Subject: On the Persona character... (POTENTIAL SPOILERS!)
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Posted on: 2014-04-07 13:59:00 UTC

...yeah, I'm getting massively mixed signals on this.

Okay, so first we have to place this game within the series. Considering that this character's backstory involves the Kirijo Group, this places us squarely in Persona 3, which is worth noting since the summoning of personas differs in each installment of the series. They are technically all in the same universe considering that characters from Persona 2 are mentioned in Persona 3 (and then considering that characters from Persona 3 show up in Persona 4 Arena), but the Persona summoning works differently between each game, and that's kind of important to note when talking about Persona.

Now, Nagi is supposed to be an experiment to be a Wild Card. As Des pointed out, it is indeed an ability only accessible to the protagonist, and it's been outright stated even in the early parts of the game that his case is a very special one. Now, apparently Nagi didn't get the ability considering that 7.65 only gave him one Persona: if Nagi did have the Wild Card, he would be able to switch between Personas any time he wanted instead of just being stuck with one (and trust me: it is virtually impossible to advance through Persona 3 if you don't constantly make the protagonist switch Personas). So on the Wild Card, it's a rather tough call, edging towards the not-Stu side in my opinion.

What's less difficult to call, though, is that he was part of experiments with the Kirijo Group. In this account, I would say he is pretty speshul because, at least from what I have played, he should not have turned out the way he did. See, there is a precedent for that in canon: the protagonist is opposed by a group of three artifical Persona users who call themselves Strega. They were the product of a bunch of Kirijo Group experiments, though their end goal was to just awaken their Persona, rather than to give them the Wild Card ability. Problem is, the three members of Strega have tons of mental issues, depending on the members: most notably is that the only girl in the group, Chidori Yoshino, is shown to have a dependence on her Evoker that functions almost like a drug addiction. Further, the group as a whole seems to function on a rather hedonistic philosophy, considering how they use the Dark Hour for their own monetary benefit. In addition, since their Personas weren't awakened naturally, they need to take a suppressant to keep their Persona from outright killing them. So overall, I feel that being part of experiments of the Kirijo Group would have severely traumatized Nagi. Now, this would all be fine if this was reflected in the character, but from what 7.65 has said, Nagi's personality seems to be "Yukari Takeba, except he takes charge a little more often", indicating that such a potentially traumatic past had very little effect on him. So I would call him speshul just based on this alone, and it's this among other things that sort of reads a bit on the Stu-ish side for me. And that's before we go into how Persona 3 wouldn't have a plot if it weren't for the Kirijo Group.

Then there's the fact that he goes to the Nanjo Group from the Kirijo Group. The Nanjo Group works pretty closely with the Kirijo Group, believe it or not, so I find it tough to believe that the Nanjo Group would just keep him around when it might present a conflict of interest given that they still do work together. Granted, they did used to be part of the same group before the Kirijo Group split from Mr. Nanjo, but they still work together on a lot of things.

So I would say that Nagi is kinda close to being qualified as a Gary Stu in terms of Persona 3. Granted, I haven't played Persona 3 all the way to the end, so take it with a grain of salt: but if I were a PG, I would be extremely hesitant to grant permission to 7.65 based solely on the fact that Nagi is too close to being a Gary Stu for comfort.

And that's before we talk about the problems involved with having a sadistic 13-year-old as an agent. I imagine the psychological issues therein would be through the roof, so...

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