Ramble: The Structure of the Unconcious Realms in the Persona Series
(originally posted on tumblr in 2017)
sillyfudgemonkeys asked:
Hey neni, I remembered you made a picture guide to the different planes in Persona (like the Dark Hour and TV world and Velvet Room etc). I can't seem to find the post tho. ;w; Could you link me to it? (and btw where would you put the Palace and Mementos on said plane?) Thank you!
While I still have that graphic, I don’t entirely agree with how I drew it back then anymore, and feel a new version is in order! Here I go:
For everyone who doesn’t understand what this is, this is an updated version of the diagram I posted back in THIS POST. (Link)
It’s supposed to be a rough approximation of how the unconscious world in the Persona Series are structured, and how “deep in” all the sections we’ve seen of it so far I believe to be, based on educated guesses.
A reminder; The P3 Club Book, which contains some information from the series bible, states that all deities are actually archetypes born from collective human thought and emotion as a means to keep the Collective Unconscious stable (tho they often lose that balance as of late), while Shadows are born of individual, personal emotions. This is why I have the entities closer to the surface mainly labeled as Shadows and the entities closer to the center mainly labeled as deities.
However, considering that the Persona Universe is based on Jungian ideas and Jung proposed that the complexes of the human soul usually “channel” archetypes, connecting to them, it makes perfect sense that the Shadows in P5 look and act like demons and deities; the distortion of the Palaces and Mementos puts them under the influence of their archetype, and they thus act it out 100%, being avatars of the deities they are “assigned” to.
Anyway, as you can see, I peg Mementos as fairly extensive, spanning multiple layers of the unconscious realms, but not going quite to the core. The reason I think this is spoilery, so follow me under the cut
Mementos is Yaldabaoth’s realm, and Yaldabaoth, as the Demiurge, does not have access to the “real truth” of the world. Thus, I can’t imagine his extensive domain could possibly reach into the reservoir holding the domains of Philemon and Nyarlathotep, as well as the pure essence of all human souls, deceased and yet to be born.
