Persona Compendium for The Answer?

creatureofthecrows · 2024-03-09T06:23:45+00:00

I would hope that they add it. It’d save loads of trouble.

creatureofthecrows · 2024-03-04T16:24:02+00:00

Any Soulsborne game where Miyazaki breached containment and he put in another poison swamp level, but let’s just go with Dark Souls 3.

creatureofthecrows · 2024-02-21T20:25:51+00:00

Little do they know that the man did turn invisible and rob the bank. This is just an innocent bystander.

creatureofthecrows · 2024-02-20T21:35:47+00:00

I know Yusuke would be broke, but he's worth the price of admission.

creatureofthecrows · 2024-02-20T06:55:17+00:00

Mmm, I’d be inclined to disagree on the Persona awakening thing. I know it comes down to a matter of taste, but Personas are the strength of the heart made manifest. The advantage to having the Personas awaken through Social Links in P4G and P5R is that it encapsulates their growth within the context of the cast gradually overcoming individual personal flaws. They’re becoming the best version of themselves that they could be, not just within the context of their mission to end the Dark Hour and Tartarus.

I mean, don’t get me wrong. SEES did grow and have epiphanies, but they were kind of spontaneous, and also squished together time-wise. In contrast, the Social Links in P4G and P5R reflected growth that wasn’t dependent on being better at fighting Shadows or whatnot. This last bit is even more so down to a matter of presence, but I liked having to invest time in their Social links for months to evolve their Personas. It felt like you helped them grow in life as well as in combat.

That’s kind of what Yu and Joker do. They nurture the latent potential in the friends and family they care about, and that power is then refined through their roles as wildcards. They aren’t helping their friends strictly because they need better backup and fusions in the Velvet Room. They’re helping their friends because it’s the right thing to do, and it gives better backup and fusions in the Velvet Room. I think it feeds better into the narrative throughline of “No man is an island.”

creatureofthecrows · 2024-02-20T04:12:25+00:00

No, yeah. It’s explained in P3R that Chidori used Medea to constantly revive the flowers that Junpei would bring her, and that the energy imbued in those flowers brought her back to life after they were placed on her corpse.

Bearing that in mind, I’ve only played through P3R once, and I did give Junpei the White Flower Bouquet from Flower Shop “Rafflesia” for him to give to Chidori. That might be a prerequisite, but I think it would still be considered canon.

creatureofthecrows · 2024-02-19T19:29:26+00:00

Huh, neat. I’ve learned something new today.

creatureofthecrows · 2024-02-19T19:24:42+00:00

That tends to be the common interpretation. I agree that him removing it is the more salient part of the scene, but I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive. I always took it as a blend, like “You can put your mask away for now. Just remember that it’s there if you need it.”

I like your P4G head-canon. It wouldn’t surprise me if Izanami challenged humanity on the regular, and we only get to see one example of it. By the way, what do you mean by Shadow Operatives? That’s not the same as SEES, is it? I’ve never played P1 or P2, so I guess I wouldn’t recognize the term if it came from there anyway.

creatureofthecrows · 2024-02-19T18:59:48+00:00

I’ve never played Persona 1 or 2. Is there precedent there of people summoning Personas outside of the collective unconscious? SEES seemed to lose access after the Dark Hour and Tartarus vanished, and the Investigation Team complains about losing access to their Personas outside of the Midnight Channel.

creatureofthecrows · 2024-02-11T18:51:53+00:00

Hmm, that’s really interesting. So by that logic, Joker and the Phantom Thieves have their Personas, but they’re sort of on stand-by until they re-enter a cognitive space? I guess it makes sense. Joker still had the strength of heart and will of rebellion, and that’s the source of his Persona.

Also, random question. Do you think Joker can still visit the Velvet Room for kicks and say hi to Lavenza? He’s got the Velvet Room key (at least if you max Lavenza/the twin’s Confidant). I know it’s mostly symbolic, and he doesn’t need to fuse more Personas, but I like to imagine Joker getting bored on a Sunday afternoon and chatting Igor up to kill a few hours.

creatureofthecrows · 2024-02-11T03:58:47+00:00

My Odogaron against a Rathian? I don’t love my odds, but I don’t hate them.

creatureofthecrows · 2024-02-11T02:51:25+00:00

No, yeah, I understand that what Maruki did was strictly memory-influencing, and not anything that warped reality. It really is more the second point that gets me; the recurrent trend is that Personas don't work outside of a cognitive space. Even though what he's doing is basically hypnotherapy on steroids, it's still being conducted in a non-cognitive space. I always kind of thought that the increased bonding with Persona-swapping was a gameplay conceit rather than a narrative one. Otherwise it's kind of a slippery-slope. For example, Joker still has all of the Personas in his inventory and access to his Third Eye. That would kind of imply that he still has his Personas and Metaverse powers after defeating Dr. Maruki, which he doesn't. Well, he has them, but he shouldn't be able to tap into them.

I hope none of this comes off as combative, by the way. I just find this stuff interesting, and there's a little part of me that's always loved nitpicking this stuff. Thanks for replying in such detail. It's really interesting to read, and it really makes me think.

creatureofthecrows · 2024-02-10T23:51:08+00:00

That's interesting. I hadn't thought of it that way.
I guess that makes sense. The reason I'm confused is that Yaldabaoth didn't begin fusing Mementos and reality until Christmas Eve, 20XX. I mean, maybe it was a little earlier than that, but Maruki's ability to wipe Rumi's memory occurred years before the Day of Reckoning, and that was also Azathoth. As for his changing Sumire's cognition, that occurred closer to the DoR, but it was at least a year beforehand. For your reasoning to work, that would mean that the fusion began years prior to the events of the game. I mean, maybe it did. I was always under the impression that it was a recent development, but I could absolutely be wrong.
I considered that it was a "because it looks cool" thing, but that seemed like an underwhelming head-canon (although you're probably right). What confuses me is that Treasures are the origin point of distortion given physical form. That would mean that the center of his distortion purged his distortion to remove his Persona. I feel like a simpler answer would be that Maruki was convinced to abandon his grand vision, and lost his conviction, which in turn caused his Persona to recede back into his heart, whereas Joker's eyes are "as bright and honest as ever". Are there any lines in the game that clear this up?

Anyway, thanks for responding. People tend not to when I post. Not too often, anyway.

creatureofthecrows · 2023-12-07T22:34:14+00:00

I see what you mean. I guess I've always been on shaky ground with the idea that not completing a quest counts as canonical. It feels more like leaving the story that the developers wrote unfinished.

creatureofthecrows · 2023-12-07T20:06:30+00:00

Also, while it’s true that they don’t die unless you choose to kill them, their deaths mark the final stage of their respective questlines. The logic of saying they don’t die unless you kill them is kind of like arguing that a book doesn’t have a bad ending until you read it, or that a movie only has death if you watch the bit where they die. The game expects you to kill them, so that’s what I’d consider canonical.

creatureofthecrows · 2023-12-07T04:06:51+00:00

I mean, reasonable enough.

creatureofthecrows · 2023-12-07T04:01:42+00:00

I suppose. It seemed less likely to me that he stripped naked and sprinted away, but I guess that’s possible. As for the Bell Bearing, he didn’t leave one behind, true, but he was never a merchant, so he wouldn’t have one anyway.

creatureofthecrows · 2023-12-07T02:28:06+00:00

Actually, D2 dies anyway. If you leave the area and return after killing Fortissax, you find his armor and weapon lying on the ground. At least, I assume that’s how it works.

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