Persona 5's Justice Arcana Balances the Scales | Game Rant
While many of the major arcana of the tarot can possess cryptic and unintuitive meanings, Justice is fairly straightforward in Persona 5. The arcana plays a slightly more prominent role than usual for the franchise, given the game's themes of rebellion, false accusations, fairness, and conviction. Persona 5's Justice confidant, Goro Akechi, is suitably polarizing for an arcana that is all about judgment, and like many of the Phantom Thieves, his personal narrative demonstrates the reversed values of the tarot card.
Justice is one of the tarot deck's three chief virtues. It represents objective analysis, holistic assessment, and fairness. While Akechi poses as a celebrity detective, claiming to help Tokyo's police bring criminals to justice, he also hypocritically works as an assassin, killing people for personal gain rather than a conventional code of ethics. Despite the hypocrisy underpinning his behavior, Akechi possesses an extremely powerful conviction which is evident both in the original game, and his redemption arc in Royal, which is another crucial aspect of the Justice arcana. Love him or loathe him, Akechi has a very passionate following, and is a suitable avatar for the Justice arcana.
Just as powerful magic-using personas are associated with the Magician arcana, Atlus has developed a few special rules for Justice that set it apart from the others. Since Persona 3, every attainable persona in the Justice arcana is represented by an Abrahamic or Judeo-Christian angel. As a result, the arcana is strongly associated with the Bless element, featuring Personas who deal holy damage to enemies. Despite the homogenized source of lore, Justice plays host to some very interesting characters that are worth of a deep dive.
Akechi's inborn personas, Robin Hood, Loki, and Hereward are not attainable by Joker, and are therefore exempt from the normal "angels-only" rule for the arcana. While Robin Hood requires no introduction, the historical roots of the character are worth scrutinizing. Unlike Joker's default persona, Arsene, based on Maurice Leblanc's Lupin Arsene, Robin Hood is a pastiche of several historical figures in medieval Europe, famed for stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.
The clearest analog, as represented by Akechi's ultimate persona, Hereward, is Hereward the Wake, an Anglo-Saxon resistance leader who opposed the Norman Conquest of England. Like the fictional Robin Hood, Hereward stalked the forests and fens of England, engaging in guerilla warfare against the Normans and banditry against those who supported them. His epithet may refer to the old English word for vigilance, or it might be derive from the family name that now claims ancestry from him. Like Ryuji's persona's namesake, Captain Kidd, Hereward the Wake most likely met an untimely end. Most accounts state that he and his men were slain by William the Conqueror's knights, but a few historians speculate that he may have escaped his home of Ely and lived the rest of his life in exile in Scotland.
The third most powerful persona in the Justice arcana is noteworthy, because it refers to an entire category of angels in Judeo-Christian theology. The Christian theologian, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, put forth a hierarchy of angels with nine total levels. The seventh of these levels is referred to as Thrones. But unlike the traditional winged representation of angels, Thrones are terrifying and bizarre in appearance—more like a weird Final Fantasy monster than a winged human. Also known as "ophanim," Thrones are supposedly great wheels studded with innumerable eyes. In fact, they are called "Thrones" because these wheels supposedly support the Throne of God, conveying it like a chariot.
While the persona isn't studded with eyes, the shrouded figure of Throne does stand before a burning wheel, which is a frequent theological motif for angels. It is also worth noting that all of the angels described in Pseudo-Dionysius' hierarchy have strange shapes and physical features, which correspond to the angels' "true forms" that are supposedly impossible for humans to fully comprehend. Ironically, as persona designs go, Throne is fairly tame.
These same entities, along with the Arch Angels, are known for meting out justice in heaven's name, and acting as ideal arbiters. Despite their tremendous power and splendor, Thrones are free of conceit or greed, making them ideal arbiters. And this religious lore, paired with Atlus' in-house rule of associating angels with Justice, makes Throne the ideal representative of the arcana.
Metatron is the most powerful persona in the Justice arcana, and for good reason. Aside from sounding like the leader of the Decepticons, Metatron is referred to as the "Voice of God," and according to Jewish apocrypha, every time a human believes they hear God addressing them, it is actually Metatron who is actually conveying the message. Like Thrones, Metatron's true form is difficult to picture, as it features thirty-six wings—one for each tribe of Israel, multiplied by the three facets of the holy trinity.
According to certain texts, Metatron is actually Enoch, the father of Methuselah and great grandfather of Noah. Enoch supposedly lived 365 years and entered heaven without dying first. Fittingly, Metatron features prominently in the books of Enoch, acting as God's most direct mediator with all of mankind. Some theologians have even speculated that Metatron may be the heavenly spirit referred to in the holy trinity.
Despite this tremendous importance, Metatron is not mentioned in either the Old or New Testaments, or any of the letters of the Holy Bible, nor is he a part of modern Christian teachings. This is oddly fitting, however, as the Enochian dogma pertaining to Metatron emphasizes that he is the most mysterious member of the heavenly host.
Like most top-tier Personas, Metatron is extremely powerful, easily laying waste to shadows with its Bless and Almighty magic skills. Summoning the persona is no mean feat however, and as always, players hoping to add Metatron to their ranks should consult a fusion guide to make the process as easy as possible.
Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal are available now for PlayStation 4.
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