Persona (concept)

A Persona is a manifestation of a character's personality, as featured in the Persona series of games.

Persona
In Revelations: Persona, the characters are able to summon Persona after meeting Philemon. Each character's persona "awakens", and then is able to be called out at will. Some characters had not seemed to have met Philemon, but could summon persona anyways. It can be assumed that this is caused due to Maki Sonomura's dreamworld, which was created due to the DVA System.

Persona 2
Persona 2: Innocent Sin and Persona 2: Eternal Punishment features a similar mechanic, in which the main characters meet Philemon, who bestows upon them the abiliy to summon personae.

Persona 3
In Persona 3, a persona is the same as a Shadow. While Shadow manifests from one's inner thoughts and wills to be malevolent, those with potentials can tame their shadow, which happens to be Persona. Personae can be summoned via evokers, in some rare cases, one may not require an evoker to summon them. Personae, however, is capable of becoming hostile to it's host, and will kill it's host should the host does not tame them or lack the potential. Several drugs, namely Suppressants, are created to suppress a user's outraged Persona.

Persona 4
In Persona 4, a persona is a shadow, similar to the shadow in Persona 3. Those with potentials can tame their shadow which will be their persona. A persona is summoned by destroying their tarot cards which replaces the gun like evokers featured in Persona 3.

Persona -Trinity Soul-
Persona -Trinity Soul- features several characters who have not met Philemon and do not use Evokers.

Loss of Control
While Philemon describes the personae as reflections of a character's inner self, there have been many instances that persona have rebelled against their controller. In Persona 3, for example, Strega members must take medication to prevent losing control of their persona and being killed by it. Additionally, during Revelations: Persona, Kandori Takahisa loses control of his persona and it possesses him, turning him into a demon.