I'll guess I'll do all of them, on the obligation that you tell me yours also :'DD but man, I'm gonna try to get the absolutely most depressing "look at how they massacred my boy" out of the way first, and get to the ones I think were done good and need less rewriting.
The absolute pits of it -- my favourite characters in Xenoblade 2 were Mytra and Malos TvT) Malos, at least, honestly just suffered from being the Designated Villain, but to this day I think it's fucking stupid that Rex' powers of friendship didn't work on him, and that Aeon was supposed to be Pyra's and Mythra's Artifice entirely when it's so clearly coded to be Pneuma's and Logos' Artifice, being white and green and black and magenta, to be used jointly by the two Aegises rendering judgement on the world. His death is to this day the writing decision I think was most stupid, and the way both Torna and even Future Redeemed went on to spit on him really just shows to me that Monosoft never saw him as the same character he reads to me like. I love how impulsive, emotional and distraught he is, I love the mask of arrogance and obsession with power born of him getting the worst deal of all time in a Driver, and if the story just gave him more grace about it he'd be one of my favourite characters of all time. And the worst part is that literally all that needs changing about Xenoblade 2's ending is just... not killing him, and then letting the consequences of that roll through the ending. It even fixes the problem of Pyra and Mythra Pneuma popping back into existence -- Logos deciding he doesn't want his beloved sister to suffer the consequences of his foolishness, and sacrificing himself like the thematic Jesus he is.
Speaking of Mythra!! God she got fucked over by how Monosoft thinks it's evil for women to be choleric and un-wifely. The biggest reason I resent Torna is that the plot is obsessed with punishing Mythra for being obsessed with victory and strength because those are the traits she inherited from Addam and he's too much of a chickenshit loser to embrace his own hunger for power. It fucking sucks. It sucks that Mythra is not allowed to exist as a no-nonsense all-business warrior who both delights in her strenght and fears the consequences of existing as a weapon. I also famously hate the choice to separate Pyra and Mythra out into individuals in the ending, but I think Mythra is done worse by it -- the whole point of Pyra is that she's all the tenderness and care Mythra couldn't bring herself to show to the world because she needed to be a weapon, and that the two of them uniting into their true self is a satisfying narrative arc both for Pyra, who was always deeply uncomfortable with her powers, and Mythra, who didn't want to exist as a person because it conflicted with her duties. She was loved whole by Rex. That was the entire point, and somehow Monosoft missed the point of the character arc they wrote
AAaaaaaaaaugh.
Anyway! Onto less disappointing things! Eunie and Taion are my favourite Ouroboros, and I think they're also straight-up the best-written characters in the game -- largely because they get least screwed by the second half of the story. Taion is only slightly less screwed than Sena in the sidestory department, but that doesn't take away from the fact that his interactions with the rest of the team are some of the strongest ones. I also just... fucking love people where the relationship status is effectively "dying by the bit". I love them and need them to kiss forever. I want nothing as much as them to have the chance to bicker with their soulmate until the end of time. Words cannot describe how much my ideal Xenoblade 3 fic is just the two of them arguing for the sake of arguing while holding hands about it.
HOWEVER! My favourite character in Xenoblade 3 by a comically large margin is Isurd. Truly, I cannot describe how much of my fannish headspace is just me obsessing over this One Guy, and it's entirely because they sneak some of the most Batshit Implications for the war part of this war story into his backstory and what little plot content we get for him outside of the mandatory main story stuff. And I love the main plot stuff, don't get me wrong -- the game's existence is justified to me entirely for that moment after the Lambda battle where Taion lies to Isurd's face about what happened and he just looks at Taion like ":/", clearly immediately clocking that it's bullshit. But, like, I am obsessed entirely because the more I thought about him, the more I realised that his affinity quest is literally the most normal he ever acts about anything, and he is delightfully weird in that one, also. He is the most understatedly strange person in the whole cast, and I have and I will write whole entire essays on just him.
For Xenoblade 1, I do still feel very fondly for Alvis, although that is also now caveated by all of FR being the way that it is -- but my true fave will probably forever be Reyn. He is the quintessential Warlike Puppydog, every other warlike puppydog I like is forever living up to him. And, like, everything I like about Reyn, they did more and better with Frye in Xenoblade X, so while playing that game I was like welp, lmao. Frye Christoph is the reason I joke about Xenoblade giving me a thing for blondes, I have never been so fucking socked in the jaw by the realisation that I have a type :'D
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(This is gonna be a wholeass essay lmao)
Date: 2023-07-15 09:58 pm (UTC)From:I'll guess I'll do all of them, on the obligation that you tell me yours also :'DD but man, I'm gonna try to get the absolutely most depressing "look at how they massacred my boy" out of the way first, and get to the ones I think were done good and need less rewriting.
The absolute pits of it -- my favourite characters in Xenoblade 2 were Mytra and Malos TvT) Malos, at least, honestly just suffered from being the Designated Villain, but to this day I think it's fucking stupid that Rex' powers of friendship didn't work on him, and that Aeon was supposed to be Pyra's and Mythra's Artifice entirely when it's so clearly coded to be Pneuma's and Logos' Artifice, being white and green and black and magenta, to be used jointly by the two Aegises rendering judgement on the world. His death is to this day the writing decision I think was most stupid, and the way both Torna and even Future Redeemed went on to spit on him really just shows to me that Monosoft never saw him as the same character he reads to me like. I love how impulsive, emotional and distraught he is, I love the mask of arrogance and obsession with power born of him getting the worst deal of all time in a Driver, and if the story just gave him more grace about it he'd be one of my favourite characters of all time. And the worst part is that literally all that needs changing about Xenoblade 2's ending is just... not killing him, and then letting the consequences of that roll through the ending. It even fixes the problem of
Pyra and MythraPneuma popping back into existence -- Logos deciding he doesn't want his beloved sister to suffer the consequences of his foolishness, and sacrificing himself like the thematic Jesus he is.Speaking of Mythra!! God she got fucked over by how Monosoft thinks it's evil for women to be choleric and un-wifely. The biggest reason I resent Torna is that the plot is obsessed with punishing Mythra for being obsessed with victory and strength because those are the traits she inherited from Addam and he's too much of a chickenshit loser to embrace his own hunger for power. It fucking sucks. It sucks that Mythra is not allowed to exist as a no-nonsense all-business warrior who both delights in her strenght and fears the consequences of existing as a weapon. I also famously hate the choice to separate Pyra and Mythra out into individuals in the ending, but I think Mythra is done worse by it -- the whole point of Pyra is that she's all the tenderness and care Mythra couldn't bring herself to show to the world because she needed to be a weapon, and that the two of them uniting into their true self is a satisfying narrative arc both for Pyra, who was always deeply uncomfortable with her powers, and Mythra, who didn't want to exist as a person because it conflicted with her duties. She was loved whole by Rex. That was the entire point, and somehow Monosoft missed the point of the character arc they wrote
AAaaaaaaaaugh.
Anyway! Onto less disappointing things! Eunie and Taion are my favourite Ouroboros, and I think they're also straight-up the best-written characters in the game -- largely because they get least screwed by the second half of the story. Taion is only slightly less screwed than Sena in the sidestory department, but that doesn't take away from the fact that his interactions with the rest of the team are some of the strongest ones. I also just... fucking love people where the relationship status is effectively "dying by the bit". I love them and need them to kiss forever. I want nothing as much as them to have the chance to bicker with their soulmate until the end of time. Words cannot describe how much my ideal Xenoblade 3 fic is just the two of them arguing for the sake of arguing while holding hands about it.
HOWEVER! My favourite character in Xenoblade 3 by a comically large margin is Isurd. Truly, I cannot describe how much of my fannish headspace is just me obsessing over this One Guy, and it's entirely because they sneak some of the most Batshit Implications for the war part of this war story into his backstory and what little plot content we get for him outside of the mandatory main story stuff. And I love the main plot stuff, don't get me wrong -- the game's existence is justified to me entirely for that moment after the Lambda battle where Taion lies to Isurd's face about what happened and he just looks at Taion like ":/", clearly immediately clocking that it's bullshit. But, like, I am obsessed entirely because the more I thought about him, the more I realised that his affinity quest is literally the most normal he ever acts about anything, and he is delightfully weird in that one, also. He is the most understatedly strange person in the whole cast, and I have and I will write whole entire essays on just him.
For Xenoblade 1, I do still feel very fondly for Alvis, although that is also now caveated by all of FR being the way that it is -- but my true fave will probably forever be Reyn. He is the quintessential Warlike Puppydog, every other warlike puppydog I like is forever living up to him. And, like, everything I like about Reyn, they did more and better with Frye in Xenoblade X, so while playing that game I was like welp, lmao. Frye Christoph is the reason I joke about Xenoblade giving me a thing for blondes, I have never been so fucking socked in the jaw by the realisation that I have a type :'D