Symbolism and Mythology in Persona 3

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 ...

Philosophy and Religion on SMT Nocturne

Philosophy and Religion on SMT Nocturne

Summary Introduction: Shin Megami Tensei is both a game and a series of other RPGs developed by Atlus, focused on subjects as Religion, War, Sexuality, Good and Evil and Humanity. It grew on popularity on the western continent mainly after the success of the 'Persona 3', and the subsequent Persona 4, which brought most of the catalog of games for the Playstation, such as SMT Devil Summoner, SMT Digital Devil Saga, and the one I find most important to remark, SMT Nocturne.

The Protagonist, around the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse

This last one got released three years before the P3 on Japan but only arrived to our shores years later, if even arrived. The game consisted on a turn based Role Playing system where the player takes the command of a unnamed hero destined to shape the new fate of the world after its destruction. There's obviously a lot more going on, but you can read it here.

Now, something that brought my attention is the amount of redirected hits to a spanish article entitled as "Filosofía y Religion en Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne", or literally translated as "Philosophy and Religion on SMT Nocturne". I took a moment to see what it was going on and I found myself deeply inmersed on the reading: It is one of the most descriptive works I have encountered which seriously focuses on something as undervalorated as a video game main and sub plot. Here's a little extract ouf ot it:

The cultural and religious differences among the japanese, european and american societies got reflected on the age recommendation for the title. While on the US the game was classified as M-Rated (above 17-18, the same GTA San Andreas got), on Europe the game got a 12+ and on the Japanese ground, the title was labeled "E", for everyone. Therefore, it wasn't the sex or the violence the decisive factors while judging the audience targeted, but the philosophic and religious themes underlying which were more or less controversial on the different societies.

The only problem? The real text is written on Spanish. What I threw up there was just a translation of mine.
Still, you can use a translator, like the google one, and understand most of it.

via: "Philosophy and Religion on SMT Nocturne", on videojuegosysociedad.com

Attitudes

Attitudes

Philosophically Speaking, is it possible to talk about a good or bad type of personality by birth?
Inherent characteristics with that a person is born, independently of the qualities that the individual will take, tend to be of negative character if we classify them using the guidelines of morality established by the society? (at least in modern societies)

Can these characteristics be reverted?
It is feasible to say that the personality is a process that is constructed during the whole life, but it's also possible to affirm with the same intensity that is only (crucially) modified in the first two stages of life: childhood and adolescence. The structural molds obtained inside the mentioned stages will prevail for the rest of the life. In spite of the influence of all the possible situations, the variation that takes the set of characteristics named 'personality' is far from fluctuating drastically on the last two stages of life.
Or let's suppose for a moment an event takes place and it calls to an important and inesperate change to the personality. What attitude should take a person with a constructed identity? "Rejection"? "Denial"?

I could write about all the possible things that can affect the personality, but in escence, they all come to a single item, relationships.
Hm.