| “ | Understand that there is no point in living! Cry, that there is no answer! Where there is darkness, there are shadows! I, myself, am all of you humans!! | „ |
| ~ Nyarlathotep. |
Nyarlathotep mocking the main cast of Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, while taking the form of Tatsuya Suou, the protagonist of Persona 2: Innocent Sin.
Hello, I have return once again for a new villain to propose and it's Nyarlathotep from the Persona franchise. Yes, the Crawling Chaos himself, who is the overarching antagonist of the franchise while being the main antagonist for Persona 2. By Persona 2, I mean Persona 2: Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment. I'll be honest, I have not played this game at all yet older fans of this franchise won't shut up about this character and how special he is when compared to other entities in the Persona franchise. Okay, I'll admit he is an interesting portrayal of the Lovecraft entity but all I did is simple research and I felt it is worth bringing up this character for discussion. I'm still surprised no one attempted to propose this version of the character considering how popular he is in the Persona fandom and easily one of the most evilest entities in the franchise. Since I did well in my last proposal on Shuji Ikutsuki, I thought it was best for me to make another proposal for a different Persona character.
What is the Work?[]
Persona is a Japanese video game franchise created by Atlus and serves as a standalone spin-off series from the Megami Tensei franchise. The games center around role-playing while dealing with themes relating to personas, bonds, the nature of humanity, and social issues. The concept of the franchise is inspired by Jungian psychology and despite it being a spin-off, it managed to be more popular than Megami Tensei, funny. The Persona 2 duology is unique in the sense it's different gameplay mechanics and having a unique depiction of a Lovecraft entity.
Now, the Persona 2 duology is basically a set of two Persona games that deal with the same plot, which is Persona 2: Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment. Innocent Sin is the first game and Eternal Punishment is the sequel. Innocent Sin deals with the story of Tatsuya Suou and his friends trying to uncover the identity of the mysterious entity known as Joker (no, not that Joker or that one) while dealing with rumors becoming true with one rumor suggesting the return of "Adolf Hitler" and his Nazis. Eternal Punishment takes place in a separate reality that focuses on Maya Amano, Tatsuya's friend but I will explain the separate reality part down below.
Who is He and What Has He Done?[]
Introduction[]
Nyarlathotep is an entity that exist in the collective unconsciousness and is the personification of the evils that lay within humanity. While Philemon represent the good in humanities nature, Nyarlathotep represents the worse aspects of them and every destructive impulsive they have from thoughts to actions. Like his counterpart in the Lovecraft Mythos, he can freely interact with humanity and interfere with their lives for his own amusement while taking many different forms. He can also manifest avatars based on rumors that he himself spreads. At a certain point, Nyarlathotep and Philemon enter a bet with each other based on the fate of humanity: Philemon believes that humans are capable of good and be better than themselves while trying to overcome their problems, but Nyarlathotep believes that humanity are too self-destructive and could never change their behavior from the path they set for themselves. Philemon is limited when it comes to guiding humans but Nyarlathotep actively antagonize them so he can be the winner of the bet while proving to Philemon that humanity could not be saved.
Megami Ibunroku Persona[]
Nyarlathotep is introduced as the persona of the game's antagonist, Takahisa Kandori, who he forcefully merges with after his defeat at the hands of the Protagonist and his friends. The merging transformed Kandori into what's known as God Kandori and states that he is giving Kandori the power he sought for. Despite being in the background, he was influencing Kandori to fulfill his ambitions for godhood and using him for his plans on destroying humanity. He had him find the keys to the DEVA System, which starts the story of the game. After Kandori is defeated, Nyarlathotep disappears but the main protagonist group never know he was behind it all.
Persona 2: Innocent Sin[]
| “ | Allow me to welcome you once more and congratulate you on arriving at the world of the collective unconsciousness. This is the place where the guinea pigs known as humans are born. What appear to be stars are what you call consciousness. All human egos are born here and return here. Into me, who is like a father to all. The crystal skulls and Xibalba are only fragments of me, manifested by your kind's yearning for such things. An alien spacecraft will lead to you becoming gods? You cling to fantasies by desperately rationalizing them. | „ |
| ~ Nyarlathotep revealing himself as the true mastermind while mocking humanity for rationalizing falsehoods. |
Nyarlathotep as Jun's father, Kashihara, who would manipulate Jun to fulfill his evil plan of destroying humanity. Damn, imagine someone impersonating your father and turned out to be a Lovecraft entity.
In this game, Nyarlathotep whispered voices inside Tatsuya Sudou to turn him insane and told him of a rumor called "Oracle of Maia", which is a poem that Nyarlathotep created and told Sudou that it's a prophecy made by Maian aliens. This rumor suggest that the aliens will wipe out humanity and guide the survivors into enlightenment and godhood. Nyarlathotep wants Sudou to spread the rumor in hopes it would bring down humanity like he planned. This rumor was given to Akinari Kashihara, who then gave the rumor to Maya Okamura. However, the rumor itself is bogus and was made to mislead humanity into believing it and destroy themselves, obviously. Sudou, Kashihara, and Okamura create a mystical tome called "In Lak'ech", the tome contain many rumors that has been whispered into Sudou. Kashihara and Okamura kept the book to themselves out of fear because they don't want humanity to be destroyed by the contents of the book. Tragically, Kashihara committed suicide due to vicious rumors about him being spread by his wife, Junko Kurosu (is it a coincidence that her name is Junko?). Nyarlathotep would use this opportunity to take the form of Kashihara to manipulate his son, Jun Kurosu, into madness and capitalize on the boy's desires of wanting a parent who would not embarrass him. He would be a "good parent" to the young boy for some time and slowly grooming him as the one person who could bring the events in the Oracle of Maia to life.
Never thought I see the day of Hitler wearing shades.
He would have Jun become an entity known as Joker and had him believe that he is bringing a bright future for humanity, he then gives Jun a persona based around him, similar to what he did with Kandori. Nyarlathotep would go to Sumaru City and placed a curse on it, which would allow any rumor to come true once enough people believe in it. After his enthralled follower, Tatsuya Sudou, destroyed Alaya Shrine, Nyarlathotep sends Joker into wanting revenge on his childhood friend, Tatsuya Suou, by making him believe Tatsuya killed Maya Amano (she is actually not dead and survived from the arson attack but is suffering from pyrophobia). Now throughout the game, Nyarlathotep remains in the background watching the events unfold while Joker and the Masked Circle, a cult relating to mask, carry out the prophecy that he foretold. The protagonists would unknowingly spread his influence by bringing up rumors relating to the Masked Circle and the Last Battalion as to warn people about them. Speaking of the Last Battalion, Nyarlathotep unleashed a rumor about Adolf Hitler and other Nazis being alive in Antartica later forming the Last Battalion. The rumor suggest that the group hold advance technology and holding a spacecraft (yes, a spacecraft) called Xibalba. Later on, Nyarlathotep would take the form of Adolf Hitler and invade Sumaru City to confront the protagonist group. Through the disguise, he makes them think that Hitler is alive while holding whats believe to be the Spear of Destiny and has Joker activate Xibalba.
"It is a father's nature to be the ultimate obstacle to his child...Very well. Reach for your "future" with all your strength!"
After Jun goes back to his senses, Nyarlathotep returns but as Kashihara again and tries to continue his manipulation over Jun by convincing him to claim his revenge. Jun refuses so Nyarlathotep removes him from the Wheel of Fortune Arcana and takes his Joker-Nyarlathotep persona. He now claims that he will lead the Last Battalion and Masked Circle in his stead then he leaves. The party finally confront Hitler at the Heart of Xibalba and has a Nyarlathotep persona called the Moon Howler. They ask him to hand over the skull but Adolf said the skull was meaningless. Once he is defeated, Hitler turns into Kashihara and reveals himself to be Nyarlathotep the whole time and was manipulating events to bring humanity towards self-destruction. He tells them that everything that they knew was a lie and the Heart of Xibalba is actually a realm of the collective unconscious where he resides. He goes on to explain that humanity's consciousness are formed here and would always return here, he also reveals that the crystal skulls and Xibalba are simple constructs that are a part of him manifested by humans and their desires. Nyarlathotep mocks them for believing a prophecy that was completely made up. The party asks who he is with Nyarlathotep saying he is Jun's father but Jun denies this by mentioning his father is actually dead. This prompted Nyarlathotep to mock Jun because he mainly took his father's form due to Jun's desire of wanting to apologize to his father for contributing to his suicide.
Afterwards, he summons the souls of Jun's parents and destroys them right in front of him. Of course, this pissed off the party so much, Maya Amano express her hatred for the entity but Nyarlathotep calls them out on their contradiction of character. Seeing how the main cast wants to fight him, Nyarlathotep transform into an entity called The Great Father, an amalgamation of the main character's fathers. After they defeated The Great Father, Philemon arrives to disrupt what's going on. He explains that him and Nyarlathotep has entered a wage with each other on humanity's fate, he goes further by telling them that Nyarlathotep believes that humanity will destroy themselves while he (Philemon) believes in humanity's potential of becoming enlightened beings while overcoming their trials. Now knowing the full truth, Maya accused both of them of causing their troubles but Nyarlathotep corrects her by stating that he has been pushing things in his favor so he can win the bet. However, he remains confident as he reveals that he already won. For you see, the party failed to bring up the fate of the Spear of Destiny and Maya Okamura. Nyarlathotep summons Maya, who is insane at this point, to kill Maya Amano with the spear and it's mentioned that the spear came from a rumor he spread 2,000 years ago, showing the bet lasted for that long.
Since Maya died, that means the prophecy has been fulfilled which caused the Earth to stop rotating leading it to total destruction. The only survivors are the people within Xibalba, leaving them as the last remnants of humanity (that's rough buddy). Philemon gives the heroes a chance to avoid all of this by using the collective unconscious to create a new reality, a reality where Nyarlathotep's victory is prevented. But this new reality can only be created at the cost of their memories so Nyarlathotep could not manipulate them again. Everyone agrees but Tatsuya prefers to keep his memories and the new universe is finally created as a new timeline that is separate from the original.
Persona 2: Eternal Punishment[]
Now in this game, Nyarlathotep has notice that Philemon has created a new timeline that is seperate from the original and plans on destroying humanity again like he did previously. Since Tatsuya rejects on giving up his memories of the old world for the new one, his spirit now lingers in a version of himself in the new world. Nyarlathotep took advantage of this by branding Tatsuya with his mark to remind him that the old world will consume the new one that his friends sacrificed themselves for and that he doesn't have much time. Doing this caused Tatsuya to avoid his friends so they won't get involved and fall into the entity's manipulations again. Despite not needing to brand him, Nyarlathotep would often tease him with nasty comments about events from the previous game to have Tatsuya think that he might doom the world again.
Time Count, the form that Nyarlathotep has taken as to watch over the new protagonist group.
Like before, Nyarlathotep plans to have humanity destroy itself but this time creating a new group to replace the Masked Circle called the New World Order, an organization filled with corrupt politicians that act as his servants. Like usual, Nyarlathotep creates a false rumor that gets humanity's attention, this time being the discovery of an historical tyrant named Kiyotada Sumaru, who ruled a land called Sumaru City. The dead tyrant told the New World Order to extract energy from people and insert it into the Earth's core, which would lead creatures known as earth dragons to arise and destroy the earth while the order be allowed to board the Ameno-Torifune (another name for the spaceship Xibalba). Basically, same plan as before but with a different approach. To fulfill this prophecy he has conjure up, Nyarlathotep turns Tatsuya into the new Joker but as a contract killer instead and had Chizuru Ishigami to spread an mystical infection, that is simply called the Joker Infection, that would turn anyone into a homicidal maniac when they summon Joker. Another rumor pops-up relating to Kandori and his suppose revival, which led him to literally come back to life and became Nyarlathotep's agent once again. The story also implies that he fabricated historical events relating to the ancestors of Maya Amano, Jun Kurosu, and Tatsuya Suou as to mock them, possibility for defeating him.
"Behold, my true form!"
Anyway, the New World Order successfully gets the energy from people mainly those infected with the Joker Infection and placed them in the earth's core from several different locations. Nyarlathotep remains in the background to watch the events unfold like he did before and allowed his minions to do most of the work for him. He disguises himself as a character named the Time Count as to watch over the protagonist and gives interesting insight of the events going on in the story. The new protagonist group he watches over is Maya Ameno, Tatsuya, Baofu, Katsuya, Ulala. They all intent to stop Nyarlathotep from destroying the world for the second time and unlike the last group, who simply reacted to his schemes, they are more vigilant on the rumors he creates as to avoid being manipulated by him. After defeating the bogus tyrant, Sumaru, Nyarlathotep reveals himself but has taken the form of Tatsuya as to mock him and the party, he then unleashes shadow versions of themselves upon them as to capitalize on the party's worst fears and traumas. During the situation, he forced Tatsuya to make a decision to restore the memories of either of his former friends, Lisa Silverman, Eikichi Mishina, or Jun Kurosu. However, Jun is unable to gain his memories of the previous universe, which prevents Nyarlathotep from trying to undo the current universe.
After defeating their shadow selves, they finally confront Nyarlathotep, who tries to psychologically torment Tatsuya by reminding him that he is not from this reality but from the old one and that his fate is to be separated from his friends. However, the party rejects him and encourage Tatsuya to stand up against the entity. They engage in a long fight with Nyarlathotep being defeated once again but this time for good. Philemon appears to help the party to banish Nyarlathotep from the world. Despite agreeing with his defeat, he warns that he will return due to being a part of humanity and because of that he will always exist within them. Nyarlathotep is then banished to the deepest depths of the collective unconscious. The curse of rumors are now gone, which means that Philemon won the bet, hurray. Despite this, the old universe remains destroyed with the last remnants of humanity still existing and to prevent the new universe being consumed by the old one, Tatsuya chooses to return to the old world and his spirit leaves behind the version of himself from the new world.
Heinous Standard[]
| “ | Are you afraid? No one can ever escape the shadows! | „ |
| ~ Nyarlathotep. |
There is a massive heinous standard for this franchise with many committing their own unique set of crimes. To make a fair comparison, I'm mainly going to bring up some of the entities in the Persona franchise instead of the human antagonist. The entities I'm going to bring up is mainly two, who are Yaldabaoth and Izanami.
Izanami: Okay, let's start with her. Izanami is a goddess that took an interest in humanity with the wanting to fulfill their inner desires, she serves as the true main antagonist of Persona 4 and the reason for the events of the game to happen. As to educate herself on humanity and their desires, she granted the power in entering the TV world to Taro Namatame and Tohru Adachi. In doing this, it lead Adachi in using the TV World to fulfill his boredom by throwing people inside which led to two deaths. Adachi continues to do this by going after the main cast and his actions made people think that a serial killer is on the loose. Afterwards, it led to Namatame to the deep end because Adachi's first victim was someone that Namatame cared about and had a relationship with, this would lead to Namatame to endanger several teenagers by pushing them into the TV world over a misunderstanding of the situation. Though this was because of Adachi manipulating Namatame by making him think he is saving lives, it was Izanami's fault because she was the one who granted them access to the TV world. Not only that, but Adachi was able to awaken a persona because of her. Izanami was also responsible for the fog that was consuming Inaba, which was encouraging the townspeople ignorance of their situation, and she attempts to do the same to the rest of the world. Doing this, would turn everyone into shadows.
Yaldabaoth: The God of Control and the true mastermind of Persona 5 story. He was the one behind everything going on in the game just to prove a point that humanity are incredibly self-destructive and always leading themselves to ruin. To demonstrate this point, Yaldabaoth created a "game", where two chosen players (Ren and Akechi) will decide the fate of humanity. One poses as humanity's champion and the other serves as the opposite. If the humanity's champion wins then the world is saved but if the other wins then humanity will be destroyed. However, Yaldabaoth tries to rigged the game to his favor by having people follow Akechi. Before the story even started, he imprisoned Igor and took his place by impersonating him then defeated Lavenza by splitting her in two, which led to Caroline and Justine to exist but without them knowing what has transpired. He was behind the Anti-Social Force conspiracy with Masayoshi Shido as the leader and tried to get the ignorant masses into voting for him as Prime Minister. Speaking of ignorance, Yaldabaoth posed as the "Holy Grail" of humanity in the Metaverse as to get humanity to rely on him and him only. Doing this, basically encouraged humanity to become more ignorant then they have to be when they called upon him. What's worse, he is one of the reasons why Akechi became a misanthrope by granting the Loki persona when he discovered the Metaverse. When given this persona, Akechi would use it to fulfill his desire of revenge against his father, Shido, by becoming an assassin for him and using his knowledge of the metaverse to murder peoples shadows. Yaldabaoth is also responsible for the misery coming from the palace rulers and tried to completely enslave then obliterate humanity.
So what does Nyarlathotep got when compared to these guys? Well, this incarnation of Nyarlathotep is much worse than his original counterpart considering that he is willing to destroy the world just to prove a point about humanity towards Philemon and tried to rigged the bet to his favor, which he admits to doing. After destroying the world, he tries to do it again after discovering the second timeline, making him pass the heinous standard automatically. Over the centuries, He has been manipulating humanity with fake rumors and interacting with their lives to make them suffer for his own amusement. This also goes for creating avatars relating to those rumors as well. In the first Persona game, he was influencing Kandori into becoming an god in some way while using him to destroy humanity. In Persona 2 and onward, he has been manipulating Tatsuya Sudou, Maya Okamura, and Kashihara into believing an bogus prophecy that lead to their inner turmoil. Sudou and Okamura were turned insane and Kashihara committed suicide because of malicious rumors about him being told by his wife. Nyarlathotep took advantage of this by posing as Kashihara so he can manipulate his son, Jun, into becoming the one to bring the prophecy to life. He basically groomed the boy into thinking that he is humanity's savior then turned him into an entity known as Joker while having him turn against his childhood friend, Tatsuya Suou. Nyarlathotep then placed a curse in Sumaru city in which a rumor will come true if enough people start believing in it and spread it, this lead to something like the Last Battalion and Xibalba to exist. Since he turned Sudou insane by whispering about rumors and the prophecy to him, Sudou would later burn down Alaya Shrine with the event traumatizing Maya Amano into developing pyrophobia, which Nyarlathotep is completely responsible for.
Nyarlathotep created the Masked Circle and placed Joker as the leader so he can fulfill his role as humanity's savior. For awhile, he remains in the background to watch the events unfold while his servants do the rest of his work. After Joker's defeat, Nyarlathotep tries to manipulate Jun once again by telling him claim his revenge but after being rejected, he takes his powers back from Jun and tells him that he is no longer the leader of the Masked Circle while claiming to be the new leader now. After the team defeats Adolf Hitler, he reveals to be Nyarlathotep the whole time and tells them that he was behind everything while mocking humanity for believing in falsehoods like the prophecy he created. Nyarlathotep summons Jun's parents and then killed them on the spot just to make him suffer, it was so horrific that Maya expresses her hatred for the entity. He then fights the heroes as the Great Father and, despite his defeat, has summoned Okamura to pierce Maya with the spear of destiny, which caused the world to end with the last remnants of humanity being in Xibalba.
In the second timeline, he pulls the same plan again but with a different approach by forming the New World Order. As to torment Tatsuya, Nyarlathotep brands him with his mark to remind him that the new world will be consumed and that he doesn't have much time, which caused Tatsuya to avoid his friends so they won't get involved. While at that, he would often tease Tatsuya of events from the previous timeline and tried to make him think that he's going to doom the world again. He fabricated historical events relating to the ancestors of Maya Amano, Jun Kurosu, and Tatsuya Suou as to mock them. He mocks Tatsuya once again by taking his form and unleashed shadow versions of the party to torment them psychologically. During that moment, he forced Tatsuya to choose which of the memories he can restore from his former friends. He then mocks Tatsuya by telling him that his fate is to be separate from his friends and that he doesn't belong in the new universe. He then fights the heroes again in a more powerful state. Though he agrees with his defeat, he still think he will return to bring more misery upon humanity due to being a part of them and that he cannot be truly vanquished.
Mitigating Factors[]
Now, this is the part where I know some people are going to pull some counter arguments against Nyarlathotep, which is the "made of evil" argument. Now, it is made clear that Nyarlathotep comes from the collective unconscious of humanity and represent their worst aspects, therefore, part of humanity. However, this argument can be easily dissuade by mentioning Nyarlathotep's personality and his understanding of things. He shows that he knows basic morality to understand humanity and their flaws but he uses that knowledge to torment them and expresses absolute delight in their suffering. He has too much of a personality to have a moral agency problem and seeks humanity's destruction twice even though he is a part of them. Hell, Nyarlathotep is doing all of this to prove a point to his rival, Philemon, that humanity is too self-destructive and not capable of good or fixing the path they set themselves on. He ignores any form of good that humanity holds and continues to have this fatalist philosophy even if it's challenged by the heros. He even points out conjurdiction of character with some of the heroes, which shows that Nyarlathotep has a clear understanding of things.
Final Verdict[]
| “ | FUHAHAHA! If you have something to say, I'll listen! Speak your foolish gibberish! | „ |
A very big yes for me as he, unlike all the other entities in the franchise, successfully completed what he set out to accomplish which is destroying the world and attempted to do it again. Not only did he destroyed the world, he completely manipulated all of humanity in following bogus rumors that he made up as to lead them obliterating themselves. There is also his personal villainy towards Jun and Tatsuya as he psychologically manipulated them for his own ends which lead to their suffering.