If they've already faced their shadow, then certainly. The big thing about all of the social links is that you help the characters overcome their shadows entirely - they leave the repression behind, and accept who they are. sometimes they overcome their faults and insecurities, and sometimes they accept an essential facet of their being.

A deeply introspective person could easily overcome their own shadows, in theory. An unexplored facet of ones personality isn't necessarily a shadow, it's more like obliviousness. For example if you were to point out something to AJ that she'd never realized she likely wouldn't deny it, she'd simply consider it interesting and move on with it.

@Chad: You're going to have to explain that, I've not played the game.

Confound these arrows, they drive me to edit.

Just to be clear, I didn't mean something that Applejack didn't know about herself, I meant something about Applejack that we the audience don't know yet.

edited 15th Jun '12 10:46:00 PM by KylerThatch

He's just that content of a dude. Nothing's repressed.

@blissey: Eh, I don't know... I'd consider Pinkie to be less "You're going to come to my parties" and more "Please, please come." I see her more like Kanji or Naoto, desperately wanting to show who she really is behind the mask, but afraid of people rejecting it. Chie I saw more as just being insecurity and feeling a bit worthless next to someone else.

EDIT: Scratch that, Pinkie isn't like Kanji: she IS Rise. The world sees a different face, and it's not the one that's really there. but it's what she puts on anyways, because it's what people respond to. She wears it to keep herself confident, but all she really wants is for someone to see past it.

@Kyler: Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, it's distinclty possible there's something she represses we haven't been made privy to, like her parents or something.

edited 15th Jun '12 10:48:58 PM by kegisak

That does make sense. From what we've seen of her character, she has a very interesting dichotomy going: she wants to make other people happy, but she is also desperate to have them accept her in return. We've seen her coming up against the latter thing several times ("They don't like me anymore", or "They NEVER liked you"), and the former once.

I am reminded of what has to be my favorite submission to the old WTG. Which isn't really saying much — I only ever had two submissions.

I'm not sure if we could say that Pinkie shows a mask to the world. We've seen her alone and uninhibited, and she seems to be the same. Rather, her big thing is a fierce desire for companionship and an almost crippling need for people to like her.

I think I've said before that she has a lot of people who she knows, and who like her in general, but very few actual friends.

I can see Pinkie's shadow being an extremely cling emotional vampire. She already shows shades of this, even when she isn't being Pinkamena. Note how she constantly hounds Rainbow Dash in Griffon the Brush Off.

I wonder if her relationship with her family soured, and that's why she moved out of the rock farm. And why she clings so desperately to other people. Family is pretty much one of the closest relationships you can have with another person. That's not an easy hole to fill.

I doubt she became estranged from her family. They, after all, liked her change (at least initially, from what we saw). It's more likely that she decided to move to a place with more people in order to further spread joy and such.

Maybe once the novelty wore off, her parents became concerned about the frequency of the party-throwing and whatnot? I dunno.

(Or maybe I just like sad stories too much. )

It's mostly because I don't like the idea that she would just be exempt from it.

I would say that the protagonist didn't have a shadow because he arguably doesn't exist as a character until you answer for him during the story. But that's really not a valid point, it's more like an excuse. You're supposed to be him and all that. They can't give him problems if he's supposed to be you. AJ does, so I feel like she would have something applied to her.

And with the "confront easily" thing, it was more that she would fully understand what her issue was and accept it without having to flat out deny them. She is not the type of person/pony who would deny herself like that. Maybe she wouldn't have a shadow, but she has some problems and she would have to accept them before going persona.

Also, since I brought up Bull-Fluttershy. Any ideas for the others?
I didn't read all the posts while I was typing this, so things said may have made some of what I said moot or the subject changed. Like I said though, I don't know enough about psychology and/or the mind and such to really know what I'm saying. just ideas. You can kind of see what I'm trying to say though, I think. :v

Lol, you are all kidding right?

All the mane 6 are aware of their faults, and work to improve.

The key thing about one's shadow being released in a nutshell is denial.

edited 15th Jun '12 11:11:12 PM by Chadaman99

Double post!

Night

And be sure to give your Papa a nice gift for Father's Day this weekend. I'm paying for half a fishing trip with my sister.

I thought that a denial isn't a factor in whether or not a Shadow exists, but in whether or not it turns hostile to the person?

From what I can gather here, if a shadow is a part of oneself that they are repressing, I have to agree with Kegi that AJ straight up wouldn't have one. As the bearer of the Element of Honesty, she has nothing to hide. Not from herself, and not from anyone else. What you see is what you get.

edited 15th Jun '12 11:20:36 PM by PerpetualLurker

I bought my dad a Rolling Stones greatest hits album. Mailed it off earlier today.

This might help clear things up a tad.

From what I gather, the info on Persona 3 and 4 are the important bits.

Pretty decent human Dash.◊

Well, I ought to be hitting the sack. Goodnight, folks.

Persona Pony edition sounds like fun.

http://drawception.com/viewgame/Ye2dHFEwdW/cat-makes-an-hamburger-hadouken/

Minor MLPFIM derail.

So, apparently Doctor Whooves is now my mortal enemy. Sucks to be me.

Also, my sister has an Iron Pony Contest aganst Chrysalis and my dad parties with Celestia.

I'm conquering Equeastria with Big Mac.

Eyep.

edited 16th Jun '12 2:45:07 AM by DeathCloud

I will forever be...Applejack.

There was a discussion about Persona 4, one of my favorite games ever, and I missed it? Curse you work.

Ah well, its the weekend now. Time to pretend I plan on doing something fun but end up loafing around the house all day.

Apparently I'm marrying Bon Bon. Why couldn't it have been a day to either side? I'd have been fine with Trixie or Derpy. Now I'm a beard. Fantastic.

edited 16th Jun '12 2:55:36 AM by Crowfall