Oddbean

At the end of Xenoblade 3 Future Redeemed, Matthew confronts his sister Na'el to try and stop her from leaving their world behind for a new one. He tells her that what she's talking about doing would make her the same as Moebius. I think this is one of the most important lines in the entire game, and one that really helps explain what exactly Moebius is supposed to represent. On my first playthrough, I must confess, I just took this line literally. I thought he was equating Na'el's desire to create a new world, with Moebius' desire to remain in the now. A somewhat generic "this makes us as bad as the bad guys" kind of trope. To give myself some credit though, there was so much else in this scene that grabbed my attention, that I didn't even have time to think about lines like this. Those of you who played the game will know exactly what I mean. But, anyway... To really understand the meaning behind this line, we first need to understand Moebius as presented in the main game. In my opinion, Moebius is one of the most misunderstood villains of the entire franchise. And yes, I am referring to Moebius as a singular entity, rather than a group as they do in the game. I have my reasons for this, which I will explain as I go. In Xenoblade 3, Moebius is portrayed as this intense desire that some people have that causes them to wish for time to stop. An unreasonable attachment to the now. Basically, Moebius is the inability to move on. That's why I've been referring to Moebius using singular verbiage. As it's not really a group, it's an emotion. A desire. Those who "become Moebius" have succumbed to those desires completely, and have been transformed into beings who can never move forward. Cursed by this static existence, they have no choice but to defend the now with their very lives. As any attempt to bring about change will result in them ceasing to exist. No other character provides us a better example of this than N. The main antagonist of the game, and Noah's other half. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that Noah is N's other half. Just as Grahf from Xenogears is the manifestation of Lacan's anger, Noah is the manifestation of N's regret. N is shown to have such strong emotions, that it causes him to be reincarnated multiple times across multiple generations. When he becomes Moebius, he is said to be the strongest second only to Z himself. His feelings are so intense, so focused, that he doesn't even hesitate to cut down his own flesh and blood if they pose a threat to his endless now. Or at least, that's how it would seem at first. The reality of it is that for as strong as N's emotions are, his regrets are even stronger still. For every action that N takes to preserve the now, he must purge all those regrets from his mind, and focus on that one singular goal. It's this repression of emotions that eventually coalesces into the main character Noah, who, at the end of the main game, confronts N. Unable to overpower and repress his regrets any longer, N is defeated by his other half, Noah. It is in this moment that we see the true nature of N, and indeed of Moebius itself. Because Moebius is not a person, or a group. It is not the desire or the will to do evil. Moebius is a feeling that we all share. Each and every one of us. We all have times where we wish things would never change. Times where moving on seems like the most painful thing in the world. Where we wish we could just go back to the way things were, and stay there forever. And knowing that, there's no way we could possibly judge N for doing what he did. If anything, we now sympathize with the character. As a victim who was driven by tragedy to do horrible, horrible things. A big trope in the Xeno series has always been the reasonable person driven to do unreasonable things. Krelian, Grahf, the testaments, Margulis, Egil, Jin. But I think N is the best out of all of them. With all of this in mind, we can now return to the original point of this post. When Matthew tells Na'el that what she's doing will make her exactly the same as Moebius, he isn't referring to her being evil. He isn't saying that wishing for a new world is somehow equivalent to wishing for the world to remain the same. What he means is that she's letting her desires overwhelm her. And that, just like Moebius, those desires are being used as excuses for her to do unreasonable things. Thanks for reading this long, rambly post. Xenoblade 3 is an amazing game full of stuff I want to talk about. If you haven't played it yet, I highly recommend you check it out. https://fedi.treeoflifecomic.com/media/5dc5f754f1ccb2418d6374b904cf28f181d7dad778597d0ef52a2bea30c44743.png