Persona
"Masks were commonly used in plays, festivals and religious ceremonies...They were all used to 'play roles.' The Persona archetype's name comes from this 'role-playing' aspect. Jung found an archetype that 'played roles' and named it the Persona. Masks were always used as costumes. I guess that one use has remained throughout the ages."
- --Nurse Edogawa
Personas and You
In Jungian psychology, a 'Persona' is the mask used for social interaction that one wears through life to play their role within society. It is the mediator between you and others. As an example, think of yourself and whether you might consider yourself a selfless or a selfish person, or anything in between. What profession do you have, or what calling are you following on your life's path? These 'archetypes' define what your Persona in going through your day to day life might be.
In the Persona setting, it is much more pertinent than how one interacts with the mundane world. The supernatural is real, and everyone is an intrinsic part of it through the Collective Unconscious. Shadows and Demons of various archetypes are beyond the reach of normal people to fight, and the majority of people upon entering such spaces are helpless against such creatures.
Therein comes the Persona. The reason people ordinarily don't have this power is twofold. Firstly, a person usually does not have a perfect fit between the mask they wear through life and their psyche. There is a disconnect. Secondly, even a person without such a disconnect does not have the 'role' of one who fights monsters; there needs to be something that grants that kind of mask that allows them one to be their true mind after taking steps within that world.
In order for people to obtain this power without first learning how to resolve the contradiction between their role in life and their true mind, they usually require a greater power known as a Guide in order to mediate harnessing the suppressed power of the Shadow under the control of their ego. However, some have had the Potential to awaken to a Persona cultivated within them, and all they need to complete their awakening is a certain trigger.
Otherwise, one must undergo an Ordeal in which they begin the path of resolving that contradiction through spiritual epiphany and ego death, allowing them to harness the suppressed power of the Shadow on their own. If this occurs within a supernatural space, that person will nearly always awaken to the power of a Persona.
What is a Persona?
A Persona is your Shadow armored in an Archetype from the Collective Unconscious. Upon awakening to a Persona, a person's own personal story will draw a narrative archetype from within that expanse to manifest as a power that one can call upon within a supernatural space.
The archetype is not something you consciously select; it is an interaction of your subconscious mind with the Collective Unconscious to draw upon a Persona that fits the role you are trying to take on for yourself. Which archetype it is depends on a myriad of factors; the Collective Unconscious is complex, after all.
Those factors include, but are not limited to, such questions as: 'What are you fighting for or against?' 'What Major Arcana is associated with your narrative journey?' 'Who is guiding you?' 'What ordeal have you undertaken for yourself?'
Your Persona grants you power to draw from that narrative archetype. For example, let's say your Persona is Zeus. What is associated with Zeus and his narrative within myth? Drawing upon thunder and lightning thus becomes a matter of calling to him and bringing the thunder.
But that doesn't mean that you yourself are the father of the gods in your level of power, because your personal narrative is taken into account. This is why to some degree, most Personas are different even when they possess the same name. Even the spells they can draw from the Collective Unconscious might be different.
How much power does the Collective Unconscious assign to you? Does it regard you as a novice or a master of arms? What about your comrades whose narrative and bonds you share in? These add weight to the narrative in the reputational sense and allow one to draw more power from the Collective Unconscious.
All these things matter, and help explain how someone who is otherwise new to their powers of Persona can draw upon more power to start from those who were willing to fight for them and those who now fight with them.
If someone who is alone awakens to a powerful Persona that truly grants them incredible power beyond other Persona Users to start, then typically that means something is very wrong.
Persona Basics
The mere possession of a Persona grants you greater speed, strength, endurance far beyond what a normal people would possess within supernatural space, as well as the ability summon their Persona to perform spells. This is all a function of narrative, in a sense, your narrative combined with the mythological narrative of the Persona. This narrative role being a heroic one, someone who fights monsters draws the subconscious knowledge of the use of arms and preternatural senses you normally would not have, think of it as a muscle memory one only possesses in these spaces.
This does not equate to real world knowledge, only implicit memory. If you don't know the basics of firearm safety, you won't suddenly have that upon your return to the real world, much less understand how to aim and shoot. If you've never done Kendo, you aren't suddenly a great master in the real world. The same goes for knowing your Persona's myth. Having it inside of you does not grant your conscious mind knowledge of it's narrative even in supernatural spaces. That has to be researched, just like Ren Amamiya has to read fiction on Arsene Lupin to know this.
Over time and with experience, Persona Users do incorporate aspects of their lived experience fighting in supernatural spaces into their muscle memory. They may be faster to react in a crisis, or harder to kill, or more capable of improvising with weapons; but it should not be understood to think they're suddenly capable of similar feats in real life as they are within these spaces.
Even with extensive training and effort the greatest Persona User will never become able to wrestle bears, or take on a platoon of armed soldiers in the real world. Far more reasonable is a Phantom Thief that's never had military training being able to sneak into a facility, whereas a member of SEES who's never stepped into a Martial Arts Dojo a single day of their life may be able to hold their own against a few people in a street fight.
Within supernatural spaces themselves, the sky is the limit! The greater the power the narrative draws for you and your Persona as a function of how the Collective Unconscious perceives you. So too, should it be known that a Persona is empowered by the bonds of the people that surround your narrative. Why some people awaken more powerful than others is typically because they become a part of the 'group' narrative that was a part of their awakening and shares within their struggles. Indeed, if someone awakens to great powers without others being a part of that narrative, it means that something is truly terribly wrong.
A Persona gives you significant protection when fighting in supernatural spaces, but often more is required. Armor and weapons are all cognitively and spiritually amplified within such spaces to be effective against the supernatural. Things like model guns will shoot real bullets in supernatural spaces so long as they're perceived to be real; prop katanas will cut just like real ones the more they're perceived to be real.
Naturally, real guns and real weapons will be just as lethal in supernatural spaces as they are in reality. The quality of your weapons and armor matters for how much power it draws cognitively from the Collective Unconscious, and the amount you pay for it or the trouble you spent obtaining it is a part of that. Your Persona will draw out power into them from the 'value' of the weapon or the item in question, making them a part of your narrative within supernatural spaces, even when your Persona is not manifested.
Every Persona User nevertheless requires a special something for long-term protection in supernatural spaces. For those guided by Philemon, it is typically an item of some personal significance to you that marks your journey. Examples such as Maya's Mr. Bunbun or Tatsuya's lighter fully qualify for that protection.
For members of SEES, the armband confers technological protection in these places, whereas Artificial Persona Users are granted natural protection by their traumatic experiences. They are just that much more comfortable facing death in general, which armors them.
Nyarlathotep 'protects' his minions with The Mark by encouraging them to use it, a process that is never good for them long term.
Those with the Will of Rebellion are armored by the cognitive form their rebellion takes, and thus do not require such an item while it's active.
Manifesting a Persona for offensive or defensive purposes is always physically and mentally taxing in supernatural spaces. Persona Users naturally build up stamina with time and experience in such places, but utilizing one's Persona over and over recklessly will eventually leave one too physically or mentally exhausted to even move, much less fight.
Your Persona can break if it's struck by a strong enough blow. If it does, naturally it interrupts what you were doing at the moment. Not to fear, however: a Persona break does not mean it is gone. Its power is intrinsic to you, and Persona Users can resummon it again almost right away.
However, it is more taxing for your Persona to break over and over again in a short period of time than it is to dismiss and call it back on one's own. This can end up requiring one to take a quick breather before one can find the mental fortitude to bring it back.
Awakening
As mentioned earlier, awakening to a Persona requires either a Guide or the Potential to facilitate the awakening process. For others without either, an Ordeal is required to bring the suppressed power of the Shadow under the ego's control.
Some people known as Wild Cards can utilize more than one Persona. These rare individuals still follow much the same rules as everyone else for awakening, but Wild Cards by their very nature are typically granted Guidance from supernatural powers beyond.
For more on this, see our section on The Velvet Room and Wild Cards.
The Persona Game
The simplest way to gain a Persona is always to draw the eye of a Guide, and Philemon has imbued humanity with a simple children's game based on urban legends to make certain his eye falls upon them.
Four people of any age go to the corners of a room and say, "Persona, Persona, please come here!" One person moves to and switches places with the next person at a corner, pushing that person forward to do the same. Each one moves in sequence, repeating this action, until everyone returns to their original position.
Anyone who performs this game will inevitably draw the gaze of Philemon unless their destiny is tied to another Guide or Ordeal. The individuals who participate typically don't notice that anything has changed.
Children who play this game are often too young to have a Shadow, and many people throughout their lives may never enter a supernatural space. However, the moment one does and one's life is put in danger, they will almost inevitably awaken to the powers of Persona.
Other Guides
Sometimes it can be as simple as hearing whispers in your head calling out to you. The offer of a deal, to have your heart's desire granted in exchange for a small price. Or it can be as trivial as a handshake with the wrong person…
Other Guides exist, and dealing with them are often the easiest ways to be granted a Persona and power within supernatural spaces, but few are as benevolent as Philemon in what they require in return.
A few rare individuals do not understand they are being guided at all, only that power has been granted to them. When this happens, they are often a pawn in a greater game between supernatural powers, ignorant of the fate that's intended for them at the end of the line.
For more on this: See our section on Guides
The Potential: The Dark Hour and the Kirijo Group
Another method of gaining the power of the Persona is to have the potential for it imbued into one's psyche. Individuals dealing with trauma from the death of loved ones often have scars left within them from their grief. For those who live in Tatsumi Port Island, these scars might form the capital-P Potential for a Persona.
In order for this Potential to actualize into a Persona, those people must face the fear and anxiety associated with putting one's life on the line to some degree. For teenagers, this is especially difficult because in this era of their life they're only starting to grapple with their own mortality; for those also struggling with the death of loved ones in their past, even more so.
An Evoker is the easiest way to do so without the desperation and fear that comes from a near-death experience. This piece of technology, imbued with a Plume of Dusk, mediates the experience of facing death for someone who points it at their head and willingly pulls the trigger. For those with the Potential, doing so during the Dark Hour almost inevitably awakens them to their Persona.
Not many people have this Potential, even those who have lost loved ones. Those who do are most commonly those who lost someone Ten Years Ago during that incident in Tatsumi Port Island, or for whom that day is significant.
The Kirijo Group has a dark history of human experimentation upon the youth to try and create the Potential within them. This has created a subset of individuals known as Artificial Persona Users who have forcibly had their Persona drawn out of them before their psyche was ready for it. This process leaves scars upon the mind, which for most do not ever heal. While it is theoretically possible for an Artificial Persona User to heal and function as an ordinary Persona User, it is unlikely.
Artificial Persona Users constantly run the risk of their Persona coming out to attempt to kill them and/or running berserk to harm others, and must take pharmacological agents known as suppressants on a regular basis to prevent this occurrence. For most, this is a death sentence, one way or another. Either your Persona will kill you one day, or long-term damage to your body from the suppressants will. Moreover, a natural Persona User who fears a loss of control and takes the suppressants will suffer the same fate.
New Artificial Persona Users are being created currently by the New World Order by a similar process, but there may be additional side effects thanks to the nature of science mediated through Kotodama.
For more on this, see The Potential and Artificial Persona Users.
The Potential: Will of Rebellion
The Will of Rebellion is a different sort of potential that stems from the trauma of institutional injustice. That trauma leaves a wound on one's psyche that festers the longer one is forced to sacrifice their true mind for the sake of the status quo. These individuals possess potential for the Will of Rebellion with the correct impetus, but for many that potential never bears fruit.
Upon gaining the inspiration to take action towards redressing societal corruption or injustice, that wound becomes fertile soil for germinating a certain seed. This seed is the Will of Rebellion, and protects one from the supernatural that would influence most people towards keeping their head down and falling in line with the status quo. This aspect is not known to them, and people who gain the Will of Rebellion typically only understand that something has changed within themselves.
Entering The Metaverse and resolving to rebel against institutional injustice being performed against one, an occasion nearly always marked by antagonism about something very personal to oneself by someone's distorted Shadow, is the easiest way for that seed to bloom.
A mask wreathed in blue flame appears on one's face, and by instinct one will painfully, bloodily rip it off in an act that symbolizes ego death. Doing so will awaken their Will of Rebellion to become a part of the Persona armoring their Shadow. Persona Users with a Will of Rebellion always awaken a Persona with a Trickster, Countercultural, Rebellious, Criminal and/or Revolutionary Archetypes.
For more on this, see our section on the Will of Rebellion.
Ordeal
For many Persona Users, having a Guide or the Potential is just how they awaken. For most, however, neither thing is true. The Potential is extremely uncommon, and even for those who bear the scars of institutional trauma, the Will of Rebellion is equally rare in this world's pervasive status quo. These things all assist in expediting the process of awakening one's Persona once one's life is being placed on the line within a supernatural space.
So does that mean the average person can never awaken a Persona? Absolutely not! Everyone is capable, but it just may be a harder journey for them. This journey is known as an Ordeal.
An Ordeal is exposure to a supernatural space that externalizes the part of your psyche known as the Shadow. The form your Shadow and the Ordeal takes is heavily dependent upon the supernatural space and who or what caused your Shadow to be drawn out from your mind.
These factors influence the form that side of yourself that Ordeal will take. The Ordeal is always extraordinarily difficult for the person in question; accepting the worst side of yourself that is further influenced by the supernatural is extremely trying. The scales are tipped against you, and one undergoing an Ordeal will find it impossible to truly accept its feelings at first.
This almost always results in a supernatural battle of some sort, in which others must be willing to fight for them against their Shadow to pull them through this journey of self-discovery. The bonds formed from these people willing to do this for you are a crucial part of the process.
At the end of this Ordeal, if one is able to find the strength to accept this side of themselves, then the suppressed power of their Shadow will become theirs and they'll be able to manifest a Persona.
The most common form of an Ordeal will be available once Persona 4 and the Midnight Channel opens on Velvet Room MUSH, but other methods by which your Shadow externalizes may be possible through Kingdoms, Kotodama or powerful Guides antagonizing individuals.
For more on the available routes available at the start of the MUSH, see our files on Kingdoms and Ordeal. Note that Kingdoms contains heavily spoilers from Persona 5 Tactica.
They Can Talk!?
Personas sometimes speak to people when they are on the verge of awakening, and just after. Often when this happens, their awakening is a foregone conclusion. The person already is there, and it is the moment of ego death.
Since your Persona is a part of your psyche, this is more a form of 'self-talk'. It is not a conversation between two entities, but a part of your subconscious trying to push yourself towards that final moment of change. This form of talk only happens when one awakens, or when one's Persona changes form due to a great epiphany that changes one's perspective on life.
Artificial Persona Users typically do not have this form of conversation with their Persona at awakening, and typically ever after, the reason for this is due to the trauma of being forcibly awakened. Your subconscious is out of alignment with your ego from your shadow has been forcefully chained to it. That conversation occurring after awakening is rare, but not unprecedented.
Trauma can heal after all, but as Artificial Persona Users must grapple with what was forced upon them every day of their lives, it is difficult for this to occur naturally.
Very rarely, Personas may emerge on their own to engage in conversation with a Demon, or a Shadow that possesses an archetype that's tied up in their narrative. When this happens, it speaks as a figure of narrative, though it is always in line with the desires of the person they belong to.
As an example, if Eriko doesn't desire a fight, it's possible that Nike might emerge to speak to an Angel, hailing them as a fellow Angel. Whereas if Junpei was fighting a demon of Panoptes, it's possible that Hermes might emerge just to taunt him. Note, if one has already awakened, and is fighting a Shadow of themselves with the same Persona, it is the rare occasion that this always occurs.
It should be stressed that your Persona does not compel behavior. You do not suddenly possess knowledge of your Persona's narrative in fiction, myth, or history, and they do not act as independent beings. As a converse of the example before Hermes will not psychically nudge Junpei to heckle someone in their place. The ego does not possess that information on it's own by virtue of having a Persona, nor does the subconscious grant it to them.
The exception to this comes only in moments of great need, and when empowered by both the Persona User's bonds to be guided towards the Persona's narrative role on a grand scale. In these moments, your Persona might nudge you towards these grander designs of 'Izanagi' or 'Messiah', but you are still yourself, and are acting as yourself. Indeed, it is the Persona acting on your 'will' for that guidance, rather than the other way around.
There are some narrative cases of antagonists who are being guided by malevolent powers that do attempt to compel behavior, and in those cases the Persona may even take the form of one of that being's avatars, such as Takahisa Kandori, or Tatsuya Sudou. Despite that, it is not the Persona itself that is compelling behavior, but that higher power. This compulsion can often be resisted with some difficulty, but not always. Sometimes there are simply consequences of being in their employ for too long, and going too far over the edge.
There too are also rare examples where a Persona is controlled to act independently by a higher power. When this occurs, they speak exclusively as a being of narrative, but their words will often convey something that speaks to the feelings of the person having their Persona controlled.
OOC Minutia
- Your Persona talking is meant to be a rather serious and uncommon thing. While we appreciate jokes, this shouldn't be how one makes them in scenes.
- Concepts where your Persona acts as your best friend by coming out and speaking to you frequently as such are unavailable for application. Believing your Persona is your best friend is absolutely fine, so long as you're not holding actual conversations with it, mentally or otherwise. Even situations where Nyarlathotep is directly talking to Kandori or Sudou are nearly always whispers in their head, rather than through their Persona.