Social Links Explanation
Before we get started, there's a nifty quiz if you're stumped, and also a good quick interpretation reference.
Long-Winded Explanation
This is a little complicated, so bear with me.
First of all, you have to understand what a Persona is. When Minato, or another Persona-user, shoots himself in the head with a special bullet-less gun called an Evoker, he summons a Persona. Persona are a representation of your inner soul. Most people only have one; Minato, however, for plot reasons has the ability to summon any kind he likes. He can lug around up to a dozen at once. In game, he has three due to power-capping.
Each Persona is a member of one of the twenty-two Major Arcana, which starts at 00 and ends at 21. Each person has a soul that corresponds to one of them: Mitsuru, for example, is another Persona-user who is of the Empress Arcana, number 3. She summons Penthesilea, who is a Persona also of the Empress Arcana, and only Penthesilea.
Minato, as I've said before, can summon whoever he damn well wants as long as their base level is less than or equal to his level. When he fuses a Persona (creating one, basically - this process is not relevant to your interests) he can get one that's higher than his level through the use of Social Links. Say he wants to make a Virtue, one of the middling level Justice Persona, with a base level of 32. If he fuses a Virtue without a Social Link, he gets a Virtue at level 32.
But, and here's Minato's initial guiding motivation to be social at all, if he does have a social link, for each rank it goes up - to a maximum of 10 - the Persona gets more experience points. Typically two ranks equals one level, though that's not exact. Continuing our above example, if he wants to create a Virtue of a higher initial level, he has to become closer friends with Chihiro, the girl he knows at school that is of the Justice Arcana. The closer he gets to her, the more ranks he gets, and thus the higher level his Persona are. This makes him automatically interested in befriending people of various Arcana, because it literally improves his fighting abilities.
In Practice
For my own amusement, I've decided to keep track of Minato's relationships in terms of Social Links. If he offends them, they become inverted or reversed (yes, more tarot card references), and he must repair things before they can improve again. I think he can lose ranks, too, though that's never happened to me. The max rank is 10, and once that happens the relationship can't reverse. As the ranks go up, it gets harder to obtain the next one.
I'm not going to track specific threads for each rank unless I get a lot more free time later, so for now you'll have to do with just plain names and ranks.
Long-Winded Explanation
This is a little complicated, so bear with me.
First of all, you have to understand what a Persona is. When Minato, or another Persona-user, shoots himself in the head with a special bullet-less gun called an Evoker, he summons a Persona. Persona are a representation of your inner soul. Most people only have one; Minato, however, for plot reasons has the ability to summon any kind he likes. He can lug around up to a dozen at once. In game, he has three due to power-capping.
Each Persona is a member of one of the twenty-two Major Arcana, which starts at 00 and ends at 21. Each person has a soul that corresponds to one of them: Mitsuru, for example, is another Persona-user who is of the Empress Arcana, number 3. She summons Penthesilea, who is a Persona also of the Empress Arcana, and only Penthesilea.
Minato, as I've said before, can summon whoever he damn well wants as long as their base level is less than or equal to his level. When he fuses a Persona (creating one, basically - this process is not relevant to your interests) he can get one that's higher than his level through the use of Social Links. Say he wants to make a Virtue, one of the middling level Justice Persona, with a base level of 32. If he fuses a Virtue without a Social Link, he gets a Virtue at level 32.
But, and here's Minato's initial guiding motivation to be social at all, if he does have a social link, for each rank it goes up - to a maximum of 10 - the Persona gets more experience points. Typically two ranks equals one level, though that's not exact. Continuing our above example, if he wants to create a Virtue of a higher initial level, he has to become closer friends with Chihiro, the girl he knows at school that is of the Justice Arcana. The closer he gets to her, the more ranks he gets, and thus the higher level his Persona are. This makes him automatically interested in befriending people of various Arcana, because it literally improves his fighting abilities.
In Practice
For my own amusement, I've decided to keep track of Minato's relationships in terms of Social Links. If he offends them, they become inverted or reversed (yes, more tarot card references), and he must repair things before they can improve again. I think he can lose ranks, too, though that's never happened to me. The max rank is 10, and once that happens the relationship can't reverse. As the ranks go up, it gets harder to obtain the next one.
I'm not going to track specific threads for each rank unless I get a lot more free time later, so for now you'll have to do with just plain names and ranks.