Xenoblade 1 villains are obsessed with the future, Xenoblade 2 villains are obsessed with the past, and Xenoblade 3 villains are obsessed with the present

For all the time comparing Torna to Ouroboros, I'm surprised you didn't mention that Ouroboros is actively being assisted by an ex-Torna member. She didn't agree with their methods and found their end goal to extreme for her, but she still looked up to Jin and had experienced first-hand the cruelty that led to the organization being formed in the first place. That cruelty was in large part the result of fear of the unknown. People didn't know how to treat people who so blatantly violated the order of the world, so the usual response is to either pretend they don't exist, or make them not exist.

Even outside of Xenoblade 3, Torna as a whole (with Nia) is honestly pretty much a traditional JRPG party in their own right, and even gameplay wise they'd be remarkably well balanced. 5 attackers, 3 defenders, 3 healers, and either 1 or 2 of every element except Light. Even freaking field skills have fantastic coverage among them.

In xc2, Malos (edit: probably Jin, not Malos) literally also says that the reason Torna are fighting is the fact that blades get reborn without any memories of their past lives. They have literally the same goal.

I love when Takahashi tricks us into playing the same games over and over.

I think Shania is meant to be as proof as to why Z exists. A reason Z might exist is because there were people who want the endless now and Shania is one of those people who would rather keep the cycle of rebirth

Not to mention that Jin was literally anti endless now

"In the course of a lifetime, a man will see uncountable meetings and partings. Yet, as your life's candle sputters and dies, whose face is it that rises to greet you? Happy is the man who can sleep, in the comfort of the smile he sees then. No...I don’t wish for "forever". Even just for one moment...It’s enough...if it’s with her."
I mean thats basically what xenoblade 3 is about

Another parallel between the City and Torna: the City took pods from the castle but never awakened them. Just like Torna stole core crystals but never awakened them.

I love how they made Noah's eyes more light showing that he still has that fire to fight while they gave N more darker and lifeless eyes showing that he gave up entirely. its a small detail but I love it.

For me the coolest part of the trilogy and villains is how they represent different answers to the concept of time. Zanza=the future, Torna/Malos=the past and moebius/z=the present.
Each story is about the pitfalls of getting stuck in one of these things and how the party answers that. The xeno series is just so layered and the way takahashi is able to reuse and repackage these themes over and over is just incredible. Man is a genius.
Great video as always

I remember that convo between Rex and Jin about who would fight on even when they were gone, I love how Xeno 3 utilized that concept. Great video

Yeah M isn’t really a villain to begin with since she was unwillingly turned into mobius by Z as the motivational reward for N to wipe out the original city. And while she had the same mobius status as N of managing the other consuls and their colonies (N with keves and M with agnus), she most likely hated doing it.

So what im hearing is we should get egil and malos as dlc heroes

17:14 I REALLY appreciate that Generator Rex reference.

Two things i wanna say... You said that “N died not knowing who the true villain was”, which I strongly disagree with. He was not 'Z's lackey' by the end, hence why his name is just "N" when you fight him in Origin and not "Moebius N". He hated Z, he only did what he was told because he couldn't let go of M and needed her. Once M was gone he had nothing left, and after Noah & Mio talk him down from his emotionally volatile state, he even takes Noah's hand and accepts the future. This is him rejecting Z and realizing he was wrong. So no, N definitely wasn't "Z's Lackey" till his dying breath, and he indeed did have an Egil/Jin moment of realization right before his death.

I would also disagree with M being a double-agent the *entire time*. I think - while at first she was angry at N for what he did - a century or two does a lot to bury one's conscience. It was just that eventually she couldn't do that anymore and became depressed as her Noah changed more and more over time. She wanted to save him from his misery, but he wasn't miserable at first. This was a process. I would say M was only a double agent after a few centuries where she became depressed/suicidal

This is a cool video though and makes a ton of sense, honestly Ouroboros & Torna have very similar ideals when it comes to how the world should be (freed from oppressive control), and the 2/3 ending chapter(s) comparison around 11:53 blew my mind I'd never thought of this until now 😮
Keep up the great work Luxin ✨

Maybe the real sympathetic villains were the friends we killed along the way.🎉

I've had major discussions with my friends about how XC3 is the "Logos Game" even if Malos is dead. The Processors are obviously identifiable with the Christian Trinity: Ontos/Ouisa- Father, Malos- Son, Pneuma- Holy Spirit, but they are just as identifiable with the monomythic "divine triptych" of Creator-Preserver-Destroyer found in multiple traditions around the world (example being the Trimūrti of Hindusim: Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva). Ontos is the Creator, the one who helped Zanza and Mayneth shape their new dimension post-experiment, Pneuma is the Preserver, who sought to protect the world from the ravages of Malos the Destroyer (as Preserver-Destroyers often do, forming their own little dualities within the greater Trinity). The Cores might not be an overt presence in 3, but since we got the "Creation" game and the "Preservation" game the last would logically be the "Destruction" game. And ho boy that's what it is. Noah takes up that torch starting from the cutscene in Maktha where Manana asks the party "So is the World a supervillain? Since it makes everyone do bad things?" and you can see the neurons start to activate inside the boy's head. To him flat out admitting to N and Z that "if the world holds us back, I will end it". To the whole "I'LL TEAR IT ALL DOWN!" every time he draws Lucky 7. I maintain that is is absolutely the Logos=Destroyer game in the trilogy. Which makes sense because Destroyer deities in these paradigms are never represented as flat out "evil", everything the Creator made and the Preserver protected will eventually stagnate and at its proper time need to be destroyed in order to be remade anew. Which dovetails with the opposition of Mobius and the "Endless Now" being a representation of Ur-Stagnation.

Another Egil Parallel I saw was that the "deprive the enemy of their sustenance" plan is literally what Monica and the Lost Number's overall strategy aside from finding/creating Ourobouros and assisting them. The LN would regularly stage raids (like in Side-Story Lanz and the end of chapter 4) to steal cradles and the people inside to weaken their enemy as there would be fewer soldiers fighting and providing life energy to moebeus.

The Noah and Malos pic is canon now.

When you mentioned the idea of Malos fitting in as a Hero? He’s the only Aegis players were never permitted to wield, so it would’ve been really cool if they had included that in a more literal sense (I’m sure you could logic your way through every plot point connecting Noah and the Sword of Origin/End/Infinity-whatever its truly called and eventually wind up at Malos), not to mention you can technically still wield Pyra and Mythra’s Blade and there is literally a Monado skin in the game, so Malos’ sick as all hell cutlass/Monado hybrid would have been sooo good. And hey, you could just give him access to Monado Arts like he used in 2 for the fun of it. A character who would embody both games in so many ways.

Funny how you mentioned that Malos would fight alongside the XC3 party were he in their world, what with the recent rumours of Malos and Noah's V.A's being seen going to the same studio or some such.

It's all coming together...