The Eternal Now: Manipulation, Violence, and Coercion in Xenoblade Chronicles 3
For reference, parts 1 and 2 can be found at the following links:
Part 1: https://www.phenomenagaming.com/blog/war-and-the-limits-of-knowledge-xenoblade-chronicles-3-part-1
Part 2: https://www.phenomenagaming.com/blog/why-is-this-person-here-xenoblade-chronicles-3-part-2
Warning: Heavy Spoilers for the end of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 are forthcoming! If you have not beaten Xenoblade Chronicles 3, please know this post will have spoilers!
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is a very full and engaging game. This final entry will look at how fears and fear of losing good things creates trauma responses with Zed and the other Moebius. We will explore how one Moebius, Triton, overcomes the cruelty of the world Zed created and explore how the final encounter with Zed shows the dangers of someone who feel justified in procuring and actively causing suffering for others.
Time is a capricious and challenging entity. Its flow goes too fast when life is joyous and too slow when life is painful. I know a great desire is to have a freeze frame when I have a happy moment to really get more time in which to enjoy it. However, that is just not possible and I have had to learn how to have a good grounding through my own meditative and reflective practices to find joy and connection more consistently. This reality is deeply hard for many people, particularly those who have suffered greatly. The slow grind of time and suffering makes the happy moments all too rare, fleeting, and harder to feel. Trauma effects our ability to process all experiences and creates survival instincts even after people escape, overcome, and journey through their abuse. There are a good number of people who seek power and control and will abuse others. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 gives a great backdrop to explore this concept, particularly looking at the end game, when the team figures out the reason their world is the way it is.
Who are the Moebius?
Moebius are people who are picked from humanity to rule over the frozen world, Aionios. Zed is created as the first Moebius when the Queen of Keves and the Queen of Agnus decide to freeze the world. All of the other people who were picked to become Moebius had severe trauma and Zed promised to give them power and immortality in order to keep his system going, for example: The clones of Noah (N) and Mio (M) are Moebius who had a short tragic love as humans and they wanted to continue that love in the next life. After failing repeatedly to end Moebius, they join Moebius to stop the fighting. Joran (J) is a young man who was bullied throughout his childhood and when he died sought the power of a Moebius to overcome his insecurities. Zed himself is trying to prevent two worlds from collapsing into each other and lives a life of sacrificing people to empower this frozen state of time, what he calls “the eternal now”. People who become Moebius accept power and immortality as a trauma response to overcome their own burdens while at the same time becoming hardened to the suffering of others.
Most Moebius are consuls for a particular colony and seek to rule the colony by arranging battles, collecting ether from the flame clocks, and punishing dissent. The rule of most Moebius is harsh. One Moebius destroys his colony once it reaches the top rank. Another neglects his colony for long periods while they are starving without the delivery of resources from the castle. In addition to coordinating battles with each other to collect ether, their individual cruelty is something which resounds again and again through the playthrough of Xenoblade Chronicles 3.
Triton as Sign of Resistance
The one exception to the cruelty of the Moebius is Triton, a Moebius who ends up joining the party. He is a jovial man who is bored of ruling and has given a lot of autonomy to his colony to function as their own. He is also tired of being a Moebius and wishes he could pass on as he has been a Moebius for hundreds of years. He allows the party to destroy the flame clock in his colony to enable his citizens to be free.
In systems which are cruel, there are sometimes exceptions to the norms of society. Those exceptions are often key to dismantling unjust systems because they are aware of the inner workings of the system. Triton in his hero quest, gives the party a lot to digest by reflecting on his own feelings about immortality and interactions with other Moebius. He never does anything actively against the Moebius, but having a Moebius discuss his displeasure about the state of immortality and the flame clock system is a boost for the heroes looking to make the world right. Triton is a good example of passive resistance where he has not confronted the Moebius or Zed about the condition of the world, but is still sympathetic and engaged with people interested in making that change. He becomes active resistance when he joins the party after his hero quest.
The Final Encounter
After destroying the flame clocks for many colonies, the team decides it is time to go to the Moebius’ lair and stop the cycle once and for all. What they find there is disturbing. They find Zed watching a movie screen where he watches the key moments of Noah’s life on the screen. For me, this was disturbing because it was a final encounter seeing the main villain in his natural state, watching movies of the real world and people suffering and feeling nothing from it. When people can manipulate, coerce, and empower large-scale violence with a feeling of justification or flat emotion, that is frightening because it means there is no cure and the only recourse is intervention.
Interventions against people who are causing grievous suffering are intense and the final Boss fight with its 5 parts is no different. People of an abused world come together for a final intervention in Xenoblade Chronicles 3. Abuse is frightening. It is frightening to be a victim and frightening to see abusers act normal in public and cause deep pain in the shadows. It is frightening when abusers are empowered to make their own world in which they trap their victims and frightening that true interventions which help people become safe are so few and far between. The heroes of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 suffered greatly to overcome their abuse and invite people along the way to a different life. The hardest part of the journey often comes at the end, when people have to figure what’s next after getting out of an abusive situation. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 has the heroes separate and go back to their respective homeworlds so there is also a separation which permeates and adds additional trauma. How do you build the next step of life when so much energy goes into overcoming a system of abuse? Unfortunately, the answer is not always clear and takes time to redefine. That’s the challenge with stories that have to end, like a video game, the next step is always left to the imagination.
The next article will be a brief discussion of the values of Phenomena Gaming and then moving into Nier Replicant.
