Persona arcana meanings explained

In the Persona games, every important relationship the hero builds is tied to one of the tarot’s Major Arcana. These bonds are called Social Links in Persona 3 and Persona 4 and Confidants in Persona 5, and deepening one makes the Personas of that arcana stronger. The games mostly use the traditional 22 cards, but some editions add arcana that don’t exist in tarot, such as Aeon, Jester, Hunger, Faith and Councillor. This page covers how the system works, a table of all 22 arcana with their tarot themes, why the games number Strength and Justice the way they do, and how to find your own arcana.

Arcana Calculator is an independent tarot-numerology site. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to Atlus, SEGA or the Persona series. Game names are used only to describe them.

How do arcana work in the Persona games?

From Persona 3 onward, the games pair school life with dungeon crawling, and tarot links the two halves.

• Each bond has one arcana. A friend, teammate or adult the hero spends time with represents a card. The classmate who wants to prove herself might be the Chariot, the mentor figure the Hierophant.
• Ranks rise as the bond deepens. Time spent together raises a link from rank 1 to rank 10.
• Fusion gets a bonus. A new Persona of an arcana with a high-ranked link gains extra experience. Finishing a link usually lets you create that arcana’s strongest Persona.
• Confidants also give abilities. In Persona 5, each rank of a Confidant adds a practical perk, like discounts on medicine or new moves in battle.
• The hero is the Fool. In tarot, the Fool is the card of beginnings and open potential. The games use that idea to explain why the main character can carry many Personas when everyone else has one.

Persona arcana meanings: all 22 with their Persona 5 Confidants

This table pairs each traditional card’s tarot theme with the Confidant who carries it in Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal. It follows the games’ own numbering, which puts Justice at 8 and Strength at 11.

The fit is often clever. Mifune is a fortune teller, Takemi is a doctor working against death, and Mishima runs an anonymous fan site while unsure of who he is, which suits the Moon’s theme of illusion. Persona 3 Reload and Persona 4 Golden fill the same 22 slots with their own casts.

Persona’s card order: Justice 8, Strength 11

Persona 3 onward follows the Tarot de Marseille, the older card order, with Justice at VIII and Strength at XI. Earlier games in the series are less consistent, so if a number looks wrong, match the arcana by name instead.

The swap goes back to the Golden Dawn, whose members moved Strength to 8 to fit their zodiac sequence. The 1909 Rider-Waite-Smith deck printed that order, and most English-language tarot sites, this one included, still use it. Strength 8 or Justice 11? explains the history.

The games also shorten two names: Priestess for the High Priestess and Fortune for the Wheel of Fortune. And they show the Fool as 0, as most decks do, while tarot numerology counts it as 22, as covered in The Fool: 0 or 22?

Extra arcana: Aeon, Jester, Hunger, Faith, Councillor and Universe

Several expanded editions add arcana that no traditional deck contains. Most share a number with an existing card.

Aeon has a clear tarot root. In Aleister Crowley’s Thoth deck, card 20 is renamed The Aeon, the dawn of a new age, and Persona’s Aeon shares that number. Some fans read Hunger as a darker take on Strength, or on Lust, the Thoth deck’s version of that card, though the games don’t spell out a source. Jester is an old word for a fool, which fits its place beside the Fool at 0.

What is my Persona arcana?

The games give arcana to characters, not to players, so there’s no official answer. Online “which arcana are you” quizzes are fan-made questionnaires, and two quizzes can easily give you different cards. You have two consistent options.

Take a quiz built on tarot meanings

Our persona arcana quiz asks ten everyday questions and tags each answer to the Major Arcana whose traditional meaning fits it. It shows your top three cards, so you can see how close the result was. It describes how you act right now, so it can change if you retake it in a year.

Use your birth date

Tarot numerology gives every birth date a fixed card:

1. Put your birth date into the arcana calculator. It adds the digits and reduces the total to 22 or less.
2. Note the card’s name as well as its number.
3. Find the characters with that arcana in the game you’re playing.

Because this site uses Rider-Waite-Smith numbering, match by name. A result of 8 on this site is Strength, which is XI in Persona. A result of 11 on this site is Justice, which is VIII in Persona. What Tarot Card Am I? covers other date-based cards, such as your zodiac card.

Arcana you can’t get from a birth date

No tarot calculation will give you Aeon, Jester, Hunger, Faith, Councillor or Universe, because they aren’t among the 22 Major Arcana. If a quiz gives you one, that’s a game result, not a tarot one.

Reading Persona through real tarot

Learning the actual cards adds depth to the games. Three good places to start:

• The Fool’s arc. Each game follows a version of the Fool’s Journey, the old idea that the Major Arcana tell the story of a traveler meeting each card in turn.
• The order of the cards. Seeing the Major Arcana in sequence explains why some characters sit next to each other in the story. See The Major Arcana in Order.
• The rest of the deck. The games use only the trumps for bonds. Major vs Minor Arcana covers the other 56 cards.

Persona and tarot share a vocabulary but use it for different ends. The games tell stories about friendship and identity, while tarot readers use the same cards for reflection. To find the card your own birth date points to, try the arcana calculator.