Author's Notes, II
Thanks to everyone so far who's provided reviews and support. It's always gratifying. We'll be taking a brief pause - tomorrow's Innocent Sin day - but it will be brief, I promise.
Chapter 4:
-This is the first chapter since the prologue to primarily (though not completely) consist of segments either written freshly for this version of the story, or written earlier but only now published for the first time.
-Why is it that the characters in Persona 3 and Persona 4 never seem to sense resonances, the way that the earlier characters do? Well, in Persona 3 it could be argued that it's due in part to SEES "forcing" their Personas through the use of Evokers. But in Persona 4? Very peculiar. Of course, the "real" reason is that it was changed so only their "sensing" characters did that sort of thing, and if Adachi's or Namatame's Personas could be sensed, then that game would have ended in, like, May.
-Man, the Velvet Room used to be like Grand Central Station in the earlier games. All kinds of people were visiting, either in dreams or directly, or being dragged there.
-One thing that I wanted to do was suggest alternate ideas for Persona games – it's true that you run the risk of being stereotypical, which is why I didn't spend long describing any of them at all. One thing that international fans say sometimes is that they'd like to see what a game might be like if it wasn't Japan-centric. So we're playing with it conceptually, here.
-The African village... African nations are so often fictionalized, because of changing borders and because of exoticism. Hence being deliberately vague here – as it likely would be in a real game. I'd expect that it took place in a missionary school.
-Dr. Victor's immortality became clear in the Japan-only Devil Summoner titles. That's also where we saw his red cape. Was Dr. Victor the mentally-addled man running the Jolly Roger bar (another fan theory) in Sumaru City? Either yes or no, both work fine based on the facts, so let's say yes, because that's more interesting.
–I don't care who you are, quoting the lyrics to "Yo" (from Catherine) in this way is funny.
-How likely is it that Justin would still be frequenting the Stray Sheep all these years later? Well, it was implied that he was a resident of the city, so if he was in between stories... I'd say it's forgivable.
-The answers to all of Brown's unanswered questions, obviously, are "Yes."
-Igor's "Punchinello" roots are fairly obvious, really – Mr. Punch is also known for having the long, beak-like nose. The puppeteer in a "Punch and Judy" show is traditionally called "The Professor" - which suggests Dr. Victor as the father almost as obviously as the Frankenstein connection. The traditional figure dressed in white and wore a black mask – which suggests Philemon's opposite. Given Mr. Punch's status as an avatar of chaos, however, what does that say about Igor? Hmmm. Extra credit: Considering the Velvet Room was also based upon the Black Lodge of Twin Peaks, it should be noted that "The Man From Another Place" on that show, arguably the closest thing to Igor in that setting, was a severed limb who feasted on pain and suffering.
-Igor has certainly never hurt anyone that we know of (and the Velvet Siblings are not literally his children), but he tends to show his love for humanity by helping them commit (necessary!) violent acts: the attack on Nyx, the battle with Izanami, etc. He has nothing to be ashamed of – he's been a pretty noble servant – but it's fair to say he hasn't really established any familial relationships of his own accord.
-You'll note that in the case of our married couples, I never bother changing their last name. Many of them have professional reasons not to, but more than that, it's a clarity issue – we know these characters by certain names, and rearranging everyone's last names is only going to muddle it.
-I did not make up "The Beggar." By the time these notes go up, I'll probably already have been accused of this, but... while The Fool has sometimes been called "The Beggar," it's also known by some Kabbalists as one of the "missing Arcana," connecting the now lost sphere Daath (a sphere of shadows and lost knowledge) to the others on the Sephirot. The idea being that the Tree of Life was more complete when God took a more active and direct role in the affairs of mortals. As for the missing Arcana on the other side of the sphere, we'll get to that soon enough. For more information on magic, Kabbalah, Tarot, and all that stuff Mr. Edogawa liked to talk about, I recommend Alan Moore and J.H.\ Williams III's Promethea, wherever fine graphic novels are sold.
-In an earlier draft, I was going to kill Mark in this sequence. Looks like he gets a reprieve!
Chapter 5:
-RIP, Raidou Kuzunoha.
-We never do find out what happened to Anna after the events in Club Zodiac, do we? Her story in Eternal Punishment isn't exactly a happy one. I'm hoping that after Tatsuya's reconciliation with his brother at the game's end, he's able to put her on a better track – it's my belief that he wasn't close enough to Anna for her presence to be a disruptive one the way, say, Lisa's would be.
-It's a common theory that Anna is gay. I'm not leaning one way or the other on that – but high school is a confusing time, and Anna and Tatsuya were close. It's possible that she wondered about her feelings for (or towards) him during that period. As the joke goes, everyone has a thing for Tatsuya (leaders of Persona teams have that in common).
-Raidou x Raidou's Hat = OTP.
-My interpretation of Fuuka's powers hews closer to fan theories than it does official canon, and that's fine, as far as it goes. The question: why is Fuuka's this way, and not Rise's? I never see a lot of "Rise skims minds" pieces the way I do for Fuuka. Here's my reading on that: however you feel about their individual competencies with regards to scanning (or as "mission control," for that matter) Fuuka's Persona has an ability that Rise's does not. Fuuka's Persona protects her physically when "in use," and Rise's shows now visible signs of doing the same. Thus, this other aspect of Fuuka's abilities serves as a drawback to even her out, given that defensive advantage. If you believe Rise doesn't have to deal with that crap, she also doesn't get the invulnerable shielding (as suggested later in this piece, when the others are defending her).
-With the appearance of the DEMONICA and the COMP apparatus, I should take this moment to clarify my position on timelines. Obviously Strange Journey is a mainline MegaTen title – it should exist in the opposite timeline (and while some people are not thrilled with the idea of it being Shin Megami Tensei IV, there are certainly hints of that, at least in the optional quests in New Game Plus). It is not my intention to suggest otherwise. But the possibility of something opening in Antarctica is certainly independent of the other plot twists in the main timeline, and so I'd suggest that at least that far, it's happening in both. What resides in the Schwartzwelt, and what happens there – that would certainly play out differently. Likewise, given that a student inevitably began a ritual in the Persona timeline in the same fashion as in the MegaTen timeline, it's not impossible to believe that the COMP systems would be similarly developed based on the study of incidents like the ones in Mikage-Cho and Sumaru City. By 2021, we're approaching the same time period as the MegaTen mainline games, and some people that were born in that timeline may be born here – to that end, someone like STEVEN may exist in the Persona timeline, and if so, the Kirijo Foundation – the joint operation between Mitsuru and Kei – would be quick to snatch up a person like that.
-Finally! A decent fight scene! After so much melodrama! And... it's a sequence that was in-game. Sorry...
-Having Gouto behave this catlike is a bit of artistic license on my part, but it's not like you ever see he and Raidou relaxing in their games, anyway.
-Gouto's reading of the alignments of Persona 4 are questionable. It's an understandable opinion, but arguably Persona 3 and Persona 4 were both about battling forms of neutrality – accepting death as an easy answer, and accepting comforting lies because they're easier than truth.
-Remember Goro Tatsumi? He was a minor antagonist in Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon. MegaTen reuses a lot of names (Masao Inaba is one that even I couldn't pretend was relevant) but the idea that Naoto's grandfather had dealt with Kanji's great-grandfather was too good to pass up.
-That the fox in Persona 4 is Inari is barely even theory at this point. The talking Inari statues in the Raidou games, however, are often forgotten.
-Naoto's great in that, like Aigis, you can envision an entire game with her as the focus. Much as I love the cast of the various Persona titles (obviously), I don't think that you can say that about all of them without it feeling forced.
-Tamaki assisted St. Hermelin students in the first Persona title, without leaving the school grounds. There's a great story there, on its own.
-Everyone's quick to get Hamuko (or Minako, if you prefer) into a situation where she can meet Minato, or they'll create a world where they're siblings. What about Tamaki's poor long-lost male counterpart? Always forgotten. Creating two or three additional timelines for him in this story would have made things way too unwieldy, but I wanted to at least pay tribute to the forgotten soldier.
-Game maps are always representations. Arguably, Paulownia Mall would be bigger than we recognize it, but I filled the mall with shoppers to make the cat and mouse game a little easier to swallow.