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What is the meaning of Nyx's name in Greek mythology?
Nyx, in Greek mythology, personifies the night and is known as 'the mother night.' Originating from chaos, she is often depicted as a creator goddess. She is associated with the creation of the world through the laying of a silver egg, which produced the gods. As a powerful Mother-Archetype, she represents humanity's view of being her offspring.
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What is the origin story of Nyx according to Greek mythology?
In Greek mythology, Nyx, the primordial goddess of the night, was born from chaos. Known as 'the mother night,' she is sometimes depicted as a creator goddess who laid a silver egg, leading to the birth of gods responsible for world creation. Dressed in flowing black robes adorned with the void of space and distant stars, Nyx is a powerful figure. Ancient art often portrays her as a winged goddess or charioteer, crowned with an aureole of dark mists. Among her many offspring is Light (Aether).
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What is the significance of Nyx's silver egg in her creation myth?
Nyx, the primordial night goddess from Greek mythology, lays a silver egg in her creation myth. This egg generates the gods who create the world. The 'Cosmic Egg' concept, prevalent in many mythologies, signifies the merging of complementary principles, leading to the emergence of life or existence in its most basic form. Hence, Nyx's silver egg symbolizes the universe's birth and the gods who mold it.
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How is Nyx depicted in her true form in Persona 3?
Nyx, in Persona 3, is a celestial-body sized alien referred to as a Planet Eater. Her impact with prehistoric Earth resulted in the separation of her body and psyche. She embodies a powerful Mother-Archetype, named after the Greek goddess Nyx. Also known as Nyx Avatar, Death, Thanatos, Pharos, and Ryoji Mochizuki, her psyche's seal can be weakened by negative emotions, leading to events like the Fall.
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What is Nyx's weakness in Persona 3 Reload?
In Persona 3 Reload, Nyx Avatar acts once per turn and loses the Almighty Attack skill. It compensates with high-damage attacks, including severe-tier skills dealing up to 300+ damage unbuffed. The protagonist can seal Nyx by sacrificing their life force, after attaining the Universe Arcana. Nyx's sole attack, 'Death', deals 9999 damage, but the protagonist can withstand the hits.
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History[]
Nyx is the primordial goddess and personification of the night from Greek mythology. Originally said that she was born from chaos and her name means "the mother night." Versions of her birth and origins vary, but one interpretation has her as a creator goddess, laying a silver egg that produces the gods responsible for the creation of the world.
She is depicted as a goddess draped in long flowing black robes that are coated with the void of space and glimmering distant stars. Her appearances in mythology are sparse, but reveal her as a figure of exceptional power. In ancient art Nyx was depicted as a either a winged goddess or charioteer, sometimes crowned with an aureole of dark mists.
One account details Zeus' fear of Nyx is when Hypnos, the god of sleep, reminds Hera of an old favor after she asks him to put Zeus to sleep. Zeus was furious and would have smitten Hypnos into the sea if he had not fled to Nyx, his mother, in fear. In fact, the king of the gods was fearful to the point where he held his fury at bay and in this way Hypnos escaped the wrath of Zeus by appealing to his powerful mother.
She gave birth to many offspring, including Light (Aether), Day (Hemera), Death (Thanatos), Sleep (Hypnos), Doom (Moros), Retribution (Nemesis) the Moirae Sisters alongside many others. In some accounts, the goddess of witchcraft, Hecate was also called the daughter of Night.
Nyx is a level 51 demon aligned with Neutral-Neutral. Her sprite is a modification of Titania.
Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne[]
"The goddess of the night in Greek mythology. She was born out of Chaos and gave birth to many offspring, including light (Aether), day (Hemera), death (Thanatos) and the Moirae Sisters among others."
—Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne compendium
Nyx is an enemy in Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne. She belongs to the Night Race and can be recruited or summoned once the Demi-fiend has reached Level 70 or above. She has strong affinities towards all magic. Another Nyx can also be seen in Ginza, where she owns a lounge. She appears to be a respected and helpful figure who advises the Demi-fiend to enter the Nihilo base located outside of Ginza via forging an alliance with the Mantra and tells him the way of reaching there.
Shin Megami Tensei IMAGINE[]
Nyx acts as a boss during the New Moon phase in Shinagawa's ice caves instance. Players can obtain her fusion plugin by giving the red heels drop from the end chest to a Jack Frost NPC in the dungeon's lobby.
Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers[]
"The goddess of night in Greek mythology. Born from Chaos, she was conceived with a silver egg, from which the creator-god was born."
—Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers 3DS compendium
Megami Ibunroku Persona[]
Appearing under the name Night Queen, Nyx appears as the true antagonist for the Snow Queen Quest. Her ultimate goal is to create an "eternal night" and uses the Snow Queen Curse as a means of being brought back into the world. When the Demon Mirror is used to free Ms. Saeko, the Snow Queen comes to her senses, causing the now-free Night Queen Persona to show herself, originally being the Persona of Tomomi Fujimori until the Demon Mirror being used upon her that made her see what she became and separated from her. Appearing briefly with her are two unnamed, but recognizable characters from the SEBEC Quest of the game in masks; the Masked Girl indicates she wishes to destroy the school and created the world they are currently in, and the Masked Man humors the girl, but seems to be following his own objectives. The Night Queen merges with the two becoming Queen Asura for the final battle, but is defeated.
Queen Asura is a member of the Tyrant Order in Megami Ibunroku Persona, but her Order was changed to Deity in both the Japanese and English versions of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona.
Persona 3[]
In Persona 3, Nyx is the final boss of the game (or just The Journey in Persona 3 FES) although gameplay-wise the final boss is her incarnation, Nyx Avatar.
Once the Kirijo Group discovered the existence of the Plumes of Dusk and Shadows in the 1990s, the group became obsessed in experimenting on their powers, which can subvert physics and even the laws of causality and space-time. Mitsuru's grandfather Kouetsu Kirijo, along with several scientists (including Shuji Ikutsuki) eventually discovered a documentation which spoke of a prophecy called The Fall, left behind by a past civilization: Shadows are children of a maternal being, the goddess Nyx who gifted the world with Night and Death. The latter would be her usher, the Appriser who would be the herald of the Fall of all life.
The Kirijo Group embraced the prophecy and accepted the Fall as salvation. They eventually succeeded in amassing a large amount of Shadows within an experimental facility and awakened the Death Arcana Shadow. However, Eiichiro Takeba defied the group's beliefs and destroyed the facility, interrupting Death's incarnation and forcibly split it into thirteen separate Shadows; their mere existence still caused the Dark Hour to happen and Tartarus to form. The "main" fragment of Death was halted in its rampage in the Moonlight Bridge by Aigis, an Anti-Shadow Suppression Weapon, albeit she only managed it through sealing Death into the protagonist who happened to witness their fight. Within the protagonist's mind, Death assumed the amnesiac identity of Pharos. It is not until the protagonist destroys the remaining twelve Shadows, their essence would return to Death and enable Pharos to leave the protagonist.
Death would then incarnate as Ryoji Mochizuki, a being destined to be the herald of the Fall but took a human form due to Pharos's experiences in the protagonist. The being suppressed memories of his nature and lived alongside SEES like a normal human boy until Aigis fought him again on the Moonlight Bridge, restoring his memories. Provided the protagonist didn't choose to kill him, Ryoji would later become the avatar of Nyx, fought by SEES (or the protagonist alone outside the games) at the top of Tartarus.
After Nyx Avatar was fended off, the avatar dissolved itself into silver light and ascended to the Moon. The Moon then cracked, and Nyx's true form burst forth. As she descended to Earth, SEES was pressured by gravitational waves and left unable to move or even stand. Through the protagonist's experiences as a Wild Card and the power of Death, nurtured by experiences, bonds, and the people's will to live, the protagonist and Igor forge the Universe Arcana.
The protagonist then ascended above the atmosphere and into Nyx's celestial body, entering a pitch-black realm with floating rocks in the distance. There the protagonist encountered Nyx's Core: a golden egg-shaped crystalline entity, shrouded by silvery wings with hand-like appendages. The protagonist battled this entity and endured its Death attacks due to the empowerment of SEES's voices, until the protagonist cast the Great Seal on Nyx. The Fall then halted mid-way, saving all life on Earth in the process.
Persona 3 Club Book[]
Persona 3 Club Book art book explains Nyx is an alien entity the size of a celestial body; the Kirijo Group calls it a Planet Eater (the kanji 星 hoshi refers to celestial bodies in general, and could be accurately translated as either "planet" or "star," but in this context "planet" fits better).
The entity was drifting across space in a dormant state, before it crashed into prehistoric Earth. This collision would have destroyed the planet if not for the composition of the Planet Eater being something which defied all physical laws. Nevertheless, the Planet Eater collided with something and the impact led to its psyche separating from its body; the body broke apart into a physical shell and its debris would eventually reform into the Moon, while the psyche stayed on Earth.
The psyche of Nyx was described as "wave-like" and its "waves of Death" spread all over the Earth and its lifeforms. This stood in contradiction to the psyches of Earth's earliest lifeforms and could have eliminated all life. Upon exposure to these waves, life as a whole evolved to contain these deadly energies of Nyx's psyche within themselves, creating a plane of information known as the Collective Unconsciousness. The waves of Nyx's psyche are sealed by thoughts such as "desire to not die" and "fear of death" within the deepest depths of the psyche of every living being as Shadows, while Nyx's consciousness or spirit sank into the deepest depths of the Collective Unconsciousness.
The art book doesn't clarify the connection between what Philemon describes in Persona 2: Innocent Sin as "the power which created the universe itself" residing at the deepest portion of the Sea of Souls with the Planet Eater/Nyx's psyche which lays dormant in the same location. Likewise, the origins of the Planet Eater before it drifted space in a dormant state and arrived on Earth is completely unknown to the Kirijo Group despite their years of research.
The presence of Shadows within all living beings eventually allow the development of lifeforms with complex psychology, most prominently humans. Humans possess the most advanced Shadows as a result, and they influenced the development of Collective Unconscious. Just as there are thoughts which oppose the nature of Shadows to suppress them, there are also thoughts which align with their nature and thus weaken their binds. Desires, emotions and beliefs which result in wishes for Death, faiths which believe in the concept of the end of the world, all contribute to the weakening of the seal on Shadows or Nyx's psyche.
With the advent of the information age, the knowledge of negative events which normally would only impact a small locale could now spread around the world, which exacerbated the weakening of the Collective Unconscious's suppression on Shadows. Ultimately, Shadows began to emerge into reality itself, and this meant events which could have led to the Fall began happening in human history. The Prophecy which Kirijo Group discovered was recorded in a documentation made by past civilizations who recorded the events which brought the world closer to the Fall.
The Fall is in essence a revival; when enough Shadows unite together to form Death, its mere existence awakens Nyx's spirit from the dark depths of the collective unconscious. Once it rejoins its former body in the Moon, the resulting entity would rip the Shadows out of the living creatures on Earth while simultaneously destroying Earth.
Under natural circumstances however, it would require death wishes from a truly massive number of people to allow enough Shadows to emerge and naturally become Death. The Kirijo Group figured out they could artificially gather enough Shadows to form Death without the necessary amount of people wishing for Death first.
In becoming the Great Seal, the protagonist of Persona3 becomes a bulwark which prevents Nyx's psyche and Shadows from emerging in response to human wishes for Death.
The Answer[]
The playable epilogue of Persona 3 FES, The Answer, addresses Nyx. Metis, as something akin to Shadow, questions the protagonist's motive for sealing Nyx away, as Nyx herself is neither hostile nor malevolent. She also questions why Nyx didn't awaken and cause the Fall in ancient times, or even prior to human existence.
Upon using the Abyss of Time to replay the memory of the time when the protagonist sealed Nyx, it is revealed the protagonist's intent was not to seal Nyx away from humanity. Rather, it is to prevent Erebus, the grand manifestation of humanity's desire for Death, from beckoning Nyx's resting spirit and compelling Shadows to emerge and bring out the Fall.
Nyx is fought in a scripted battle following the defeat of Nyx Avatar. Nyx's only attack is "Death," an Almighty attack that deals 9,999 damage; the protagonist will automatically endure the hits no matter what. For the first few turns the protagonist will only be able to use basic attacks, which deal normal damage but do not deplete Nyx's HP. After being given strength from the rest of the party the protagonist will have enough HP to cast the unique skill Great Seal, automatically ending the battle.
Nyx Avatar's unique Almighty skills (outside of the generic Megido-line spells), Almighty Attack and Night Queen, as well as Nyx Core's only attack, Death, use a distinct red-and-black coloring compared to the ordinary Almighty attacks which use white and pale purple. Erebus introduced in FES not only shares the same red-and-black color scheme for its body, but also for its own version of Almighty Attack and Primal Darkness, its unique Almighty skill. This similarity in color scheme usage signifies their connection, as the Shadows composing Death Arcana Shadow/Nyx Avatar only emerge into the world due to Erebus constantly calling for Death and for Nyx to end humankind.
Nyx Avatar dissolves into silvery light upon being defeated, and Nyx Core is shrouded by silvery wings with hand-like appendages which constantly writhe, resembling Arcana Magician Shadow. In other words, Nyx Avatar (composed of Shadows which Erebus compels to bring Death) is what actually moves Nyx Core into action. Persona 3 Club Book further confirms that Nyx's body in the Moon is actually a hollow, soulless shell without its psyche, which normally remains dormant in the deepest depth of the Sea of Souls but incarnates within Death Arcana Shadow in the right conditions. The Answer later has Metis stating Nyx herself is neither hostile nor malevolent to humankind. All of these put into question if any portion of Nyx (the Shadows, Death, Nyx Avatar and Nyx's psyche) actually act by their own will, or are merely moving in accordance with the desire for Death from humanity compelling them.
Nyx's celestial body hidden in the Moon, and the golden egg-like crystal entity in the realm inside it technically are never named in the original releases of Persona 3. It is only in the Persona 3 Club Book material the former is described as Nyx's former body or incarnation, and then it is only in Reload the latter is named Nyx Core.
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