How Persona 5 Absolutely Nails the Silent Protagonist Trope

Welcome back, adventurer!

Like I said before, I love RPGs. If a game has like 50 characters and takes 80 hours to finish, then count me in. Except, there’s one thing I’m not a fan of that seems to be fairly common in this genre - the silent protagonist. The idea is that a silent protagonist allows the player to project themselves onto the character, but I feel that’s pretty difficult to execute properly and instead just makes you wonder why you aren’t playing as literally anyone else.

But sometimes, a game pops up with a silent protagonist that doesn’t make me want to throw my controller at the screen. One of those is Persona 5. It’s almost like Pokemon… except if you had to give the Pokemon your life savings to capture them, and with philosophy, talking cats, teenage mischief, and killing gods thrown in. It also looks really, really good. Persona 5 somehow manages to make menus stylish and fun to click around in, it’s incredible.

In this game, you assume the role of a Japanese high-schooler who was wrongfully charged with assault and expelled, having to move to Tokyo and go to a new school. Of course, things quickly go south and you end up in the “Metaverse”, where the desires of corrupt individuals come to life in the form of “Palaces”. You accidentally drag a few other people into this mess and form the Phantom Thieves, who go on heists in these Palaces to change people’s hearts and make them confess to their crimes. This game is known for getting a lot of things right, from its compelling characters and flashy gameplay to its incredible soundtrack. But one of my personal favorite aspects is the protagonist, codenamed “Joker”.



Joker, unlike many other silent protagonists, actually has a personality. Our introduction to him is as he’s running from the cops with a briefcase in hand, jumping out of a window in the process.



He’s clearly cocky in the Metaverse, but more reserved and clearly trying to lay low in the overworld, shown by his hunched posture and hands in pockets. It also helps that he has a clear backstory, giving a reason as to why he’d care about changing people’s hearts. I’d be pretty angry if I tried to help someone being harassed and was then blamed just because the instigator was friends with the cops, too.

I think a lot of games lean too heavily into the “player must be able to project onto them” angle, resulting in a character who sorta just stands there while everyone else does the talking. Yes, people can be quiet or shy, but they still don’t act like cardboard boxes. I’ve played games where characters meant to be important to the protagonist die and I can tell I’m supposed to feel something, but the lack of any meaningful interactions means that there’s little to no emotional impact. Sure, there’s the occasional choice of dialogue, but they’re usually fairly generic. Persona 5 improves on that as well by having a mix of typical kind lines and absolutely unhinged ones, both of which would be in character for Joker. I mean, just look at some of these.

Definitely lives up to the name "Joker". These options are fairly frequent as well, making it seem like he’s actually engaged in conversation rather than just popping in every now and then. It feels a lot more authentic than whatever Fire Emblem: Three Houses was trying to do with Byleth, that’s for sure. No, Three Houses, making a character’s blandness a part of the plot is not the solution. Anyways, little things like his idle animations or character portraits, combined with his portrayal in cutscenes, dialogue options, and how other characters interact with him all add up to make this guy feel like a real person and not some sort of robot AI experiment. It’s something I really wish more games tried to do, because playing as a character that’s actively engaged in the story is much more interesting than someone that feels like they’re barely there.

Also, play Persona 5, you won’t regret it. 

And take care on your quests!