| This article is about the final boss of Persona 5 Tactica. For the demon, see Samael. |
Salmael is the main antagonist of Persona 5 Tactica. He is a being from the collective unconscious who personifies the human desire for self-preservation, and sees Toshiro Kasukabe's reformist tendencies as a threat to the health of the general public, as he feels exposing the crimes of Toshiro's social circle will lead to a breakdown in trust of the government.
Appearances[]
- Persona 5 Tactica: Main antagonist, final boss
Profile[]
A being born from the primal desires of self-preservation, existing since the dawn of man. His purpose is to eradicate all who disturb the peace of humanity through destroying their willpower, as it is his belief that any threat to the status quo will result in violent conflict.
Persona 5 Tactica[]
Repaint Your Heart[]
It was heavily implied that Jerri was a servant of Salmael and was carrying his will. To this end, Jerri captured, brainwashed and wiped the memories of a street artist known as Guernica and fed onto her desires of wrath, so she would encroach unto the real world and incite murderous chaos through her street art. Near the end of the campaign, what is suggested to be Salmael himself was dissatisfied of his subordinate's violent methods and banishes her back to the void, something she gladly accepts.
Main campaign[]
Salmael later attempts to destroy Toshiro Kasukabe's willpower only for it to take the form of Erina and resist. She manages to fight him to a stalemate, but Salmael escalated by making Toshiro's worst fears come to life and take the form of Kingdoms ruled by cognitive tyrant counterparts of real-life figures Toshiro knew (and feared). He also either evicted Toshiro's own shadow self from the Collective Unconsciousness and controlled it into becoming a third tyrant or created a fake Shadow Self out of his cognition. Despite this, Toshiro's cognition manifested the Rebel Corps, who fought alongside Erina and fought the cognitive tyrants to a stalemate. As a last-ditch attempt, Salmael directly teleports Toshiro into the world he created and presumably also removed all of his memories. This led to Toshiro being captured by a cognitive version of Marie Anto.
He also bent the Velvet Room's form to his own favor by sealing Igor off from it and heavily weakening the Wild Card to the point where it's only relegated to Sub-Personas.
The party first encounters him in Nakabachi Kingdom after defeating Shadow Toshiro. He offers a mercy offer to them where he will let them go if they relinquished their will of rebellion to them, which was met with vehement rejection. He then vanishes and asks them to go to his own domain to confront him.
His domain takes the form of a clockwork complex where elements of the past four kingdoms are repeated and mashed with each other, with the resident Legionnaires being monochrome variants of past legionnaire units. He also deploys monochrome copies of all three former bosses against the party, which act even more hostile than their original copies.
The party eventually manages to reach him, at which he starts a lengthy diatribe to justify his own ideology. He fails to convince the party and fights them and was defeated, only for him to reveal his second form. In this form, the mask on his disembodied head break off to reveal a crazed grin, his wings are replaced with bullets and his main body is covered in soot. Unlike his first form which speaks in a calm monotone, he speaks in a deranged fashion in this form.
After being defeated, he unleashes a swarm of cogs only for the party to defeat him in a lengthy all-out attack sequence. Erina and the protagonist impale the flag of rebellion onto his disembodied head, killing him. His final words is to lament that he only wanted to protect humanity.
With his disappearance, the Kingdoms revert back to normal and the realm dissipates alongside Erina after a short while.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Salmael's model appears to be smaller than Yaldabaoth's or EMMA's (in her Ark of the Covenant and Demiurge forms) when first met in the Nakabachi Kingdom. When met in his native habitat however, he's around the same size as the EMMA-Demiurge in cutscenes and during the final boss battle.
- Salmael is one of the very few Persona final bosses or main antagonists who does not show up at the start of the game in any form or way.
- Salmael is depicted as holding his own detached head. This is based on a cephalophore. In Christian iconography, certain saints are depicted as holding their own severed head, which often symbolized that the saint had been martyred by beheading.
- Salmael's name is based on an alternate spelling of the fallen angel "Samael," yet the character is distinct from the demon Samael and Masayoshi Shido's Shadow.