Shadow Possession
Shadows are a person's id, speaking in Freudian terms. They are the part of one's personality that is suppressed as unacceptable: whether because it's personally repellent, or because it's detrimental to their role in society, or because it's a part of themselves that simply runs counter to societal rules. Often, this part of the personality can be buried so deep that people remain unaware of what they have rejected and locked away. For more detailed discussion, see Personal Shadows.
As mentioned in the Persona file, while it is not considered IC information, Personas and Shadows are two sides of the same coin. A Persona is a controlled Shadow, and a Shadow is an uncontrolled Persona. Thus, when an individual loses control of their Persona, it reverts into a Shadow: a thing of primal desires, unconstrained emotions, and runaway passions, unchecked by the higher and more rational desires of the user in the way a Persona would be. Should the individual then surrender control to this Shadow, it will gain dominance. The result is the condition known as 'Shadow-Possession.'
Yielding to one's Shadow is thus, in essence, giving in to one's base urges. The clarity of simply giving in in this way gives the Shadow-Possessed power beyond that of most Persona Users (as detailed in Upgrades). However, this is at the price of loss of control, and the deterioration of a healthy and developed sense of self. If left unchecked, the Shadow will gradually erode the user's sense of self completely, until they are no longer human but a Shadow.
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Becoming Shadow-Possessed
Most often, yielding to one's Shadow is the result of person with a weak self-image manifesting a Persona and being unable to own and control it. There are a number of reasons why a person might have such a weak self-image to begin with:
Psychological Trauma
The world is a stressful place. Over time, the troubles of life can take their toll on the hardiest of souls. The most common method for someone’s self-image to become so weak they cannot control their Persona, is for them to become so repressed and beaten down from extended psychological trauma that their basic personality is simply unable to bear the strain anymore. Not just any normal stress would cause Shadow-Possession, however. It generally requires the active malevolent influence of others to cause a breakdown of the main personality without harming the Shadow too much to be useful.
Yielding
In the strange world of the Midnight Channel, to misunderstand the nature of the trial can have dangerous consequences. One must face their Shadow eventually if they remain within the TV World. If they immediately accept and yield to their Shadow, the unopposed Shadow will gain dominance and possess them. Shortcuts to power do not exist; simply accepting one's Shadow does not grant the understanding and self-control necessary to maintain and control a Persona properly.
Accepting a previously rejected aspect of one's psyche without reason and reservation is dangerous. Doing so allows the Shadow an easy pathway to take over the individual entirely; a dangerous prospect, as Shadows are meant to be an integrated part of the psyche rather than the whole of it.
Power for a Price
When one uses supernatural power, one must always be careful. To abuse it too much for one's own selfish gratification-- especially when one lacks the strength of will and concrete self-identity to keep themselves from spiraling out of control-- may hasten a Persona's reversion into a Shadow.
Being Possessed
Someone who is Shadow-Possessed does not necessarily immediately stand out as such. Usually, there are subtle changes to the personality of the Possessed. They are less restrained and more likely to take immediate, impulsive actions. Not all of these actions are even necessarily evil, but they can often be inappropriate or disruptive.
Instead of summoning their Shadow, as a Persona-user might summon their Persona, a Shadow-Possessed literally transforms into it. When a Shadow takes full control of the Possessed, they undergo a dramatic physical change, drawing shadows to themselves and melding them into a new form. This form reflects the nature of the Shadow: someone with the Shadow Fafnir, for example, would literally assume the form of a dragon.
Shadow-Possessed share a number of traits with the wandering Shadows of the Dark Hour and the Midnight Channel. These Shadows will perceive Shadow-Possessed as just another Shadow, giving the Possessed a degree of immunity to them, even in an untransformed state. Weaker Shadows will flee or ignore the Shadow-Possessed, while stronger ones will generally attack others before the Shadow-Possessed.
Should the Possessed actually transform, they gain a limited ability to command weak wandering Shadows around them (e.g. Mayas from Persona 3). If a Shadow is caught between two Shadow-Possessed trying to exert control, the Shadow will generally decide to just get the hell out of there unless one is significantly more powerful than the other.
Shadow-Possessed, like regular Persona-users, may also summon additional generic Personas. However, their means of doing so is slightly different, as Shadow-Possessed do not see the Velvet Room (unless they are trying to recover from Possession), and cannot access it without an invitation from a Persona-user. Instead, Shadow-Possessed are capable of simply eating the wandering Shadows around them, and this urge to consume other Shadows is an instinct for Shadow-Possessed that eventually leads them to the discovery of their ability to summon generics. Their consumption of wandering Shadows taps them directly into the collective unconsciousness-- and thereby, into all the archetypes that produce generic Personas-- allowing them to summon and activate generics with sufficient concentration. Given the requirement of focus, this cannot be done in the heat of combat.
When a generic is activated, their main Shadowform mutates in appearance to incorporate visual aspects of the generic. For example, a person whose main Shadowform is a lion, who subsequently activates the generic Persona Harpy, may wind up with a Sphinx-like form as a net result.
It can thus be said that eating Shadows grants power. However, eating too many Shadows-- especially very powerful ones-- will cause your character to rapidly discorporate into a true Shadow, rendering them unplayable. Too much accumulation of the collective unconsciousness into one's own self, after all, disintegrates one's own distinct identity. This problem should not be implicated in regular play, and even if you accumulate a large amount of Social Links in your +linkstatus as a Shadow-Possessed, it does not necessarily mean you will lose your character: these social links represent nothing more than the strength of your social ties, even as a Shadow-Possessed. However, because of this danger, Shadow consumption is a concept that should be treated with care ICly.
Details for Playing a Shadow-Possessed
- Your voice flanges. Reference a TV Shadow bossfight from Persona 4 for an example.
- You can make your eyes turn yellow even in your untransformed state. In your transformed state, your eyes turn yellow by default.
- The Shadow is not a biological entity made out of flesh or blood: it's more of an ideal sculpted into a physical form out of 'Shadow stuff.' While the Shadowform might imitate life in some aspects, it is not 'living material' and does not produce many of the usual trappings of life (blood, smell, expected physical anatomy, etc.). The heat a Shadowform gives off is no more than the human at its core would give.
- A stone-statue Shadowform, for example, may show injury by chipping or cracking rather than bleeding.
- Shadow-Possessed may consume organic material in their Shadowform-- such material is eventually fully degraded by the Shadowstuff of which they're comprised. Eating rocks, metal, or lead chips is still not advised.
- You cannot partially manifest your Shadow. You must be either 'untransformed' or 'fully-transformed.' You also cannot access your powers while not transformed.
- A Shadow-Possessed is capable of consuming other Shadows while in Shadowform. The end results of this vary depending on the strength of the Shadow consumed.
- Garden-variety Shadows, such as the generic enemies that wander in the Dark Hour and in the Inaba TV, can be consumed and incorporated.
- Stronger Shadows (such as the ‘boss Shadows’ generated in the Inaba TV), cannot be consumed until they have been substantially weakened, and even then will eventually regenerate enough strength to escape.
- Arcana Shadows from Persona 3 are not edible. Trying to consume even one will result in loss of condeath, and-- most likely-- your character discorporating into a true Shadow.
Progression
Shadow-Possession is not a static state. The condition can wax and wane (especially with the influence of the moon in some cases), with the Shadow having a greater or lesser amount of control than normal. However, over time it can be common for the Shadow to gain greater and greater sway over the person until they become completely and utterly dominated. At this point, the Shadow consumes the original personality, dissolving into a free Shadow form that generally roams and engages in whatever pursuits it pleases.
At this point, the character is functionally dead, as there is no known method of restoring someone from this state. Some events can delay or hasten this progress, or even reverse it to a degree, but methods of manipulating this are rare. The stronger the will of one who is Shadow-Possessed (relatively speaking), the more stable the possession is. A rare few can even seem to almost control their Possession completely.
Recovery
It is almost impossible for a Shadow-Possessed to recover on their own. In their state, they cannot marshal the effort and power needed to regain full control. It requires a great deal of psychological support over time to rebuild the self-image to the point where one might find a way to confront their Shadow once more on relatively even terms.
There are other ways in which the Shadow can be defeated or wounded, but they are extremely dangerous, often running the risk such as the potential of destroying the Shadow completely and leaving the remaining person in a condition that resembles Apathy Syndrome.
Ultimately, to recover and transform the Shadow back into a Persona, the Shadow-Possessed must integrate and accept their Shadow as a healthy part of themselves, rather than continue to allow it to retain sole dominance.
