Remove fictional coherence and rebuild the audience as a person under evidence-backed conditions, contradictions, constraints, and a live decision.
Use when
A named persona coordinates the work but smooths the tension the decision actually has to survive.
What it prevents
A fictional character from containing more coherence than the people the research supports.
Run it
- Remove the persona name, photograph, and biography.
- Keep only evidence-backed conditions: observed, stated, performed, aspirational, motives, context, constraints, trust requirement, and mental model.
- Add the contradiction the persona was designed to smooth away.
- Write one paragraph describing the person under the live decision.
- State the primary friction and what changes because the persona died.
Redline example
“Younger affluent nightlife prospect” becomes a dual-context person who already trusts proof, rejects VIP-tourist identity, needs transparent access, and may still refuse to pay. The new description can change product and pathway; the persona mostly changed targeting.
Your live decision
Delete the name. Rebuild the person from conditions and contradiction.
Route next
Complete FN06 / Layered Human Reconstruction. If public and private behavior diverge, continue to FN07 / Performed Self & Action Gap.
Stop rule
If nothing changes in message, offer, proof, pathway, or risk after the persona is removed, either the persona was sufficient or the reconstruction has not reached the person.
Core Field Read update
Replace the persona once on the Field Read with the person-under-conditions paragraph and primary friction.