Symbolism and Mythology in Persona 3
Warning: this may contain some spoilers about the game
I do admit there are several articles about the underlying mysticism behind both the saga and the personas game itself, but nevertheless, I had planned to rant about this for quite a while, without help of the wikipedia (only probably to link out for sources) because frankly, there are enough of those ...
So what's Persona 3?
Persona (three, in this case) is part of the series of Spin-offs contained inside the Shin Megami Tensei games; the plot however, differs from the SMT games centering around the life of adolescents on today's japanese society rather than the survivors of an apocalyptic set.
In Persona 3, the player takes the role of a male high-school student who joins the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad (SEES), a group of students investigating the Dark Hour, a time period between one day and the next that few people are aware of. During the Dark Hour, the player enters Tartarus, a large tower containing Shadows, creatures that feed on the minds of humans. To fight the Shadows, each member of SEES is able to summon a Persona, a manifestation of a person's inner self. (...)
'Persona' derives from the latin word 'Personæ', meaning 'Mask' or 'character'. As Carl Jung says, it's the 'commitment between our own identity and society's demands'; and this is of extreme importance, as the game much revolves around the development of the personality and the relationships between the characters.
Jung's concepts applied to an RPG
As Daniel Jimenez pointed out, both the concept of Persona and Shadow are part of the individuation process described by Jung about the Personality; While the Persona is the mask we wore everyday for the exterior, the Shadow is everything we dislike or deem unwilling of appreciation. It's the negative side of each person.
The first step to this process of individuation is meeting your own shadow, as the character does on the beginning of the game: Orpheus is forced out of the player unconscious by using an evoker but quickly develops into something else, into Thanatos, a blood thirsty persona more than willing to destroy the shadows.
Later on the game, we understand that Personas are nothing but Shadows merely at the service of the different 'Persona users'.
Orpheus, master of strings.
The second stage is defined as Anima or Animus. It's the feminine part of a male, and the masculine part of a female, respectively. These can work as valuable connectors of the conscious self and the unconscious: Pharos could be a possible example out of this characterization, despise not being the Anima characterization of the male.
Elizabeth also could emerge as an interesting possibility, mainly due to the launch of the Persona 3 Portable's male "Elizabeth".
Nevertheless, a later on the game, the character integrates pharos to his own self, forcing someone else to emerge: Ryoji.
The third stage, is where you meet the Wise Old Man; The Mana personality, an archetypal image of a supernatural force. They're usually characterized as a person of authority, a guide, or someone of great wisdom. While I suppose a correct assumption may be of identifying Igor as the Mana personality, I'd believe Ryoji as the 'Mana'. Shortly after the hero merges with Pharos as a single entity, Ryoji joins the same class and becomes quickly popular in the same. Ryoji also gives some insight to the main player as to how to defeat the center of the Dark Hour; Nyx.
Ryoji (thanatos) and Nyx
The fourth stage, is the self. It's "the centre and the totality of the entire psyche". But, "one must get in touch with the Shadow and Anima/Animus before one can truly get in touch with the Self".
As the game progresses, you understand that only by getting in touch with these shadows, one can only truly get rid of them, instead of merely bashing them, which only produces a counter effect and makes Nyx even stronger. Understanding the true meaning of these creatures and it's creation is the only way the character can fulfill the task he is destined to.
The Game plays around these tematics while exploring the different Social Links: Each and one of these revolves around the Arcana, tarot-based cards and their meaning. Diving into other people's personalities will ultimately give you more insight about their true feelings and will end granting you more power for the shadows of said arcana, which becomes useful for battles.
Thou must also remember not to fuck up the Social Links
Depending wheter you answer correctly to each person's feelings you may get a bigger bonus while talking to them; What could work for the Magician won't have the same effect on the Tower. Each story needs to be understood under the card they're originated: The Sun, for example, develops after the character agrees to help a dying man's fountain pen but afterwards develops into a true friendship.
Akinari finally finding meaning in his existence
Akinari suffers a transition from a hopeless and doomed existence to find some semblance of hope inside his story about a Pink alligator. As the card suggests it, the Sun is the clarity that comes from a dark knight into a bright new day. Much of this can be found in the rest of the Social Links.
Death and its Greek mythos references
I probably should point out that all the Shin Megami Tensei games have underlying references and allegories to a vast amount of religions, myths, tales, etcera; So I'll pass by the ones who have been appearing constantly through the years on the games and focus on the Greek pantheon of gods and heroes which specifically integrates into each character's psychological development.
Left to Right: Pharos, Main Character, and Ryoji
'Pharos' is the representation of the Sleep, the premonitory dreams and the part of the unconscious that the Main character doesn't knows or understands. He always shows himself at the Dark Hour and can only be seen by the Main character, which would explain that he's within his unconscious. His Greek counterpart would be Hypnos, the god of Sleep.
Ryoji on the other hand is the representation of the Death, although in contrast with Pharos, he's got no idea of his task until the full moon. Even though the Persona Ryoji leaves behind is Thanatos, he's more or less a harbinger (the appriser) of Death, rather than Death itself. As I mentioned before, his greek counterpart is Thanatos, the god of the 'quiet' death.
Both of them are the parthenogenic sons of Nyx, which serves as the main antagonist on the game. Nyx literally translates as Night (Nyx on Greek, Nox on Latin).
Other daughters of Nyx are Keres (woman shape's death) or the Moiræ sisters (Lachesis, Clotho and Atropos), those in charge of ending the life of the people.
Christian Gottlieb Kratzenstein's "Orpheus and Eurydice", 1806
As I mentioned before, the main character's Persona is identified with Orpheus and his katabasis (journey to the underworld); Orpheus loses wife, goes to the underworld to retrieve her, gets her under the condition of not looking back, and loses her because of breaking the condition.
The Hero suffers a transition alike by the end of the game while fighting with Nyx, with one major difference that integrates from the classical greek hero: He loses his life for the greater good of humanity. Much of what the main character suffers can be contained inside Campbell's monomyth (the hero's journey) as well.
Robert Graves indentifies Greek death references on the number '3' as a conversion, from the pre-hellenic cult to the Moon goddess, to the later pantheon of female gods: Hecate's three heads, along with her dog, Cerberus, and the Moirae sisters. Persephone as well, represents the triparetite change of stations from the old greece. Graves also mentions Kore (Persephone) as depicted in her maiden form, nymph and older (Persephone) by Greek mythographers. Persona 3 works with three main characters to represent Death, or more likely, transition from one state to the other (Life, Death and resurrection) : Pharos, Ryoji and the Main character.
Hiimdaisy's persona 3 comic! Yay!
Other references: Castor and Polydeuces, Hermes, Io, or Nemesis are some of the other gods who take side as the Persona's cast. Josh tolentino wrote on his blog an entry explaining most of these references to the stories and characters. Although a little too simple and wikipedia copy-pasta'd, it's useful if you're in doubt of the character's backgrounds.
There's also a funny comic by Hiimdaisy about Persona 3. The link is on the last image.
