Pithos is an entity similar to a Persona in Persona 5 Strikers.
Appearances
History
A pithos is a large ceramic jar used by certain ancient civilizations that bordered the Mediterranean during the Neolithic, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. It was primarily used to store liquids, such as wine and oil, or food, such as grain. Some pithoi were also used for rituals and burials.
According to the ancient Greek poet Hesiod's Theogony, Pandora's box was originally a large jar, a pithos. The shift in object is attributed with the 16th-century humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam, who erroneously mistook the Greek pithos (storage jar) as the Greek pyxis (small box) when he translated Hesiod's original story into Latin.
In Greek mythology, Pandora's box is said to have contained all the evils of mankind, such as death and disease. Pandora, or her husband Epimetheus in some variants, opened the box and released all the evils, except for one, into the world. The one item that did not escape and remained within the box was hope which in some depictions was treated as the worst evil of all.
Profile
Persona 5 Strikers
Sophia summons Pithos to fight Shadows alongside the protagonist, Ryuji Sakamoto, and Morgana, in an attempt to mimics how a Persona is. Unlike Personas, it is adhered to Sophia from the start and is not considered being "awakened to." It specializes in bless and healing. Pithos can be compared to Palladion, in the sense that it is not actually a historical or mythological figure itself, but an object that is referencing one. However, unlike Palladion, Pithos is not considered an actual Persona.
Later, in order to render herself immune from her misguided creator Kuon Ichinose's attempted brainwashing and reform her, Sophia receives an awakening, turning Pithos into its true form, Pandora. Pandora is awakened exactly like any other Persona (migraines, following by its user's mask breaking in severe pain) and grants Sophia newfound strength, giving her the ability to learn the rare Makougaon. The only other Persona who naturally learns this skill is the post-game Persona Metatron.
Stats
Persona 5 Strikers
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Trivia
- Pithos represents Ichinose's discarding of Sophia, after she asked her what is a heart. Pithos represents the "hope" Ichinoise trapped after shutting Sophia down and giving Medicce the Artificial Intelligence EMMA instead, an AI which has no comprehension of the human heart and operates merely on logic.
- Pithos is the first player-controlled entity in the series to lack an Arcana, though races and inexistent Arcana have featured in earlier titles. It's technically of the Hope Arcana of the Visconti-Sforza tarot.
- All of Pithos' skills have a question mark behind it, representing how it is not actually a Persona and how it's skills are perhaps only mimicking what a persons does. (For example, "Dia?," "Kouga?" etc.) They are removed when it awakens into Pandora.
- In Strikers's initial storyboard, Pithos is labeled as "Funnel.", reference the fictional weapons used in the Anime Mobile Suit Gundam [1]