The strangest thing in my personal life made me want to talk about Chie and her relationship with heroism.
To start, I want to define what heroism is and how it’s been constructed across legends around the world. Heroism, at its core in the modern era, is mainly the idea that you are able to control a situation in some capacity to help and protect others, and fight injustice. Heroism is characterized as fearless, compassionate and selfless. They are willing to face potentially horrific consequences to themselves for the sake of others.
Becker and Eagly defined heroes as individuals who choose to take physical risks on behalf of one or more people, despite the possibility of suffering serious consequences, including death. Others rejoindered that physical-risk heroism is not broad enough to encompass the many forms of heroism (Martens, 2005). Physical-risk heroism has been further divided into martial heroism (actioned by military personnel) and civil heroism (actioned by civilians; Franco et al., 2011). Expanding the definition further, social heroism involves heroic action in the service of ideals, and as a consequence the hero may experience lowered social status, lost credibility, financial instability, social ostracization, arrest, torture, risks to family members, and, on occasion, death (Franco et al., 2011; Franco & Zimbardo, 2006). A definition that perhaps spans both physical-risk and social heroism refers to heroes, paraphrazing Kohen (2013), as “people who faced the fact of their mortality, who took serious risks and/or overcame major hardship, and who did so in the service of a principle”. A person who behaves in accordance with Kohen’s definition may be declared a hero by one or more onlookers and thus become a hero.
Chie has compassion in spades, as we see. She is willing to put her life on the line to protect Yukiko and repeatedly expresses concern for the safety of the rest of the Investigation Team. She also is highly understanding of Namatame when he explains his side of the story to the Investigation Team.
However, Chie is not fearless. Actually, she suffers from quite a few phobias, which are debilitatingly intense fears.
The diagnosis of phobic reaction was described in two short paragraphs in the first edition of the American Psychiatric Association DSM in 1952,24 which stated that “the commonly observed forms of phobic reaction include fear of syphilis, dirt, closed places, high places, open places, animals, etc. The patient attempts to control his anxiety by avoiding the phobic object or situation.” Since then, types of phobia (including social phobias, agoraphobia, and specific phobias) have been more narrowly specified, and subtypes of specific phobias (including phobias related to blood, injections, and injury)
Chie has one pretty common phobia in particular that we see: she fears bugs, as shown in her Social Link and is brought up again in dungeon dialogue.
I mentioned this once to contrast her with Nanako Dojima, but this image that she is afraid of bugs is a stark contrast to her confident demeanor and the fact that she fights in potentially life threatening battles with Shadows every few weeks or so. Her Persona is even Tomoe Gozen, the female warrior with the strength of a thousand men.
She also is shown to fear the dark, as shown on May 7 when she has to deal with a power outage and gets jittery. If Yu pokes her in this situation, she genuinely jumps. This is called nyctophobia.
I want to point out how primal nyctophobia is. The reason for this is partly because we’re a vision-based species. For the majority of us, the way we interact with others is almost entirely driven by our eyes, as opposed to say, cats, which use their noses. A study comparing the startle responses between diurnal (awake in the day) humans and nocturnal (awake in the night) rats shows that the startle responses are reversed between diurnal and nocturnal animals depending on the amount of light they thrive in.
Based on the affective hypothesis, the increased startle in the dark resulted from a negative emotional state, i.e., fear or anxiety. According to the alternative attentional hypothesis, darkness increased startle because attentional resources were redirected from the visual to the auditory modality, causing greater processing of the startle probe.
Based on the present evidence and on the literature, the facilitation of startle in the dark appears to be more likely the result of an affective than an attentional process. The affective hypothesis is indirectly supported by recent findings showing that in rats startle is increased by bright lights (Groves and Thompson 1970; Russo and Ison 1979; Wedeking and Carlton 1979), and that this effect is suppressed by a drug that reduces anxiety in humans (Walker and Davis in press). Contrary to humans, rats are nocturnal, and are more vulnerable and fearful in illuminated than in dark places (cf. Walker and Davis in press).
Hence, the increased startle by bright lights in rats might be equivalent to the facilitation of startle in the dark in humans. The finding of a significant positive correlation between the increase in startle in the dark and the score of fear of the dark as children in the present study is also suggestive of an emotional process.
Moreover, Chie initially feels ashamed of her sense of fear, and there’s a reason for this. Fear is intimately related to power, as if you are too afraid to act, then you will be unable to exert control over a given situation. Fear can be used to control another person's behavior too, through threat or torture. Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany did exactly this. It's the exact same principle, on a larger scale. And it illustrates why Chie does not want to be afraid.
Many prominent Fascists had themselves experienced, during the last war, what fear can do to man. They realized ‘‘ that in every man there is a certain degree of horror, where his physical strength and moral personality melt’ (2). Full of fear themselves, they knew how to turn it into violence, thus causing fear in others. Gradually they developed a technique of injecting fear into their fellow-countrymen, which started by making anti-Fascists swallow a jar of castor oil and reached its climax by forcing them to recant or to beg for mercy. This exploitation of fear on a large scale was a novelty in Italy which, unlike Russia, had not known a political police system under the preceding régime.
[...]
And not only were the masses beset by fear, but fear also kept the innumerable small Party Leaders in check ; whilst the worker and the peasant worried about his livelihood, the Fascist Leader dreaded falling into disgrace (7).
Though evidence is scarce, it is known that during the first quarter of 1934, 29 persons were sentenced to a total of 270 years imprisonment, whereas from July 1934 to the beginning of April 1935, 315 people were sentenced to terms ranging from one year to 22 years imprisonment (8).
[Source, pages 51 and 55. I also like this passage from pages 147-148.]
Chie doesn’t like that she has these fears, though, and initially tends to pretend they don’t exist. This is where her selflessness comes in, as she basically views herself as a walking shield for others, which Tomoe and Konohana Sakuya both point out—she is ready to jump to protect others, and I will note she often eschews her own safety. See when she runs into Yukiko’s mindscape with absolutely no way to see through the fog, and the others have to chase after her to mind her safety.
The reason she does this is because she believes that she shouldn’t be afraid at all. She believes mistakenly that if she is scared, then she can’t act. That means if she is scared, then she cannot be a hero. She believes she has to be fearless, because that must mean she’s invincible and therefore capable. This is a self destructive mindset seen throughout Persona 4, that you have to be fearless and all powerful and outright flawless in order to be worthy as a person.
Which bites her when she meets Tomoe, who points out her insecurities in front of Yosuke, Yu, and Teddie. Tomoe airs Chie’s insecurities in front of everyone, and points out how Chie is jealous of Yukiko and puts her entire identity around protecting her. She frames this as selfish, since Chie “can’t make it as a person, let alone as a girl.” Considering heroes are meant to be considered selfless in the modern day, this contradicts with the idea that she is a hero. She sees her behavior as that of a coward because of this seemingly selfish reasoning, and doesn’t want to think of herself that way. She wants to see herself as a legitimate hero, and hates herself for not living up to the idea, even telling the others to not look at her.
She is, in this sense, denying herself her humanity. Many people considered heroes, especially heroes of combat, were afraid in the moments that put them in legend, if you read their diary entries. They had human emotions, because they were, in fact, humans. Yi Sunsin, for example, who deeply mourned his son when he was killed by the Japanese. They came off as fearless to help ease the fears of their soldiers, and to make sure they were ready for the terrors that were approaching them. Yi's own diaries show his frustration as he attempts to sort through his status as leader during a dire moment for Korea’s (back then Joseon’s) history. He experiences understandable stress as he strategizes.
The enemy vessels, playing hide and seek with us as yesterday, would not come to the open sea no matter how we attempted to lead them out. We pursued them hotly, three times but failed to capture and destroy them. What shall I do? What strategy? What an indignity! Tonight the Provincial Assistant Secretary sent my Chief of Staff a notice, reporting the allocation of arms donated by the Ming (Chinese) general. Early in the evening our ships arrived with difficulty at Chilcheon (or Chilcheon-do), Rain poured down and did not cease the whole night.
[Source: Nanjung Ilgi, translated by Ha Taehung. Dated 2/12 Korean calendar, 1593.]
(As an aside, I am deeply sorry to say that cannot find this source for free in English anywhere. I find every other resource (except the club book which I can translate for you for free) on a free library or by searching around, but would not link the free library on account of changing urls every few months. The only free copies I found are in Korean, which I don't speak at all. I do own an English copy of Nanjung Ilgi, but I bought it on my own time.)
This is also why she’s so hurt when Konohana Sakuya says that Chie can’t “save” her, as she worries it’s because, as Konohana Sakuya says, she’s “just not good enough.” It’s a fear that she isn’t worthy of being called a hero, or a person. Moreover, heroes are people who are deeply admired and respected, and considered superior to other people around them. Take Yi Sunsin again, who was said to "have no equal" in terms of his military tactics. Even the descendants of his enemies, the Japanese, admire him.
In modern times Western writers have been effusive in their praise of him, comparing Yi to such great men as his English contemporary Sir Francis Drake, and to Lord Horatio Nelson, who defeated Napoleon’s navy at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. But ironically, it was among Yi’s former adversaries that some of his greatest admirers arose. During the Meiji era officers in Japan’s newly minted modern navy came to regard the Korean commander as the epitome of the spirit of bushido, “the way of the warrior,” as practiced at sea. Prior to doing battle with Russia’s Baltic fleet in the Russo-Japanese war in 1905, for example, Lieutenant Commander Kawada Isao recalled in his memoirs that “naturally we could not help but remind ourselves of Korea’s Yi Sun-sin, the world’s first sea commander, whose superlative personality, strategy, invention, commanding ability, intelligence, and courage were all worthy of our admiration.” Following the battle, which was a tremendous victory for the Japanese, Admiral Togo Heihachiro himself took up this praise of Yi. At a party that was held in his honor, Togo took exception to one eulogy comparing him to Lord Nelson and Yi Sun-sin. “It may be proper to compare me with Nelson,” said the admiral, “but not with Korea’s Yi Sun-sin. He is too great to be compared to anyone.”
Tomoe subtly points out Chie's desire to be a hero and their sense of elevated status, because Tomoe asserts Chie is "better" than Yukiko because she protects her, making Chie Yukiko's hero since she knows Yukiko appreciates her help.
But because she hates the idea of herself not being a hero because she's doing it for the wrong reasons, she nearly gets herself killed by denying that side of herself to Tomoe. After all, heroes aren't made by themselves. They're made by the people they help, who are thankful to them. This is something that Chie understands, as shown by Tomoe, but she can't accept it. She can only accept that that piece of herself that is driven by her desire to be a hero exists, and hates it. She doesn't want to be a hero any less, either, considering she attempts to shrug off her mental exhaustion after facing Tomoe to keep trying to save Yukiko.
There's nothing wrong with wanting to be a hero, but you have to remember that you are a human, and so are your own heroes. Chie’s first step to admitting and accepting her own humanity is to admit this to Yukiko, that she did rely on her to an extent.
Though, their relationship is quickly mended and strengthened by the two of them talking it out, as we see above, she still feels guilty over not living up to her own standard. Moreover, she’s realized she made the mistake of trying to bite off more than she can chew, since she is attempting everything alone. More on this specific aspect later.
So, Chie attempts to continue trying to be a hero. Because even if a part of her is doing it for validation, another part of her is still doing it to protect those she loves. Chie doesn’t know how to do this, so she trains in order to be able to protect her loved ones against the shadows.
The reason for her determination to be a hero manifesting as combat training is the media she consumes—she likes Chinese action movies, which feature heroes mainly being protectors through action and defending others from violence by attacking in self-defense.
A4: Chie often played with the boys around her when she was a kid, and as a result would often watch movies and anime oriented towards boys. This had a pretty huge influence on her.
[Source: Club Book page 32, translated by me]
But of course, Chie wants to fight her fears throughout this link, as she noticed them holding her back. She wants to build up courage in order to be a proper hero, but she up until this point has misunderstood what courage truly means, since she hated herself for being afraid at all.
Throughout her social link, she slowly realizes what courage is: it’s not the absence of fear, but the domination of it. We see her successfully be heroic with respect to the little boy that got extorted, as she protects him from them. We also get to see her foil her former friend, Takeshi Kondo. Takeshi is what Chie thinks she is, in this sense. He’s someone who makes fun of Chie’s behavior because he sees it as childish, but is one hell of a coward. He leaks her name to the assholes she protected the boy from.
Here, she’s put in a dilemma when she confronts them again, as they, like cowards, threaten Yukiko’s safety. The reason for this is them attempting to control her through fear, like we saw above. They want her to feel forced to choose between letting them hurt the boy and letting them hurt Yukiko. We see Chie hesitate, because she genuinely cares about Yukiko and doesn’t want to see her hurt, but doesn’t want the boy to be hurt either. But she decides to stand up to them anyways.
Another act of courage she does is basically cutting off Takeshi, who’s been nothing but an asshole to her the entire link. We see her at the beginning not really fighting him, but enjoying it when Yu defends her from him or makes fun of him.
She just initially can’t bring herself to cut him off until he betrays her. There’s no courage there initially, and I would argue considering Tomoe’s words, she is afraid of feeling left behind by other people. So this event is particularly difficult for her to do, since she doesn’t want to lose anyone. And when she does cut him off, this is genuinely brave. She understands her friendship with him isn’t healthy, and she has to cut him off. He’s mistreating her best friend, and the person who first fully accepted Chie for who she truly is.
She also learns that heroes almost never worked alone, having other people to help them carry out what they wanted. She first gets a grasp on this in Yukiko's dungeon, by pointing out her reliance on Yukiko, and accepting help from Yosuke, Yu, and Teddie. But she still has to properly accept this throughout her social link. For example, initially, she snaps at Yu if he joins her in squaring up to fight against the extortionists.
But many heroes had support. Yi Sunsin for example, would send fact checkers around Korea in order to check whether rumors related to military movements of the Japanese were true or not.
Cho Pung, who travels often to and from Namhae, said that the people of Kwangyang, on hearing the enemy’s lmminent attack on their border town-Kwangyang, burned the government offices and warehouses in that town with their own hands. What shocking news! At first, I thought of sending Suncheon (Kwõn Chun) and Kwangyang (Eo Yeong-tam) to the troubled town, but since the rumour from the streets are unreliable, I ordered out Kim Pung-man, a naval officer of Sado, to hasten on a fact-finding mission.
[Source: Nanjung Ilgi, 7/8 Korean calendar 1593]
Chie does apologize to Yu after this, as we see, but only fully understands that accepting help is okay in her Rank 9, when she thanks Yu for being her backup in the situation. Because protecting others is almost never a one-person job, it’s almost always a multi-person job. First this is seen with Chie admitting she leaned on Yukiko, and now it's seen through her accepting Yu's help in more small time defensive operations such as protecting that boy from the extortionists, and accepting his support in cutting off Takeshi.
After all, there’s no shame in having a backup group to give you the proper resources you need to help others. Heroes are fallible. Heroes make mistakes and heroes make poor judgement that can be fixed when with a healthy support network that can give them the help they need to properly enact their heroism.
Heroes are everywhere and can be anyone. Chie’s type is the more action-hero type, which makes sense considering her upbringing. She’s pretty capable, too. Heroes also don’t really see themselves as heroes, as you see with Chie. But heroes can be pretty small-time. Just one kind gesture, one act of courage, can really be a big help to someone. And fear is a difficult thing to conquer, but it’s possible. Many people have tried and many more have succeeded. Just know there are people that have your back, gather a group. You don't have to be perfect, because you can cover for others' weaknesses and they can cover for yours. You can see that with Chie and Yukiko's Personae, too--they're weak to the other's element, so if one gets targeted by one element, the other can protect them to resist it.
