Christi Junior on Nostr: 5/8 Honestly, going over the nature and origins of, well, Origin (and Aionios) in ...
5/8
Honestly, going over the nature and origins of, well, Origin (and Aionios) in this way wasn’t something I did simply because I felt it important to establish what the world of Xenoblade 3 is, and how it came into existence, but also to explore the various plotholes and contradictions that have been bothering me for almost 2 years, and see if my makeshift timeline actually makes some amount of sense. And I have to say, for all my problems with the game’s backstory, going over it like this really did give me a better sense of what Monolith Soft was going for, and makes it clear to me that the various plot points fit together a lot better than I originally gave them credit for.
Let me put it like this: I have no problems with a game leaving a few questions unanswered, hell, they can be fun and compelling mysteries that keep the story alive in your mind long after it’s over. However, too many unanswered questions can be ruinous – at that point you’re not left with just a few missing puzzle pieces, the entire story is basically one big, messy, unfinished puzzle, and what’s worse, a lot of the remaining pieces just don’t seem to fit anywhere. I still somewhat feel this way about Xenoblade 3’s story, or at least its backstory – but I will also admit that after this writeup, I feel that more puzzles pieces have been correctly placed, and that fewer of those pesky impossible-to-place pieces remain. Also, keep in mind, I’ve not actually sought out autistic fan theories attempting to make sense of Xenoblade 3’s backstory and lore, because 1) I wanted to figure this stuff out for myself, and 2) if a story requires outside fan sources or dev interview reveals to make sense, that just proves that the story (as presented in the actual game) just doesn’t really work on its own terms. But despite all that, this genuinely is a story that outside information and confirmations by the developers really could enhance (I DARE Monolith Soft to provide us with a full, official timeline, comparable to what you have in 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim).
Of course, there is also one major, nay, earthshattering implication of what we learn about Xenoblade 3’s backstory: the world of Aionios has to disappear in order for Origin to reboot, and the worlds we know from the prior games to be brought back. For time to again be able to flow, this Moment of Eternity has to finally be brought to an end. In one sense, this is a brilliant twist that makes a ton of sense and has been set up from early on: Both Moebius and the Fake Queens have repeatedly warned that Ouroboros threatens the very world itself, but I always dismissed it as typical self-serving villain lies and propaganda. Similarly, party characters on multiple occasions talking about the world itself being evil was interpreted as just them expressing that Aionios was broken and needed fixing, like previous Xenoblade worlds got fixed. But no - our mission really is to Destroy The World and kill its Architect, so in a very real sense we’ve taken the role of Malos and the Torna crew from Xenoblade 2.
However, there are also major problems with a Destroy The World plot in a game like this one, both in terms of concept and execution. Conceptually, having to essentially erase a gigantic world you’ve potentially spent hundreds of hours in arguably undermines everything that came before and leaves something of a sour taste, making you question if what you did even had a point. No, not your actions in the main story obviously, which will end up being extremely impactful – even if nobody end up remembering what really happened, the Ouroboros will have freed two worlds and liberated all the souls in Origin. But what about everything you do in the sidequests – freeing colonies, helping individual characters mature and grow, bringing people together etc? What does any of that matter if Aionios will just disappear and these characters will all return to their old lives, with no memories of the two worlds in a merged state?
I guess you could argue that the kind of personal growth the friendly NPCs and Hero characters undergo, and the kindness that you show them, is something they will somehow take with them, as their souls will remember even if the brains of their current bodies don’t – but it’s still not all that satisfying to me. And this just covers the soldier characters – by far the bigger problem has to do with City characters, the ones born free. These are all NEW souls, not housed in Origin, instead coming into existence within Aionios. So what happens to them?
The game *does* hint at an answer, which Monolith Soft themselves have later clarified: All the people born inside Aionios will disappear – but they will be able to eventually be born in that of the two worlds in which they belong (Monica and Ghondor for example are Agnus-aligned, as shown by their Arts, while Gray is closer to Keves). As such, their souls won’t be gone forever – but the current lives of all these people WILL most assuredly end once Origin reboots. So when Ghondor back in Chapter 5 claimed that the Ouroboros would “Kill the Now”, she was 100% right – and Mio’s heartfelt insistence that she would NEVER kill something like the new life she had earlier seen be brought into the world turned out to be a Lie. That baby we saw at the beginning of Chapter 5, she’s gone, as are her parents.
Now, I’m NOT saying that defeating Moebius, rebooting Origin and destroying Aionios is wrong, far from it. From the beginning of this writeup, I’ve made a point of talking about how much life in Aionios sucks, and what a bleak, broken world it fundamentally is. The problem is with how it’s all handled – first of all, after Chapter 6 took such an optimistic turn, at times bordering on outright wish fulfillment (exemplified by some of the new Hero characters you gain access to), we are now in Chapter 7 suddenly faced with an ending far more tragic than anything from past Xenoblade games, and it just feels very sudden and jarring.
Much worse still, this tragedy is at no point fully acknowledged or adequately grappled with. Sure, it spooks our party when they first learn that completing their mission will end Aionios (and there’s also the danger of Origin’s reboot NOT being successful, the very fear and uncertainty that leads Z to prefer his Endless Now), but it doesn’t truly shake their convictions…but really, it kinda should. And if not the 6 main party members, then shouldn’t at least SOME of the Hero characters find this new information a dealbreaker? Keep in mind, except for Nia, Melia and (apparently) Riku, all the characters in this game don’t know anything other than Aionios – and yet they’re so ready to destroy it and end the lives they know, lose all the memories they’ve accumulated? I don’t buy it.
Most egregious is characters associated with *the City* not objecting to any of this. The Keves and Agnus soldiers, sure, I could see why they’d be ready to take their chances on an unknown future, given just how shit their regular lives are designed to be. But the City characters…these are people who enjoy normal, full human lifespans, and who live in relative freedom and safety, especially if they keep their heads low and don’t try to fight Moebius, like the Conservative faction advocates. How does it make sense for the City people to be okay with losing EVERYTHING just for a *chance* to later be reborn in another world? It really doesn’t, and in the end it seems like Monica and Ghondor (who know the consequences of Ouroboros succeeding and are at peace with it) just kept the other City residents in the dark and unilaterally decided to Shoah their own people. Again, in the grand scheme of things this IS the morally correct decision (sacrificing one broken, artificial universe so that two healthy universes can go back to existing), but for Monica the City Elder to act like she does surely seems unconscionable from the perspective of any normal City person.
And again, the game simply doesn’t own up to the sheer destructive scope and *tragedy* of its ending, instead acting like the real heartbreaker is our party characters being separated, possibly forever – which is sad, sure, but portraying this as the worst consequence of Origin rebooting is just such a bad case of Protagonist-Centered Morality that it leaves me shaking my head. At the very least there should have been a Hero Quest revolving around a (preferably City-based) Hero temporarily turning against your party after learning about the truth behind Aionios, because what’s even the point of presenting a moral dilemma in your story if all the good guys instantly agree on what to do? Even Attack on Titan did a better job in terms of at least having a few notable named characters support the Rumbling.
Honestly, going over the nature and origins of, well, Origin (and Aionios) in this way wasn’t something I did simply because I felt it important to establish what the world of Xenoblade 3 is, and how it came into existence, but also to explore the various plotholes and contradictions that have been bothering me for almost 2 years, and see if my makeshift timeline actually makes some amount of sense. And I have to say, for all my problems with the game’s backstory, going over it like this really did give me a better sense of what Monolith Soft was going for, and makes it clear to me that the various plot points fit together a lot better than I originally gave them credit for.
Let me put it like this: I have no problems with a game leaving a few questions unanswered, hell, they can be fun and compelling mysteries that keep the story alive in your mind long after it’s over. However, too many unanswered questions can be ruinous – at that point you’re not left with just a few missing puzzle pieces, the entire story is basically one big, messy, unfinished puzzle, and what’s worse, a lot of the remaining pieces just don’t seem to fit anywhere. I still somewhat feel this way about Xenoblade 3’s story, or at least its backstory – but I will also admit that after this writeup, I feel that more puzzles pieces have been correctly placed, and that fewer of those pesky impossible-to-place pieces remain. Also, keep in mind, I’ve not actually sought out autistic fan theories attempting to make sense of Xenoblade 3’s backstory and lore, because 1) I wanted to figure this stuff out for myself, and 2) if a story requires outside fan sources or dev interview reveals to make sense, that just proves that the story (as presented in the actual game) just doesn’t really work on its own terms. But despite all that, this genuinely is a story that outside information and confirmations by the developers really could enhance (I DARE Monolith Soft to provide us with a full, official timeline, comparable to what you have in 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim).
Of course, there is also one major, nay, earthshattering implication of what we learn about Xenoblade 3’s backstory: the world of Aionios has to disappear in order for Origin to reboot, and the worlds we know from the prior games to be brought back. For time to again be able to flow, this Moment of Eternity has to finally be brought to an end. In one sense, this is a brilliant twist that makes a ton of sense and has been set up from early on: Both Moebius and the Fake Queens have repeatedly warned that Ouroboros threatens the very world itself, but I always dismissed it as typical self-serving villain lies and propaganda. Similarly, party characters on multiple occasions talking about the world itself being evil was interpreted as just them expressing that Aionios was broken and needed fixing, like previous Xenoblade worlds got fixed. But no - our mission really is to Destroy The World and kill its Architect, so in a very real sense we’ve taken the role of Malos and the Torna crew from Xenoblade 2.
However, there are also major problems with a Destroy The World plot in a game like this one, both in terms of concept and execution. Conceptually, having to essentially erase a gigantic world you’ve potentially spent hundreds of hours in arguably undermines everything that came before and leaves something of a sour taste, making you question if what you did even had a point. No, not your actions in the main story obviously, which will end up being extremely impactful – even if nobody end up remembering what really happened, the Ouroboros will have freed two worlds and liberated all the souls in Origin. But what about everything you do in the sidequests – freeing colonies, helping individual characters mature and grow, bringing people together etc? What does any of that matter if Aionios will just disappear and these characters will all return to their old lives, with no memories of the two worlds in a merged state?
I guess you could argue that the kind of personal growth the friendly NPCs and Hero characters undergo, and the kindness that you show them, is something they will somehow take with them, as their souls will remember even if the brains of their current bodies don’t – but it’s still not all that satisfying to me. And this just covers the soldier characters – by far the bigger problem has to do with City characters, the ones born free. These are all NEW souls, not housed in Origin, instead coming into existence within Aionios. So what happens to them?
The game *does* hint at an answer, which Monolith Soft themselves have later clarified: All the people born inside Aionios will disappear – but they will be able to eventually be born in that of the two worlds in which they belong (Monica and Ghondor for example are Agnus-aligned, as shown by their Arts, while Gray is closer to Keves). As such, their souls won’t be gone forever – but the current lives of all these people WILL most assuredly end once Origin reboots. So when Ghondor back in Chapter 5 claimed that the Ouroboros would “Kill the Now”, she was 100% right – and Mio’s heartfelt insistence that she would NEVER kill something like the new life she had earlier seen be brought into the world turned out to be a Lie. That baby we saw at the beginning of Chapter 5, she’s gone, as are her parents.
Now, I’m NOT saying that defeating Moebius, rebooting Origin and destroying Aionios is wrong, far from it. From the beginning of this writeup, I’ve made a point of talking about how much life in Aionios sucks, and what a bleak, broken world it fundamentally is. The problem is with how it’s all handled – first of all, after Chapter 6 took such an optimistic turn, at times bordering on outright wish fulfillment (exemplified by some of the new Hero characters you gain access to), we are now in Chapter 7 suddenly faced with an ending far more tragic than anything from past Xenoblade games, and it just feels very sudden and jarring.
Much worse still, this tragedy is at no point fully acknowledged or adequately grappled with. Sure, it spooks our party when they first learn that completing their mission will end Aionios (and there’s also the danger of Origin’s reboot NOT being successful, the very fear and uncertainty that leads Z to prefer his Endless Now), but it doesn’t truly shake their convictions…but really, it kinda should. And if not the 6 main party members, then shouldn’t at least SOME of the Hero characters find this new information a dealbreaker? Keep in mind, except for Nia, Melia and (apparently) Riku, all the characters in this game don’t know anything other than Aionios – and yet they’re so ready to destroy it and end the lives they know, lose all the memories they’ve accumulated? I don’t buy it.
Most egregious is characters associated with *the City* not objecting to any of this. The Keves and Agnus soldiers, sure, I could see why they’d be ready to take their chances on an unknown future, given just how shit their regular lives are designed to be. But the City characters…these are people who enjoy normal, full human lifespans, and who live in relative freedom and safety, especially if they keep their heads low and don’t try to fight Moebius, like the Conservative faction advocates. How does it make sense for the City people to be okay with losing EVERYTHING just for a *chance* to later be reborn in another world? It really doesn’t, and in the end it seems like Monica and Ghondor (who know the consequences of Ouroboros succeeding and are at peace with it) just kept the other City residents in the dark and unilaterally decided to Shoah their own people. Again, in the grand scheme of things this IS the morally correct decision (sacrificing one broken, artificial universe so that two healthy universes can go back to existing), but for Monica the City Elder to act like she does surely seems unconscionable from the perspective of any normal City person.
And again, the game simply doesn’t own up to the sheer destructive scope and *tragedy* of its ending, instead acting like the real heartbreaker is our party characters being separated, possibly forever – which is sad, sure, but portraying this as the worst consequence of Origin rebooting is just such a bad case of Protagonist-Centered Morality that it leaves me shaking my head. At the very least there should have been a Hero Quest revolving around a (preferably City-based) Hero temporarily turning against your party after learning about the truth behind Aionios, because what’s even the point of presenting a moral dilemma in your story if all the good guys instantly agree on what to do? Even Attack on Titan did a better job in terms of at least having a few notable named characters support the Rumbling.