#0: Introduction
<0 Introduction - I: The Magician >
Persona, the spin-off video game series from Shin Megami Tensei franchise is overflowing with symbolism. The monsters are based on mythical creatures and figures. The Persona concept itself, that it is the other personality within you that you wear as a mask is based on Jungian psychology. To me, the most interesting symbolism in Persona is the Tarot cards usage in the series.
The Tarot cards are divided into Major & Minor Arcana. It's a set of 78 cards that were used for a gaming and gambling. At certain point in history, Tarot cards started being used for occult stuff including fortune-telling due to the symbolic meaning that every card holds. (I don't believe in fortune-telling but I like the symbolism in fiction.)
The word Arcana is the plural of Arcanum, but it's used as both singular and plural in Persona series and I'm using it the same way in my articles.
In Persona series, the 56 cards of the Minor Arcana are given a minor roles with no story significance. The Major Arcana which consists of 22 cards are used heavily in Persona, especially in the later titles starting from Persona 3. Every Persona and/or Shadow is tied to one Arcana. Certain characters are tied to Arcana as well, their Arcana represent their personality and their character arc.
The fool Arcana card as it's shown in Persona 5
Starting from Persona 3, the protagonist of each game is represented by The Fool Arcana and wields the wild card ability so he can hold within himself multiple Personas. He can strengthen his Persona power by developing bond with the characters he meets. Each of whom represent a certain Major Arcana. These characters who grow relationship with the protagonist(s) are called Social Links in Persona 3 & 4 and Confidants in Persona 5.
As the relationship with each character develop, they open up and reveal their troubles and goals. Their character is almost always has something to do with the Major Arcana they represent. For example, most of the Hierophant Arcana characters are older people who are wise but can't let go of a past failure. The Chariots tend to be athelets who 'do things before they think,' but have big hearts.
One of Persona 4 Golden's Mandatory Social Links
These parallels is what I really like about Persona's symbolism. It's nice to compare the different characters who have the same Arcana or how a character's change i represented by their Persona's evolution.
Th Arcana Representation in Persona
I love the concept of Arcana and how it's used in Persona, I especially loved an analysis series for each Arcana on Youtube, but that series was incompltete and only included up to the tenth Arcana as of now.
So I'm doing something similar. I'll start a series of articles under the tag #ArcanaInPersona. I'll write about one Arcana at a time and I'll compare how the Social Links and Confidants in Persona titles represent their Arcana.
I'll focus on Characters representing the Arcana this time but I hope I'll get to write about the Persona/Monsters, especially since they change from a game to game.
What do you think?
If you're interested in Major Arcana you can check and compate between Wikipedia and SMT Wiki about the topic. You can see my opinion on Persona series in general with my three posts about P1 & 2, P3 and P5.