While many of the major arcana have unintuitive significances, and the Persona franchise occasionally obfuscates those meanings with Atlus’ generous creative license, the Empress arcana is surprisingly straightforward. Both Persona 5‘s confidant, and the roster of available personas hew close to the traditional values of the tarot.
If the Priestess arcana represents the mental aspects of classical femininity, such as intuition, insight, the Empress is its physical counterpart, focusing on nurturing, beauty, and bounty. Haru’s story grapples with the good and bad of those qualities, both as a confidant and phantom thief. Her hobby of cultivating flowers in the school’s gardens signifies fertility, while her status as an heiress represents the Empress’ ease and plenty. Even her charming, soft-spoken nature and ingénue-like appearance dovetail with classical depictions of femininity.
But beauty and wealth can come with some horrible extenuating burdens. Haru is objectified and commoditized by her own father, who traps her in an exploitative arranged marriage to forward his political career. While her story suffers somewhat due her relatively late introduction in the game, Haru is a deeply under-rated member of the Phantom Thieves, and a more complex character than she appears. Her initial shy violet nature and frilly costume are tempered by a hilariously dark, sadistic attitude toward shadows. And the overwhelming force she brings to the party stands as a good example of why it is important to never underestimate the Empress arcana.
Unlike Makoto’s persona, Johanna, who is based on a fictional character that later became a historical legend, Haru’s initial and third personas are both based on a genuine historical figure who later inspired a fictional character. Haru’s first persona, Milady, based on Milady de Winter from Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Muskateers, is a ruthless seductress who uses her feminine wiles to manipulate and ruin men through serial marriage, fair-weather alliances, and other treachery. Dumas, in turn, drew inspiration for Milady de Winter from Lucy Hay, the Countess of Carlisle, an English courtier who played both sides during the English Civil War. And while Persona 5 isn’t a game known for its historical accuracy, Atlus deserves credit for their creative use of Milady.
Like many cunning women who leveraged wit and beauty for personal gain, Milady is painted as a villain in Dumas’ novel, and ultimately beheaded for her crimes. But both marriage and good fortune (as opposed to fortune in the sense of “fate”) fall under the purview of the Empress arcana, and her enigma fits in with the other Phantom Thieves’ noble ne’er do wells, perfectly. The story behind Haru’s personas are in many ways reversals of her real life circumstances, which is no accident. A tarot card that is “inverted” represents a problem relating to that arcana’s values in fortune telling.
Despite her scarce screen time, there is much more depth to be found in Haru’s history than Joker’s. While there are good reasons for keeping Joker a cipher, one can’t help but wonder what Persona could accomplish by ditching the silent-protagonist trope in favor of a more full-bodied backstory.
The second most powerful persona in Persona 5 is Alilat, the Japanese transliteration of the Arabian goddess, Al-Lat. Al-Lat is a truly ancient god stemming at least as far back as the 5th century BC, meaning parts of her inspired, or have been retroactively ascribed to dozens of other goddesses including Aphrodite and Athena. According to the Greek historian, Herodotus, Alilat was a consort to the Arabian version of Dionysus, one of only two gods worshipped during the period. This has led some scholars to believe that Alilat is the female counterpart to Allah.
As a result, Alilat has presided over everything from sex and war, to agriculture and creation. Normally, that kind of boundless possibility and ambiguity is associated with the Fool arcana, but the one constant that Alilat maintains throughout all her permutations and incarnations is the connection to motherhood. She is always the chief consort of a creation god, making her a worthy representative of the Empress arcana.
It is likely that Alilat’s design in the Persona and Shin Megami Tensei series is abstract and geometric because few pictographic examples and visual descriptions of the goddess have survived.
The most powerful Empress persona is Mother Harlot, which is a reference to a complex mythological knot of entities associated with the biblical Whore of Babylon. The Book of Revelations makes repeated reference to a harlot or a whore, which, by some accounts, is a political analogy for Jerusalem, or Rome at the time of the book’s writing. This figure is described as being astride a multiheaded dragon, also known as the Beast of Revelation, with a golden cup in hand, which directly corresponds to Mother Harlot’s design in Persona.
In addition to potential political allegories, the Whore of Babylon and Mother Harlot entity drew inspiration from past religions, and inspired several new age beliefs as well. The infamous Aleister Crowley, founder of the religion Thelema, prophesized the apocalypse would begin with the birth of Babalon, who was also known as the Mother of Abominations, and the Elemental Woman. As one would expect, Harlot is an extremely powerful persona, and creating her requires mastering Haru’s social link, and smart use of Persona 5‘s fusion system.
It is hard to imagine an entity like Mother Harlot being associated with a character as charming and soft-spoken as Haru, but through the lens of the tarot, the connection tracks. Both figures are powerful, feminine women who drastically change the world around them. One can imagine a very dark alternate universe where Haru follows her evil father’s example and leans into his schemes, and goes on to use his resources for selfish causes, rather than teaming up with the rest of the Thieves. Given her power, an evil Haru could be an apocalyptic threat, indeed.
But sometimes simpler metaphors are better. The best way to appreciate the terrifying anger of the Empress arcana is to imagine an angry mother. Whether disciplining unruly children, or defending them from threats, hell hath no fury to match mom’s power when she’s mad.
Persona 5 Royal is available now for PlayStation 4.
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