When I started my attempts at internet blogging about two years ago, one of my first entries was on Persona 3.  What drew me to that game was the nature of the enemy, and the futility of the conflict.  The ultimate evil in that game was Nyx.  It was a being of death manifested by and attracted to the negativity of mankind.  It knew no malice and did not seak power.  It was instead manipulated by mankind's unconcious negativity.  Our heroes fought against it, and even with the "Power  of the Universe", the strength to perform miracles, all the main character could do was use his own life force to create a seal, blocking Nyx off from man kind's thoughts.

When I started my attempts at internet blogging about two years ago, one of my first entries was on Persona 3.  What drew me to that game was the nature of the enemy, and the futility of the conflict.  The ultimate evil in that game was Nyx.  It was a being of death manifested by and attracted to the negativity of mankind.  It knew no malice and did not seak power.  It was instead manipulated by mankind's unconcious negativity.  Our heroes fought against it, and even with the "Power  of the Universe", the strength to perform miracles, all the main character could do was use his own life force to create a seal, blocking Nyx off from man kind's thoughts.

I actually found Izanami to be the more compelling villain. Though part of that stems from my interest in Japanese mythology, I prefer Izanami's role as a vengeful entity with an agenda over Nyx's ultimate existence as a simple manifestation of death. The connection to Ryoji and what he meant simply doesn't feel as strong as it should be in those final minutes of the game. There's very little to the full entity of the Nyx Avatar as a villain or even as a character in general in the context of Persona 3, while Izanami remains filled with the desire to bring judgement down on humanity and give a final comeuppance to Izanagi; a representation of which exists within both Yu and Adachi.

And as for the characters overcoming the monstrous Shadows, while the Investigation Team does physically fight each Shadow representation of themselves, it is still up to the person that gave birth to that Shadow to accept it. Had they not, the Shadows would have only grown stronger again. The one exception to this is, of course, Mitsuo, who is so empty inside that his Shadow couldn't survive his repeated rejections after its defeat. The S.E.E.S. members, meanwhile, are never given the opportunity to confront themselves. They each come to a moment of revelation, at which point their Personas evolve and grow even stronger. There's never any danger of coming into conflict with, say, Shadow Mitsuru. Everything they fight, they fight to destroy, and the only exception to this rule is Nyx.