Also, I wanted to split talking about Torna Org and Blade's rights to a different comment because oh boy I have a lot of feelings about Blade Personhood and I think Xenoblade 3 making all Agnians part Blade was... well, on the one hand it was pretty much the only way to deal with how the lore around Blades was set up, and I'm glad they didn't just completely abandon the streak of considering Blade personhood a thing, but at the same time... in the lore... Blades are literally self-aware computer programs, and I don't think Monosoft realised that they wrote a story about AI rights, because Blades are also supposed to be an angel allegory, making flesh eaters a fallen angel allegory.
Like... going full geth and granting every Blade a full ability to self-determine? Probably the best way to address the fact that even in-game it's not clear whether or not and to what degree any individual Blade is capable of self-determination. The fact that their personalities do not stay consistent between when various Drivers use them points to Blades like Jin, Brighid, Pandoria and the Torna flesh eaters who are fully self-aware being in the minority, especially since we don't know if forcing a Blade to become a flesh eater forcibly causes them to become self-aware, also. It makes sense for older, more unique Blades, to have developed stronger personalities, but how that relates to them developing self-awareness rather than following their programming to gather, refine and reproduce data is very unclear, and further obscured by the Blades most fervently discussing their right to self-determine being, like... the elite of the elite.
It's just all really messy, the most charitable interpretation is that since every Blade has the potential to grow into a Jin or a Nia, they all should be granted the individual rights to foster the ability to grow. This would also be consistent with the themes of... I guess mentorship? I don't want to say parenthood because I don't think the majority of Blade-Driver relationship make sense interpreted through that lens, but the implication clearly is that Blades grow into the versions of themselves through continued influence from their Drivers over the various, and by extension not all Blades are or want to exist independent of Drivers. Because, y'know. They're angels. They're servants of God meant to guide and assist humanity and also be the armies that God does battle with.
All in all I want to say I also think Torna Org was wasted, everything around them was incoherent, their plans seemed to pivot on a whim and they also seemed to have no respect for the personhood of their fellow Blades... while at the same time making perfect sense in their initial professed goals which weren't followed up on because Monosoft couldn't stand our heroes actually being wrong about anything ever >_>)
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Re: (This is gonna be a wholeass essay lmao)
Date: 2023-07-16 04:08 pm (UTC)From:Also, I wanted to split talking about Torna Org and Blade's rights to a different comment because oh boy I have a lot of feelings about Blade Personhood and I think Xenoblade 3 making all Agnians part Blade was... well, on the one hand it was pretty much the only way to deal with how the lore around Blades was set up, and I'm glad they didn't just completely abandon the streak of considering Blade personhood a thing, but at the same time... in the lore... Blades are literally self-aware computer programs, and I don't think Monosoft realised that they wrote a story about AI rights, because Blades are also supposed to be an angel allegory, making flesh eaters a fallen angel allegory.
Like... going full geth and granting every Blade a full ability to self-determine? Probably the best way to address the fact that even in-game it's not clear whether or not and to what degree any individual Blade is capable of self-determination. The fact that their personalities do not stay consistent between when various Drivers use them points to Blades like Jin, Brighid, Pandoria and the Torna flesh eaters who are fully self-aware being in the minority, especially since we don't know if forcing a Blade to become a flesh eater forcibly causes them to become self-aware, also. It makes sense for older, more unique Blades, to have developed stronger personalities, but how that relates to them developing self-awareness rather than following their programming to gather, refine and reproduce data is very unclear, and further obscured by the Blades most fervently discussing their right to self-determine being, like... the elite of the elite.
It's just all really messy, the most charitable interpretation is that since every Blade has the potential to grow into a Jin or a Nia, they all should be granted the individual rights to foster the ability to grow. This would also be consistent with the themes of... I guess mentorship? I don't want to say parenthood because I don't think the majority of Blade-Driver relationship make sense interpreted through that lens, but the implication clearly is that Blades grow into the versions of themselves through continued influence from their Drivers over the various, and by extension not all Blades are or want to exist independent of Drivers. Because, y'know. They're angels. They're servants of God meant to guide and assist humanity and also be the armies that God does battle with.
All in all I want to say I also think Torna Org was wasted, everything around them was incoherent, their plans seemed to pivot on a whim and they also seemed to have no respect for the personhood of their fellow Blades... while at the same time making perfect sense in their initial professed goals which weren't followed up on because Monosoft couldn't stand our heroes actually being wrong about anything ever >_>)