Marie

Marie is a character who appears in Persona 4 Golden.

Appearances

 * Persona 4 Golden: Aeon Arcana Social Link
 * Persona 4 The Golden Animation: Major Character
 * Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth
 * Persona 4 Arena Ultimax: Playable Character (DLC)

Design
Marie has pale skin, chin-length brown to black hair and gray eyes (bright green in P4GA, PQ anime cutscene, and P4AU gameplay). Her face is slightly made-up, having shadowed eyes and light pink lipstick. She wears a sleeveless white shirt, a short black necktie with various safety pins and a checkered skirt along with a black belt and a fancy, golden buckle which resembles a heart with wings. Additionally, she has black-striped red protective sleeves and black-striped white stockings. Her black long, dark gray heeled boots are checkered as well. She carries a deep blue bag, adorned with golden designs and matching her officer's cap with a golden button and a V gravure, most likely as a reference to the Velvet Room.

She also wears a special red choker necklace with a lock, symbolizing a secret within Marie in which the protagonist will have to unlock to find out what it is.

As Kusumi-no-Okami, she wears a red and white attire that includes a hood. Her left eye changes color, similar to Ameno-sagiri. She seems to be barefoot.

In the True Ending, she wears a pair of black glasses, with a black and grey stripe collar shirt and a white puffy blouse top.

Personality
When Marie is first met, she seems to be a very cold and antisocial individual. She is cranky, sarcastic, irritable, very foul-mouthed and often prone to mood swings. She will not hesitate to voice out her opinion or express her thoughts, regardless of how it would make everyone feel. As the player proceeds in her Social Link, however, it becomes apparent that her "lack of emotion" is basically just her way to deal with her own shyness, insecurity and naïveté. This is also why she wants the Protagonist to show her Inaba: She wants to learn about the world and who she really is.

Marie sometimes expresses her thoughts in poems which often deal with depressing themes like farewells and existentialism, questioning her own origin. Besides this, Marie is into fashion, loves nature (another major theme in her poems) and is apparently concerned about her figure, which is why she only eats healthy food.

As the story progresses, she formed a strong bond with the Protagonist and harbor feelings for him. Their relationship is close enough to make even Rise Kujikawa jealous, which always ends up the two arguing over him such as when Rise said that she has "reserved" the Protagonist for Valentine's Day. Marie immediately brushed it off and said to cancel the reservation since it's the same as cheating.

Persona 4 Golden
Marie is an assistant of the Velvet Room. She will help the Protagonist with creating his player card for the game's online features and is responsible for the player's skill cards. Befriending Marie will help the Protagonist realize the potential of the Aeon Arcana, eventually enabling him to summon the Persona Kaguya.

She first appears in the opening sequence when the protagonist leaves the station with the Dojimas. Questioning her own existence in life and without memories, she mysteriously ends up being an assistant for the Velvet Room where the protagonist will help Marie discover her true self. Marie will be present during the whole game, with her story arc eventually culminating in rescuing her from her own dungeon.

Should the Protagonist decide to maximize her Social Link before December 3rd, it is later revealed during Marie's dungeon arc that she is actually Kusumi-no-Okami, one part of a greater power like Ameno-sagiri, her role being to spy on the real world for Ameno-sagiri, and absorb the mist in the real world if Ameno-sagiri is defeated; however, she did not remember this and had absorbed the fog into her body after Ameno-sagiri's defeat. The fog inside her is slowly overpowering her and will make her disappear when it gains control and begin to spread across the world once again. She chooses to die to prevent this by going to the Hollow Forest, where she will kill herself and disappear. When the party tries to convince her not to die the fog takes control of her briefly and speaks in Izanami's voice as the fog goes out of control and starts escaping her body. The Investigation Team decides to fight to free her from the fog's control by defeating her after the fog turns her into her true form. They succeed, gaining her a bond to the real world, allowing her to exist there permanently.

After Izanami's defeat in the true ending, Marie is revealed to be part of Izanami, whose true name is Izanami-no-Mikoto, who wished to protect humanity while also granting humanity's wish. Marie reveals that Ameno-sagiri, Kunino-sagiri and Izanami-no-Okami have fused with her before she disappears from the Velvet Room to go to parts unknown. When the protagonist returns to Inaba the following summer, she has reappeared in the real world, taking on the name Mariko Kusumi and is now working as a weather forecaster, since her powers as she became whole means that she does not actually forecast Inaba's weather but decides it. However, it is yet unknown if she still retains access to the Velvet Room. She does not actually meet the main characters in the epilogue, but will proclaim her love for the protagonist on TV while they are watching it, only if the protagonist pursues a relationship with Marie after maxing out her social link. At the end of the credits, she can be seen in a photograph together with the rest of the main characters.

Persona 4 The Golden Animation
In the anime adaptation, Marie interacted with Investigation team's activities like hanging out at the beach and watching fireworks unlike in the game where, Marie only interacted with them in her social links.

Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth
A confused Marie appears in the Velvet Room after the first few floors of You in Wonderland have been cleared. She takes up managing the player's Streetpass functions. When the Persona 3 cast are introduced, she immediately takes an interest in ordering Theodore around.

Persona 4 Arena Ultimax
Marie is going to be a DLC playable character in Persona 4 Arena Ultimax. Her playstyle is based on what kind of weather is happening during battle. Rain recovers her HP as it is currently unknown what sunny weather does.

Trivia

 * If her Social Link events are done in the fog, they will be slightly altered in that Marie will constantly express her irritation at the fog with even some voiced lines relating to it, hinting at her true identity.
 * Marie makes a reference to Hiimdaisy/Gigi's Persona 4 comics saying "Fsteak", offering it as an alternate shortening of "beefsteak". Despite the shout out, the line is a legitimate, more literal translation of the original Japanese dialogue in which Marie comments that 'bifuteki' should be called 'fusuteki'.
 * There is a oversight in the game where, after maxing out Marie's Social Link, if the player visits the Velvet Room at night and checks up on her, she will respond as if the Social Link is still going on.
 * In the credits of Persona 4 Golden, Marie is the only non-playable character to appear. She is one of the only two characters to not be in her Epilogue appearance (the other being the protagonist, who is wearing his Yasogami summer uniform).
 * Marie is one of the only two female characters that actually kiss the protagonist within the game, on screen. The other character to do this is Margaret.
 * In Persona 4 Arena, Marie's design is the basis for an alternate palette swap for Shadow Labrys.
 * "" which is used in the mocking title of Marie in Persona 4 Arena Ultimax is a kind of Japanese stock character traits. A "tsundere" character usually acts arrogant, apathetic or competitive towards the other main characters early in the story but gradually becomes emotionally attached to the others as the plot progresses.
 * Marie's appearance in her Instant Kill is that of when she resided in the Hollow Forest upon regaining her memories as Kusumi-no-Okami. One of the attacks she used while performing this is a sphere that sucks up everything, a callback to the battle against Kusumi-no-Okami in Golden.