Let Kotone Have Orpheus

Codex Entry recently put out a video about the female protagonist route in Persona 3 Portable. It's quite good (I recommend watching it before reading on), but the response to it included a detail I haven't thought about in a while.

"I maintain that [Kotone]'s Persona should have been Eurydice instead of Orpheus with long hair."

The logic for this is simple: give the new protagonist her own persona that still relates to the original, rather than just making an aesthetic change. Framed this way, swapping Orpheus out would actually strengthen the argument Ruby is making in the video.... right?

Part 1: I am Thou, Thou art I

If you watched the video in full, you could remember how Ruby describes that the Kotone and Makoto avatars have the same roots. During the game, Makoto is quite sullen while Kotone is much more peppy. However, these outward attitudes are actually just masks the player characters wear to protect themselves from their past traumas. They both lived through the tragedy of 10 years before the start of the game. Despite the shared origin, the paths they each walked during the subsequent decade had drastically different decoration. Having their initial Persona be the same figure but with variations in the design fits this aspect of the route variance quite nicely.

And while it's easy to dismiss the changes to Orpheus's design as just being "more feminine," they do a fine job of reflecting the changes in Kotone's demeanor as well. Orpheus is now much brighter. The light-blue (arguably platinum) torso is now a radiant gold, and the face once covered in darkness has become a stark white. This design is meant to be much more eye-catching, reflecting how Kotone is much more personable. While the hairstlye has always matched its user's, this new form now also has the same color as Kotone. The brown hair stands out and feels like a unique piece of the presentation whereas Makoto's Orpheus had white hair that would sink into the rest of its design. Overall it's still undoubtedly Persona 3's Orpheus, like the protagonist, the design seems to hold an entirely new personality.

But isn't it still weird that Kotone awakens to a male figure when the whole point is to play as a girl? I don't think so. You still play as Kotone and Orpheus will likely only be one of your personas for a short time. And I think this discrepancy opens up a second conversation.

Part 2: The Gender of the Soul

A Persona does not have to match the gender of their user. There are several examples of this in canon, before we even account for wild-card inclusivity: Hidehiko/Brad awakens to Nemhain, Eriko/Ellen's original ultimate Persona is Michael, Yuka/Alana's ultimate is Freyr, Lisa awakens to Eros, and one of Futaba's Personas is Prometheus (her other two being the Necronomicon, which I'll assume is genderless). Orpheus himself was wielded by Aigis in the previous re-release of Persona 3. And while that last one could be seen as an edge case, it's clear that the precedent was set long before Kotone made her debut, and continues to be relevant in the entries following her game.

Honestly - it's tragic that this is so often ignored. The Persona series' history of handling queer characters is certainly messy, but I think it'd be wrong to say it hasn't tried to handle it with respect even if it hasn't always succeeded. Embracing the idea that a character's journey can be reflected by a figure of a different gender is one way the series can improve at this. Awakening to a Persona with a different gender doesn't mean that character's emotional arc has to be about their own gender or sexuality (and it arguably shouldn't), but it keeps the door open to these topics rather than slamming it shut. It'd be especially interesting if a second male character awakens to a female figure, since if it's always the women of the parties having these awakenings and gender isn't a major part of their own story, then the series isn't playing with gender as much as it's accepting masculinity as the default.

One more time, I'm not wishing for the "dudebro" first party member to awaken to a feminine Persona and then have it actually be a trans awakening story. If for no other reason than I don't currently trust this studio to handle that well. But I don't need this series to set a standard for queer stories, I just want it to be kind to the queer community. If a Persona can be a motorcycle, or a dancefloor, or a UFO, then I think we're long past having a guy be the one to summon a badass in a dress to kick some demon tail.