Darkforce222 said:
Needlessly Anal Moment: Souji Seta. Seta's his last name. Ugh, I feel like an over-correcting jerk just typing that.
I think that's stupid, so I switched the name's around for my playthrough. :huh.:
Seta (first name) Souji (last name) sounds better to my Western preferences.
Anyway, my Persona 3 theory. When I got Persona 3 I was like, "Holy cripes, they're shooting themselves in the head!" Then I got the other Persona games and I thought "Wait a minute... something changed between 2 and 3."
GH says above that the Persona power is weakening and requires an outside tool, the "Evoker", to summon. But they've always used a tool of some kind (the cards) to summon, even if the cards did just magically appear out of thin air like we saw with Souji-kun.
So what changed? Why do the kids in Persona 3 need Evokers to sumon? Why don't they have the cards? First part: no Philemon. In the first two games, playing "Master Persona" and a suitable demonic threat would be enough for Philemon to reach out and grant some teenagers the Persona power. So why didn't he in Persona 3? Well, I say it's because there aren't any demons. SEES was fighting against the combined nihilism of the entire human race, not Nyarlathotep and his monster brigade. So he isn't allowed to interfere. Igor on the other hand...
Then I started thinking "Why these particular people? Why didn't Hidetoshi or Kenji pick up the Persona ability?" I thought for a while. Maybe it had to do with their mental states? One of the Persona series' main themes is the need to change. Content people don't have that need to grow and change. The Persona of someone content with his place in the world would never have the same growth potential as the Persona of someone who wants to change himself.
Then I kicked myself. That couldn't possibly be it given that all of Minato's S. Links involve helping people through some problem. Hidetoshi and his power complex, Maiko and her parents, etc. So maybe, I thought, it's the degree of the problem?
Nah. Junpei's trauma is his asshole dad. It's still horrible, but not as traumatizing as parents who ignore your existence in favor of fighting with each other (Maiko, again).
And it was Junpei who led me to the realization. Everyone in Persona 3 who has a Persona has had, or can be assumed to have had, a near death experience.
Junpei? Easy. His dad hits him too hard and sends him to the hospital. Fuuka? Attempted suicide in middle school (she seems the type... sorry.) Mitsuru? Her whacko grandfathers Persona experiments. Akihiko? Didn't the game say that he, Shinjiro and his sister were in an accident of some kind? Ken? The Shadow attack where Castor went bersek could also have seen him injured.
The one's who don't fit are Yukari, Aigis and Koromaru (and Metis, but she h4x's the game anyway). Yukari could be anything, but I see another attempted suicide. Aigis is a robot that was designed to be human and use a Persona. She's closest to the original Persona users in everyway except for the whole Philemon thing.
As for Koro-chan... well, he's as intelligent as a human but in a different way. Does he have his Persona because he's so intelligent or is he so intelligent because he's got a Persona? I think the first, actually. Anyway, his near death experience is in-game, when he fights the Shadows that killed his master.
Aha, I thought, I have it. But wait a minute... something's missing. Oh yes. How could I forget? Terror. Persona summonings without a tool in the Persona series require a strong surge of emotion. In Persona 3, it's terror. After someone has decided to change themself, and after almost dying (regardless of which comes first) whatever barrier there is between someone's inner self and the outside world weakens, and breaks with a strong emotional rush, and we get a new Persona user.
So there are three requirements for a Persona user to awaken to and use the Potential in P3.
1. A desire to change the self or change a situation (shared with all Persona users).
2. A near death experience.
3. Complete and utter terror (provided via Evoker).
Hah... how's that sound?