Hello, and welcome back to the Velvet Room.
I am Calluna, an attendant of Master Igor,
here to oversee the Persona Compendium.
There will be spoilers for the events of Persona
3, so if you wish to avoid those,
turn back now.
So, shall you join me for another story today?
Let us spin a tale...
Io was a mortal woman who lived during the
time of the Greek Gods.
She was beautiful woman, in some versions
a princess, in others a priestess of the goddess
Hera.
Her father, Inachus, in some versions of the
story, throws Io out after she confesses Zeus
has been visiting her in her dreams, and he
doesn’t want to suffer the wrath of the
gods.
While in the dreams Io rejects Zeus, it isn’t
under after she is thrown out of her father’s
home that she begins her affair with Zeus.
The commonality in these myths is that while
Zeus falls in love with Io, he was afraid
of the wrath of Hera, his wife.
Zeus used clouds to try and hide the place
where he was with Io, but Hera grew suspicious.
The most common version of the myth tells
us that Zeus, in an attempt to hide his infidelity,
transformed Io into a white cow after Hera
broke through the clouds.
Hera is not stupid, however, and insists that
Zeus present this beautiful animal to her
as a gift.
Zeus could not object without revealing himself,
so he allows Hera to take Io.
Hera would not allow Zeus to see her, and
she charged Argus, a giant with 100 eyes,
to always watch over Io.
Zeus, in order to rescue Io, enlists the help
of the god, Hermes, the most clever of the
gods.
What made Argus such a great watchmen was
that, since he had 100 eyes, he could sleep
but still kept several eyes open in order
to watch Io.
Hermes, however, with a combination of his
pipe playing and storytelling, managed to
lull Argus into a sleep that shut all 100
eyes.
Hermes slew Argus, though Io’s freedom was
not secured just yet.
Hera sent a gadfly to plague Io, as she was
still in the form of a cow, and Io wandered,
nearly driven to madness.
At long last, though, she encountered a chained
Prometheus, who gave her a prediction of the
future, telling her to travel to Egypt, where
she would be freed from her curse.
In turn, her descendant, Hercules, would set
Prometheus free from his bonds.
Io traveled to the Nile River, and was restored
to her human form by Zeus.
She had several children with him, who would
go on to be heroes and kings.
Io is always portrayed as beautiful and tragic,
suffering a terrible fate that she was not
responsible for.
Portrayed as a stoic victim, eventually her
perseverance and patience are rewarded and
she is able to be restored to her human form.
Yukari Takeba wields the Persona Io as her
initial Persona.
Her Arcana is the Lovers, appropriate for
one who wields a lover of a god.
Like Io, Yukari is beautiful but has suffered
tragedy as a result of other people.
Her father, Eiichiro, was one of the scientists
working with the Kirijo Group while they were
experimenting on shadows.
However, once he learns of the devastation
that will happen if Nyx was to be summoned,
he tampered with the experiment and broke
the shadow meant to summon Nyx into 13 pieces,
later seen in the game as the Major Shadows
the SEES group fight each month.
The separation triggered an explosion, killing
Eiichiro, the other scientists, and creating
the Dark Hour.
After Eiichiro’s death, Yukari’s mother
began sleeping around with random men, causing
her and Yukari to become distant and antagonistic
towards each other.
Yukari initially blamed the Kirijo Group for
her father’s demise, but when she learns
about his part in it, she becomes conflicted
and emotionally breaks down.
She eventually comes to terms with this, and
as a result becomes closer to Mitsuru, who
she was initially cold to.
A lot of suffering Yukari goes through is
a result of other people making decisions
that affect her life: the Kirijo Group, her
father, and even Ikutsuki, who alters the
tape her father left for her to trick her
into summoning Nyx.
Like Io, she isn’t responsible for a lot
of the bad things that have happened to her.
Yukari joined the SEES group initially to
find out more information about her father’s
death, but it takes a long time before she
finally gets the answer she is looking for.
She meanders and wanders a bit, getting tied
up in other people’s stories before getting
back to her own.
As Io wandered for a long time for answers,
so does Yukari, and it isn’t until someone
else steps in and tells her that she will
be alright that she finally is at peace with
herself.
When she gets the unedited tape after Ikutsuki
is killed, she sees the real message her father
had left for her, telling her he loved her
and wished for her happiness.
Her persona evolves into Isis, an Egyptian
goddess, referring back to Io’s journey
to Egypt to gain her humanity back.
There aren’t as many elements of Io’s
story that affect Yukari directly, compared
to some of the other Personas we have covered.
What is interesting though, is how much Yukari
BELIEVES she is a victim within her own story.
She hates being seen as a damsel or weak,
and she tries to do everything on her own.
However, it isn’t until she learns to trust
others and accept her negative qualities that
she evolves as a person.
So, in this case, the callbacks to Io’s
myths within her own life are seen as excuses
she makes for her behavior.
Io’s Persona design is one of the most human
looking out of the SEES group, which are much
more mechanical in design overall.
Yukari is a very emotional person, so Io’s
more human design show how much her emotions
dictate her psyche.
Like Orpheus, Io’s colorization is like
a photo negative of Yukari.
She has a pink dress on, both to represent
her femininity but also as a callback to Yukari’s
pink sweater.
Io is chained and bound to a chair in the
design of a cow to show how Io was trapped
both literally and metaphorically.
Zeus had changed her body into a cow, and
Hera had trapped her in the watch of Argus.
The coloration of the cow is a silver, almost
white color, just as she had been a white
cow.
The overall colors of Io are pale and muted,
another indication of her passive nature.
Finally, at the bottom of the cow there is
the astrological symbol for Taurus, the bull:
this has been used to represent both Zeus
(as he has disguised himself as a bull before)
and less commonly, Io.
Io’s general design is very feminine and
delicate: without knowing the myth behind
her, the girl looks like a trapped princess,
with her long blonde hair and pink dress.
Yukari is described by the designers of the
game as a relatable and contemporary girl,
who is very kind and cheerful but can be sarcastic
towards those she finds annoying.
Io uses wind and healing magic, both of which
are more seen used by feminine characters.
The wind might be a small reference to the
clouds Zeus attempted to use to obscure Io
from Hera’s gaze, but more likely it is
to work in tandem with Yukari’s weapon of
choice: a bow and arrow.
She is a member of the archery club at Gekkoukan
High, after all.
Overall, while there are aspects of Io’s
myths that come into play with Yukari’s
story, the most important quality that the
two share was perseverance.
Despite some emotional turbulence, both women
manage to get their lives together and move
past a tragedy inflicted upon them.
Yukari’s emotional strength does affect
the design of Io, but the muted colors and
overall passiveness Io shows in her design
reflects how much Yukari feels trapped within
her family’s tragedy.
It isn’t until she sees that her father
was a good man and was willing to sacrifice
his life to do what is right that Io evolves
into Isis: Yukari no longer views herself
as a victim, instead taking more responsibility
for her actions and working together with
her friends to stop Nyx’s revival.
Thank you for joining me here in the Velvet
Room.
I hope you have enjoyed your stay here.
Feel free to return again, and we can read
more from the Compendium.
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