- Ulala Serizawa -

Callisto//
who - ah Callisto.  Poor Callisto.  When they say that Callisto has horrible luck with men in the game, they're really not kidding. 

Callisto was a follower of Artemis - goddess of the hunt (hellooooo Maya connection - nice of you to drop by).   Now, Artemis had some  pretty strict rules about joining her big ol' Hunting Large Game Slumber Party, and as Callisto was a good little lacky she stuck to them like bare skin to a leather seat on a hot day.  Foremost among those was that followers of Artemis have to swear to stay celibate.  Unfortunately for Callisto, this proved to be something of a problem.  Zeus - King of the Gods and also King of Sleepign Around - decided one night that he had a hankerin' for some spankerin'.  And lo and behold, there was the sexalicious Callisto out trying to kill stuff all by her lonesome and away from her friends. Being a jackass, Zeus took this as a fun and exciting opportunity to rape her as she kicked and struggled and tried to slay his divine ass.  

Zeus being a very freudariffic fertile sort of fellow, Callisto got pregnant from this scarring little encounter.  And sure enough - soon the other followers of Artemis noticed that she was getting a bit of a belly.  Artemis didn't really take this well (despite it having been her dad who did the whole raping bit) and told Callisto to shove off, as Artemis and co would not longer play their (literal) reigndeer games with her.  Alone and preggers, Callisto was homeless and took to being a drifting vagrant calling ou to Zeus for help for the kid's sake.  Sadly, Zeus was kind of a deadbeat there.

So then Hera - Zeus' jealous wife and general bitch-goddess - moves in for the kill.  She torments Callisto for having borne Zeus a son, Arcus, and turns the woman into a bear.  THis naturally freaks poor young Arcus out, as there's now this creepy bear following him and his new adopted family around.  When he almost kills the animal when hunting himself Zeus realizes that the shit will really hit the fan with the Underworld VEngeance Demons if he's the indirect cause ofa matricide, so he rescues Callisto and turns the woman and her son into constellations - Ursa Major and Ursa Minor (the large and small bears).

why - Well, first off there's the obvious association with the Star tarot card.  Turns into a constellation, right?  Right.  

Now on to the actual allegory.

Makimura did not rape Ulala.  Were they having sex?  Certainly.  But it wasn't anything non-consensual.  Still, he did to her something that's sort of akin, if a bit less traumatic.  He stole her innosence.  Ulala before Makimura believed in true love.  She believed in her future and the inevitable Happy Ending - both positive aspects of the Star tarot card.  But the Makimura incident reverses that. It takes away her hope... and suddenly she really IS getting the smackdown from Maya/Artemis, because as a sucessful person with direction in her life Maya Amano is everything that Ulala can't be.  And, as we see in later flashbacks, leaving her behind in alot of respects.  While Maya moves on into the sucessful adutl world Ulala is trapped.  The woman in the business suit within HER tied and with a boot smashed to her face.   This is the Ulala that can be the bear.  That one that can get so caught up in her rage at fate that she becomes an animal, and yet despite all of her struggles is still damned.  

I love how everyone in these games always starts out so fucked up.

Asteria//
who -  Asteria (improperly romanized to Astria in the game - but considering that this is a Greek- to- J apanese- to- English translation I think they can be given a break) is a pretty obscure figure of Greek mythology.  She's Zeus' cousin, and a Titaness instead of a Goddess like the rest of the EP-specific final personas as well as Jun Kurosu's (the implications of which is discussed in the Titanomachy section of this page.  So shoo, I say!  Shoo!).  She is perhaps the best known for being the mother of her only child Hecate,  Goddess of Witches,  the Wrath of the Underworld - who's up there as one of most powerful of the pantheon along with Zeus and Moira (Fate).  Worth of Hecate survived into the middle ages and can be associated with modern Wicca.

Erm, yeah.

Anyways, Hecate isn't really the point.  The fact that Hecate is the daughter of another Titan and not Zeus is the point.   Y'see, our Asteria has something of an anti-authoritarian streak.  Zeus came after her just like he came after Callisto, but rather than be raped Asteria turned into a bird and flew away.  When the King of Sexual Assault proved not to be too disuaded by that (most Greek noble families liked to claim descent from Zeus - hance him being huge into the procreation in Greek Myth) she threw herself into the sea and turned herself into an Island/Nymph.  Zeus finally decided to back off then, and Asteria became the one and only female in Greek mythology to sucessfully tell Zeus to screw off.  

This did not, however, save her sister Ledo - who was soon knocked up by Zeus (pregnant with... *drumroll* Apollo and Artemis, the Sun and the Moon, Final Personas of Tatsuya and Maya) and prevented from giving birth by Hera, who made it so that she could rest nowhere on earth.  Asteria-as-Island-Diety was having none of that, however, and basically gave Hera the divine "bite me".  She wasn't scared of the Goddess like she hadn't been scared of Zeus.

 And so Leto gave birth to Apollo and Artemis on Delos (the Island of Asteria).  This really impressed the Wonder Twins.  So yeah... with Artemis, Apollo, and Hecate as your surrogate and natural kids NOBODY is going to fuck with you  not even the King and Queen of the Gods (Asteria gets to be "Cool Aunt Asteria" to Apollo and Artemis, as Zeus is a deadbeat and Leto... well, who wants to be a single mom even in that day and age?).   Asteria/Delos became a scared place - the one island in all the world where Ledo could bear her children was also the only one that could never be touched by Ares (War) or the minions of Hades (Death).  And she lived happily ever after as the asskicking emanipated female she was, with much wine and sacrificing in her name.

why- Well, don't we all want a happy ending? 

Seriouly though.  That's what Asteria gets.  The happy ending Ulala lost sight of and worried that she'd never have.  For thinking for herself and not giving in, even though she defies the godd (usually a one-way road to Suckswille no matter what your intentions- see:Promethus) she gets her reward.  And that's really what happend to Ulala, isn't it?  She gets over her dead-end, Maya's-so-much-cooler-than-me existance. Saving the Collective Unconsiouness gives her something to fight for instead of just lying back and taking it like Callisto had to.  Asteria isn't Artemis' subordinate - she's a pseudo-parental unit and an equal, even if she doesn't have the same raw power.  This is symbolic of the mending of relations between Ulala and Maya themselves.  

And hey - if she wants to mate with the Titan of Intelligence (which Promethus and Hecate's father both are, by the by - and Hecate's father does literally nothing but beget Hecate and disappear in the Greco-Roman mythos, so I can totally see why they didn't go there with Baofu's persona) and have little Goddesses of WRATH.... well, then, that's her business. But she doesn't need a man to function anymore.  Not really.  Not like Callisto, even was only ever famous because loserly Zeus decided she had a nice ass (Ulala's self-worth was tied in alot with having a boyfriend like Makimura, I think, as the White Picket Fence was all that she really had pver her uber-sucessful roomate).  

Ulala might not be the most flashy or the most powerful of people as Asteria's a pretty obscure diety, but at least she has a future, and it's not a shitty one, and she's willing to work to make it happen instead of just whining about it.  Yeah.  Asteria is Ulala taking back her dignity and personall power.  Going past Makimura and getting her groove back.  

Yeah, baby, yeah.