- 18 - Moon -

historical - The moon godesses of yore.  You know the drill - Artemis, Diana, perfect silver virgin goddess o' untouchable sexaliciousness (which, in some lights, could be considered as summing up Tatsuya's relationship with Maya in EP... but I digress).  The Yang of the tao.  And really really really mysogonistic as the feminine principal, but being as how these are from a good few hundred years ago, what do you expect? 

card - EVIL DARK FORCES OF DOOM.  See?  I told you it was mysogonistic.  Moon is the card of deception and lies - including self-deception and general deludedness.   People plotting behind your back and just waiting to stab you riiight where it hurts.  Alse the feminine principle.  Mwaha!  *gets evil look*  In most cases not the most fun card to have in your reading. 

moon meaning - Women.  Confusion or delusion - general deception all around.  Illusion.  Lies.  Introspection. 

moon reversed meaning - Above, but lessened.  Umm.. yay?  Also health (read:  physical, tangible, non-illusionary) problems. 

persona wielder - Maya Amano.  From EP.  Do I even need to say that there are spoilers ?  Well you can't make me.  You're not my mommy! 

Bloody hell... I've really not been looking forward to writing this.  Maya is fairy hard to study, since in EP she basically had no personality.  Problem being that, unlike most Mute Heroes, she actually does have a personality... it's just not present in this particular persona incarnation.  Damn.  Suppose I'll be restricting most of my comments to her EP incarnation, then. 

In my humble, and highly theoretical opinion, Maya is special.  Like Katsuya.  How is she special like Katsuya (besdies their common fanservice characteristics)?  Maya doesn't get fixed.  She gets freed (which.. okay, Katsuya wasn't, but that's justice section and at leat they both differ from the norm?  Someone make me stop using parentheses).

Starting out in EP, Maya is mommy.  Maia - the beautiful mother, as she introduces herself.  And our Moon is deeeeeep in delusion-land.  Tatsuya, Jun, Lisa, and Eikichi, having taken away her memories while resetting the world at the end of IS, have mired her in a fun happy paradox land just waiting to fall apart.  Forces she doesn't know of martial against her - precisely because she cannot remember that she ever fought in the first place.  Which, besides teaching us a valuable lesson about just saying no to alternate realities, gives us a card basis. 

Ah - but how is she freed, you ask?  Easy.  In IS, Maya is the Grown Up.  Tatsuya and Jun's Mommy Figure with all the responsibility and priveledges of it.  She's the only adult amoung a gaggle of teenagers for a good portion of the game.  But in EP, she's actually the youngest - and the burden of responsibility isn't just hers anymore.  She doens't have to be anyone's Mommy.  Not even Tatsuya's, whose own maturation at the very end of EP leaves her without any kiddies to tend to.  Lil Suou leaves to be an adult all by himself, with the similarly memoryless (on This Side) Jun - who, though girly, is not mommy but his scrummy gay lover (Lisa?  Please.. Lisa could get her memory back, Jun couldn't, and from what I can tell that was just a crush with some major bonding on her part with Eikichi.  And before you yaoi fangirls swarm me with glee, Tatsuya and Jun are CANNON.  Take that, fabricated anime homosexuality! On a random note, I'd also like to say how happy I am that Maya and Tatsuya didn't get it on in EP.  I already had to sit through ONE vaguely incestuous main character couple in Xenogears, and Fei and Elly were quite enough, thankyyouverymuch). 

In the end, she gets to be both Mayas.  No more illusion, the truth is out.  She's both the one who investigated the Seven Sisters Murders, and the one who died at the Lance of Longinus.  Good for her.