Everybody in the Persona fandom wants to know what Atlus has planned for Persona 6, especially now that it has confirmed that Persona 6 is in development. Although Atlus is a company that largely likes to stick to game development traditions, it says that it wants to make a new Persona game that surpasses the highly influential Persona 5. In pursuit of that goal, Atlus might totally overhaul the Persona formula and rewrite the franchise in a lot of ways. For example, Atlus might look at the way it designs and writes Persona protagonists, then find a totally new perspective for them.
For instance, one core facet of Persona protagonists since Persona 3 is that they're associated with the Fool Arcana. Whether they're a Persona-user or a normal human, every major ally to a Persona protagonist is associated with a tarot card from tarot's Major Arcana. Lots of different characters come and go through the majority of the Major Arcana, but Persona's playable protagonist is always the Fool. If Persona 6 aims to establish itself as a groundbreaking, unique title in the franchise, then it could change the protagonist's Arcana. However, the symbolism of the Fool and Atlus' development traditions mean that Persona 6 will probably still focus on the Fool, no matter how different the rest of the game is.
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The Fool Represents Persona's Central Mechanics
In a lot of ways, the Fool Arcana has too much to do with Persona protagonists' identities to be replaced. In tarot, the Fool is often represented as endless possibility and the beginning of a journey. Some tarot readers describe the Fool as the protagonist of a story told by the other tarot cards in the Major Arcana; the Fool is usually numbered as 0, or not numbered at all in tarot, because of this outsider relationship. If the Fool is a protagonist, then it's pretty clear why Persona protagonists are usually connected to the Fool. They're at the helm of the story, and they interact with Social Links and Confidants just like how the Fool interact with the rest of the Major Arcana.
The endless possibilities of the Fool's journey don't just represent Persona characters, though. It's also pretty indicative of a very important Persona mechanic: fusing Personas. Persona protagonists set themselves apart from other Persona users by their ability to use multiple Personas at once, and create new ones. As a Persona lead goes through life, they discover all kinds of possible personalities and experiences, and they welcome change as a form of growth. That entire mechanic is perfectly in line with the notion of the Fool Arcana. The Fool's symbolism as a free-form protagonist make it too important to Persona leads to discard.
Persona Has No Better Arcana for Protagonists
With the value of the Fool Arcana in mind, there's really no other Arcana that Persona 6 could reasonably assign to the protagonist. The Fool is an innocent protagonist, but they're largely undefined, which makes sense for Persona's silent protagonists. In contrast, Major Arcana cards like the Chariot, the Hierophant, the High Priestess, and so on are often associated with very specific behavior and personality traits. That means that they're much more suited to supporting characters who fit those Arcana, rather than a Persona player character forced into a specific box of character traits.
The only card that has any chance of imitating the Fool's role is the World. In tarot, the World represents wholeness, journeys, and cosmic unity, which does make some sense in the context of Persona. Much like how the World represents unity, a Persona protagonist brings Social Links and Confidants together while unifying a diverse range of Personas. However, the World Arcana generally represents the end of a journey, rather than the beginning of one. For Persona's storytelling purposes, the Fool does the job better than the World, meaning there's no reasonable replacement for the World.
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Persona 6 Will Probably Still Be Traditional
There's one more major reason that Persona 6 will still have a Fool protagonist, but it's not tied into Persona traditions or tarot interpretation: It actually comes from Atlus itself. Atlus has shown over the years that it loves to stick to tradition when developing Persona, and its parent series Shin Megami Tensei. Atlus shows its love of repetition in Persona and SMT enemy designs; many demons and Shadows from these games look identical across decades of games. Similarly, demon fusion and Persona fusion exist in both franchises, no matter how different their central themes and other mechanics become.
The success of Persona and Shin Megami Tensei is founded in large part on Atlus' love of tradition and its ability to polish well-used mechanics and aesthetics. Persona may introduce some new ideas and adjustments to traditional elements, but on the whole, it's very slow to change. That makes as drastic a break from tradition like a protagonist without the Fool Arcana unlikely. Atlus has been working with Fool protagonists since Persona 3, and it doesn't seem tired of the idea. From Atlus' perspective, there's probably richer areas for change and redevelopment than the protagonist's Arcana.
Persona 6 Has Better Areas for Growth
At the end of the day, Persona 6 really doesn't need to replace the Fool Arcana, and that may be the most important reason for keeping the Fool in place. If Persona 6 wants to change the direction of the franchise, there's better places to do so than there. A new Arcana for the Persona 6 protagonist seems more likely to harm their role in the game than to help it, so Atlus would be better off looking at things like combat, Confidant bonds, and Persona fusion if it wants to make a drastically different Persona game. These core Persona components are more impactful and more amenable to change than something as abstract as the protagonist's Arcana.
It's totally possible that Atlus surprises everyone and abandons the Fool Arcana, of course. Atlus may be traditional, but it's also increasingly unpredictable. The only source of certainty is Atlus itself, but it doesn't look like Atlus will comment on Persona 6 anytime soon. Even though there's lots of Persona announcements coming in September, its comments on Persona 6 suggest that the game is too far away for an appearance as a part of Persona's 25th anniversary celebration. For now, Persona fans will have to let Atlus hold its cards close to its chest.
Persona 6 is in development.
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