from trash, and protecting yourself with whatever you can find, like bullet proof vests and hockey pads. These same guns will be viable weapons even up to the end boss, even if you use non enchanted bullets. Some of the top level guns may be futuristic fantasy guns, but for the most part they are normal human guns. And a human with a jet pack and guns is seen as a mid to late game enemy in SMTII.

It is worth noting that demons don't die from a single shot. But the fact that human guns can hurt them at all, and are a viable weapon even alongside demon magic shows that their defenses and even offense are not super high. Bonus points in that flying demon are depicted as weak to guns generally.

In persona 3, in keeping with the showing of the guns as not particularly strong, there is a scene where someone shot with one of them survives because they had a pocketwatch that blocked the bullet.

### Molotov

A Molotov cocktail is a glass bottle containing a flammable substance such as petrol (gasoline), alcohol or a napalm-like mixture and a source of ignition, such as a burning cloth wick, held in place by the bottle's stopper. In the early games this is an item which is treated as the equivalent to casting a fire based attack on an enemy. While this is not an overly strong fire based attack, it does show demons as vulnerable to simple constructions. And it ties to the overall themes of using whatever weapons can be found.

### Grenade

In a similar vein as the above molotov entry, a grenade is an item in the early games that is treated as the equivalent to a force based magic attack.

### C4

In early game strange journey there is a plot point about using c4 to blow up walls, even though you obviously have several demons with you at this point. Implying that your current demons are weaker than a c4 charge.

### Swords

While swords, and other melee weapons also feature as a major weapon in the games, these will not be addressed on a personal level as an anti-feat. The reason for this being that in fiction, supernaturally strong people using swords are generally seen as capable of things beyond normal people, and hence the use of melee weapons is on an ambiguous level. As such, when addressing weaponry as an anti-feat, it is best to focus more on weapons that aren't based on personal strength, so as to avoid this.

However, that being said, there is a relevant point to address about the use of melee weapons. Namely, the fact that regular human guns are seen as an effective weapon at all, to be placed on a similar level as swords, even when non enchanted, suggests that the damage being done via these melee weapons is not overly high. In typical rpg fashion, swords and melee weapons are depicted as having a slight edge over guns, which is in keeping with the idea that they are being utilized by supernaturally strong people, and / or that the swords themselves may be supernaturally enhanced. While some of this may be viewed to a degree as a discrepancy between gameplay and story, the canon nature of guns in the story does imply at least a comparable or beneficial use relative to melee weapons in this context.

### Clubbing

Joker gets knocked out two separate times. First is in the original p5 when he gets captured. While it was his plan to be captured, him showing up with injuries the first time he is interrogated suggests they were sustained from what happened in the metaverse, showing him as vulnerable to damage from being hit with a regular butt of a gun. While it is possible that some of the bruises came from after he left the metaverse, he is only seen being hit before. And at any rate, the team prepared by akechi using physical means at all shows him as vulnerable to damage from it, as if persona users of that level were not, akechi wouldn't have organized a plan under the assumption that this could result in capture.

The second time is in strikers, where he gets knocked out by a low level shadow. Showing that even relatively weak enemies are capable of doing damage to him if they get a good hit in. Albeit it is worth noting here that this was the beginning of a new game, and so he was implied to have lost much of his power.

### Hand-to-hand

Hand to hand combat is something that similar to swords is difficult to place as an anti feat, due to the potential of superhumans using it to extraordinarily high capacities. For instance, the gaians use hand to hand combat in iv, but it is unclear how they are meant to be seen. One thing worth noting however is that in devil survivor, many weak demons are shown losing in hand to hand fights with out of shape japanese salarymen and office workers. Obviously this is mainly showing low level demons, but it is still worth noting that many low level demons are depicted as able to lose to even a normal human with no fighting experience once harmonized.

### Shoving

In persona 5, anne pushes yusuke before his persona powers awaken, and he gets knocked out, seemingly because she forgot that in her persona form she had more strength than normal. That this discrepancy just resulted in him being knocked out, rather than receiving serious damage, suggests that their personal strength level is only a degree stronger than normal humans.

### Rocks

In certain demon negotiations, demons will talk like smashing a rock with your hands is a big deal, and ask whether you can, generally with a degree of being impressed if you are capable of it. While being able to smash rocks with your hands implies being stronger than normal humans, this itself being treated as an impressive feat shows a relatively low power scale.

Obviously these events, being part of demon negotiations should be seem as somewhat tongue in cheek. But there's no reason to think that the power scale being implied by them isn't meant to be seen as based in the one the actual game is meant to have.

### Fire

Despite Tatsuya Sudou being an arsonist with a fire persona, he chooses to use bombs to cause fires rather than using his persona. Suggesting that they have more ability to spread fire than the persona itself does. Interestingly, he also shows that persona resistances are not necessarily 100% literal, because although he does have drain to fire listed as his resistances in battle, his face does get burned from fire, with you seeing the burned result in a later cutscene.

### Nukes

One of the main examples that can be used to establish power levels in the games is the recurring plot points of nukes. In several games, nukes, or something closely equivalent to them are used as weapons. Top level demons will use human nukes as a weapon, since it can do much more damage than they can, and on the flipside, it is depicted as if only top level demons, or at times not even them could survive one.

Understanding the place of nukes in the story, and how they effect demons requires understanding a bit about what the stories are even trying to convey. One reason for nukes as a repeat plot point is because the "spirits of Japan" were literally defeated by nukes in Japanese History. Japan's wwii army which thought it had divine protection realized when it saw the nukes that it now couldn't muster any further defense, despite its purported religious blessings. As a result, and due to following events such as the emperor being made to deny his divinity, most of the country became nonreligious very quickly. The games are in part a recreation of this process, as well as a kind of open ended exploration of paths for Japan's future. Modern day humans suddenly have tech that allows them to stand up to and surpass demons, because modern day tech came hand in hand with the decline of religion.

### Flood

In SMTI, it is a plot point that the flood that covered tokyo wiped out the vast majority of demons, including fairly strong ones. Being able to die to a flood suggests a low height to the power involved. Worth noting that if this city flood is ascribed to just yhvh, it is the highest destructive act ascribed to him in mainline.

### Rock barrier

Part of the plot of SMTIV is that tokyo is covered with a rock dome. This is presented as enough to keep most of the demons contained, even though some fairly high level ones are there at the time. The barrier itself is not suggested as having any particular magical means of keeping them in. And the demons who get past it are generally using the cave opening through the top.

### Exploding boat

At the end of shido's palace in p5, ryuji is almost caught in the explosion of the boat, and the other thieves see this as something that would kill him, before realizing that he survived it, and missed the explosion. Ryuji also complains that the palaces should simply fade, rather than explode / collapse in the process, since this provides further problems for them in terms of escaping. Showing that they see minor explosions themselves as a significant danger to them.

### Black hole

In SMTIV it is a plot point that no demon, without exception, is capable of surviving a black hole. In the white ending of IV, merkabah and lucifer, among other high level demons would be in tokyo when you create the black hole, but are depicted as unable to form any defense to it. Note that there is some confusion over the size of the black hole, since while it is shown only the size of the earth, the white imply it could destroy the entire universe.

### Megiddo ark

In SMTII, yhvh wants to clear the planet surface of life. However, even the combined power of him, and several top level angels is deemed too low to do anything close to this level. So he uses a cannon attached to a rocket to do this instead, showing it as capable of much more destruction than he is. Worth noting is that nothing suggests this cannon was even magically enhanced.

### Fighter jets

Near the end of digital devil saga 2, cielo is depicted as roughly evenly balanced with three fighter jets (that aren't magically enhanced in any way). Upon seeing that they were being followed, he immediately speaks like he is aware he will have to sacrifice himself to get rid of them. The reason this is important is because people often try to scale demifiend as one of the strongest megaten characters at his highest point. The digital devil saga team in a group of three can beat a version of him with demon companions. This battle is considered the hardest in the entire series, and his dialogue suggesting he is a post tde version. Although the dds crew does lose power between games, the fighter jet scene is one of the final scenes in the second game, and so reflective of one of the characters' highest points. Showing a limit to the power scale involved.

### Battleship

In the first raidou game, the end boss, the soulless god oumagatsu is a retrofitted battleship. While it unfolds to a mech in its second form, the first form is implied to be fairly similar to a normal battleship. Raidou faces off with this, with people standing on it using machine guns at him. This being treated as a difficult enemy, and raidou as a comparable opponent / ally to demifiend shows a limit. (although demifiend may surpass raidou as the story goes on).

### Microwaves

In devil survivor they talk about a microwave superweapon that comes from chips placed into most electronics that can be activated to generate a microwave ray. It is stated that the vast majority of demons would not be able to survive this. And the death clocks show this as accurate information, delineating that even late in the game that you wouldn't be able to. The only point at which they say that it would not work is when belberith is summoned, with them saying that he is strong enough that rather than it killing him, it would enhance his power. This delineating that only some of the strongest demons are capable of surviving intense microwave radiation.

### Red sprite

In strange journey, the demon horkos fuses itself with the damaged remnants of the elve, a ship equivalent to the red sprite used by your crew. Mastema, who is one of the strongest demons in the game, talks about this occurrence as if it places the demon beyond even his own ability to deal with. Suggesting your tank as pretty strong relative to the power of individual demons. He says: "In addition to being an evil spirit, the demon is also a man-made machine. I have ways of vanquishing evil spirits, but for them to work on its mechanized body..." This implying a particular difficulty with the idea of human technology in general, scaling demons at not too high a level.

For a relevant bible reference, in judges 1:19 there is a confusing passage about jews being unable to defeat their enemies because their enemies had iron chariots. Some translations translate this such that god could not help them due to this reason. In strange journey, the angels emphasize that the ships you ride in are made of iron. This being symbolic in-game of human technology making humans able to contend with forces they previously considered divine and above them. Even top level angels having such respect for a slightly futuristic tank details that human tech is already placing them closer to demon level at this time.

### Tank

In soul hackers 2, later in the game you have a conversation about how aion could have created a tank for you if you wanted, for increased firepower, but that it would have been a bad idea due to not being inconspicuous to go around the city with it. Since you have mid to high level demons at this point, but talk about a tank as if it would be increased firepower, it means the difference in these human weapons is enough even with demon power to be a notable shift.

### Cars

Although cars don't come up that much due to the games taking place in a post apocalyptic setting where they are not often seen, there are a few relevant points to bring up about cars. These points are not overly large, but are worth mentioning anyways.

The first is that in a few games there are demons which are either taking the form of cars, or are actually possessing cars to try to run you over as an attack. Most notable being chris the car in SMTII, and Oboroguruma in the raidou games. These are not generally late game enemies, being moreso slightly earlier than mid, but a car trying to drive over you being treated as a dangerous enemy is still notable.

In devil survivor 2, an early septentrione is depicted as invincible to demon attacks until someone drives into it, causing the top of it to explode, and for it to become more vulnerable. Despite the humorous tone of the scene, the idea of being hit by a car being stronger than demon magic is notable. While its possible that it reflected its own explosion back on itself, the fact that the vehicle itself was able to do this implies a limit in its capacity.

### Spider robots

In the early games, especially smti, smtii, and giten, a recurring enemy is various machines and robots, such as malfunctioning police spider tanks. In giten they are described this way: "Machines like robots and automated laser weapons.  (MP comes from power supply).  Though they do not operate as programmed, they sometimes cause digital demons to run away. " These machines are shown having machine guns, using ramming into people as an attack, or in some cases laser cannons, but nothing supernatural involved. While this entry overlaps with the one for guns, the fact that simple spider tanks can function as a mid game enemy shows a low power level for the scope of demons you are implied to be using at the time.

### Robot turrets

In majin tensei ii, robot turrets actually function as a fairly strong late-game enemy. Being presented as something it is better to avoid rather than fight in the game. Albeit this is not because they are unbeatable, simply fairly strong, and while giving you little money or experience as a result.

There are also some robot turrets fought as enemies in digital devil saga 2, with machine guns or lasers as weapons.

### Giant robot

In the first raidou game, the The Soulless God Oumagatsu is a giant robot whose main powers were torching parts of the city, and causing earthquakes. Despite being an entity whose main power is merely slowly walking around and destroying a city, it was presented as potentially too large of a scale for raidou to fight directly, necessitating using indirect means to defeat it. The robot was being powered by a satellite, and you find a means to disable the satellite, preventing the power transfer, rendering it inert.

### Nuclear reactor

In DDS2, the enemy meganada is depicted as too strong for your party to defeat in a straight fight, and so roland and argilla stay behind in order to cause the power plant's reactor to overload and cause an explosion, killing it in the process. Similar to the idea of demons using actual nukes as weapons, this use of a nuclear reactor to do damage shown to be much higher than what you can do as individuals, even though it is late game bounds your implied energy levels.

### Smoke bomb

In many early games like smti, a smoke bomb is an item that can guarantee escape from battle. While to some degree this should be considered game mechanics, the fact that smoke is capable of distracting even higher level demons enough to escape is notable. Some higher level demons are shown to have supernatural levels of insight however, and so while the use of a smoke bomb to escape shouldn't be considered totally literal in canon, it being treated as useful has to be accounted for.

### Buildings

In SMTI, asura states that due to being in the basement of the cathedral, he would be able to destroy the foundations, which would result in the building coming crashing down. But that he doesn't intend to do this, due to chaos having their own use for it. His emphasis on being conditionally able to take out a building from the bottom shows that he is implicitly showing that he wouldn't be able to destroy the building itself easily as a feat of strength in other circumstances. This being presumably a fact about the building itself rather than any kind of magic preventing this, due to that being something you would expect to also apply in his example. While asura is not among the top demons, he is overall fairly strong, showing a limiting factor.

In general, there are a lot of plot points involving aspects of buildings impeding you in the games, which is worth noting, as a series where characters are intended to not be limited by that type of simple barrier would be more likely to avoid plot points like this.

### Crumbling buildings

In persona 5, your team treats crumbling buildings like something that would actually harm them if it collapsed on top of them. There is no implied reason not to take these scenes literally as presented. They aren't acting like they are merely concerned that the realm the building exists in is about to collapse, but that the actual crumbling itself, and the pieces falling down are a real threat to them.

### Walls

In connection to the above point, a good indication of understanding something's power is its relationship to walls. Many times in the games you are impeded by walls. Such as in record breaker when you talk about the door to the facility. Soul hackers 2, where you need keys to get through doors. In dds2 or nocturne where you are put in jails. In the end, the point being just that walls are treated as an actual impediment.

Now, it is worth noting that to some degree, some of this exists for the sake of the story in general. Obviously it shouldn't be taken as impossible for even high level demons to break walls. But the fact that its treated as a consistent concern in general, shows that the idea of buildings and moving through them is treated mostly as a thing that has to be done literally. Walls are often neglected as a useful metric for understanding bounds to power scale.

Its also worth noting that in persona 5, walls are treated as an impassable barrier for the phantom thieves that in-story they have to find ways to get rid of to allow entry. Building structures alone being treated as a barrier that requires leaving the metaverse entirely to deal with some other way sheds a dim light on their ability to destroy structures of such a nature. There is also a scene in striker where they are being impeded by being put in a jail in the metaverse.

### Stairs

Right before the final mission of devil survivor your team is shown having to run up the staircase of a skyscraper to get to the top. It presents a scene where they get tired from the effort, and are annoyed at how tall the building is. This has to be seen as a relevant anti feat, since it shows they don't have superhuman speed or stamina that would make such a thing irrelevant, and even with the power of demons, don't simply teleport or fly to the top. (Which isn't to say that no human can do those things, but that its not presented as taken as a given enough that climbing is not an issue at this point.)

### Jails

The amount of times characters are kept in jails and shown impotent to escape is noteworthy. Although this could technically be lumped together under walls, it will be listed separately to call attention to it. One noteworthy example is in digital devil saga 2, where despite still being able to transform, your team is impeded by being jailed. Another noteworthy example is in the persona 5 games. Not only does your team, even in thief form get restricted in this way, but shadow kamoshida is kept locked in his own jail, undermining the idea of a palace as a place he has absolute control over.

### Spinny Floor

In nocturne, demifiend is impeded by a hallway spinning, making getting footing difficult. Aside from this, floor traps are a common thing impeding your process in many of the games, such as the shifting ground in area d of strange journey.

### Banana peel

Raidou is shown slipping on banana peels several times during a chase in raidou 2, impeding his ability to chase an opponent. It is worth noting however that this happened due to luck locusts making him extra unlucky. But the fact that him slipping on a banana peel is a possibility at all shows things about his physical nature.

### Cieling

In SMTII, the underground has a ceiling constructed over it, preventing light from the sun from entering. It isn't until the kuzuryu is awakened in order to destroy millenium that light is shown to get through. Lucifer prevents this as a good thing for them, and as something they would want. Suggesting they lacked a means to easily bust through the ceiling on their own, despite the high demon presence in the area.

### Jumping

At the end of shido's palace in p5, ryuji is shown to barely be able to make a small jump. Suggesting a fairly low amount of movement ability.

### Net

In early game strikers, right near the intro, joker and ryuji are captured by a simple net being dropped on them. Although the nature of the net is unknown, nothing suggests it as being incomprehensibly strong in nature.

### Police

Although this is related to persona rather than smt, In persona 5, joker loses a fight to a group of ordinary police, who have no magic powers. While it is true that he walked into the police trap that was set for him willingly, because it was part of his own plan to be captured, this should still be considered an anti feat. The reason being because akechi, a persona user who is close to equally strong as joker set up the trap to begin with, under the assumption that this amount of police should be enough to capture joker. And as such, he would have an okay idea of how many people makes it a reasonable chance of capture. The event was joker in essence deliberately messing around until they got caught in a plausible seeming way. Basically, he was throwing a fight that it was actually realistic for him to lose, by walking into the trap he knew was there.

Since he obviously wouldn't know that joker would deliberately let himself be captured, if police weren't capable of seriously harming persona users he would have had to plan to kill joker right then, using the police as a distraction. The whole plot arc becomes nonsensical if you try to scale joker in a way where the police had no realistic chance against him.

### Flying

One relevant anti feat to note is the fact that its not taken as a given that any high level demon has a meaningful flying ability. Demons shown flying tend to usually be ones who have actual wings. While sometimes other demons are shown able to hover slightly, it is not uncommon for demons, even higher level ones, to be shown having trouble traversing due to being stuck on the ground. Likewise, the fact that a flood is able to kill them shows a lack of an easy way to get out of the way quickly. In SMTIV, it even delineates that for most of the game you are unable to fly, but it is possible to get a late game item called torifune's shawl that gives you the ability.

In universes that get into very high power levels, it tends to be the case that high level entities can all fly via magic, or at the very least jump very high into the air. And so the lack of having this ability delineates that the entities should be seen as somewhat bounded in power.

### Falling

Although this is only a minor point, in keeping with the above idea of the fact that demons can't inherently fly, demifiend in nocturne is shown taking damage from falling. So fall damage is something that exists for them, and obviously they are not transcending gravity, or ordinary physical interactions. Note that there are of course also times demons are shown to fall from large heights without being harmed.

### Teleporting

Difficulty in teleportation can be presented as an anti feat. In SMTII, lucifer helps you teleport a few miles onto the megiddo ark. But he states that doing so used so much of his energy that he won't be as much help in the following fights as he would like. So the idea of teleportation being something that can sap that much of their energy shows a limit to power. In keeping with this, gemori also teleports there, and describes doing so as a difficult thing to have accomplished. Showing the difficulty as not a one-off thing.

Note also that in games like V, the fact that you use leylines to teleport shows a lack of being able to teleport any significant distance yourself. This also applying to games with terminals, etc.

### Kaiju

Kaiju is a japanese term used for giant monsters like godzilla. In megaten, it is notable that a lot of what are passed off as the strongest demons tend to be physically giant kaiju, and a major element of what is presented as making them strong is merely the fact that they are big enough to smash around on a level that other demons can't. Although some of these examples are more ambiguous, some like SMTII are more overt.

In SMTII, the dragon kuzuryu is presented as physically immense compared to other demons. And it is talked about as something that if all its heads were awakened it would be immensely stronger than any other demon by a wide margin, even lucifer and yhvh. But its strength is depicted not as any kind of external magic attack, but a fact of its size in general. With this being seen in when only one of its heads awakens and it destroys millenium by smashing around in it.

In imagine, the super boss is a giant incarnation of satan. Being by far one of the strongest enemies in the game. Worth noting is that you do not even face it directly, but find a way to incapacitate it, sealing it in place to give you an easier chance against it.

In desu 2, the dragon stream is presented as one of the strongest things by direct strength in the game. Being strong enough that it defeats a septentrione that was previously seen as functionally impossible to deal with.

In strange journey, although this is not made obvious by the battle graphics themselves, many of the boss demons are implied to be physically large. This being shown indirectly, either in the opening cutscene for redux, or in the plot element involving horkos.

In apocalypse, shesha is presented as one of the strongest demons, also being the one to break the barrier. While it is not the strongest in battle itself, it is worth noting that this is in part because it is not using its full strength against you, due to it having its own reasons for wanting to lose those battles.

In both raidou games, the final bosses are physically very large, and implied to be a difficult struggle relative to other bosses.

In SMTV, giant lucifer is depicted as the strongest entity in that world. Although this case is distinguished slightly in that you see him use magic, rather than merely smash things physically. Although his magic is only seen killing low level demons.

In persona 3, nyx is depicted as one of the few examples of a planet buster in the series, this being because it itself is physically almost the size of the planet, being much larger than any demons.

In persona V, the original end boss is giant, and its worth noting that the game treats its size as indicative of difficulty beating it. This generally implies a low power level, because on high power levels, size tends to become less relevant. And the implication of something large making it actually more difficult to beat is an implication of fairly direct scale. Futaba says "this is crazy. its like a building," and makoto says "its still way too big for my liking."

### Armor

One useful way to understand how much damage entities can do is to understand what can repel it, In the games, ordinary unenchanted human armor is often depicted as a useful thing that raises your defense heavily from demon attacks. This being things like scrounged hockey pads, to bullet proof vests and things like knight armor. This isn't limited to your characters either, because you sometimes see enemies like the human terminator wearing armor for defense also. If something as simple as bullet proof vests can mean a substantial difference in the damage you take, and the different type of scrounged outfits to use as protection are presented as a relevant focus it implies that the damage being done is not all repelled via magic, but some of it actually comes down to these simple defenses.

### First aid

In many of the games, simple bandages, or items implied to be simple medicine are used as healing items. If simple first aid is treated as a common means of healing, it means the scope of damage comes down to simple injuries, rather than merely large abstract loss of cosmic energies. Adding to the idea of a more grounded scale. Although desu 2 does imply that if you have demon inflicted injuries that you will also need to use healing magic at some point.

### General health

In the devil summoner timeline, thorman is implied to die of a heart attack, despite being a demon. Although he is in human form at the time, this implies that at least when demons are taking human form, they may have some of the limitations that come with a human body.

### Hacking

In devil survivor 2, since the comps they were using were connected to an external network, fumi was shown as able to hack them remotely, disabling them. While this is something aimed at the physical device itself, rather than a direct attack on demons, it is noteworthy that despite commanding high level demons at this point, your team is shown as unable to mount a defense against this. Earlier in the game, a demon is shown possessing fumi in order to be able to use her human hacking skills for its own ends. What this shows is that demons don't have an easy time directly interfering with this type of human technology when they don't have direct access to it in order to be able to physically destroy it (contrast with fiction like evangelion where kowaru is shown being able to operate external electrical machines remotely within seconds of first seeing them).

It is worth noting in general that it is fairly rare in the series for anyone to directly try to target someone's comp, instead focusing on the summoner itself. The absence of the comp being treated as itself a weak link relative to a strong team suggests less damage output.

### Gas leak

In dds, the fight with demifiend is left ambiguous as to whether it is a real event. After the fight, your team considers that it might have been a gas leak causing hallucinations. Though it makes more sense to see it as a real event, due to it leaving behind a note, and corresponding to his actual abilities (not to mention being a shared image). What is relevant though about this, is that your team acts like they would be vulnerable to hallucinations coming from gas at all.

### Wind

Gusts of wind are capable of pushing you around in the games, most notably in the demon king's castle in SMTV.

### Barricade

Something worth noting about devil survivor is that the barricade used to enforce the lockdown, keeping the humans and demons inside is not presented as something upheld by any kind of supernatural seal or barrier. It was upheld merely by having humans and angels around the outside as a force used to keep the demons inside. Why this is noteworthy is that it shows an absence of any feats such as speed or teleportation being able to be used to have a good chance at getting outside. With the barricade being depicted as fully viable as a solution to keep the demons contained.

### Schwarzwelt

In strange journey, the schwarzwelt itself is depicted as a force much stronger than any of the individual demons within it. But the schwarzwelt itself is depicted as something that is only able to slowly wipe the planet's surface over a long stretch of time. By extension this would place the demons much lower than this. Notably, the schwarzwelt can also pull demons in to make them function as part of it, and even high level ones struggle to resist. Since the shwarzwelt itself represents the power of the earth, this places a limit on the scope it can be seen to have.

### Leylines

In multiple games, namely SMTII and devil survivor 2, the strongest entities you see, ones much stronger than even lucifer or yhvh tend to be based on the idea of leylines. Leylines are tied to the idea of the power of the earth itself. But if the strongest entities are something drawing on a fraction of the power of earth itself, with other demons being even lower, it also suggests them being substantially lower than planet level.

### Moon

In p3, nyx is the true form of the moon, and is seen as a giant alien capable of destroying planets. What makes this notable is that it is seen as something functionally impossible to defeat (which ties to it as a metaphor for the inescapable reality of death). Since something around moon sized, and planet level is seen as so far beyond what any demons or personas are capable of stopping in order to protect earth, the game ends with it simply being sealed again, with a goal of maintaining the seal in order to keep earth safe. Thus placing the implied strength of anything on earth far below this level (and again, equating size to strength).

### Sexes

In an interview, atlus talks about how the reason that you see more male characters than female ones in combat roles in the games relates to the strength difference between sexes, leading to more male people being willing to venture out into dangerous situations. Putting aside for a moment whether there are any dubious implications there, this implies that normal human strength differences are seen as enough to make a notable difference in your performance, showing that its not entirely about reliance on supernatural powers.

### Heat

Although this is only a minor point, it is worth pointing out that in p5 the phantom thieves are depicted as vulnerable to heat. Shown in the cutscenes in the pyramid area that imply them as overheating.

### Light

In various games, your characters are shown to react to light shining in their eyes, showing a normal sense of senses. While the cases where the light comes from a supernatural entity like merkabah, one can interpret it as potentially supranatural light, and so shouldn't be compared to ordinary light, there are also cases such as late game persona 5 where joker reacts to police lights in his face. And shadows are shown unable to see in the dark in madarame's palace. That aside, this is only a minor point of note, but it is worth noting the ordinary human level reactions regardless. But this is not consistent, since many characters do have certain supramundane abilities of sight.

### Darkness

In many of the games there are dark areas which you are implied to have difficulty moving through. Implying both a lack of supramundane abilities of perception, and a lack of easy way to generate enough things to illuminate a room.

### Wavelengths

In devil survivor 2, the septentrione Benetnasch is described as being able to emit waves at a particular wavelength that forcibly expels all demons from the human world who come in contact with it, it being said to negate wavelengths used to summon demons. In order to counter this, you use the demon trumpeter who you discover has the ability to use its trumpet to emit a different strong wavelength, disrupting, and by extension nullifying the first one. While many games allude to seals preventing certain demons from existing in the human world, it is also a heavy limitation that certain physical wavelengths physically expel them. Highlighting the potential difficulties they have in terms of staying manifest.

### Music

In keeping with the above idea of wavelengths, it is not only abstract wavelengths that can expel demons, but also ones associated with music. While zelenin's song is depicted as a potentially supernatural thing, giving it more of a magic attack quality, in devil survivor you use a song to do so that is just normal human music. Showing that the above idea of wavelengths being something that expel demons isn't limited to one plot, but its a recurring thing that certain things can disrupt their ability to manifest in the human world.

### Observation

While observation as a concept is fairly different than the other entries on the anti-feats list, it is worth delineating it as a weakness. Observation is tied to the resource magntite / aether / dark matter which is also implied to be the same thing as magatushi. While this exists in everything, it is stated to exist to a larger degree in the human brain. Hence, demons, when interacting with humans, are more influenced by the human perception of them, which this alone can heavily influence their power. Magnetite is also a tangible resource however, and demons can fight over it physically independently of focusing on human thoughts.

Why this matters, is because it delineates a few things. Demons don't infinitely transcend humans, because they are heavily subject to them. And observation doesn't mean that whatever story a human makes up becomes true. It is an actual resource that influences the power of demons. And by extension, their power is to a degree limited by the groups and processes they represent. For instance, when zeus was born as an idea in greece, he only really had greece as a place to charge his power. Hence, his ability to act outside of it was limited. He could try changing form to the form of a god from another place, but this delineates a limitation. These entities were generally not enacting worldwide power, since that would break with the entire logic and metaphor that observation is meant to convey. Modern summoning techniques did change this however, making them have a wider ability to incarnate.

Since observation exists as a metaphor for human groups, or human perception of natural processes, it delineates what the actual power level involved is. A human group presided over by a god can't instantly wipe out another human group, since the point of this god is its representation of the group. Hence there are fairly strict limitations to their power, or even when they can enact it. Contrary to the gods being all powerful, any form of them that incarnates has to account for the world as it actually is, and by extension normally have limited power to change this. A god who embodies the sun does not have the power to move the sun around on a whim, but reflects the existing cycle of the sun. The demons are not transcendend to reality, but bound up in its unfolding. The basis of observation is adding an interpretation to reality. While it can lead to changes, these changes are born within the interpretation itself, as a series of metaphorical applications.

This doesn't mean that demons are incapable of making changes, or don't exist as separate beings however. But that understanding observation's role in the plot is important for making sense of them. Humans and demons are in an ebb and flow relationship, with each world influencing the other in proportional turn. And this wouldn't scale with the idea of demons as having multiversal personal power.

### Demon connections

Although this is more of an indirect feat, it is worth noting that some demons only exist within the context of another one. Like in apocalyse when satan says that he only exists within the context of yhvh existing, and so yhvh's death means he no longer can survive. Obviously one can assume that a demon might be able to change form in order to avoid this fate, but the fact that it is a concern at all is a power limitation.

### Conditional power

One thing to keep in mind also, related to the above idea of observation, is the fact that how much power characters have is also fairly conditional. For persona characters obviously, many of them can only even use their powers in specific contexts, such as the tv world or the cognitive world. Not even being able to use powers in the normal world is a limiting factor. Demifiend also was shown to lose the ability to access his powers in several endings, although it was implied the power still theoretically exists within him as something he could call on if the situation changed again.

For demons, there is also the fact that what they do can be conditional on location or magatushi flow, among other things. Ouroborous for example only has the regeneration ability due to having the font flow into it. Ishtar in V is only strong due to having the magatsuhi flow to her. Likewise, the idea of kaiju forms seen above are often incarnations demons don't always have, or may only hold for limited times.

Demons are also stated to have their power change based on where they are. And even how many believe in them. This being based on the idea of observation. So for a demon to travel between universes or even between companies, they may have to change forms, or accept significantly weakening. As such, they aren't self-sustaining, and their power is very conditional.

## Commonly misunderstood points

As stated above, this section is meant to be read after the above one, in conjunction with it. This section is to establish why some of the scales people try to apply are unrealistically high, and lack decent support for those scales. Some of the arguments listed here don't in and of themself establish low scales of power, merely establish why the arguments for high scales are lacking. And so are meant to be read after the above ones which highlight a consistently low scale of power in the series.

### Demon dimensionality

One misconception comes from the idea of demon dimensionality being incomprehensibly many levels beyond humans, or sometimes even beyond the idea of dimensions altogether. This comes from statements like how aspects of the demon world are beyond the human ideas of linear space and time. But this doesn't mean demons are above -all- concepts of space and time. Rather, it means they are outside of the specifically human conception of four dimensional space. The demon world has more lenient rules, and demons being native to it know how to navigate it. But this isn't meant to imply they transcend human dimensionality entirely, so much as are outside of and different to it.

Sanat kumara in smtiv does call you a creature of lower dimensions. But it is important to note that the idea of dimensions does not necessarily presuppose a linear scale where they all have euclidian geometry. In game, demons if they come to earth they are for the most part bound by the limits of human dimensionality, with few exceptions. And even the demon world, these statements in practice mean little more than that they tend to have non euclidian geometry on big enough scales, and are shown to have spacial properties that aren't linear in the way humans understand. (but despite this, three dimensional humans have traversed the demon world without changing to a higher dimensional entity.

Translated to tangible effects from the human perspective, when demons come to earth, the main trait they have that seemingly places them above earth dimensionality in a sense is that in some games their form will sometimes seem hazy or incomprehensible to someone without a demon summoning program, and they can shrug off weak attacks, and deal strong damage. There is an implication that what you see does not represent all of them, but they have unseen aspects. This is not as simple however as the idea of them simply being able to totally move past the limitations of the human world.

One should note that this idea of them as being immune to normal mortal weapons only really applies to weak ones. Nukes and microwave waves are still depicted as able to kill them regardless, if they are currently incarnated in the world. But more importantly, regardless of whatever dimensionality aspects this is meant to imply (which is left fairly ambiguous, due to the games deliberately leaving many details unexplained), if one uses a harmonizer or its equivalent on them, they are very easily bound to normal human dimensionality, making them vulnerable to any normal human weapons. So while this dimensionality aspect does give them an edge over humans, it is one that modern humans have an easy time neutralizing, making them functionally the same as any other three dimensional entity. Even before modern day, things such as prayer and religious ritual was able to have an effect on them, and summoners existed even before modern technology.

So one can haggle about whether this truly makes them four dimensional, or whether their additional dimensions don't work as normal. But regardless, in practice, the edge it gives them over humans is limited.

### Cosmology scaling

Although much of this was covered in the previous entry of demon dimensionality, a more general approach is the idea of cosmology scaling in general. This is often used to equate comparable looking universes in a way that suggests one is secretly much stronger. But this often leads to misconceptions, when background info is assumed to extrapolate that the normal three dimensional world is actually some type of convoluted higher dimensional existence that wold have layers of infinite power over a normal three dimensional world.

Although this barely deserves mention, the three dimensional world in megaten is obviously not suggested to secretly be some type of higher infinitely layered plane relative to other equivalent three dimensional worlds in other media. On top of the fact that this type of comparison has little utility to begin with, since most fiction isn't designed to be compared to totally incompatible fiction in this way, (with there being no reason to assume that these ostensibly different mechanisms could interact to begin with), nothing suggests the force exerted that is seen in the three dimensional world should be seen in a higher way. There isn't much that can be said about this entry to begin with, due to how often the idea of cosmology scaling is barely cohesive as an idea regardless. While something could be said about it internal to a story, it generally struggles to make sense via comparing two separate ones.

### Seats of power

In keeping with the above point, one misconception comes from conflating things done with seats of power or special preparations as the personal battle strength of individuals. In megaten, realms themselves contain power that you can use in various ways, and special seats contain even more. And as such, things can be done that accomplish a lot more than demons can with individual strength.

The most overt example is in devil survivor 2, where the astrolable is treated as a control device over reality. Polaris is not that strong in actual battle, but utilizes the control device to change things about it. The astrolabe is treated as similar to the process kagutsuchi uses in controlling the vortex world, albeit that is less of an overt seat and more of a realm. In SMTV there is once again an overt throne that can do things based on what knowledge you have. And in persona 5, yaldabaoth's power to merge the worlds was not a personal feat, but came from being the one with power over mementos itself. And of course in strange journey, the schwarzwelt itself was seen as a force on its own, independently from the powers of mem aleph who resided at its core. So this idea of powerful realms and seats of power is a recurring element.

### Demon descriptions

One misconception comes from the idea that the in-game descriptions given for demons are all meant to be canon within the context of the games. However, this is not their intended purpose. For most demons, they are meant to be a description of the real life lore they are based on. Mainly just a real life informational thing.

This is less about the in game lore, and more about the real ideas, because megaten is a series which is meant to connect heavily to the real life depictions. This being because the demons are influenced by the existence of religions, which in the past of the games were the real life ones. The degree to which these descriptions are canon to the games is not that it is the actual canon power level of the demons, but that it is describing what humans used to believe about them. The stories that gave rise to them. But a major element of the games is that stories aside, their influence is bound up in shifts to human society, and so they are not as strong as people imagined.

Its worth noting that trying to take them literally runs into contradictions even aside from power levels however. Since it will often contradict in-game plots. I.E. in nocturne the angels are followers of baal, but their compendium entry still talks about normal abrahamic lore. And of course demons whose lore places them as top god are often lacking in the status that this implies if in a world where they aren't actually a top god, and never were, etc.

### Kagutsuchi creating a planet

Sometimes kagutsuchi being the force behind planet creation is used to try to scale him to universal. But aside from the fact that its not presented as something he can use as actual battle strength, there is also the issue that kagutsuchi is not presented as the one holding this power on its own. The vortex world itself is treated as having the latent power of the former reality in it, able to be used again for a new one. Kagutsuchi, rather than being the one bearing this power all on its own, is treated more like the key to igniting the process. And even then, the ones who want to do this have to collect magatushi in order to do it too. Hence, this should be seen as a seat of power, rather than a personal independent strength.

### True demon ending

True demon ending is often the source of the most misconceptions leading people to arrive at odd power level ranking estimations. These stem from people assuming things like that kagutsuchi has universal power, that there is one single kagutsuchi across the entire universe, that demifiend destroyed the multiverse, or that he was going to kill the great will, which is beyond the concept of dimensions. But each of these ideas is incorrect, and we will address them one at a time.

First, the idea that demifiend somehow destroyed the multiverse at the end of the game, or that the single kagutsuchi you have is somehow the same one in all realities. The lady in black talks about a kagutsuchi in each world. Nothing about the events of the game imply that they extend past the specific world you prevented from being reborn at the current time. When lucifer talks about you ending the universe's flow of time, he doesn't suggest that this applies to every world, just the one you were from. Since certain appearances of demifiend in other games suggest it is the same demifiend who went true demon ending, but their universes still exist, obviously its not compatible with the idea that killing a single kagutsuchi ends all worlds. And its worth noting that in the games each different instance of a demon, either in the same, or alternate worlds is treated like a distinct entity to begin with. So there would be no reason to see kagutsuchi as different.

Next is the idea of kagutsuchi as having universal power. The argument implies that because he is an aspect of the rebirth of the world that it suggests universe-level battle strength. But this comes from a misconception of assuming that changes to the universe all operate based on personal power. As many of the games show, a lot of changes to reality come from in a sense programming reality itself. In record breaker it shows this in the most obvious way, where there is a literal flow of code you can interact with. In the case of nocturne, kagutsuchi is never implied to be able to summon universal level in battle, nor for its ability to change the world to be entirely personal power. Its role in the vortex world itself suggests a particular process shown at the end when it extends its spikes to ignite the potential contained within. So in essence it should be seen as the key of the process of rebirth, rather than something that simply causes a new world to happen by pure power.

After this, one misconception you see ties to how lucifer insists that time has met its death. Many people have the misconception that this means that lucifer and demifiend are now so strong they are capable of existing outside of dimensionality entirely. But that's not what is being expressed here. They are only talking about the flow of time associated with the human world. (This being obvious, because he describes being born and dying of old age as humans do, which doesn't apply to demons). Since this was destroyed, only the demon world is left. And this ability to exist in it doesn't apply to only strong demons, but all demons who live there. The demon world is described as beyond the human flow of space and time, but this doesn't mean it is timeless, but as stated above, more that due to its ambiguous dimensionality the rules are more malleable.

The final point to address, is the claim that they go to fight the great will, which is beyond dimensionality altogether. The issue with this is that the great will is not an entity. This was stated long before nocturne, in games like smti (not by name), comics like wings of the fallen, interviews, etc. And games that came after it reiterate the same point. The great will is reality itself, the ground of being, etc. Lucifer never says they are going to fight or destroy it either. He merely talks about it as the force that gives rise to them, and uses ambiguous language about where they are going, besides to defeat those who uphold the cycle.

If you compare nocturne's plot to V, it is obvious the great will isn't an entity in V either. The cycle itself simply exists as an emanation from it, and one that you can break. But this isn't "defeating" the great will in any tangible way that ends it. Simply breaking something that exists within it. Not altogether different from when lucifer said he was a part of god that god discarded, wanting to break yhvh's monopoly over divinity in the other games, and his claim to be one with the great will.

The reason nocturne is ambiguous about what is happening in true demon ending is likely because it didn't exist in the original game. The original game had mixed reception due to the lack of alignments, and claims the story felt aimless. And so they wanted to expand the release with something coded as a new alignment battle. But since yhvh was already implied to be dead in the original nocturne, it was unclear what further goal they could even head towards. Meaning it is fairly likely that the ending is left ambiguous due to lack of a clear direction for the plot to go, and the unsatifying nature that killing a few random gods who watch over the cycle would have.

### Devil survivor barriers

Some people try arguing that in devil survivor, when the four devas maintain a barrier that prevents the demon world from connecting to the human world, that this suggests multiversal level power, and the ability to with strength alone move two universes. But this is not really suggested by the game anywhere.

Rather than it being about moving the universes, the specific use of the word "barrier" implies merely maintaining something that prevents an opening. Which not only does not automatically suggest something very powerful, but also does not state that it is a pure feat of strength (after all, if it was, any demon who is stronger would be able to break through, and the four devas are not the strongest demons).

Even aside from the fact that its about maintaining a barrier, rather than moving universes via pure power, the games suggest the movement of the planes together and further happens fairly easily, such as more demons coming to earth inherently making it move closer to the demon realm even without them having to actively move it. So one shouldn't make the mistake of treating plane shifts as implying universal level power, when in many works of fiction that isn't how it operates.

### Destroying concepts

One strange misconception that appears is the idea that you can destroy "concepts," and that killing a demon which fundamentally erases the thing they represent from reality. But nowhere in any game is this implied. Destroying a sun god does not destroy even our sun, much less suns in general. This misconception being generally born from a misunderstanding of what it means for demons to be born from archetypes.

The connection between demons and the things they represent is actually the other way around. The natural world exists the way it does either way. It can be changes or transformed, but it exists how it exists. Demons in a sense can be seen as like an avatar of aspects of the world, groups, ideas, or even combinations of these. They can take credit for the reality of that thing, but they don't actually have much if any power to directly control how it naturally functions, and if you kill the demon the thing still remains. Hence why worlds like true neutral in smtv can try to wipe out all demons, but the natural world still functions regardless. The extent to which the demon is connected to the animistic essence within these things is notable, but does not translate to the tangible demon.

This misconception also ties to a related one of conflating jungian archetypes with platonic archetypes. But these are very different ideas. Jungian archetypes are the mental images collectively within humanity that structure thought. Whereas platonic archetypes are moreso supernatural things that anything with certain properties inherently take part in. Jungian archetypes aren't about the natural world per say, but rather human perception of it. There are some jungian interpretations that imply that the archetypes to derive from something further. And that it ties to patterns in reality itself. But even so. Obviously the fictionalized understanding of them places them in a more supernatural position, but nothing about them should be taken as a given for controlling reality directly, especially inasmuch as that the demons don't even have control over the archetype itself, but are just shaped by it. Killing the demon doesn't even destroy the archetype from the human mind, since they warn that if humans still call for them, a new version of them can be born.

### Attack names

A common mistake made when assessing rpgs is taking attack animations or attack names literally, and using it to scale things to whatever a literal version of the name is. This is barely worth addressing, due to it being a known thing that rpg attack names should never be assumed to be totally literal, but there is a more direct indication that it shouldn't be done. In apocalypse there is an attack used by yhvh called black hole. But it not only doesn't even do damage, being something that steals mp, but it is a plot point in that same duology that no demon can survive a black hole.

Some other attack names that aren't literal in that same fight are unending curse (simple debuff you can undo), infinite power (small buff to self you can undo), and by extension supernova has no reason to be taken literally either. But one need not address every attack in the entire series.

### Yhvh fight

Yhvh is often focused on as a point of interest, because people often try to scale him to various levels such as universal or multiversal, based on a few things, such as real life lore, the fact that he is seen as countless heads at the end of iva, or mistaking him and the great will for the same thing due to him trying to conflate himself with it.

First point of interest is to focus on his feats versus anti feats. The largest feat ascribed to him in mainline that is an actual attack is causing a tidal wave to flood tokyo. In addition to this being far beneath the implied scale, it is also never stated to be entirely personal power. In terms of anti feats, in SMTII he directs satan to clear the planet surface using a space laser, due to this being implied much stronger than yhvh himself is. In mtii there is a simialr plot element, relying on satan for similar means. His lack of ability in devil survivor to prevent the emergence of opponents to him from afar easily also implies a limit to scope and precision. While these games are separate versions of yhvh that don't all have to be presumed equally strong, it is worth making the comparison.

Next there is the issue of his appearance in iva. People presume a literally infinite scope to him due to the appearance of multiple heads, but nothing about the battle itself presumes this. The interview describing it does not clarify much either, merely stating that it represents that countless worlds are controlled by a yhvh. In the case of the actual heroes though, they are only actually fighting one head. Shown to collapse into a single being when the observation changes its scope. The two ways to make sense of his initial appearance are either that it is some kind of illusion, or that the yhvh of this universe is in contact with the parallel ones of other realities. But either way, they provide no help in his fight. Yhvh is not one single entity that spans every reality, because each demon seen in different worlds in the game is implied to be a distinct character, with stories being contained to generally one reality. Albeit sometimes they may travel from one world to another.

Next one can adress the idea of "yhvh's universe" itself. While it is viewed as immense, and uses terms like brane to highlight being different than normal human reality, the humans themselves are never implied to have any fundamental difficulty navigating it. And so it is consistent with the fact that despite the confusing dimensionality of demons, these are not supposed to be perceived as linear mathematical dimensions that three dimensional entities can not interact with, but rather a kind of malleable nature to the structure (similar to how the schwarzwelt was said to curve around on itself like an early one screen game). The humans who entered yhvh's universe were never implied to transcend normal human dimensionality in order to be able to do this either.

People also confuse yhvh's statements about sustaining the world as literal. In both mtii and iva, when you go to face him he talks like the world will collapse if he dies. Giving the idea that he literally sustains it. But the entire point of these lines is to show that he is giving a misleading depiction of his own importance. In neither game are there any consequences to the physical world based on his death, nor in other equivalent games.

This actually ties to where a lot of the misconceptions about yhvh's role in the plots come from in general. A lot of people assume that the idea of him as all poweful is meant to be literal, at least within the context of universal or multiversal scope. By extension that would imply that defeating him means raising to this level. But this is actually inverted. Defeating him is not humans raising to the level of the infinite, but the realization that he was never this scope to begin with. This being a metaphor not for future super advanced humans, but for modern ones realizing they can move outside the scope of explicit religion to live on their own.

For instance, despite his claim to being all seeing in iva, this doesn't seem to amount to more than an ability to remotely see the events as they unfold. In V, he is described as omniscient, but in practice was not smart enough to see or prevent lucifer's plan to defeat him. This tends to tie to how demons exaggerate hazy powers in general. The obvious example being ouroborous, who likewise claims to be infinite, and even gets compared with yhvh in sj.But all this means in practice is that if it stays in one precise spot, there is a healing spring that will rejuvinate it from damage. This being something that you can easily fix by breaking the flow of healing. The reveal is that the alleged infinity is just a very misleading depiction of a relatively weak power.

Much of yhvh's perceived power comes not from direct battle strength, but due to being in command over a large segment of the demon population. Yhvh himself does very little by personal power, tending to remain hidden. Something that is stated to be because he fears being harmed. He operates mostly via a series of avatars or intermediaries. The spherical avatars of god seen in SMTII or IV, despite being for the most part separate entities are treated as part of him in such a way as to allow him to take credit. And metatron functions at times as his voice, implicitly showing his presence without him having to act directly. With lucifer noting in the chaos end of Iv that no matter how loyal you are, you can't expect him to ever answer.

The same is true of his ability to generate new demons. In iva, the metatron army talks about being created by him. But its worth noting that demons require magnetite to subsist. The logistics of new ones being born and sustained is not a mere feat of strength, but ties to the fact that yhvh as the one in charge is in command of how the magnetite and thought energy is used, hence being able to utilize it for his own purposes.

One final point worth addressing is the distinction between the throne, and the god using it. In various games there will be thrones or realms that are seats of power that being in control of allows one to manipulate things to cause much wider scale change than one can on their own. In V, when yhvh banned gods from being able to become nahobino, this was not by his own power, but was the power of the throne. One mistake comes from conflating uses of seats of power like this as merely being the personal power of the entities themselves. While the seats of power tend to have wider scope power, allowing one to reprogram reality, these are always conditional, and based on the single universe they are relevant to. And hence, when speaking of entities in a battle, one can't presume an arena with the odds in their favor. (And in most cases, things done by the throne or seats of power should be considered hax rather than direct battle strength regardless).

### Canopus fight

While there is less to say about canopus than there is to say about yhvh, one thing people bring up is that canopus is referred to as the divine order of the universe. People tend to assume that this ascribes universal power to it in battle. But nowhere in game is this shown. And one has to keep in mind that many times in the games entities will exist who are embodiments of things, but without this actually giving them full control. You have to account for the fact that certain plot points will exist in stories in order to make them seem epic in scale, but which aren't meant to suddenly raise the literal power of the battle. Hence it is common not just in megaten, but in many games for entities to be embodiments of things they don't actually have full power over.

In terms of canopus, it is worth noting that it is in possession of things referred to as the factors that compose the world, and at the end when you use its power to change the world again, you are standing on a design reminiscent of the one polaris has when seated on heaven's thrown. Since the story revolves around humanity being subject to the administrator system, the implication suggests that this is a further control device or seat of power of some kind, which while canopus was utilizing does not suggest it having unlimited power.

In the story itself, it is worth noting that canopus, rather than attacking earth directly, sends the triangulum to help do so, which are little more than street level. And on defeat, the universe doesn't suffer any physical damage, showing it is not actually a necessary control aspect of them. Canopus when hitting your character on accident is seen as influencing the data of his existence, making him blink out of existence. Showing also that one aspect of this ties back to the theme of programming reality. It is less a feat of pure power, and more an ability to influence the program. Since the factors that are used can be stolen from canopus, they should not only be seen as semi separate things, but your team when possessing them is not shown to have universal power either. Although you can use them in conjunction with the system to reprogram earth into a new world you place outside of it.

Canopus, due to its status is depicted as having a degree of invulnerability. But this isn't treated as a depiction of a direct power scale so much as a type of hax, being in that its place as arbiter of the factors makes it invulnerable to them. But ultimately, this is presented as a simple issue to find a way to overcome. And your same party who are depicted as fairly low in power are able to stand against it, once neutralizing its ability to prevent damage.

In the end, the power scales suggested by this are fairly ambiguous. The factors of time and space in the story itself are shown to make canopus faster, and have longer range, but it does not make it infinitely fast, merely doubling its speed. So how much these can actually be used for in actual battle strength is left ambiguous.

### Shiva fight

Some people take the fight against shiva where he says he intends to destroy the world as indicative of him being planet, or even universe busting level, and try to scale the mc around this. However, this isn't really stated anywhere in the fight. First is the fact that destroying the planet isn't presented as something he can just do offhandedly. It is presented as something he is preparing for in some way, and which is part of a special process that will take some time to set up for. There is also the fact that he never says he will do so in one hit. He talks about "commencing" the destruction as if it is a process that will be undergone. Notably, he never even says it will be an attack. The series has shown a lot of special preparations that make a universe collapse, such as the beginning of nocturne, which v draws on, and can be alluding to something of this nature. In the end, the game doesn't really explain it, since the logistics are not what is important.

### The great will

One thing people will do is to interpret the great will as an actual entity which is capable of interaction or battles in order to raise the scale of how the games are seen. But this isn't meant to be how it is understood. As far back as interviews and early side comics from the time of smti and ii, they described the point of it to be the in essence the realization that god is not an entity. Yhvh claims to be god, but "above" him is the integrated god that is reality itself, which everything is part of. Emphasis is placed on the fact that it is -not- an entity, since it is about the shared divinity of all things, and their connection to the ground of being.

As such, what gets ascribed to it is never individual actions, in the sense of being an entity, but the flow of reality itself. The cycle of death and rebirth being a major one. As of the arising and falling of universes in general. Even the power of observation is just an abstraction of the interplay of human thoughts and magnetite and them shaping demons. None of these things existing outside of the unfolding of events itself. One that confuses people is the line in iva where steven talks about how it "sends" messiahs. But this is not the description of a conscious plan. As shown in dagda's route where after you as a messiah defeat yhvh, he tells you that new ones will be coming for you shortly. In essence, it is just another description of observation again, and the idea of an empowered human going against you.

As such, while one could arguably describe it as having infinite scope in a sense, due to being a collective thing that pervades all of reality, its not actually something one can face or destroy. Which is notable in that if you look at the dialogue of true demon ending, they never state this is their goal, even though some assume it is meant to be. And context from V shows that even if you break the cycle in a sense (with the cycle being associated with the great will) the great will itself remains.

## Relevant info about series themes

Although info about the themes does not in and of itself directly tell what the canon power levels are, it can be useful in order to understand what it is that the games are trying to convey. In the case of megaten, first is a short description of what demons' role in the world is. Demons are heavily shaped by human thoughts. Because they reflect the human perception of the world around them. This is to convey themes ranging from jungian psychology, to them being metaphors for human groups, or even the interplay between humans and the natural world. The games especially heavily revolve around japan in particular, and the recent past of japan that led it into the present, as well as possible courses for the future that it either could have taken, or could still take in the future. This aspect is seen as so central that strange journey was deemed to some degree a side game, rather than being planned as smtiv, due to it not taking place in japan.

Opening in smti, the story conveys a world war ii metaphor, with law as the allies, and chaos as imperial japan. This more literalistic depiction of japan's past gives way to a more abstracted one, revolving around the struggle between religious figures. But there are still elements of the political you can notice. Such as that the lawful temple knights wear blue berets in reference to the united nations peacekeepers. Metaphorically conveying the idea of japan's potential choice to join a cosmopolitan system that could uplift its standards of living, but at the potential expense of autonomy.

This tension of japan's choices goes back to before even world war II. Faced with greater contact with the west, japan often internally discussed whether it should embrace western futurism, double down on its past warrior values, or do some type of middleground mix. Variants of that question arose in different times in japan's recent history, with them in the very early 1900s trying to embrace more pacifistic and modernist ideas, shifting hard to militarism a few years later, and then embracing a middle ground after this. The very idea of the cycle of alignments is caught up in the radical shifts japan has undergone, with tokyo being seen as the center of these radical changes, and as a unique place due to them.

The plot of smti isn't just an allusion to past wars, but also the fears and paranoia people had of future ones. Being faced with being bombed once, it entered into the japanese psyche to focus on the concern that this could happen again. Especially due to the cold war going on so long after world war ii ended, and smti coming out so shortly after the cold war ended. And drawing on plots about nukes that came from mtii that were written while it was still going on. This is mixed with some concerns about new technology, cults that existed in japan, and other modern fears, all told through a mythologized story of rebirth.

In terms of the actual in game canon, fundamentally the games are stories about rummaging for guns in the trash, surviving in ruins, and perseverance. Demons are usually not very strong, because they reflect potential real life events that can happen to japan, or groups that can act for or against it. Very few if any demons can survive nukes or their equivalent, because in real life japan, their religion was in essence destroyed with the falling of the nukes. Their divine protection they relied on was revealed to be not enough to protect them from man's technology. This led to japan becoming one of the least religious places in the world fairly quickly.

The destruction of religion by technology is not just associated with losses in wwii however. It is also associated with their entry into the modern world. When humans surpass gods in the games, it is not because they surpassed the infinite, becoming powerful beyond measure. The metaphor being conveyed is that they never needed to be. The people reflect general modern secular humans, ones who realized that shaking off some of the old systems was never an incomprehensibly high task, because there wasn't infinite power upholding them. Hence, demon power is not high beyond normal comprehension, since they are not meant to be something people could never stand against without transcending humanity. Humans can also harm the environment, which demons are presented as having a difficult time trying to stop. Because this also reflects the point at which people started considering themselves masters over the natural world, rather than merely subject to it.

And this by extension is why the power level of demons tends to be fairly low. Because as metaphors for groups, among other things, their power is embedded in social structures, and the world as perceived. In devil survivor they even talk about it in terms of politics, and demon power being tied to a large degree to support from people.

## General powerscaling misconceptions

Before listing specific plot points in megaten, it is worth noting what general mistakes are made in powerscaling in general. Because many of them also explain the misconceptions they apply to megaten. While these are not the only miconceptions you will find in powerscaling arguments, they are some of the ones that will be more relevant for megaten.

### Dimensionality

One obvious one is their approach to dimensionality. A common metric used is to assume that dimensionality scales in such a way that each higher dimension someone has implies infinite power relative to the one below it. While this may seem intuitive, due to the fact that an object of n dimensions has infinitely many slices in lower ones in a pure mathematical sense, there are several reasons one can't presume this logic.

For starters, there is no direct analogue that presupposes one can interact with the planes directly. Since there is no physical analogue that shows something akin to "infinite power to lower planes," the idea that this is how it would work is not only an appeal to reality, one which isn't actually based in reality, but it also assumes the realms are all connected. For instance, a physical universe could instead say you have to lower your dimensionality to interact with such a plane, and only have certain ways to interact indirectly when not doing this.

Another problem with this idea is the fact that it assumes all higher dimensions are directly analogous to our dimensions, being flat and linear space, or something equivalent. But it can actually be any number of things. It could be space that is curved instead of flat, making it of more limited applicability. Or it could otherwise have properties that limit what you can do with it. It could even be a form of measurement that is neither space nor time, but something else entirely of unknown properties. For an obvious comparison, if you look at quantum physics, the additional dimensions that are suggested to potentially exist for particles operate in a way wildly different than our normal form of space.

In keeping with the above point, you also have to remember that there is a difference between dimensionality and \*usable\* dimensionality. Something having higher dimensions doesn't necessarily mean it can move in them in a useful way that translates to battle damage. I.E. interpretations of our own world that say it is higher than just three space and one time dimension don't change that us on the macro scale can only move in three. So people commonly make the mistake of assuming that ambiguous background dimensionality means that the entities can commonly move in it, and that this translates to power when neither of these things are de facto true.

There is also the question of whether an entity in fiction can always use higher dimensionality, or only sometimes. In some fiction an entity is technically able to in some ways, but can be easily pulled out of it, limiting it to our dimensionality. And so while this may technically translate to some forms of power, in practice it may be easy to neutralize.

And the final point of course is that... none of these points really matter. Dimensionality in fiction works however that particular work of fiction says it does. And while some types of fiction do use it to correspond to the ideas that certain powerscalers use it for, there are so many reasons it can be something else that this can't be taken as a given. Hence a dimensionality based argument that doesn't reference direct plot points, but rather -assumes- certain power based on a higher dimensional type, while common, should be considered poor and hazy without further context. In terms of megaten, a lot of overestimations of their power rely on this type of argument, and so this is relevant.

### Conflating types of power

Another mistake that is commonly made comes from conflating all power an entity has influence over together, and so assuming it can be lumped together. For instance, if a character has a certain power that has a wide scope, it doesn't necessarily mean that they personally are strong in a fight. And if they have some type of seat or item of power, it doesn't necessarily translate to personal power.

A common trope in video games in general will be that an end boss has a large amount of power to enact some sweeping transformations, whether it be over time, or instant, but that their personal battle strength is generally still not super high in order to allow the heroes to still beat them, even if they are down to earth. People scaling haphazardly often conflate all types of power together, and so assume that their battle strength is massive, and that the heroes by extension must be massive in scope to defeat them. But this is often the source of bad estimations. This is especially relevant to megaten due to the prevalence of such things as seats of power that allow some type of hazy wide scope moderation over the world, but don't necessarily make you particularly strong to sit in.

### Scaling based on enemy defeated

One mistake is assuming that beating an enemy de facto makes you stronger. But it has been a fiction trope since the beginning of humanity to show a weaker enemy find a way to defeat a stronger one, whether it be via cunning, chance giving them an opportunity, preparing before hand, the arrogance of their enemy, or any number of things. The term plot armor is often used to explain how heroes can defeat a large amount of enemies whose strength suggests them winning so often is implausible. Plot armor essentially them being explaining that while the sequence of events may be improbable, it happens in this way for narrative purposes.

While this point is less relevant to megaten than some others, it is worth noting that in many games, the protagonists are viewed as having only a slim chance of winning their fights. Or bonus dlc like the apocalypse diamond realm one even suggests that they didn't win all of them, but behind the scenes forces were giving them extra chances. This is worth keeping in mind, though it is not directly relevant to the overly large estimations certain characters are given.

### Realm existence / movement

One plot point that often gets used to exaggerate how strong a character is is if they can in some way either create some type of timespace, or influence one to bridge it to another people often immediately jump to declaring them as having universal level battle power. But there are many reasons this is not true. For starters, it can't de facto be assumed that this power translates to any other type of power. Also, the universe isn't necessarily sustained or caused entirely by the power of the entity. It might exist in a backdrop larger hyperspace that is actually what is sustaining it, with them having simply parsed it out. Or it may be like a domino effect, where they make something rather small, and it expands by its own power. The creation of areas is a fairly recurring thing used to exaggerate characters, making it a notable point. The space may even be a lot smaller than people assume, or not even treated like a real space. I.E. in stories focusing around dreams, the creation of dream spaces is often not seen as taking much power.

In terms of moving or bridging realms one also has to ask what it takes to get this to happen. Because just like the above point, there can be any number of presumed ways to affect the connection of realms, including that it may not even be done by personal strength. It could simply be a feature of them that some things connect them, or there is a gate one can influence, etc. And so appealing to someone connecting realms as something that translates to universal much less multiversal battle power is a poor argument. In the end, remember that this is fiction. The rules can be whatever the author wants, and there is no presumptive need for them to be consistent.

### Inconsistent plot

One mistake people make is simply the fact of... not accepting that plot holes or ambiguous plot points exist. In many stories there will be plot holes or ambiguous plot points that stem from the fact that creating a story doesn't make things always line up properly. But if a plot hole seems to suggest an inconsistency that would imply a character is stronger or faster than they are... that doesn't actually make them stronger or faster. It just means that the story has a flaw. But sometimes when people struggle to accept this, they try to reinterpret it to make it consistent in a way that breaks the story in other ways.

I.E. if a character is known to have a certain speed level, but are seen dodging something that seems too fast for them to dodge, this functions more as an inconsistent plot point if it clashes with their canon power. Or if there is a hazy plot point, such as "how do they dodge lightning attacks." There are times people will try to use cloud from ff7 dodging lightning to calculate him as super fast, but in the end there is a whole canon movie that shows how fast he is supposed to be. And so one has to understand the dodging of attacks in light of this rather than the other way around.

### Attack aesthetics

Although this one is addressed more directly in the below section, a common mistake in terms of rpgs is taking attack animations literally, and / or the aesthetics of areas. But it is a common thing to depict attack animations as over the top silliness, or to have "cool" looking areas that aren't necessarily meant to reflect literal in plot literal power. While there is evidence as shown below that in atlus games attack animations and names shouldn't be taken literally, the same is true in other series-es. In square games there are attacks like sephiroth's supernova that clearly doesn't destroy the galaxy, or chrono cross' forever zero that shows the universe being destroyed but doesn't do this either.

### Archetypes

The idea of archetypes is often used to presume a high level of power. But this comes from a few issues, as well as mistaking jungian archetypes and platonic archetypes as the same thing. Jungian archetypes are mainly a thing that exists in the human mind. And so one shouldn't mistake their presence in a story as inherently indicative of anything. While fiction may give a magical quality to them, this makes their presence alone something that has to be further contextualized. Even a platonic form one has to contextualize in terms of its role in the story. Because unless one is treated as a character and stated to have full control of everything beneath it that is based on that form, they may be instead simply a manifestation of the perfect bow or so on, rather than in control of bows. A lot of these things result in people scaling fictional worlds as powerful without relevant context to suggest it is actually meant to work in this way.