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This is the character sheet for Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth. If you're looking for the returning characters from Persona 3 or 4, see the following pages. For a full index of characters from the Persona series, see this page.

This character page contains several spoilers for the game's plot. For the sake of simplicity, all spoilers for the game's story are unmarked. Decide for yourself if you want to read it or not.

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The Two Wanderers

    Shared tropes 
  • Amnesiac Hero: Neither of them have any memories about the place they are in. It was deliberate, as Rei asked for this reality so she could be happy in it, and Zen
  • Battle Couple: Almost all the party members view them as this.
  • The Cameo: They appear in Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight and Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight as head accessories.
  • Combat Medic: The duo functions as this, with Zen on the offense and Rei providing buffs and healing.
  • Deuteragonist: They were made specifically for the game, a good portion of the plot is based around Rei's tragic past (to the point where it's arguable that the school is her giant, multi-area, P4-styled dungeon), and Zen is one half of the Big Bad, with a P3-style theme and final dungeon to boot.
  • Died Happily Ever After: Their fate at the end of the game.
  • The Dividual: An odd example is that they are this in terms of gameplay, but not characterization. The two of them take up a single slot in the party, and share an HP/SP bar. Zen even makes a point to note during his optional conversations that he doesn't need to stay at Rei's side at all times.
  • Empowered Badass Normal: Neither of them can use Personas, but they're still capable of spells for both offense and defense, as well as healing. Zen being half of Chronos and Rei carrying part of his power removes the "Normal" aspect entirely.
  • Everyone Can See It: Rei likes Zen. Only Zen (and Kanji) can't see it.
  • Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: While the Q artstyle makes this less obvious, Zen appears to be much taller than Rei. His early concept art portrays them both as equal-height children, however.
  • Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Subverted. Zen is the only fighter between the pair, and his weapon of choice is a crossbow, making him the only guy in the party with a ranged weapon.
  • Jack of All Trades: Despite the fact that they can't use Sub-Personas or skill cards, Zen and Rei have an extremely diverse moveset, including four different elemental attacks, a multi-target healing move, two multi-target status recovery moves, a cheap, status-inflicting damage ability (in a game where status ailments aren't useless), status buffs that effect entire rows, AND they automatically recover SP outside of battle.
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia: They specifically state that they did not lose their memories, but that they were taken from them. It's later revealed that Zen did it to both of them.
  • Lightning Bruiser: On high-enough levels, Zen can be devastating with his different abilities. They also have the largest HP and SP-use pools and all around high stats.
  • Magic Knight: Already having excellent Strength, they also have great Magic skills along with healing skills and decent SP to boot.
  • Magikarp Power: Zen and Rei have access to all elemental magics (except Light and Dark) early on, as well as recovery skills. However, due to their lower SP and inability to equip sub-Personas, they'll lose SP fast if they keep using them. Also, their elemental magics are stuck at the equivalent of other first stage magics and does not level up at all. Once they are at level 50 and above, however, they learn powerful support skills that recover their SP via walking and boosts their magic spells, making them on par with -dyne magics. Furthermore, their attack power is one of the highest, rivaling even Aigis' in Orgia Mode.
  • Master of None: Their recovery moves can only be used in battle, and you can't give them extra SP or more powerful abilities using sub-personas (and, by extension, you can't ration their SP so that the easily-regained secondary persona SP is all that's used up). You also can't use skill cards on them, further reducing their potential.
  • Mechanically Unusual Fighter: They're the only playable unit who can't use a sub-Persona. To make up for it, they have higher base HP and SP, can regenerate SP by walking, and have a very diverse skillset.
  • Original Generation: Characters made specifically for the crossover.
  • Sword and Sorcerer: Zen does all the offense, and Rei is the supporting healbot, making them an effective Red Mage together gameplay-wise. Subverted after the 4th Dungeon, where Zen remembers he's the one capable of using all of those skills, not both of them.
  • Tarot Motifs: The Persona series has always been big on Tarot cards, but a few of Zen and Rei's techniques reference the lesser-known Minor Arcana: Guiding Sword, Guarding Staff, Life Goblet, and Platinum Coin.
  • Together in Death: At the end of the game, they depart to the afterlife together hand-in-hand.

    Zen 

Weapons: Twin Crossbows

Voiced by: Yuki Kaji (Japanese), Keith Silverstein (English)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_276_91.png

A young man who seems to have no motivations other than Rei's well-being. He's a skilled warrior carrying two crossbows and seems to still be getting the hang of his emotions.


  • Ambiguously Brown: Justified, as he is one half of Chronos, a deity commonly portrayed with rather dark skin.
  • Ambiguously Human: As he was originally a being born of the Collective Unconscious, it's unclear how human he really is.
  • Automatic Crossbows: Dual wields two crossbows, which don't seem to have the need to be reloaded.
  • Badass Cape: That is one spiffy cape.
  • Big Brother Instinct: He's very protective of Rei.
  • The Comically Serious: Most of the humor from scenes he's involved with come from how utterly stunted his emotional output is, as well as his difficulty with social cues.
  • Creepy Monotone: He doesn't put a whole lot of emotions in his voice, that's for sure.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Wears a lot of dark clothing, but he's one of the good guys. Even as Chronos, he's more of an Anti-Villain instead of the typical Obliviously Evil, Obviously Evil or Faux Affably Evil types seen in Persona.
  • Don't Fear the Reaper: As Chronos, he's an aspect of Death. The whole game was caused by him taking pity on a random soul.
  • Emotionless Boy: Compared to the emotional girl, Rei. It's because he used to be Chronos, a Physical God who was wholly devoted to its duty and had no need to feel or even understand emotion. A large part of his Character Development is to gain emotions for himself.
  • Face of a Thug: His default expression is a stern, piercing gaze, not helped by how he always speaks in a low, hushed tone, but he's ultimately a friend to both the Persona-user teams.
  • Foil: Come the fourth Labyrinth, he becomes this to Ryoji Mochizuki from Persona 3. Both are connected to deities of Death and hold a deep, sorrowful hesitation when it comes to the living Persona users they befriend. But while Ryoji was an emotional boy and a flirtatious sort until things got serious, Zen is fully dedicated to only one lady and is The Comically Serious from the word "go". Furthermore, Ryoji is a part of Nyx as her avatar and his tragedy comes from his unwillingness to carry out his duty and kill his own friends after creating genuine bonds with them, while Zen's dilemma comes from how he learned to feel empathy for Niko/Rei and wants to protect her, even to the point of separating himself from his cold, emotionless original form and opposing it for her sake, not unwilling to perform his role but wanting to do it under a new light.
  • Foreshadowing:
    • During the request event where Rei wishes to know what to give him as thanks for the tug 'o war Shadow event, the first correct question to indirectly find out what he wants is about seasonal changes during the fall. Zen then proceeds to give a rather long description of said subject, unlike how he is usually Literal-Minded. The point he brings up, life and death, stands out the most from that answer. As the God of Time, he'd have great knowledge of these subjects.
    • His Literal-Minded attitude and seeming lack of knowledge of social interaction stands out among the cast, particularly because he seems confused by very basic, day-to-day concepts (like some foods and social behaviors), which even the equally-amnesiac Rei has a better understanding of. The only other characters in the game who show/have shown the same level of detachment from human behavior are Teddie (a resident from the TV World and a sentient Shadow) and the Velvet Room attendants (all of which are Ambiguously Human themselves), meaning Zen must fit the same criteria they're a part of (in other words, being not quite human himself).
    • He sometimes uses Greek words in his dialogue and acts as if they're commonplace, even in a Japanese-oriented setting, already indicating he's an outlier in Yasogami.
    • The twin crossbows he wields look like the ends of a clock's hands. He also tends to hold one further ahead of the other when firing, mimicking the position of said hands.
  • Gratuitous Greek: Randomly uses Greek phrases (seemingly expecting everyone else to understand what it means) at least twice in the game. Justified, as he is a Greek deity.
  • God in Human Form: He is one half of Chronos, the embodiment of the human concept of finite time.
  • Innocently Insensitive: His attempts to cheer Niko up after her death backfire horribly, only serving to rub salt in her wounds by waving what she could never have in her face.
  • Literal-Minded: He does not understand sarcasm or figures of speech and will often fail to understand the social implications of a situation.
  • Meaningful Name: Zen means calm, and boy is he ever. It also alludes to the kanji "善", which is used for many of the synonyms for "good", and Zen is the "good" half of Chronos.
  • My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Turns against the divine providence he is part of in order to save Rei's soul, rather than erase her alongside everyone else remaining in the margin world.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: He created the false Yasogami in an attempt to help Rei overcome her nihilism, but this only drove her deeper into despair and caused the birth of the Clockwork God.
  • Non-Standard Character Design: He looks like he's from a completely different series with his cape and choker. Considering the game's roots, that might be the idea.
  • Not Quite the Right Thing: What essentially drives the plot of the game. As Chronos, in order to get Niko/Rei to speak, he created a fake Yasogami from her memories. It worked, but it only drove her deeper into despair due to being shown something that she ultimately could not have anymore and caused her to try to gouge out her eyes. He stopped her by removing her memories, decided to stay with her until she could find the meaning to her life, created the labyrinths, sealed half of his power in the clock tower, and then finally removed his own memories, creating Zen and the Clockwork God. To say that this leads to a few problems would be a big understatement; Zen even acknowledges that he simply "hid his mistake" and has nothing to say in his own defense when Naoto gives him a What the Hell, Hero?.
  • Not So Stoic: There are moments where his emotionless mask slips. Case in point: when he regains his memories and reveals to the others that Rei has been Dead All Along, he's visibly distraught, even sounding on the verge of tears.
  • Oblivious to Love: Rei's advances are very obvious... to everyone but him. He doesn't actually seem to fully understand what love even is and while he is protective of Rei and can be seen getting jealous a few times, Teddie considers him to feel fatherly towards Rei and there's no clear indication of how he truly feels either way.
  • Protectorate: Rei is his number one priority, no matter what.
  • Psychopomp: This is what his role as Chronos ultimately amounts to with him being supposed to guide recently deceased souls to the sea of souls with the events of the game only happening because he abandoned those duties.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: He's so far the only being of godly origin that has officially joined the Persona users in combat in a Persona game.
  • Rule of Symbolism: His dual crossbows are meant to resemble the hands of a clock.
  • Rummage Sale Reject: Seriously, what is up with that dog collar he wears?
  • The Stoic: Even compared to Naoto and Aigis, Zen comes across as rather gruff in contrast to the other two who display massive amounts of stone-faced humor.
  • Straw Vulcan: As long as he tackles the issue of Rei's unwillingness to move on from the orderly, rational perspective of the divine providence, he fails to give her peace of mind. He needs to start thinking like an emotional human in order to find out what she really needs. However, in the end, he never does seem to view life and death the way humans do and instead comforts Rei merely by being there for her, which may be one of the most emotional ways to deal with the situation.
  • Super-Empowering: He was the one who originally had, and indeed gave, Rei's ability to heal, but only as long as he's near her. When she's kidnapped, the powers all go back to him.
  • Token Good Teammate: Played With. As a godlike being in the Persona series, he comes across as one of the very small number of "good" gods. Considering how many (outside of Philemon and perhaps Igor) are Big Bads, it says a lot.
  • Wham Line: After defeating the boss of the fourth labyrinth, Zen regains his memories, and says this:
    Zen: Rei, I...I remember everything now. I am Chronos, he who has dominion over time... I came here to take you away.
  • What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: Despite being overly protective of Rei, he's confused about his feelings towards her. While she clearly loves him romantically and he loves her back, the nature of his love is ambiguous: Teddie considers it to be a fatherly concern and the issue goes otherwise unaddressed.

    Rei 

Voiced by: Kaori Nazuka (Japanese), Ashly Burch (English)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pq_rei_8491.png

A blonde girl with amnesia and an insatiable appetite, just as easy to cheer up as she is to despair. Rei seems to be unwilling to find out what lies inside the labyrinth but still tags along to learn the truth.


  • Alice Allusion: She certainly looks the part (though she has a yellow outfit instead of a blue one), and the first level is based on Alice in Wonderland.
  • All for Nothing: Considers her entire life to have been pointless suffering leading only to an ignoble death.
  • Animal Motifs: Rabbits, following the Alice allusion mentioned above. Her comfort plush doll is also a rabbit, one of the items recovered from the labyrinths, and the form her Shadow takes when aggravated.
  • Big Eater: Her most notable personality trait; she's almost always eating or talking about food. Tragically, its because she was a ghost, and never got to find fulfillment in life, something she compensates through eating.
  • Beyond Redemption: A non-villainous example. She has been Dead All Along, and even if she would face herself and admit the truth, there is no fixing this fact. The only way to get her out is to depart her soul to the afterlife, which Zen has failed to do until the Clockwork God is awakened.
  • Break the Cutie: Death was already hard for her. Regaining her memories only serves to break what's left, as every single memento found in the labyrinths elicits increasingly desperate reactions from her.
  • Broken Bird: Her true nature, when she regains her memories. When Chronos/Zen encountered her, she didn't have any reaction upon meeting him, not even one word. When she does finally speak, it's clear how tired, bitter, and scared she is. Not of dying, but of her life never amounting to anything.
  • Cute Ghost Girl: Deconstructed, in that all of her cute mannerisms are ways to avoid the fact that she's dead, and she shatters when she realizes that she's a ghost.
  • Cloud Cuckoo Lander: She can and will mishear anything as referring to food.
  • Crush Blush: Gets this whenever anybody mentions her and Zen making a cute couple, or when Zen shows any hint of affection for her that could be interpreted as romantic.
  • Dead All Along: She is really Niko, a teenager who died in Inaba Municipal hospital before 2000 after spending the majority of her life hospitalized.
  • Death of a Child: In reality, she died before ever becoming old enough to attend high school.
  • Despair Event Horizon:
    • Flew headfirst over it when Chronos originally came to take her away. When he tells her she's dead, the girl previously called Niko pretty much shuts down. His attempts to fix this end up making things worse.
    • In the story proper, facing her Shadow returns her to this. She's so unwilling to accept the reality of her death that she runs away, lashes out at the party when they confront her, and the turmoil allows her to be taken by the Captor Spider to the top of the Clock Tower.
  • The Disease That Shall Not Be Named: She is clearly ill, and the implication is that her poor health was because of cancer from a young age, hence the hair being lost and a lock being able to be cut before she lost it for chemo. This would make her sadness and anger even more understandable, as she was basically a ticking time bomb who had no choice in the matter, and never even knowing what she was sick from certainly didn't help.
  • Do Not Call Me "Paul": She hates being called Niko, her birth-name, which means nothing other than "second child", constantly reminding her that she never had a chance to develop an identity for her own.
  • Divine Date: Her infatuation with Zen comes off as this after the reveal regarding his identity as one half of Chronos.
  • Eating Optional: As she is really a spirit, she doesn't actually need to eat. She only does it to provide herself with an illusion of being alive, making her constant cravings an expression of her fear to pass on.
  • Everyone Has Standards: She may be a borderline Extreme Omnivore, but even she has her occasional limits:
  • Exotic Eye Designs: She has no pupils on her eyes, and instead has two thin rings on her irises. This is most likely due to her trying to gouge her own eyes out as a spirit, or as a sign of her memory loss, as she regains normal-looking eyes when she gains her memories back.
  • Expy: She's a girl who spent most of her life hospitalized, and has become nihilistic because she can't find meaning in it. The world that the game takes place in was created from her wishes. The version of her that joins the party is a happy idealization that's unaware of who she really is, who eventually must disappear when the story reaches its conclusion. Rei has a lot in common with Maki Sonomura, from the original Persona.
  • Extreme Omnivore: She doesn't care what it is she's eating so long as it has flavor. This includes potato and smelt flavored ice cream!
  • Eye Scream: After realizing how miserable her life was, Rei tried to gouge her own eyes out as a spirit. Chronos removing her memories was partially a way to stop this.
  • Flower Motifs: Between the yellow, petal-like cardigan, the white tights, and the flowers in her hair, she has a daisy motif. While pretty, daisies tend to wilt quickly, foreshadowing her Dead All Along status. Furthermore, old Christian lore states God would sprinkle daisies onto the Earth whenever an infant died.
  • Foil: After the Pride Exhibit, she becomes this to Mitsuo Kubo from Persona 4. In a manner of speaking, both characters are plagued by what they perceive to be a lack of contribution to society and an emptiness of their very selves, to the point of being some of the very few characters in the franchise to refuse their own Shadows despite their defeat. The biggest differences between the two lie in the circumstances and their respective mentalities; Mitsuo was a creep with No Social Skills whose idea of being "remembered" was to become a murderous copycat of the Inaba serial killer, and his emptiness of self came from his belief that this was the only way he could possibly leave his mark on society, forfeiting his very identity in the process. Rei, on the other hand, didn't even get the opportunity to live that long and her sense of emptiness comes from her induced amnesia at Chronos' hands, as well as the despair of dying at such a young age, being a much kinder person than Mitsuo but still refusing to see the truth because it's just too much for her. Unlike Mitsuo, at least, Rei does eventually overcome her fear and finds peace of mind.
  • Foreshadowing:
    • During the Evil Spirit Club portion, without missing a beat, she doesn't fumble up her words when talking about key cards being needed to open up a door. Other times in the game, she is always asking about stuff or turning things she mishears into something related to food, but this one comes across as odd for her. The reason why is due to her covered memories of her hospital days casually resurfacing without making her break down.
    • After a Stroll where Junpei tells one of his ghost stories, Rei starts showing interest in how the girl in the story died. The group tells Junpei to stop scaring her and he quickly makes up a half-baked happy ending instead, which Rei quickly accepts.
    • Right at the opening animation, we see an image of a girl holding clumps of hair on her hands, which are stained with blood. Said girl is also crying Tears of Blood. These are two moments of Rei's pained existence, referencing the loss of her hair during treatment for her disease, and her trying to gouge her eyes out as a spirit after learning she was dead.
    • She gets progressively more panicked and desperate the more the party explores the Labyrinths. Unlike the Investigation Team's own journeys of self-discovery, at no point does it seem like Rei's will end well, and whatever the Labyrinths might mean to her, it's not just simple teenage confusion.
    • If Rei ends up selected as the "destined partner" for the protagonist at the end of the Group Date Café, her reaction to the marriage "photo" of herself and the player character is to wistfully lament how she "wishes [she] could have worn a dress like this", the phrasing implying something happened to her that made it impossible for her to ever do so.
    • The Kind Doctor's Boss Banter is that of a surgeon trying and failing to save a patient, and the boss is guarding a lock of blond hair. The lock belonged to Rei, and she was the patient the real doctor couldn't save in time.
  • Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: She's blond and very friendly and sweet.
  • Immortality Begins at Twenty: Her spirit appears to be a high school girl, but she's actually in her mid to late twenties.
  • Is It Something You Eat?: A running gag is that she mishears someone, and assumes they're talking about something food-related.
  • Meaningful Name:
    • Rei means Zero, as well as being a part of the word "yuurei", meaning "ghost", a telling nature of her origins of being dead. Her real name is Niko, but she hates it because it only means "second child", which has some dark implications, since she doesn't mention having siblings. In addition, after he erased her memories, Zen gave her a new name that he believed she would like more. The name was Philei, which in Greek means "to love", but she shortened it to Rei because it was easier to pronounce.
    • She likes to call Yukiko "Yuki" for short. Much later on, a not-amnesiac Rei mentions another ill girl at the hospital whose name was Yuki. Unlike how Rei got the short end of the stick, this Yuki she met got to recover from her condition and left the hospital. Yuki's lucky recovery is one of many complaints Rei mentions during her existential breakdown.
  • Mysterious Waif: Small, has magic powers and is a central figure in the story.
  • Mythology Gag: In the truest form of the mythological sense, Rei is a Preta. And in most of the games that they are featured in, Preta are weak to Hama and resistant (and often immune) to Mudo.
  • Nice Girl: Fixation on food put aside, she's very friendly and gets along well with the rest of the protagonists almost immediately.
  • The Nicknamer: She refers to most of the protagonists by an abbreviated version of their name with "-chan" attached, although she refers to the main characters by their first name and "-kun."
  • Not Afraid to Die: Played with. As she herself explains when she regains her memories, it isn't death she's afraid of; it's the fact that her life was spent in a hospital and never amounted to anything. Once Zen convinces Rei that her life did, in fact, have meaning, she's willing to pass on with him.
  • Parental Abandonment: Her mother told her to her face she didn't need her when it became clear Niko's medical condition would never improve and never came to visit her again after that. Her father isn't mentioned.
  • The Pollyanna: She's very cheerful and tries to see the best in everything, at least until she's forced to come to terms with her short and (seemingly) meaningless life.
  • Proper Tights with a Skirt: In her school uniform, pretty much all the time.
  • Ret-Gone: This is her fate no matter what. It was also her Shadow's wish, as it was the part of her that saw no hint of value in her existence.
  • Shoo Out the Clowns: When she's kidnapped after the fourth labyrinth, the game's tone turns fairly somber, as the party no longer goofs around at the festival, but desperately proceeds towards the top (albeit stopping for necessary breaks) while pondering what it means to live, so they can give her an answer when they see her again. Even the Strolls after the Pride Exhibit turn into more serious conversations with only the occasional sillier line.
  • Supernatural Gold Eyes: Her Shadow Self, naturally, but Rei's own eyes turn into the same golden hue when the Protagonist (from either side) tries to console her about her condition, causing her to snap at them. For added emphasis, even her voice becomes that of a Shadow.
    "What would you know?! You're still alive!"
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute: She shares a number of similarities with Maki Sonomura from the original Persona, being sickly girls who turn out to have been unwittingly involved in the creation of a false paradise in order to cope with their nihilism.
  • Tragic Dream: All she ever wanted was to do ordinary things like go to high school. Sadly, illness claimed her life before it could happen.
  • Traumatic Haircut: When she was alive, her hair was shaved as part of her treatments. She wasn't happy with it, even when they helped preserve her original hair. It did grow back eventually, but with a slightly different color hue.
  • Tsundere: Type B. She's all giggles and smiles with everyone, but the moment Zen shows obliviousness to her drop-dead obvious feelings, her irritability comes out.
  • White Magician Girl: She handles support spells, while Zen handles attack spells. Subverted. Her support spells were originally Zen's, and she can only use them when nearby. They return to him once their memories are returned and she's kidnapped.
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: The labyrinths hold the only key to leaving the fake Yasogami High school, but Rei is deathly afraid of entering them at first despite being very carefree otherwise. This is because her psyche is rebelling to the idea of being made to remember the misery that was Rei's life as Niko.
  • You Are Number 6: Her real name literally means "second child". Needless to say, this is an object of great disdain for her.

Labyrinth Guardians

    The Queen of Hearts 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/queen_of_hearts_4181.png

"What loathsome peasants! I will not hand over my treasure! I refuuuuuse!"


The guardian of the You in Wonderland labyrinth, fittingly resembling the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland. She guards a white rabbit plush doll, Rei's old toy and only true companion in her sickness.


  • Alice Allusion: The finishing touch for the Alice in Wonderland-themed dungeon, fittingly based off the final obstacle in Alice's journey. That being said, she's noticeably lacking in many of the traits associated with the actual Queen of Heats (notice the lack of the obvious Off with His Head! line) aside from her possessiveness and status.
  • Combat Tentacles: Her arms are long rubber extensions that she can launch out to whip at the party in her attack animation.
  • Damage-Sponge Boss: Aside from the playing cards she summons, the Queen isn't a difficult boss per se, but this is mitigated by her ability to take a lot of hits before going down.
  • Enemy Without: She represents the storybook Rei enjoyed most as a child.
  • Expy: Of the Queen of Hearts from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, but only superficially.
  • Flunky Boss: Summons playing cards that defend her both before and during the battle.
  • God Save Us from the Queen!: Given who she's referencing, this is a must.
  • High-Class Fan: She carries around a fancy hand-fan, to complement her "royal" status.
  • It Can Think: Downplayed. The fact that it's a Shadow that apparently has sentience is only brought up once.
  • Large and in Charge: She towers over both her card soldiers and the Persona-users.
  • Large Ham: Again in reference to who she's based off of, as the Queen tends to be overly-dramatic and posh in her banter.
  • Rubber Man: Her arms stretch out for attacks and wild gestures.
  • Starter Villain: The first labyrinth guardian, and the one who introduces the formula for Persona Q.
  • Tarot Motifs: Reversed Empress; dependence on others, over-protectiveness, ignorance and a lack of growth. Niko had to depend on others to keep herself alive as long as possible, and even in death she relied on Zen to keep her safe from her own memories, which he does to an over-zealous degree. She has essentially trapped herself in a Wonderland of her own, where she lives in stagnation and blissful ignorance of her past trauma, and is desperate to protect it, as the Queen displays by obsessively protecting the treasure.
  • We Have Reserves: The team must face wave after wave of card soldiers before being able to fight the Queen directly. Thankfully, the team not chosen arrives at that moment and takes care of the soldiers while the chosen team faces the Queen herself.
  • White Mask of Doom: Her "face" seems to actually be a ko-omote mask.

    Merciful Clergyman 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/latest_6216.jpg

"Time to say your vows! In sickness? Splendid! In health? Maaaagnificent! Prepare to meet your maker, for now you shall die!"


The second guardian, a histrionic Shadow mimicking the priest of a chapel, waiting at the end of the Group Date Cafe. He appears as the pastor meant to "wed" whoever solves his level's dating questionnaire, although obviously he's actually a boss. His gimmick is various "vows" against certain tactics in combat, with violators invoking Holy Wrath in retaliation. He guards a toy wedding ring Rei got from her mother.


  • Barrier Change Boss: Every other turn, he'll put up a Vow which, if broken, will result him countering you with Holy Wrath. These Vows can block off attacks, skills, items, Leader Skills and even two of these options at the same time.
  • Calling Your Attacks: He'll announce what option is blocked to you when using Vow. Averted if he makes you Vow that you won't do "all manner of things", which doesn't specify which options he's blocking, only that it's more than one.
  • Chained by Fashion: Has a chain coming from his shirt collar connected to the coffin he is riding upon.
  • Color-Coded for Your Convenience: His vows are color-coded to match the colors of the menu options they block off, helping to avoid them.
  • Counter-Attack: Holy Wrath, which inflicts strength, magic, AND speed bind on its target should they break his Vows.
  • Enemy Without: He's the embodiment of Rei's childhood wish to meet her Prince Charming and have a lovely wedding.
  • Facial Horror: The sudden zoom-in of this guy's mug when you first encounter him reveals an Eyeless Face and a mouth that appears to be sewn shut The latter doesn't stop him from speaking, however.
  • Large Ham: Even by evangelist preacher standards!
  • Loophole Abuse:
    • If you poison him, only the initial application can break any vows- the damage over time aspect does not.
    • Vows not to strike him, ironically, do not include All-Out Attacks.
  • Mood Whiplash: The Group Date Cafe is essentially one silly segment after another of characters being shipped between each other, culminating with a boss fight against a ridiculously hammy Shadow which, while hard and action-packed, is still silly given the exaggerated televangelist voice and accent. Then it gets to Zen taking the ring out of the treasure chest, and the humor hits the breaks HARD.
  • Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Has four arms and is a tricky boss to get around.
  • Rule of Symbolism: Despite resembling a wedding officiant, this Shadow is merged to a coffin and is surrounded by many others, making quite a few mentions to death and killing, bringing to mind a funeral procession, likely as an allusion to Rei's own death.
  • Sinister Minister: A Shadow resembling a preacher at a wedding ceremony.
  • Tarot Motifs: Reversed Lovers; false love, disharmony and imbalance. The Clergyman is forcing a twisted version of love upon the protagonist based off the questionnaire given through the dungeon, a kind of union that doesn't come from either party willingly, and his battle is all about trying to knock the player down by limiting their options. In relation to Rei, she never got to experience true love in her short life despite being promised a Prince Charming by her mother before she left her to die, and this was only one of the many frustrations Rei held until her death.
  • Wake-Up Call Boss: The battle will demand that you get creative around restrictions and understand the different Binds in order to defeat this boss without getting overwhelmed.

    Kind Doctor 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/latest_2646.jpg

"Ohhh... Someone seems to be in high spirits today. Maybe you're ready for the operation... I'm known all over as a skilled surgeon. It'll be over before you know it..."


The third guardian, a Shadow mimicking a surgeon that lies deep within the Evil Spirit Club. Unlike other Shadows, he doesn't seem to be aware he's fighting anyone, instead believing he's performing a life-saving medical operation. His gimmick is that he's flanked by two nurses: Caring Nurse, which does offensive debuffs and status ailments, and Calm Nurse, with defensive buffs and heals. The Kind Doctor guards a lock of blond hair that belonged to Rei during her stay at Inaba Municipal.


  • Boss Banter: The Doctor speaks in medical lingo and doesn't seem to be aware he's in a battle, acting out the fight as if it was a life-saving surgery. Worse, it eventually becomes clear through his dialogue he's supposedly operating on a little girl, which turns out to be Rei herself. His "banter" might actually be what Rei's doctor was saying as he tried to save her life.
  • Co-Dragons: His two companions, the Calm and Caring Nurse.
  • Combat Medic: Calm Nurse uses healing abilities, which make her the more dangerous of the two nurses.
  • Deadly Doctor: He is the boss of the third stratum, and is a Shadow based off a surgeon.
  • Enemy Without: He is a manifestation of Rei's memory of the doctor that promised to save her life, but failed and got her killed instead.
  • Eyeless Face: Has no eyes on his sockets, only lumps that nearly cover this from view.
  • Facial Horror: His face looks like someone tore up someone else's face and surgically sewed it onto someone else's, not to mention it looks deformed and full of protrusions like the result of a botched plastic surgery.
  • Fighting Down Memory Lane: He and his monologue are a representation of Rei's final memories at her deathbed.
  • Flunky Boss: Has two nurses named Calm and Caring Nurse assisting him from the beginning of the fight. Both need to be taken care of if the player wants any solid chance of defeating the Doctor himself.
  • Improbable Weapon: Uses a giant set of pliers which has spikes on it.
  • Obliviously Evil: He honestly doesn't seem to be aware he's trying to kill people, instead thinking he's performing a life-saving surgery, and grows more and more distressed as his health lowers... because he thinks the "patient" is dying.
  • Shoot the Medic First: Kill the nurses or they will just keep buffing/healing the doctor.
  • Shout-Out: To Silent Hill, of all things. Namely due to the fact that the boss is the manifestation of a person's distaste for hospitals fought in a distorted version of one, flanked by overly-sexualized nurse monsters. The Nurses even twitch erratically, not unlike several of the monsters in the franchise, particularly from Silent Hill 2 onward.
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute: In terms of his team lineup and battle mechanics, the Kind Doctor is highly reminiscent of Shadow Kanji's boss fight.
  • Tarot Motifs: Reversed Hanged Man; inability to move forward, indecisiveness and poor health. Rei truly was unable to move forward due to her terminal condition, living and dying a hospital for all her lifetime, completely unable to do something about it, and now is stuck in a limbo of either getting her traumatic memories back or living in the fantasy made for her. The card reversed can also represent selfishness, and Rei's perceived need to forget her trauma is certainly a selfish motivation.
  • Vocal Dissonance: His voice is very kind and soft. His looks are... well... described above.

    Best Friend/Shadow Rei 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/best_friend_pq_3.jpg
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/shadow_rei_7.png
Shadow Rei

"Please don't take me away!"


The fourth and final guardian, and the Shadow Self of Rei, representing her despair at her own death, as well as her belief that her life amounted to nothing. It takes the form of a giant, monstrous stuffed rabbit, which is in itself a perversion of Rei's rabbit doll from when she was alive. Nested deep within the Inaba Pride Exhibit, it holds the message card left by Rei's friend Yuki in the hospital, after Rei's passing.


  • Alice Allusion: To the White Rabbit, matching Rei's own White Rabbit doll.
  • Battle Theme Music: The eponymous "Best Friend", to further help the boss stand out from the other guardians.
  • The Berserker: The only boss with no Boss Banter. Also, unlike most other Shadow Self bosses, Rei doesn't even have to say that she's not her before it goes berserk. The only other two Shadows this happened with were Shadow Teddie and Shadow Mitsuo.
  • Call-Back:
    • To Persona 3:
      • The concepts of death and grief. Persona 3 dealt with the acceptance of death as a natural occurrence and an inevitability, but ultimately something that, because it's inevitable, should push us to live life at its fullest instead of apathetically or actively yearning for it to come. Rei didn't get that opportunity, and couldn't even properly enjoy the little time she had left. She doesn't want to embrace death, but also resents the fact she was ever alive at all if it meant being unloved and terminally ill, as she sees it as a meaningless, empty time.
      • Loss and regret, as seen with the deaths of major characters in P3. Shadow Rei embodies Rei's resentment towards her birth and sorrow over not having a good life, instead going through disease with only a lonely death at the end. A friend she had while alive did mourn her loss, but by that point her spirit was too broken to even realize it.
    • To Persona 4:
      • Best Friend is Rei's Shadow Self, the part of her that she hides away from others into herself, something the Investigation Team quickly lampshades. The battle is reminiscent of a Persona 4 bout with the Shadow Selves of the Investigation Team, which is how they got their own Personas to begin with, with Yosuke even outlining the usual process of a Shadow going wild before the realization settles in for the person, but with the end result here being more akin to Shadow Mitsuo's fight, with Rei denying her Shadow out of despair.
      • The idea of accepting the truth no matter how harsh it may be, which Rei certainly doesn't want at this point, considering she's facing her own mortality and, worse than that for her, the idea that her life was essentially devoid of meaning or impact. Her insistence on running away from herself was the crux of the issue, and her inability to move on drives her even deeper into despair to the point her Shadow continues to torture her from the inside, as the aftermath of the battle shows.
  • Climax Boss: Fought at the end of what seems to be the final labyrinth. Has its own boss music. Revives itself when reduced to 0 HP the first time. Extremely significant to the plot. The game's biggest Wham Episode follows. Best Friend pretty much ticks all the boxes.
  • Creepy Child: Considering how upbeat Rei usually is, seeing her Shadow looking so miserable is more than a little jarring.
  • Creepy Doll: It's a tortured-looking version of Rei/Niko's rabbit doll. We even see the Shadow holding the original doll while it's still in its base form. Said doll inexplicably snapping its own neck is what prompts the actual boss fight.
  • Deconstruction: Of the concept of Shadows as a whole. Shadows are physical manifestations of a person's repressed emotions and desires, and the Investigation Team all gained their Personas by acknowledging and accepting theirs, but Best Friend isn't just teenage desires and confusion — it's death. Accepting your flaws is one thing, but accepting that your life has ended (and in Rei's specific case, also amounted to nothing) is quite another. Like Mitsuo in Persona 4, Rei rejects her Shadow even after it's defeated and it just fades away, and Rei after getting her memories back is every bit an emotional wreck as when she first met Chronos.
  • Dire Beast: It's certainly a lot bigger than any rabbit you'll ever find in your backyard.
  • Disc-One Final Boss: Even after defeating it, the Persona users refuse to return to their respective timeline as they have some loose ends to accomplish; defeating the Clockwork God and saving Rei.
  • Eye Scream: Has a pair of bulging, metallic eyes with red blood-like markings surrounding them. It's probably a reference to how Rei's reaction to her death was to try and gouge her eyes out.
  • Four Is Death: It's the fourth guardian, and The Reveal of Rei's death comes immediately after the fight with it.
  • Foreshadowing: The music track for the Sauna segment of the labyrinth, "Looming Danger", has a very familiar Leitmotif for players with keen ears who have played Persona 4. Namely, the main notes of "I'll Face Myself ~ Battle", the boss theme for the Shadow Selves of the Investigation Team. The boss of the Pride Exhibit is Rei's Shadow Self.
  • Hair-Raising Hare: It takes the form of a monstrous rabbit with nasty, big pointy teeth.
  • Hope Spot: The game gives you one after you have reduced its HP to zero... until it Endures the killing blow and heals itself to half HP.
  • Killer Rabbit: It takes the form of a giant stuffed rabbit.
  • Knight of Cerebus: Its defeat leads to Rei regaining her memories and the story taking a darker turn.
  • Limp and Livid: Its posture probably has more to do with it being a bipedal rabbit than anything else, but whatever the case, it certainly looks pissed.
  • Mighty Glacier: It's a giant lumbering rabbit monster, but it hits hard if the party isn't buffing properly.
  • Mood Whiplash:
    • The Inaba Pride Exhibit itself, going from a brightly-lit campfire festival, to a Camp Straight sauna, and finally to the somber final night of the festival at the shrine.
    • The story reflects this with a lot of humor in the first two halves (especially on the P4 side), which all comes crashing down immediately when they get to the Final Night area and Shadow Rei appears. From that point on, it's seriously not funny anymore.
  • One-Winged Angel: As with the Shadow Selves of P4, Shadow Rei transforms into a monstrous form after Rei rejects her.
  • Rule of Symbolism:
    • The Inaba Pride Exhibit is a traditional Japanese festival that ends with a somber night with a burnt-out campfire by a shrine. Margaret points out at one point that festivals like the culture exhibit occurring at the fake Yasogami High are usually held in memory of the departed, as a celebration of death as a passage to the afterlife. Rei's Shadow, the revelation of her death and suffering, is faced at the end of the festival, likely at the moment reserved for the final prayers and farewells to the deceased.
    • Design-wise, Shadow Rei's hospital gown makes her resemble a traditional Japanese ghost, only blonde.
  • Shadow Archetype: As with every Shadow Self, Shadow Rei is a part of Rei that she tries to deny. In her case, it's that she is already dead. Even after defeating her, Rei continues to reject her Shadow, causing the Shadow to disappear instead of returning to Rei. After regaining her memories, Shadow Rei, at one point, speaks through Rei after the latter loses her temper, implying Rei and her Shadow are now one and the same.
  • Single-Stroke Battle: The battle with it in the P4-side manga essentially amounts to this, likely so that the story can give more focus on the events after the battle.
  • The Speechless: Seemingly becomes this after transforming.
  • Split-Personality Takeover: After being rejected by Rei, her Shadow Self disappears, representing Rei's narcissism and inability to accept her death and that she and her Shadow are indistinguishable. In fact, her Shadow Self even briefly speaks through her at one point.
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Of Shadow Mitsuo from Persona 4, as the Shadow Self of an individual so filled with despair, they reject this part of them even after the fight is over with.
  • Tarot Motifs:
    • Reversed Death; resistance to change, depression and fear of moving on. Shadow Rei is meant to represent that Rei is already dead and her cheerful self is nothing but an image she put on in order to hide her sadness and maintain her sanity. She even rejected her Shadow, representing her rejecting the notion that she is dead even further, showing how deep her despair is.
    • Reversed Tower; avoidance of disaster and fear of change. Different from the resistance she's put on, Rei doesn't want to admit her death out of fear her life was meaningless, so she hid herself in a makeshift school fantasy where she can have the life she never had, trying to avoid the inevitable disaster her memories will remind her of.
  • Walking Spoiler: It's Rei's Shadow, and what it represents about her spoils everything about her and the game.

The Mastermind

    The Spider 

Captor Spider

A massive Shadow that hides as a common spider, observing the Persona-users from their points of origin all the way to the makeshift Yasogami High. It is Chronos' main enforcer, surveying the protagonists to ensure they follow his plan. It kidnaps Rei after she regains her memories, kickstarting the final labyrinth and the game's climax.


  • Adapted Out: His battle is skipped over in the P4 side manga. (The P3 manga concludes long before this point.)
  • Battle Theme Music: "Battle in the Clock Tower", a powerful and emotional rock song with swelling orchestra, as the first phase of the final battle.
  • Big Creepy-Crawlies: A giant robotic spider made out of gears and clock parts.
  • Clockwork Creature: It resembles a spider, but it's made out of metal and gears, as well as an assortment of different clock pieces.
  • Damage-Sponge Boss: It has more total HP (adding up the amount from each of its shields) than Chronos himself. Unless the player has a party fully prepared for it, the battle will last for a good while before even getting to the second phase.
  • The Dragon: To Chronos, acting to ensure the Persona-users lead Zen back to his other self so they can be merged back together.
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Its boss name, Captor Spider, since it holds Rei within a glass sphere over its abdominal section. Its Japanese name is even more obvious, literally "玲を宿す蜘蛛" or "The Spider Rei Dwells In".
  • Foreshadowing: It appears early in both of the Persona teams' plots, scaring one of their members as a normal spider before quickly scuttling away. It makes even more of an impact when it appears in Tartarus since, other than Koromaru, animals disappear during the Dark Hour.
  • Shielded Core Boss: Moves four of its legs in front of its head, all of which have shields with different elemental weaknesses and affinities, when its health is nearly halfway done with. It serves as part of the reason why the battle takes so long.

    The Final Boss 

The Clockwork God/Chronos

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/clockwork_god_pq.png

"You, who were once part of me... Return to me. Otherwise, you shall return to the embrace of eternity..."


Chronos' other half, the main antagonist and final boss of Persona Q. This being is the manifestation of Zen's former emotionless self as Chronos, the harbinger of death and time, who orchestrated the entire plot of the game to make sure Zen would be reunited with him and fulfill his duty as his former uncaring self.


  • Animal Motifs: Spiders, with Chronos manipulating the game's events as a spider constructs its web. A web that even shows during the labyrinth transitions.
  • Anti-Villain: It's not evil at all. It's just trying to do its job of keeping order.
  • Battle Theme Music: "The Infinite", an epic rock orchestra with a hopeful tone. The theme is also used for the secret boss fight against all three Velvet Room attendants.
  • Big Bad: Sort of. While not necessarily evil, it is the source of the conflict that drags S.E.E.S. and the Investigation Team together, as well as the final boss.
  • Blue-and-Orange Morality: The Clockwork God is more of a machine than human and seeks to fulfill its role in the universe lest the universe fall apart. As a result, it will do what it must to return to its duties and does not care for who it hurts in the process.
  • Catastrophic Countdown: Gears of Time. Essentially a "Doom" counter cast on the party that ticks down with every turn taken; when it hits 0, the character dies instantly. This is very bad on Risky difficulty, since it's an immediate Game Over if the P3 Hero or P4 Hero is killed. In the P4 side manga, the countdown threatens to kill the entire party, and they're only saved by Rei giving Zen the power she got from him, enabling them to recover and get a second chance at taking the Clockwork God down.
  • Clockwork Creature: A monstrosity with a human-like face on a body full of gears and springs.
  • Contrasting Sequel Antagonist:
    • To Nyx. Both her and Chronos are avatars of death who appear in massive winged forms at their respective final battles, but the phases are inverted (Nyx Avatar is the first phase, Chronos is the second and last) and their approaches to the subject are different; while Nyx is the embodiment of Death as the Arcana and the end of life on the mortal plane, Chronos is Death in the sense of finite time, more actively shown as a Grim Reaper figure who comes for the souls of the departed, but ultimately still firmly placed in his element. Furthermore, Nyx, despite being Death, doesn't actively embrace its role and knows it will ultimately hurt SEES but is compelled to fulfill its duty as humanity supposedly wishes it to, while Chronos performed his own duties without emotional responses from the get-go until Niko/Rei made him start feeling them, causing his split into two beings, one of which continues to be emotionless but, much like Nyx, not exactly evil. By the end of the game, Zen-as-Chronos still must perform his duty and take Rei into the Sea of Souls, but does so out of open care and affection for her.
    • To Izanami. Both are gods born from the Collective Unconscious who operate under Blue-and-Orange Morality, employing Persona-users for their respective ultimate goals. Izanami, however, is a condescending deity that belittles the protagonists for trying to stop her out of a belief they're being stubborn, while Chronos genuinely doesn't seem to understand why he's being fought by his other half and the Persona-users he himself employed as they protect the soul that, by sheer logic, needs to be sent to the afterlife, and is emotionless yet ultimately neutral towards the heroes. As a complete being, Chronos also utilized a form of illusion to try and make Rei happy, which she rejected at first before he erased both of their memories, after which she accepted her new Wonderland just like Izanami planned to do with Inaba.
  • Didn't See That Coming: As he planned, the Investigation Team and S.E.E.S. helped Zen complete all the labyrinths and regain his memories, but their sticking around to save Rei and defeat the Clockwork God wasn't part of the plan. The Investigation Team lampshades this when they propose this theory to Zen, helping him feel a bit more confident in his companions.
  • Emotionless Boy: Zen specifically describes the Clockwork God as himself before he met Rei, devoid of and uncaring about feelings. The reason Zen split himself off from it in the first place was so he could learn some empathy.
  • Enemy Without: For Zen. He's the personification of both Zen's power as Chronos and his old self.
  • Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Its entire reason to bring the Persona users into the festival was to get them to impart some sense into Zen, so he would return to his duty and they could reunite. It didn't count on them staying to fight after the fact for the sake of a dead person.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: For a given definition of evil, but it speaks far deeper than Zen.
  • Final Boss: Of Persona Q, in both routes.
  • Graceful Loser: It seems more than happy when its own time comes and it is claimed by its own life-and-death cycle.
  • Grim Reaper: Specifically, he governs over the time people have left to live, and guides them to the afterlife when their time ends.
  • The Heavy: Zig-Zagged. You don't see him until the very end of the game. On the other hand, his actions basically created the game's conflict. On the other, other hand, that's mostly Zen's call for trying to please Rei, the Clockwork God only wishing for him to get back to his duties.
  • Literal Split Personality: The Clockwork God and Zen are both halves of the original Chronos. He appears to be Zen's One-Winged Angel form, but he split himself from it to keep his logical side from interfering with Rei's cognition.
  • Order Versus Chaos: The Clockwork God and his original self Chronos keep the order of the universe running. When the cycle is disrupted, chaos will eventually erupt. As a result, his mentality is closer to a machine seeking to fulfill its purpose than a living being.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: When Zen split off his godly power, he sealed it inside the Clock Tower. His original plan was to retrieve and reunite with it after he'd healed Rei's tormented soul, but the Clockwork God got impatient due to being unable to fulfill its duty and the fact that the world Zen made won't last much longer.
  • Serial Escalation: Appropriate for a Crisis Crossover villain, he has a number of insane feats to his name that no prior antagonist managed to pull off, including breaking the Velvet Room, sending the Attendants into a genuine panic, and perhaps most impressively trapping the Philemon butterfly, which is supposedly not out-maneuverable.
  • Shadow Archetype: To Zen, as the remnant of his past self as Chronos. Zen is subdued but he's still capable of emotion and empathy, as shown with the fake Yasogami High he created out of a desire to please a solitary soul who had no chances to live her life properly. The past Chronos was a merciless, emotionless god who performed his duty unfettered, and who still wants to return to it by reminding his other half to do so and, while not evil, is still devoid of the ability to care for others, which is why Zen set it apart from himself to begin with. To further emphasize the connection, the Clockwork God's eyes are tinted yellow like a Shadow Self's eyes tend to be.
  • Time Master: As befitting the God of Time, he utilizes time-based skills in battle. He can speed up time to hasten the countdown imposed on the party, stop time to get extra turns, and reverse time to regain his HP and remove status effects.
  • Time Stands Still: Time Stop allows him to stop time to gain four free turns to wail on the party. In the P4 side manga, this is said to be stopping the victims' perception of time, a bit like Rolo's Geass ability from Code Geass.
  • Unwitting Pawn: The Shadows kidnap Rei because they want to prolong the existence of the festival. The Clockwork God and his personal spider minions, on the other hand, don't care about Rei or the festival; he's trying to get Zen back so he can return to his duties. He simply manipulates the normal Shadows into helping him end the world they want to prevent the destruction of.
  • Voice of the Legion: It speaks with an echoing tone, particularly in its cryptic first appearances. It fits, given he's essentially Zen's Shadow Self.
  • Walking Spoiler: The culmination of the entire game's plot, so naturally he's the most important plot-wise.
  • Worf Had the Flu: Since Zen is his other half, it's implied that the Clockwork God was not even remotely at full power, which justified why he could be defeated by the heroes.

The Voice

    The Bonus Boss 

Zeus

Click here to see Warrior Zeus 
Click here to see Zeus 

"I am Zeus... I hath been called from beyond... They who live to the fullest and win their glory art granted divine favor... They who traverse untrod lands with blistered feet art the blessed ones..."


The secret boss of Persona Q besides the Velvet Room Attendants, only available after completing the main plot but before starting a New Game Plus. A magnanimous Persona summoned by Elizabeth after the protagonists give her the information she desired, its power proves too much for her and he possesses her body to fight the Persona-users and Zen, testing their power to see if they can defeat it without relying on brotherhood alone.


  • Always a Bigger Fish: Using a Persona above the user's level risks said Persona possessing them. When she summons Zeus, Elizabeth, of all people, finds this happening to her. Then again, Elizabeth was one level lower than it, so...
  • Antiquated Linguistics: How he speaks. Combined with his Large Ham mannerisms, it's pretty effective.
  • Badass Cape: It's present in both forms, but Warrior Zeus has it folded into his armor.
  • Battle Aura: Elizabeth's body is surrounded by an electrified aura during the time Zeus possesses her.
  • Battle Theme Music: "Disturbance - The One Called from Beyond", a swelling theme with blaring trumpets and guitar.
  • Dare to Be Badass: Once summoned, he lampoons the party for relying on each other in battle due to believed false connections, and tries to goad them into fighting him with their own individual strength. He starts reconsidering once they prove it is a genuine bond and not a false one built by the weak to cling together.
  • Flaming Hair: His second form has blue flames for hair, ironically enough.
  • Foil: To Chronos. Both are Physical Gods that defy even the rules of the Velvet Room, but Zeus is a symbol of life, Chronos of death. Chronos talks in a slow monotone, while Zeus hams it up as much as he can. Chronos submits to fate, even when the protagonists defeat him, while Zeus has to be persuaded in battle that their union is based on truth.
  • Large Ham: You though Elizabeth was hammy enough? Zeus manages to out-ham her with just his first line, and he hasn't even raised his voice yet.
  • No Cure for Evil: Averted. Once you get him down to a quarter of his health in his first form, he'll use Diarahan to fully heal himself and start Phase Two.
  • One-Winged Angel: His Warrior Zeus form, contained in a giant suit of armor, is actually just his first, weaker form. Once he Turns Red, he reveals the normal Zeus form, which drops the top half of his armor and gains wings, a full Badass Cape, and a long drill-like lance for a right arm.
  • Optional Boss: All those orbs Elizabeth has you collect in her quests lead up to her using them to summon Zeus, who promptly overtakes her and fights the party with her body. The battle can only be fought once the Clockwork God is dealt with, but before starting a New Cycle.
  • Shock and Awe: As the Greek god of thunder, it's only natural that he has hard hitting lightning spells, most notably his unique attack, Keraunos.
  • Shout-Out: The game's single biggest stylistic shout-out to Etrian Odyssey besides its gameplay. Both of Zeus' forms were designed by Yuji Himukai, a character designer for Odyssey, and his unique boss theme was composed by another regular contributor to that series, composer Yuzo Koshiro. Upon defeat, Zeus also references Yggdrasil, which is a key element to Etrian Odyssey's plot.
  • Turns Red: Once his health goes down to 25%, he'll start using both of his forms, and attacking twice per turn.
  • Voice of the Legion: Speaking through Elizabeth, there's an echoing, deeper voice alongside her own.
  • Winged Humanoid: His second form has mechanical wings coming out of his back.
  • Worthy Opponent: The entire point of the fight is to make him think this of you, so that you may be worthy of using him as a mask.


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