Full Future Redeemed and Xeno series spoilers.
Interesting that A and Alpha’s conflict kind of mirrors that of Pneuma and Logos (Pyra/Mythra and Malos). A embodies Alvis’ humanity built through their journeys first with Shulk and now with Matthew. Those experiences embue them with a compassion for humanity that makes them fight in defence of it. Kind of like how Pyra and Mythra found something new to live for and used that as a drive to confront Malos.
Malos and Alpha act on a cold nihilistic sense of pragmatism inherited from their human masters, that makes them dismissive of humankind and wish to erase them. It even works in a naming sense as ‘Pneuma’ translates to ‘breath’ and in philosophical terms means ‘the breath of life’ or the concept of a soul or a spark of humanity. While ‘Logos’ literally means word or thought. One acts out of the compassion of their soul. The other acts out of the cold logic of their mind.
That’s without even getting into how Logos and Pneuma embody the animus/anima dichotomy that exists in every single Xeno game and has roots in both Jung and Plato (disclaimer I only have a layman’s knowledge of this philosophy so please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong) Every Xeno game has had characters who embody opposites, usually aligned as masculine and feminine respectively. Fei and Elly, the Contact and the Antitype both tied to the Zohar and to each other, and whose union finally freed it. KOS-MOS and chaos. embodying the order and unraveling of the universe respectively. Hell their powers are even explicitly called Animus and Anima, with chaos wielding the typically feminine Anima and KOS-MOS the more commonly masculine Animus, reflecting the concept of blurring the binary of these gendered concepts, that everyone has a little bit of both in them and that it’s proper and healthy to foster the two within you to become a more well rounded person. That’s why the harmony of Fei and Elly is important. The Animus and the Anima need each other, and if there is strife between them, all hell breaks loose.
It comes up in the Xenoblade games as well. The fraught conflict and lack of harmony between the god Zanza and the goddess Meyneth drives the Bionis and Mechonis to the brink of ruin, while the harmony between their vessels, Shulk and Fiora, is what paves the way for a new kinder world order. Come to think of it, Shulk and Fiora are themselves sort of a Logos and Pneuma respectively. Shulk is driven by thought and action. His defining trait is his intelligence and he showed the resolve and insight to take down god himself. Fiora is the soul, the breath of life, defined by her innocence and courageous spirit, who shared her soul with a god and learned to empathise with her, coming to understand the very nature of the universe as a result, and using that kindness to drive her forward. And as mentioned previously, Logos and Pneuma’s conflict in Xenoblade 2 also embodies this Animus/Anima divide. And that same sense of achieving unity and harmony with another person is embodied by the Ouroborous in Xenoblade 3. Humans need each other. We need people with different lives, different perspectives, different natures, in order to be whole. And the Ouroboros makes that literal.
Future Redeemed makes this divide explicit by pointing out that Logos is masculine, Pneuma is feminine, and Ontos exists between. Drawing attention to the gender motif just makes that more obvious. That being said, A and Alpha’s nonbinary swag kind of puts a neat new spin on a recurring motif of the series. Because they aren’t explicitly male or female even if they embody the same dichotomy. Even when these characters exist outside a gender binary, the philosophical concepts of discord or harmony between opposites still applies.
All this to say that Future Redeemed’s climax is deliberately evocative of the climaxes of Xenoblade 2 (by mirroring Pneuma and Logos this way), Xenoblade 1 (with Alpha styling themselves visually and musically after Zanza) and evokes motifs found throughout the wider Xeno series. I’ve said before that 3 does this to an extent with Z and Origin mirroring past antagonists, but Future Redeemed goes all in on it.
Why? Perhaps because it ties into Xenoblade 3’s theme of cycles, and making the same mistakes. The endless now is the embodiment of being arrested in a single a moment, a single mindset, the refusal to change, with N being the most hellish portrayal of what that can do to someone. Ultimately breaking those cycles is the only way to overcome Moebius and move forward. It’s literally a stagnant, ever looping circle (right down to its symbol). The same fight as in the previous games plays out in this prequel yet again in order to show that nothing has really changed. At least not yet. Aionios isn’t ready to make that step. They’re not ready to move beyond the same mistakes. Just look at Na’el and how close she came to repeating Klaus’ mistake: putting a faith in an unknowable entity, playing god and and discarding the old world in place of a new one. Like Malos once said, ‘they haven’t changed’. The people may not be ready right now. But by the time the main game starts, they will be.
So yeah, I guess Future Redeemed being the nostalgia fest it is makes it a perfect meta textual companion to Xenoblade 3. It wallows in the past in a way that is nostalgic, comforting but show us what needs to change while also warning us not to discard the past entirely. It’s a comforting reminder of your roots while still making it clear that eventually it will be time to move on. Xenoblade 3 then acts as a story about moving on, learning from the past, overcoming old traumas, and using that experience to move forward into new horizons. All while using the trappings of the old games not to be nostalgic, but as a springboard to tell a new story.
My word, I can’t express how much these games mean to me. Also yes, feel free to make a joke about how many of the games I’ve loved recently have been about people being trapped in cycles and metaphorically going round in circles.
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Imagine Gale as a talented and impressive young man, able to compose the Weave at will, skilled in a way that few can match, and favored by the Goddess of Magic herself. Imagine that because of these accomplishments, he’s caught the eye of a few up-and-coming magic adepts, and he falls in love with one of them—his first real love. Gale isn’t one to toss the ‘L’ word around lightly, so when he tells them he loves them, he means it; he gives himself over to them completely.
And in return, they love him for his potential. For his status. For the magic he can command. They love the wizard they see on the surface, but not the man underneath. They are attracted to his power, but not to him.
So of course the relationship fails, after the thrill of his magic wears off. But because Gale is a resilient young man and he’s caught the eye of so many, he soon falls in love with another.
And then it happens again. And again.
And each time Gale’s heart is ravaged, his ambition to become a better wizard grows, because he’s being shown time and time again that his magic ability is all that matters.
So much so that, by the time Mystra decides to elevate him from Favored to Chosen to Lover, he welcomes her with eager, desperate arms. Because if all his worth is in his magic, and that’s all he has to offer, and that’s all anyone wants from him, who better to love him than the Goddess of Magic herself?
Except…there’s a nagging voice in the back of his head that whispers she doesn’t really love him. There’s anxiety in his heart as time passes, and he reaches both the limit of what his talents can do and what Mystra will allow him to do. And most troubling of all: a growing panic that, just like his other lovers, she will soon grow tired of him and discard him if he can’t improve his magic any further.
He tries pouting, and pleading, and begging her to let him take more power, to let him be more for her, but she refuses. Smiles patronizingly. Tells him to be patient. But Gale can’t be patient when his power is tied so closely to his self-worth; he can’t be patient when doing so in the past has only ever lead to heartache.
So he does what he believes will be a Grand Romantic Gesture, one that will finally put him on equal footing with the woman he loves. Instead, it turns out to be a folly that dooms him and destroys his talents. And just as he’d always feared, Mystra tosses him aside the moment his magical gifts are gone—because what’s left of him holds no value for her.
————
Imagine Gale in his tower, alone, afraid, the ever-hungry orb in his chest, with only his tressym there to help him. No other friends to speak of. His colleagues forced to keep away for their own safety. His magical talents utterly stripped down, so that even when he does try and distract himself with illusions, he’s bitterly reminded of what he used to be capable of. Waking every morning wondering if it will be his last, ending every day full of loneliness and disappointment.
…and then he meets Tav.
At the lowest point in his life, at his most vulnerable, when he knows he’s going to be considered a burden, he meets this stranger and their group. So he does what he can to be useful—assigning himself to be camp cook, offering up his (now meager) magic skills, turning the charm up to 11—as he desperately hopes this will somehow work out. He’s pleasantly surprised when, after providing only minor details of his condition, Tav agrees to help him. He’s even more surprised when they actually follow through.
Imagine how Gale feels as Tav treats him kindly. As he grows to trust Tav, and then grows to like them. Imagine his surprise as he opens up and shows them more and more of himself, and they don’t turn him away.
But then his condition worsens. And he has to reveal everything: the foolish mistakes he’s made, and how dangerous he is as a result. He clings to Tav’s hand as he shows them his folly. He’s at their mercy now, and he knows this might be the last time he’ll ever feel the touch of another being, if they decide—and Gods, why wouldn’t they decide?—to cast him out.
…but they don’t. They don’t. Instead, they tell him to stay.
Imagine the relief Gale feels. The gratitude. And perhaps…just a hint of something more. Something that he dare not name, but that flares to life every time he thinks of how warm their hand was in his. Something that feels dangerously close to jealousy, when he’s had too much to drink and sees Tav smiling at another…
But he knows these are all foolish thoughts, because he has nothing to offer Tav. They are wonderful just as they are, but he…he is an empty shell of a man, a discarded husk of a wizard, and while they might tolerate him, he could never believe they might actually want him.
And besides, he still thinks of Mystra. He still longs for Mystra. She who cast him out, but to whom he still feels tethered. Sometimes he needs to cocoon himself in the weave, just to try and calm his fears and bring some joy back to his life, because magic is his life. And sometimes he just needs to see her face, even though that hurts as much as it heals.
One night he’s lost in thought, having conjured Mysta’s image after settling down at camp. Thinking that even if she hadn’t ‘loved’ him—certainly not in the way he’d loved her—she’d given him enough otherwise, hadn’t she? She’d amused him and been amused by him, they’d shared countless pleasures, why hadn’t he been satisfied with that?
Gale is so lost in thought he doesn’t realize Tav has come up behind him. Until they ask a question, startling him out of his trance. He’s a bit shaken, so he tries to turn the conversation from Mystra to the weave itself. And then a wonderful idea occurs to him, something that he’d been toying with already: what if they were to conjure the weave together?
He can show Tav how important magic is to him, let them experience what he does, perhaps even impress them a bit. But most importantly, share a moment with them. As friends would do…
He’s elated when Tav agrees. He leads them through the steps effortlessly, and they’re a surprisingly good student, following his instructions correctly (if a bit clumsily). He’s as excited as they are—perhaps even more so!—when they succeed in channeling the weave.
It’s such a pleasant, familiar feeling for him, like coming home to his tower in Waterdeep. Even as the weave connects him with Tav and makes them one, he’s easily able to hide his innermost thoughts, because he’s done it so many times before.
…but he’s forgotten that Tav has not.
————
Imagine Gale knowing every romantic partner he ever had only wanted him because of how he could raise their status, or how he could amuse them, or how he could command magic for them. And, each time, he was happy to oblige them, even desperate to oblige them, because if that was the price of their love, then he was sure it would be worth it.
But it still all came to nothing.
Now imagine Gale connected in an intimate way with someone he likes very, very much—while being what he considers his lowest, most worthless, and most humbled self. As far from the powerful, impressive wizard he once was as he could ever be. And suddenly a vision enters his mind from the lovely creature standing next to him. Only, to his complete and utter shock, it isn’t one where he is providing them with a service, or wowing them with his magical ability, or granting them some kind of power from one of the spells he commands.
Instead, when he sees their desire laid bare before him, it’s a vision of kissing him. Of holding his hand. The two most basic forms of affection and physical connection. The two things that he would still be able to offer them even if every last ounce of his remaining magical abilities were stripped from him. The two things he could share with them even if he was no longer Gale of Waterdeep, and just plain old Gale Dekarios instead.
Imagine the embarrassment and trepidation he feels at first, because surely he is mistaken?…and then the elation when he realizes that he is not. So much elation that his concentration is broken, the weave dissipating as he forgets about channeling it, as he forgets about Mystra. Because all that matters to him now is the image before him—the most pleasant and welcome image he’s seen in a very, very long time.
Imagine how that would feel…and how besotted, enamored and completely devoted he’d be to Tav afterwards. To know that someone finally—finally—just wants him.
Just imagine.
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