Demiurge

Holy Grail

Prison Master

Warden

Malevolent God

Yaldabaoth; God of Control

The **Demiurge**, also known as **Yaldabaoth**, is a minor antagonist that appears in Puella Persona Magia Q.

## Story

Yaldabaoth, the "God of Control," is a malevolent god made manifest from humanity's distorted desires of sloth and the true master of Mementos, manifested two years prior. As he is the source of all distortion within the first nine months, he can also be considered humanity's collective Treasure, although the actual treasure is the motionless Holy Grail within him. In Pre-Series, he imprisons Igor in Mementos and impersonates him, then splits Lavenza into Caroline and Justine and prevents them from fusing back. As a result, the Velvet Room also became a part of Mementos and a Quarantine Cell hosting Ren Amamiya, also known as the "most dangerous prisoner" that none dare approach.

He is the conductor of the Conspiracy to put Masayoshi Shido into political power and sponsored the Phantom Thieves and Goro Akechi to dismantle his conspiracy as a thought experiment and game to see if the former's desire to reform the world was stronger or the latter's desire to destroy and recreate it was stronger. This involves him deliberately setting up Shido, an extremely despicable man, into glory by manipulating the masses into worshiping him as a godlike figurehead regardless of how despicable and foolish he is, effectively making humanity guide themselves to ruin.

Via this experiment, he supposedly sought to see Ren or Akechi take down Shido so he may assess the true method to pull the world back from the brink of ruin. In reality, the Grail will never hold his end of the bargain; if Shido and his connections were ever taken down, he will make the public fall into complete insanity and make them believe that their savior did not exist, effectively removing them from existence. Yaldabaoth sought to use this glorified solitaire game to rationalize what he perceives as the sole solution to the masses' sheer self-destructiveness and stupidity; his totalitarian rule. Yaldabaoth also blatantly rigs the conditions and makes them resemble organic events, from Shido's abnormal popularity to the removal of his "winner" subjects, and put the blame on all events to the ignorant masses. The final outcome Yaldabaoth desires is that he stagnates the world into complete apathy while ruling over the world with an iron fist, which he attempts to ensure will happen regardless of the results.

His true nature is hinted at throughout by his more enthusiastic, yet merciless attitude compared to the real Igor, his distinctively different voice that sounds nothing like Igor's (The real Igor speaks in a high-pitch, squeaky voice, while the impostor speaks in a deep, raspy and menacing voice), the fact that he does not give Ren a key to the Velvet Room upon his first visit as a guest and treats him as a "prisoner" on rehabilitation instead of a visitor, and his inability to perform Persona fusions, relying on Caroline and Justine instead. His hints towards major events are also significantly more revealing and obvious, although he still evades major questions like the real Igor. (After one point, the Phantom Aficionado Website polls will visibly fluctuate after his usual speeches, followed by the public's perception of events being unerringly altered in the real world to reflect the changes.) In "Igor" form, he is also prone to far more mocking facial expressions. Once he admits his true identity, his eyes turn white and glow, and his voice gains added echo effects and becomes identical to the Holy Grail's voice.

Before his direct actions, he is heavily implied to be responsible for Ren's first encounter with Shido that sent him to probation, followed by the Phantom Thieves' abnormal popularity wave before the assassination of Kunikazu Okumura, and quickly transfer that to Shido afterwards. He forewarns all of his covert activities to Ren in the Velvet Room after each turning point.

After Shido is defeated and the Phantom Thieves believe that they finally won, he begins to step into action himself and the support for Shido increases dramatically while the Thieves' support decreases further, even if Shido exposed himself as the despicable criminal that he actually is. The Phantom Thieves arrive to the Depths of Mementos so they can reform the public and snap them back to their senses. Once they reach the core of Mementos, he appears as the Holy Grail and the will of the masses constantly heal him via the veins connecting to him, rendering him unbeatable and progressively stronger and brighter as the Thieves fruitlessly attempt to take him down. He then kicks all Phantom Thieves out of Mementos and merges it with the physical world, forming the Qliphoth World and makes the public completely ignore its existence, expecting them to remain ignorant. The only people in Tokyo who can see the changes are the protagonist's Confidants, which are pretty jarring and obvious. He then proceeds to wipe away the existence of the Phantom Thieves by making the public think that they do not exist.

Once Ren ends up in the Velvet Room, he claims that the rehabilitation has failed and the world will enter ruin, then orders Caroline and Justine to kill him, only for the twins to remember what they actually are, stop fighting and have him fuse them back into Lavenza, unraveling his machinations. He now drops his act once being exposed and reveals himself to be a power-hungry, self-righteous godly being with a tendency to manipulate humanity to prove his point, claiming that the only way out from ruin is for him to bring forth salvation by taking control of existence itself and removing everyone with chaos in their hearts from it, since he believes that humanity will only regress itself to ruin by abusing their freedom in sheer ignorance, although Yaldabaoth blatantly rigs the conditions by mind controlling the public into supporting Shido and denying the Phantom Thieves, despite it will obviously do nothing good for them.

He then offers Ren the choice to restore the world as it was, with the price of the masses still unable to think for themselves. Should the protagonist refuse, Yaldabaoth will proceed with his plans and he stops playing mentor, taking the role of final boss, allowing Igor to return to the Velvet Room and formally greet the protagonist. Igor reveals that those banished from cognition do not die, but are sealed in the Velvet Room until someone with a strong bond releases them from the prison Yaldabaoth turned it into.

Alternatively, when Yaldabaoth offers Ren to restore the world as it was, the protagonist can accept it. If he does so and has confirmed to seal the contract, Yaldabaoth, true to his word, restores the world to its previous state, showing that the Phantom Thieves are indeed regarded as national heroes and were continuing to reform society by stealing corrupted hearts. However, rather than try to deal with the problems themselves, the masses leave it all to the Phantom Thieves to take care of, cementing that they truly are unable to take matters into their own hands and are slaves to other people. Ren is seen with a malicious smirk at the end, indicating that he has now become a puppet enforcer for Yaldabaoth, and his teammates were presumably still trapped inside the Velvet Room.

Once Ren and his fellow Phantom Thieves had realized the truth, they scale the Qliphoth World for their first true rebellion. The shadows of the four archangels; Uriel, Raphael, Gabriel and Michael act as the keyholds to the public's cognition and for each one they defeat they awaken to the distortions within their world and panic. They finally return to the Grail's shrine and meet Yaldabaoth in the form of Igor, who quickly transforms into the Holy Grail. Once the Grail was defeated, it emerges from the ground and the exterior of the cup becomes a halo, revealing Yaldabaoth, the God of Control, appearing as a white, towering robotic angel with four arms on his back, holding respectively a book, a sword, a gun and a bell on each of those arms. When confronted, the God of Control claims that he is the administrator of the collective unconsciousness and the public requires his rule to proper development; if not, they will drive themselves to their demise like lemmings jumping off a cliff. The party rebukes him by stating that he rigged the conditions of the "game" so things go perfectly in his favor, enraging him and he intimidates the Phantom Thieves by exerting a gust, only for them to become more excited in having to target a god. Confident and ignited, the Phantom Thieves commence a final battle against the conductor, once and for all.

When fought, Yaldabaoth harnesses the power of the deadly sins as proof of man's self-destructive nature during his boss fight, all the while expressing his views on why humanity is his to do with as he pleases. At the end of the fight, he appears to be defeated only to unleash a Rays of Control as a last-ditch attempt to pulverize the Thieves, leaving them unable to fight, only for the intervention of Yuuki Mishima convincing people to send their wishes to the Phantom Thieves using his power flow to empower the Thieves instead and allow them to stand up to his unsealed power.

Ren, thanks to the public turning against Yaldabaoth, musters enough strength to unsheath Arsene's chains and manifests Satanael, who finishes him using Sinful Shell, a bullet harnessing the seven sins he condemns yet practices himself, putting a massive hole through his head. Shocked at the fact that he was beaten by a power that exceeded his own, Yaldabaoth realizes the true strength of the Trickster and ruefully acknowledges Igor's correct beliefs as he fades away into oblivion while his form dissolves back into the original, mindless form of the Grail. Once he is defeated, the destruction he causes will vanish as if it did not happen; Morgana then temporarily vanishes from the current reality and Shido's crimes are properly exposed, with public view of him being corrected to a negative light.

## History in Persona Record Series

He Appeared in The last few chapters of Puella Persona Magia Q, Where he attacked all of Tokyo and his Control of Fusing The Metaverse and Reality together, was Reaching further across Japan and the World, it reached to Kamihama City, Thanks to Iroha and the other magical girls along with everyone across the World Believing in The Phantom Thieves of Hearts, Ren was able to use his Ultimate Persona Satanael, To Shoot Yaldabaoth in The Face Causing him to be Destroyed.

## Trivia

* Yaldabaoth's "game" to decide whether or not humanity yearns for destruction and rebirth or to change via "rehabilitation" is similar to the game between Philemon and Nyarlathotep. Philemon and Nyarlathotep's game was to probe the human mind, and decide if humanity could progress or be its own destruction. However, Yaldabaoth's version is blatantly rigged so he will rule over the world regardless of the outcome.
	+ Similar to how Philemon employed Persona-users who could prove humanity's potential and Nyarlathotep for individuals who used their power for self-gain, Yaldabaoth employed the protagonist, who wanted to change the world via "rehabilitation" in contrast to Akechi, who wanted to "destroy the world and remake it anew."
* Yaldabaoth is the first antagonist to directly confront, capture and imprison Igor to control both the Velvet Room and its attendants.

## Gallery

Yaldabaoth disguised as IgorYaldabaoth-Igor making a deranged smileTrue Form of YaldabaothYaldabaoth and SatanaelConcept artConceptYaldabaothThe DemiurgeThe Demiurge's second form