Characters / Xenoblade Chronicles 3 N

Main Character Index | Ouroboros | Heroes | Inhabitants of Aionios (The Founders) | Moebius (Consul N)

N

Voiced by: Ryohei Arai (Japanese), Harry McEntire (English)

"It is fate. Many have tried, but none have ever managed to escape its flow."

A mysterious masked man renowned as the Golden Consul and leader of all Kevesi Consuls, who resembles Noah.

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• Absurdly Sharp Blade: His sword can slice through the Ouroboros' Interlink forms with frightening ease as he hacks off their limbs in swift succession. This is because the Sword of the End is also made of Origin metal and is in fact the sister sword to Noah's Sword of Origin, if not its Evil Counterpart.
• Always Save the Girl: Z took advantage of his desire to be with his Mio (and his numerous past failures to prevent her death) to get him to join the Moebius.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • His possession of the Sword of the End is one of curiosity to Z considering it's a Cool Sword similar to the Sword of Origin. It's never made clear how or when N got his hands on the blade, though he's shown to have wielded it even before becoming Moebius; during Noah's Flashback Episode of N's origins and sees N bidding his son Ghondor farewell, having reached the end of his lifespan, the Sword of the End is seen at his hip, implying it came into his possession in the life leading up to his eventual recruitment by Z.
  • For that matter, Future Redeemed also very heavily implies but stops short of outright confirming that N's Sword of the End — or rather, its sheathe, has the Logos core of Malos embedded inside of it. Matthew's own Fists of the End, which are implied to have eventually been repurposed as Noah's sheathe for Lucky Seven, are shown to have the Pneuma core of Pyra and Mythra embedded inside them — and when Rex tells A (the Ontos core's latest incarnation) that Pneuma and Logos would approve of Shulk and Rex giving up their lifespans to free their children from Moebius' ten year lifespan, it cuts to both Matthew's gauntlets and N's sword. Not to mention that while both Matthew's gauntlets and Noah's sword glow green when powered up (like Pneuma), N's sword glows purple — the same color as the Logos core, also exhibited by Malos' Monado in 2. And considering N's own parallels to 2's Jin (Malos' closest friend and his second driver), the Logos core finding its way to N may imply that both the core and the Sword of the End are in N's possession because of his similarities to Jin, which the Logos core was drawn to.
• Anti-Hero: His role in Future Redeemed is ultimately this. While he’s still Moebius serving under Z and responsible for the destruction of the first City albeit unintentionally as his actual target at the time was Alpha, he fights to keep the world from being erased by Alpha and alongside the Founders, participates in the final confrontation against him.
• Arch-Enemy: Future Redeemed makes him and Alpha each others' own arch-enemies. N's destruction of the City was done to prevent Alpha from transporting its people to another world while erasing the rest of Aionios, and his main pursuit in the game is to put an end to Alpha once and for all, to the point where he ends up forming an Enemy Mine with the Founders in the final battle against Alpha and even activates the true power of Ouroboros as a Godzilla Threshold.
• Archnemesis Dad: Or rather, archnemesis great-grandfather; N is Matthew's great-grandfather, and while Alpha is the bigger threat for most of Future Redeemed, Matthew's personal animosity and conflict is with N, who killed his grandfather, Ghondor — who was also N's son. But this is averted with Ghondor, as his death by N's hand during the destruction of the City turned out to be completely accidental, as N's primary target was Alpha, in order to prevent the latter from destroying Aionios and transporting the City's inhabitants to a different world. Where Ghondor comes in is that Alpha was using the body of Na'el as a vessel to accomplish this — Na'el being Ghondor granddaughter, N's great-granddaughter, and Matthew's sister, but Ghondor deciding to try to save her resulted in N killing him by accident, an act that shook N to his very core.
• Badass Boast: Lets out one at the beginning of his boss fight in Chapter 6, when he finally loses it.
  N: I don't take orders from you, but... Moebius are the world itself! There can be but one me and I AM IT! I will take her back. My Mio will be mine, and all who stand in my way... I shall DESTROY!!
• Became Their Own Antithesis: As Noah in the past, he joined Ouroboros to try to stand against Moebius and free the world from its Forever War. As N, he perpetuates Moebius' will and berates current-Ouroboros for trying to rebel.
• Being Evil Sucks:
  • While he is in denial about it, N is a deeply, horribly unhappy person, subconsciously aware of how much of himself he discarded to gain eternal life. Noah describes him as having basically become regret personified when he became a Moebius, and that his very existence is in a way an effort to punish himself. Hoping to snap him out of his delusions and free him from his own misery is one reason M decides to switch with Mio.
  • Future Redeemed goes further with this, as even when he's fighting against Alpha to prevent the complete destruction of Aionios and everyone inside of it, his attempts at doing so end up coming at incredibly high costs; namely, the accidental death of his own son Ghondor by N's own hands, N being disowned by his own great-grandson Matthew for Ghondor's death, and the destruction of the City during his attempt to stop Alpha, which resulted in the death of his many descendants and the loss of M's love for him. It's pretty much all but stated that this is the intense regret he felt and carried for so long is what resulted in Noah being his Heel–Face Reincarnation.
• Big Damn Heroes: Ironically enough, he has two of these moments in Future Connected — the first when interrupting the Founders' initial confrontation with Alpha at Raguel Lake, dueling Alpha to a standstill; the second when the Founders are confronting Alpha inside Origin and when Alpha is on the verge of pulling Matthew and Na'el into a gateway to a different world, N comes just in time to break Alpha's hold on Matthew and Na'el, and then joins up with them to defeat Alpha once and for all.
• Blatant Lies:
  • When he demonstrates the Annihilator's capabilities to Ethel, he expresses regret that he's about to test it on a scenic location favored by the Queen of Keves, and apologetically asks the Queen not to think ill of him. Given that the Queen is a literal puppet of Moebius and he knows it, he was flat-out lying to Ethel for dramatic effect. Though possibly subverted given the reveal that the robot Queen was also a channel for the real one to observe goings-on in Aionios.
  • He acts like he had no problems slaughtering his own flesh and blood for Moebius, but it's clear in Future Redeemed that it's blatantly untrue. He only killed his son when Ghondor jumped between him and Na'el and the act shocked N to his core, and in his interactions with Matthew he shows a reluctance to fight his great grandson and regret for killing Ghondor, allowing himself to get punched in the face with no resistance.
• Composite Character: His samurai bearing, tendency to wear a mask, and main motivation being the death of a loved one all bring to mind Jin from Xenoblade Chronicles 2. N being a version of Noah also makes him similar to Grahf from Xenogears, and his obsession with keeping M alive for all eternity regardless of what she wants calls to mind Kevin Winnicot from Xenosaga, who tried to do the same thing with Shion.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: To Jin from Xenoblade Chronicles 2. While both wear a Domino Mask, are motivated by the death of a loved one, have a connection to the Logos core (Jin via becoming the primary driver of Malos as his connection with Amalthus weakened, and it's implied the Logos core is embedded within N's Sword of the End), and are part of a cycle of death and rebirth (Jin being a Blade constantly reawakened by a Driver, and N originally being part of Aionios' cycle of resurrection), these are the few similarities the two share while contrasting each other in most other ways:
  • Surface-level differences include Jin having white hair and being mainly associated with the color silver in his physical appearance, while N has black hair and is associated with the color gold with his Moebius armor. Another minor difference is Jin being from Alrest, as opposed from the original incarnation of Noah/N being from the world of the Bionis. Jin is inspired mainly by various Final Fantasy characters like Cloud and Sephiroth (while still retaining elements of familiar Xeno archetypes) while N is completely influenced by previous Xeno characters like Kevin Winnicott and Lacan/Grahf
  • N turned to evil of his own volition (albeit also under duress from Z and the torment of remembering all his past lives), while Jin's agency issues due to being a Blade meant that he could only feed off of Malos' self-hatred and anger at the world. Both of their turns are also connected to an Aegis, but in completely different ways; as stated before, Jin feeding off of Malos' self-hatred is what led him down a path of darkness, while N turned because Z needed an enforcer to combat Alpha for him.
  • N seemingly takes sadistic joy in tormenting Ouroboros (though Riku notes that to him all N projects is sadness), while Jin is detached and emotionless for most of his his encounters to hide his cynicism and despair towards the world (only losing composure a few times). Likewise, N is more prone to extreme displays of emotion, such as in Chapter 6 when he finds out his gambit to break Noah failed, whereas Jin remains relatively composed even when recalling all of his past traumas and facing failure in the present.
  • N wishes to live forever with M as Moebius and has deluded himself into believing she wants the same, while Jin is a Death Seeker who is cursed to try to live forever as a result of feeling bound by Lora's unfortunate choice of last words. Inversely, N is destined to live a strictly-limited lifespan of only ten years prior to becoming Moebius, while Jin's nature as a Blade means that he is destined to live as long as the Driver that awakened him in the first place unless if he becomes a Flesh Eater.
  • N tore down everything he worked for in his previous life by destroying the first City and most of those who lived in it, while Jin's Cynicism Catalyst was having to watch his home continent and the people living on it be destroyed. Future Redeemed reveals that the destruction of the first City was happened as a result of N trying to stop Alpha, the latest incarnation of the Ontos core, while the destruction of Torna happened because of the incarnations of the Logos and Pneuma cores, Malos and Mythra, going into a no-holds-barred battle with their Artifices and utilizing the full extent of their power, while Jin was helpless to prevent it from happening. So the destruction of both Jin and N's homes are both tied to the Trinity Processor cores, but N had no choice but to destroy it while Jin was helpless in watching it be destroyed.
  • In addition, N is only seen as a pawn by Z and used by him to preserve the oppressive order of Aionios as put in place by Moebius, and M (while still loving who he was) hates what he has become by shedding his ideals and destroying everything the two worked for in their previous lives. Meanwhile Jin forms a genuine bond of friendship with Malos and comes to truly care for the rest of Torna, while seeking to end Amalthus's own oppressive control of Alrest and the Core Crystals.
  • Both Jin and Malos's primary aim throughout 2 was to kill the Architect, one half of Professor Klaus, while N's primary goal in Future Redeemed is to kill Alpha, born from the Ontos core whose power was used by the other half of Klaus, Zanza, in the first game; but the key difference here is that Jin and Malos want to kill the Architect to bring about the end of Alrest, while N is seeking to kill Alpha to prevent Aionios from being completely erased. In Torna, the Prequel Expansion Pack for 2, Jin is a playable character and the main protagonist of the story, while in Future Redeemed, the Prequel Expansion Pack for 3, N is still in opposition to the party and can't even be controlled by the player.
  • Jin intentionally killed Haze/Fan La Norne in what he considered a means to free her of Amalthus's influence (whom she talked about in Torna as being someone she'd never want to be bonded to) after he erased her memories of her life as Lora's Blade and forcibly removed her Core Crystal and grafted it onto himself, while N seeks to kill Na'el not to free her from Alpha's control, but to prevent Alpha from having a vessel from which to carry out his own plans on Aionios. Both end up having a My God, What Have I Done? reaction as a result of this, but whereas Jin's happens because of his own regret at having to kill Lora's other Blade and his former friend, N's happens because his pursuit of Alpha resulted in N accidentally killing his own son, Ghondor.
  • One of Jin's catalysts for his fall, and one of the general resentments he always held in regards to being a Blade, is that he is forced to forget every past life he's lived — best demonstrated when he comes across a picture of himself and a former driver he was implied to have been in love with. On the complete opposite end, one catalyst for N turning to evil is that Z forced him to relive all the memories of his past lives against his will and be driven to despair over each one of his past incarnations' failure to stop Z, live out their life with Mio, or both. One is inherent to the nature of Jin as a Blade, the other is a prerequisite for N to become Moebius, and both catalysts relate to their memories of their past lives and failures.
• Create Your Own Hero:
  • 3 establishes that while N has sworn himself to upholding the Moebius and Z's rule of Aionios in exchange for an eternity with M, he still carried enough regret with him throughout all those years that they ended up returning to the life and death cycle of Kevesi and Agnian soldiers and reincarnated as the incarnation of Noah followed throughout 3.
  • Played with in regards to the destruction of the City. Without it being destroyed, Matthew Vandham wouldn't have embarked on his quest to rescue the survivors of the City and eventually rebuild it — with the second City eventually becoming the greatest enemies of the Moebius until Ouroboros came along in 3. However, Future Redeemed then shows that he wasn't seeking to destroy the City, but rather to seek out Alpha and prevent him from evacuating the City's residents to another world while subsequently erasing all of Aionios. Despite this, N still ends up killing his own son by mistake, who was also Matthew's grandfather, thus spurring Matthew to more directly opposed Moebius as a result of his grandfather's murder.
  • During the final battle against Alpha in Future Redeemed, N ends up crossing his own Godzilla Threshold by activating the Ouroboros power of everyone in the party to its fullest extent and creating the first Ouroboros interlink in order to put an end to Alpha for good. Prior to this, the power of Ouroboros was mainly to power up normal attacks, and the original City's inhabitants were beginning to move on from it when advances in technology were made while the Ouroboros power didn't see any new innovation introduced. But when N activated the Ouroboros power to its fullest potential using the Pneuma core embedded in Matthew's Fists of the End, he indirectly contributed to the advances Riku was making on the Ouroboros Stone, and thus eventually resulting in the Ouroboros stones being seen in 3 that allowed for Ouroboros to Interlink — which ended up leading to the fall of the Moebius and Z.
• Death Equals Redemption: After he's defeated by Noah, he willingly allows himself to be absorbed into Noah's consciousness. Later, in the final battle against Z, N's spirit manifests and he sacrifices himself to destroy Z once and for all.
• Despair Event Horizon: Seeing all of his past lives and watching himself fail time and time again to Z made him realize how impossible Moebius is to fight. With that, and the promise of an eternity with Mio, Noah joins Moebius and becomes N. He's only pushed further over the horizon when he's made to fight against Alpha while Z is imprisoned in Origin, as it is Alpha's plans to transport the people of the City to a different world that ends up forcing N to bring about the destruction the City and results in the unintentional death of his own son, something that ends up tearing him apart inside from guilt no matter how much he denies it to literally everyone else he meets and confront him with these misdeeds.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Future Redeemed shows him as being the only person on Aionios capable of dueling Alpha to a standstill, multiple times. To put this into perspective, the combined power of Shulk, Rex, and Z wasn't enough to defeat Alpha, which resulted in the loss of Shulk's right arm, Rex losing his left eye, and Alpha taking control of Origin while trapping Z inside of it. N, on the other hand, ended up forcing Alpha to retreat in their second fight and was able to prevent Alpha from absorbing Matthew in the final battle. Notably it is not simple power that enables him to do this, but rather the strength of his emotions disrupting the emotion-based power Alpha uses from their host.
• Domino Mask: He wears a mask that covers his eyes, as opposed to the full helmet of other Consuls.
• Doppelgänger Gets Same Sentiment: Initially averted, then played straight. N is as dismissive of Mio as he is the rest of Ouroboros, never even referring to her by her name barring the one time to mock Noah. This is justified with Mio lacking the memories, experience, and immortality that M has. It's played straight when N learns that M and Mio switched bodies and that it was M who died during Mio's Homecoming; he treats Mio as M and is furious with Noah for "stealing her away from [him]."
• The Dragon: It's implied that he's the Consul of Keves Castle, which makes him second in command to the Queen of Keves, although in reality it's the other way around as the fake Queen is just a mouthpiece for the Consuls, including himself. With the Consuls' true nature in mind, it's also implied that he is Z's closest Consul besides X and Y for the aforementioned reason as well as him being tasked to guard Melia in the Eternal Prison.
• Duel Boss: Future Redeemed has a brief example of this where the player controls Na'el/Alpha fighting against N during the flashback to the destruction of the City.
• Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: One stark difference between him and Noah once the mask comes off are his Empty Eyes. It likely showcases the fact that the eternity which Z promised him is not a happy one at all and he is subconsciously aware of it. They are first fully displayed in the aftermath of destroying the original City after he became N. As pointed out by Glimmer, this is a stark contrast to the other Moebius^note with the exception of M, who she never met.
  Glimmer: It's the look in his eyes. Did you see? The other Consuls... In theirs, there's joy. This gleeful gint... But for him... His hold no light at all.
• Emasculated Cuckold: He does not take M switching bodies with Mio and dying in her place to get away from him so she can be with Noah well, referring to Noah as "taking [his] woman" when they battle for the last time.
  N: Got my just deserts? Well don't you look smug, with my woman on your arm, Noah...
• Enemy Mine: Fights alongside the Liberators and Founders to defeat Alpha in Future Redeemed.
• Entitled to Have You: By the time the main storyline begins, his once-healthy love for M has been twisted to the point where he treats her like a thing he has the right to possess rather than a human being.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • The main reason that N became evil to begin with is because of just how much he loved Mio. He could never be with her for very long, which is why he did all that he could to be with her — even if it meant upholding Z's "Endless Now" and completely disregarding M's own wishes in the matter, thus deconstructing this trope by showing this love with M as being toxic, possessive, destructive, and completely selfish, as it led to him shedding his own ideals in exchange for an endless but unhappy eternity with M.
  • Future Redeemed reveals that, for all his posturing about his descendants being "mere chaff", he still cared about his son Ghondor and had no intention of killing him, and only did so unintentionally when Ghondor jumped to protect Na'el. When Matthew confronts him about Ghondor's death on Prison Island and punches N in the face for it, N notably doesn't fight back or attempt to defend himself, thus indicating that he truly felt as if he deserved to be punished for the death of his own son, even if his death was accidental. Not even Mio in 3, the latest incarnation of his own wife, was able to call him out without N giving her many different justifications and excuses for his motives — the fact that Matthew was able to do so with little resistance from N, if any, just shows how guilt-ridden N is from the death of his own son.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Presuming that he knew the full extent of M's body-possession powers, including her ability to swap bodies, he did not ever consider the possibility that M would willingly swap bodies with Mio to go in her place at Homecoming, not only to give Ouroboros a second fighting chance and save Mio's life but to wake him up on how far he's gone from the Noah she loved. He never did see it coming under his base assumption that he and M would've been content together in eternity as Moebius.
• Evil Me Scares Me: Inverted, as he despises his Heel–Face Reincarnation Noah for being essentially a manifestation of his failures, desperately trying to convince himself that joining the Moebius was the right choice after all. Noah, for his part, comes to admit that he could have become like N under different circumstances, and genuinely feels sorry for N rather than hating him.
• Evil Versus Oblivion: While Moebius as a whole qualify for the "evil" side in the fight against Alpha's "oblivion", N takes it a step further by being the only Moebius to actively confront Alpha throughout Future Redeemed, to the point of teaming up with the Founders to defeat Alpha once and for all.
• Expy: A pretty blatant one of Kevin Winicott, himself an Expy of Grahf, who is himself an Expy of Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader. The Dragon of an Evil Overlord who wears a mask and has a personal connection with The Hero, performed a Face–Heel Turn to obsessively preserve the life of his loved one, destroyed everything he stood for as a hero just so that his loved one would live despite her wishes saying otherwise, has a Villainous Breakdown upon learning that he lost his loved one forever, and eventually has a Heel–Face Turn where he redeems himself at the cost of his life. To make it even more blatant, the scene in which Z talks to N in the Amphitheater is framed nearly-identically to the opera house scene in Revenge of the Sith, where Palpatine tempts Anakin by telling him the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise, and he has a Luke, I Am Your Father moment to Matthew in Future Redeemed when A explains that he is Matthew's great-granddad.
• Fallen Hero: His past lives as Noah were spent trying to free the world from Moebius' shackles, and even shortly after he turned, he still retained some form of standards that allowed him to ally with the Founders to fight against Alpha. But by the time of 3, N is one of their most dangerous and feared enforcers, now overseeing the Keves faction that he once served in prior to becoming Moebius and condemning everyone else to an endless cycle of life, war, death, and rebirth so as long as his needs and desires only are met.
• Fatal Flaw: Inability to process grief and dependence on a Living Emotional Crutch. He was once like the Noah we know, but watching his Mio die in tragic ways over and over again in life after life sent him over the Despair Event Horizon even though all memory of it should have been scrubbed from his mind in each incarnation, eventually driving him to abandon the Lost Numbers' mission, and start a family with Mio — which after the deaths of this incarnation of themselves, Z was able to capitalize on to seduce him to the idea of an eternal life with her as Moebius, as an "endless now." By the time of the game, his inability to live without M has caused him to regress to an Entitled Bastard who treats her like a doll rather than as his wife.
• Giver of Lame Names: Much like the current incarnation of Noah, N can't come up with a name for something without being embarrassed about it later. It's to the point where he couldn't even trust himself to come up with a name for his child out of fear that it might not be a good one while at the same time glancing at his sword in embarrassment at what he named it. In Future Redeemed, we see him name the technique Matthew uses finish Alpha off the rather uninspired name "Fist of the End" as an example of how bad his names can be.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: He did not take it well when Z showed him all of his past lives and failed attempts to defeat Moebius, each ending in a tragic death for himself and Mio, which gave Z the perfect opening in which to turn N with.
• Godzilla Threshold: During the final battle against Alpha in Future Redeemed, he ends up activating everyone's Ouroboros power in order to defeat Alpha, despite Ouroboros being one of the few things capable of destroying the Moebius.
• Gold-Colored Superiority: N has a unique gold-plated version of the Moebius armor, likely to indicate his higher status as the Consul of the Queen of Keves.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: His attack on the City was supposed to be somewhat more surgical than what ultimately happened. While he was admittedly cutting down anyone who got in his way, his real target was the Alpha-possessed Na'el, and once she was in his sights he immediately zeroed in on her to end the affair once and for all. However, before he could deal the final blow, his son Ghondor got in the way of his attack, and it was actually Ghondor's Ouroboros energy spilling out of him that leveled the city. Regardless of what he intended, N is implied to have been horrified by how things turned out, as when M saw the burning ruins of the city and assumed he killed everyone out of selfishness, he did not bother correcting her.
• Guest-Star Party Member: In Future Redeemed, he fights alongside the party in the final phase of the battle against Alpha.
• Have You Come to Gloat?: Noah remarks during their last confrontation that N looks just as miserable as Noah himself did when imprisoned in Chapter 5. In response, N quips about getting his "just desserts" and says that Noah looks smug with "his woman" on his arm. Noah is utterly baffled by his attitude.
• The Heavy: He's a subordinate to Z, but given how Z never leaves his chamber and isn't really a person to begin with, N is the one who coordinates other Consuls and Colonies to destroy the heroes for much of the game. Even in Future Redeemed, where he takes a less antagonist approach than he does in 3, he still ends up fighting all of the Founders at once and is Z's main muscle against Alpha. Invoked by Z as it was implied that the reason N was resurrected in the first place was because of Z needing someone strong enough to fight against Alpha while Z was imprisoned in Origin as a result of the initial fight against Alpha.
• Historical Villain Upgrade: In-Universe, thanks to Alpha's existence being omitted from the records, his presumed reasons for destroying the first City lose any nuance. Furthermore, due to Moebius in general being thought of as the enemy of the Founders rather than an unlikely temporary ally, he is seen as having been Founder Vandham's nemesis, when in reality the two eventually fought on the same side against Alpha and parted ways relatively peacefully. That being said, N definitely Took a Level in Jerkass since then.
• Hope Crusher:
  • All his Noble Demon qualities go out the window when faced with Noah, seeking only to drive the man to a Despair Event Horizon. He wants to prove that if push came to shove, our Noah would make the same choices as he did. Seeing how Noah refuses to give up his ideals even after he thinks his Mio is Deader than Dead causes quite the Villainous Breakdown coupled with the fact that M (his Mio) performed a Heroic Sacrifice due to no longer wanting to exist as a Moebius.
  • He appears to be trying to do the same with Melia, as it's implied he knows about her using the false Keves Queen to observe the world's happenings while captured within Origin, and states that "Her Majesty" can bear witness to the deaths of Ouroboros.
• Iaijutsu Practitioner: This is his main specialty, unleashing and slashing his blade in just one move, which overwhelms even Ouroboros's Interlink forms without any problem. If N's sheathed his sword and starts emitting a Battle Aura, beware.
• Identical Stranger: As noted, he bares an uncanny resemblance to Noah. It's subverted when it turns out he's actually an Evil Twin and Hero's Evil Predecessor.
• I Did What I Had to Do: His initial excuse for his actions in Future Redeemed, accepting the role of evil in the Evil Versus Oblivion conflict against Alpha to protect Aionios from complete erasure, even if it means slaughtering the City and his own kin to draw him out. This starts to fall apart however when you take into account Z's added incentive to resurrect Mio as M.
• I Love You, Vampire Son: He made a deal with Z to revive both him and his Mio as Moebius, and he himself says that his only real driving motive is to stay with his wife for eternity. She doesn't have the same opinion of it.
• Infinite: At a certain point, the lemniscate symbol glows in his right eye. His weapon also bears the same symbol.
• In It for Life: His method of killing dissenters is to imprison them until their Homecoming. One of his first actions is to save Cammuravi from this fate on the condition he hunts down Ouroboros. He imprisons Ouroboros themselves for the sole purpose of them being forced to watch Mio's Homecoming.
• It's All About Me: Demonstrated when he finally learns that M and Mio switched places, as his rants during his ensuing Villainous Breakdown are all about his pain and desires. Despite Mio's attempts to convey M's will and feelings, his thought process immediately redirects to how M's intentions and actions are causing him suffering, ignoring the feelings of love behind them.
• It's Personal with the Dragon:
  • In 3, both Noah and Mio end up having this dynamic with him; while Z is the one running the Moebius and N is serving him, N is a previous incarnation of Noah who chose to join up with Z and preserve the "Endless Now" in exchange for an eternity with M, a past incarnation of Mio. When M and Mio switch bodies and M ends up sacrificing herself so that Mio may live, Mio gains M's memories and desperately tries to get him to see reason in the midst of his breakdown with M's death, while Noah eventually comes to terms with accepting that N represents what he could become should he let his love for Mio overtake the rest of his ideals and aspirations.
  • In Future Redeemed, he ends up being this for both Matthew, The Hero of ''Future Redeemed, and for its Big Bad Alpha:
    • Matthew wants nothing more than revenge on N after seeing him murder Matthew's grandfather Ghondor during the destruction of the City, and even after Matthew learns that N was Ghondor's own father, he still holds onto his animosity and hatred for him until after he learns that Ghondor's death was completely accidental and that this act ended up shaking N to his very core — though this doesn't stop him from punching N in the fact without N even resisting, knowing that he deserves whatever Matthew deals him.
    • Meanwhile, N serves as the biggest barrier to Alpha's own plans, and it's revealed that the destruction of the City happened because N was trying to prevent Alpha from taking all of the City's people to a different world while leaving Aionios and everyone in it behind to be destroyed. Their fight with Alpha in the City ends up being the catalyst for A splitting off from Alpha, but it also results in N accidentally killing his son Ghondor, whose death results in a burst of Ouroboros energy destroying the City entirely. Even afterwards, the Founders' initial confrontation with Alpha is interrupted by N at Raguel Lake, Alpha fails to take Matthew with the rest of the City people to another world because N arrives at just the right moment to break Alpha's concentration and free both Matthew and Na'el, and it is N's activation of the Founders' Ouroboros power that results in the first Interlink, which ends up defeating Alpha.
• I've Come Too Far: His extreme antagonism towards Ouroboros, Hope Crusher nature, and possessiveness over M are implied to be a result of his regret over choosing to side with Moebius. If Ouroboros can defeat Moebius, then his horrific actions as N would have been for nothing. In order to justify his actions, he wants Noah, Melia, and co. to know and believe as he does that defeating Moebius is impossible. It's also reinforced by the fact that in Future Redeemed, he was the only person powerful enough to hold his own against Alpha as Moebius — not even the combined power of Shulk, Rex, and Z was able to put a stop to Alpha, and Alpha was only defeated after N himself activated the Founders' Ouroboros powers; of course he'd feel torn between the suffering he caused as Moebius vs. the need for him as Moebius to confront powers more dangerous to Aionios than Ouroboros, Moebius, etc.
• Kick the Dog:
  • When Mio is about to be sent off during her Homecoming, N has Noah freed from his bonds and throws down his flute in front of him so that Noah can send her off personally before he's executed. Noah is so shaken by this that he simply kneels in shock and despair until M in Mio disapears.
  • Averted with the death of his own son, Ghondor. While it initially seems to be this, the full truth is that Ghondor didn't understand how Alpha was using Na'el as his vessel to bring about the destruction of Aionios and ended up jumping in front of N just as he was about to strike Alpha, something that ends up shaking N to his very core and is implied to be the catalyst for Noah being born of his own regrets centuries later.
  • Also averted with him trying to kill his own great-granddaughter Na'el, as she was willingly letting Alpha use her body as a vessel for which to achieve his plans, thus forcing N into the unenviable position of letting Alpha destroy Aionios or having to kill Na'el so that Alpha wouldn't have a vessel with which to bring about his plans for the City people and Aionios. Notably, once Na'el is freed from Alpha's control, N spares her life and continues to focus wholly on defeating Alpha alongside the rest of the Founders.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Upon capturing Noah and the others, he chooses to have them imprisoned until Mio's time runs out in a month, informing them that those that reach the Homecoming are no longer able to be reborn for the sole purpose of driving Noah over the Despair Event Horizon and taking a great amount of pleasure in how horribly it effects him in the following month. When the time comes and Mio disappears, he takes a moment to smother Noah's failure in his face before it's revealed out that Mio and M swapped bodies in a mutual agreement to to free Mio of her limited lifespan and M of her immortal one, meaning he's the one that lost the woman he loves, not his counterpart. Realizing this leaves him screaming in despair, just as he had wanted to happen to Noah.
• Light Is Not Good: A Moebius in golden armor who looks like a noble samurai is just as twisted as the rest. It's later revealed to be downplayed, as while he is still a villain, N is played of sympathetic moments with his tragic backstory and his genuine, though twisted, love for M. Future Redeemed shows this even further, with him willingly helping the protagonists in an Enemy Mine situation, and his murder of his son Ghondor being accidental.
• Limp and Livid: After he learns that M died in Mio's place, he slouches and staggers while he has a Villainous Breakdown. Even when his rage simmers after fighting Ouroboros, he still sits like a puppet with his strings cut at the Amphitheater.
• The Lost Lenore: Part of why N became Moebius is because he was forced to lose M over and over again. He became Moebius because he didn’t want to have to lost her yet again, but it still happens, and after M dies, he seeks revenge on Noah and Mio for taking her away from him.
• Love Makes You Evil: He's absolutely smitten with M, the Consul version of Mio, and his core motive is to live with her for eternity. Regardless of M's feelings on the matter.
• Loving a Shadow: To a much worse degree than his wife; while M is aware she is more in love with the kind man he was as a mortal, N has turned utterly delusional about what she wants, assuming she is fine with her Life Drinker existence despite her being the only unwilling Moebius. Part of the motive for M becoming a Death Seeker is that she's long resigned to the idea that it's the only thing that will penetrate his rationalizations.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: It is revealed that he is Matthew's great-grandad in Future Redeemed. Unlike the Trope Namer however, who he is very inspired from, it is A who reveals it to Matthew rather than N himself.
• Mix-and-Match Weapon: Wields the same sword within a Laser Blade as Noah, but darker in color; unlike Noah however, he wields the katana as his primary weapon and only uses the "weaker" Blade as a sheath and parrying tool. This is because he's a past incarnation of Noah that's fallen to villainy, but even beforehand the blade was the same color as it is now.
• Motive Decay: Future Redeemed suggests this set in at some point. Originally, Noah's decision to become Moebius wasn't just to be reunited with Mio, but also because Z needed him to stop Alpha from destroying all of Aionios and killing everyone outside of The City with Mio's resurrection as further incentive. Unfortunately, the implied guilt of actually carrying it out and his attempt to repress that coupled with the centuries of service caused him to start emotionally regressing to cope with everything he's done until he becomes the Entitled Bastard seen in the main game.
• Murder by Mistake: Future Redeemed reveals this was the truth behind the murder of his son, Ghondor. N's target was Na'el/Alpha, but when N raced in for the killing blow, Ghondor made up his mind and threw himself between them, taking N's sword through the gut and being fatally wounded.
• My God, What Have I Done?: While its not made obvious in 3, Future Redeemed reveals that he feels this way over the destruction of the City; most notably, when Matthew confronts him on Prison Island and punches him in the fact after learning the truth, N offers no resistance at all. Likely because the destruction of the City happened out of a need to defeat Alpha and prevent them from erasing Aionios and everyone in it completely.

N-Z

• Noble Demon:
  • Looks down on the other Consuls and the fact they treat the Forever War as Gladiator Games. Subverted, however, in that this is his only moral limit; he turns absolutely sadistic when on the field.
  • Played up in Future Redeemed. His battles with Alpha have him show more resolve than in the main game, opposing the founders mainly to defeat Alpha and even joining in the final battle on the side of good. The primary difference is that in the main game he is focused solely on the present, while in Future Redeemed he opposes Alpha for their disregard of the past.
• Offing the Offspring: Amongst those in the City he killed in order to revive M were descendants of him and M, As seen in Future Redeemed, he personally killed his own son Ghondor in front of Matthew, one of Ghondor's grandchildren and N's great-grandson, albeit unintentionally as Ghondor jumped in the way of his actual target Na'el, N's great-granddaughter. When confronted about this by Noah during their final confrontation, N refers to them as "mere chaff" and argues that it was his right as their originator to kill them as he pleased, though Noah believes this is just an excuse to distance himself from his guilt. The bitter truth about this, however, was that it was the lesser of two evils; Na'el was being used as a vessel by Alpha, whose goal was to transport away the people of the City to a new world while the rest of Aionios would be destroyed. His choice was to either kill his own great-granddaughter or doom everyone else to oblivion, something his son didn't realize until too late.
• One-Winged Angel: Subverted as he is one of the few Consuls who doesn't transform into a more monstrous form.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Throughout 3 and Future Redeemed, N constantly makes excuses for and tries to justify him joining up with Moebius while subjecting his own wife and himself to the "Endless Now" against M's own wishes. This ranges from insisting that Moebius are unstoppable and that fighting against them is futile, to claiming after the destruction of the City that he "didn't want to lose anymore", and probably worst of all, tormenting Noah by imprisoning him and the Ouroboros until Mio's Homecoming, then forcing them to watch in hopes that Noah will break just as N did (though this backfires in his own face hard). The only time he isn't full of excuses or justifications for himself? When Matthew confronts him about the death of Ghondor, N's own son and Matthew's grandfather. Despite Ghondor's death being completely accidental, N doesn't offer any excuses to Matthew's accusations beyond just saying that Ghondor made his own choice in the matter, and shows no resistance when Matthew punches him in the face and to the ground during this. All of this indicates that Ghondor's death is his greatest regret as a result of becoming Moebius, and it's implied that it was this event that eventually resulted in N's guilt growing to the point where they manifested as the next incarnation of Noah, as seen in 3.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Zigzagged. Although N dies before his son does, he gets revived and gains immortality. He then goes one to not only outlive his son, but a few of his descendants.
• Parrying Bullets: He can use his sword to deflect bullets.
• Pet the Dog: In the final battle of Future Redeemed, he uses the Sword of the End to sever Alpha's connection to Na'el. Though he coldly tells Matthew that he's only helping so as to protect the "Endless Now", it doesn't change the fact that Na'el is not only free but completely unharmed despite the sword's destructive power. He also assists by guiding Matthew through the process of using Ouroboros energy to create a massive Interlink between the heroes, and after it's all over he departs without further conflict.
• The Power of Hate: Or rather, the power of despair. The reason Z chose him to become Moebius was to stop Alpha's plan to erase Aionios and by proxy end the Endless Now, but by using Na'el emotions and hatred of Aionios' cruel nature Alpha was able to become exponentially stronger. Noah's countless failed attempts to defeat Moebius coupled with how he had to watch Mio die over and over of the millennia meant he was the only one that could match and defeat Alpha in his enhanced state by the sheer power of N's despair being more overwhelming than Na'el's.
• Purple Is Powerful: While this applies to all the Moebius, N deserves a mention specifically because it is heavily implied that the sheathe for his Sword of the End has the Logos core embedded inside of it, meaning that he draws from the same power of destruction as Malos did in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 — as opposed to the rest of the Moebius only drawing their powers from Z and Origin.
• Recurring Boss: He's fought at least three times throughout the story. The same applies for Future Redeemed.
• Resurrected for a Job: Future Redeemed reveals that there was more to his resurrection that originally known; while not made clear in 3, it is shown that around the time N was resurrected, Z had been imprisoned inside Origin as a result of Alpha taking control over it. Without Z being able to come and go from Origin as he pleased, he now needed N to act as his enforcer and fight Alpha in his stead. M's resurrection was just given as further incentive for N to accept this arrangement, and that the destruction of the City was done primarily to prevent Alpha from transporting its people to another world while erasing Aionios.
• Rotten Reincarnation: Played straight and also inverted. N is not the first incarnation of Noah, as all previous ones were heroic and fought Moebius and Z, only to fail every time — with the collective trauma of seeing each one fail when meeting with Z being one of the reasons why N ended up becoming Moebius. It's then inverted with his latest incarnation that is seen in 3, as Noah retains the idealism that his previous incarnations held and that N gave up, while also admitting that even he would likely have taken the same deal as N had he been faced with the same circumstances as he did.
• Sadistic Choice:
  • He was subjected to one by Z in his backstory. After witnessing for himself how many times he and Mio are fated to be separated and as he gave into his despair, he was offered the opportunity to resurrect his Mio in exchange for the lives of the City's inhabitants which included the descendants of the son he had with Mio before their deaths. He chose to save Mio and set the two of them into an eternity of grief as Moebius.
  • Future Redeemed reveals that his choice was further compounded by Alpha's plan to save the "new" lives in the City and purge all of the "old" life that makes up the rest of Aionios. Either he kills his possessed great-granddaughter Na'el and the future that the people of the City represent, or he stands aside and allows Keves, Agnus, and Moebius alike to burn, including the countless soldiers trapped in the cycle of violence through no fault of their own by Moebius' design. No matter what he chose, he'd be consigning people to death, and the promise of his Mio's resurrection as Moebius was merely the tipping point in how he chose to resolve his dilemma.
• Samurai: Like Noah, N has some samurai inspirations in his design. Along with wielding his own version of the Sword of the End, which also resembles a katana, he uses it exclusively in a manner reminiscent of iaijutsu, and his armour looks vaguely like traditional samurai armour similarly to Malos'. Additionally, his status as a Consul with authority over the colonies, further emphasized with implications that he's outright in charge of Keves' Consuls as "the golden consul", also gives off the imagery of a feudal lord to contrast Noah's impression of a Rōnin.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: Ironically enough, he ends up delivering one to Alpha in Future Redeemed after they accuse N of abandoning the future, pointing about that Alpha wishes to leave Aionios behind and destroy it.
  Na'el/Alpha: So you choose to stay in the now? To abandon the future?!
  N: The one leaving things behind... is you!
• Shut Up, Kirk!: Noah tries to get through to N that he changed too much for M to want to spend eternity with him, and that he should stop fighting Ouroboros. N refutes everything Noah says before turning red.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: It's all but directly stated that he knows he made the wrong choice by siding with Moebius, and chooses to channel that anger at himself by taking it out on others. Future Redeemed adds to this by revealing that he's also coping with insane amounts of guilt over accidentally killing his own son as a result of Alpha's plans to destroy Aionios, and that despite his insistence otherwise, his regret runs deeper than pretty much anyone else can even imagine.
• Super Mode: Played with. Despite being fought multiple times, N (like M) never performs a Moebius transformation and it's never confirmed if he even can transform (the only mention of transformation involving him being Noah wondering how he can be so powerful without transformating). Instead, the ultimate fight with him involves him taking on an enraged mode for the entire battle (whereas most enemies must lose a certain amount of health first).
• To the Pain: Chapter 5 shows the lengths he's willing to go to break Noah. Starting from imprisoning Mio separated from the rest of the party, and culminating in forcing him to watch the full Homecoming Ceremony that would kill her Deader than Dead. Once Noah is completely broken, he was going to finish him off by decapitating him just before it is revealed that M and Mio had utterly derailed his plans by swapping bodies.
• Together in Death: At the end of the game, the spirits of N and M emerge from Noah and Mio respectively and sacrifice themselves to destroy Z while embracing each other.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Future Redeemed reveals this happened to him by the events of 3; initially, he was very much on the Anti-Villain side of things, with most of his misdeeds being traced back to the conflict against Alpha and how he was forced to commit several acts that destroyed everything he had worked for in his previous life, with even him killing his own son being accidental because of Alpha. In 3 however, he has no such excuses and now contently holds up the Moebius' oppressive reign of Aionios and is much more sadistic than he was in Future Redeemed, though his guilt still remain despite his many denials of it.
• Tragic Villain:
  • While most of his actions are certainly detestable, finding out that all his past lives failed at defeating Moebius and having to watch Mio/M die over and over again despite all of his attempts to carve a better future for them and for Aionios, and then being forced into a Sadistic Choice between repeating the cycle of defeat again vs. living forever with Mio/M pretty much destroyed his will to fight any further. When he learns about how much N had to endure and why he made the choice to join Moebius, Noah makes it clear he understands why he would do so, and even admits he too could have walked that path, but his faith in his friends prevents him from falling to the same fate.
  • In Future Redeemed, it is also revealed that N's decision to destroy the City was also done in order to prevent Alpha from using the people there as weapons to destroy the rest of Aionios, and that his entire existence as a Moebius may have been a direct result of Z needing someone to fight Alpha while his control of Origin was lost. Furthermore, he would've had to kill his great-granddaughter Na'el due to Alpha using her as a host, but ends up killing his own son, Ghondor, when the latter runs into the path of N's sword just as he is about to kill Na'el/Alpha. As it is made clear later on Prison Island when he allows Matthew to punch him in the face, N clearly harbors regrets over the destruction of the City even if he wishes to live in the "eternal now" with M.
• Unholy Matrimony: He's in a relationship with his fellow Consul M — which isn't surprising, as they are older versions of Noah and Mio. They even had a son when they were mortals. Deconstructed, however, in that M didn't actually ask to be reborn as Moebius; his feelings for her had long turned possessive and toxic, to the point she sacrifices her life for Mio's sake in order to make him realize how far he has fallen.
• Villainous Breakdown: He completely loses it after he finds out M sacrificed herself to save Mio.
• Villainous BSoD:
  • After he's defeated in the beginning of Chapter 6, he gets so shackled by despair that he is essentially unresponsive for the rest of Chapter 6 and most of 7 until Z talks him into action once more.
  • Exploited in Future Redeemed. N uses his emotions and his massive amounts of lingering guilt from his choice to side with Z, the destruction of the City, and his accidental killing of his own son to hold his own against Alpha, using his raw emotion and despair to counter Alpha utilizing Na'el own emotions of intense resentment for the world while she was acting as his vessel. That being said, being forced to confront his guilt by Matthew, his great-grandson, ends up resulting in a much more straighter example of this trope, as he doesn't fight back or attempt to disprove Matthew when the latter punches N in the face and gives a giant "The Reason You Suck" Speech after fighting N on Prison Island.
• Walking Spoiler:
  • It is difficult to reveal anything about this Consul without divulging his identity as the earlier Noah who tried to break the Vicious Cycle but failed.
  • His pivotal role in Future Redeemed can't be discussed without going into Alpha's own actions and N's attempts to stop Alpha.
• World's Strongest Man:
  • The most powerful of all the Consuls barring Z, Y, and X, delivering a Curb-Stomp Battle to the Ouroboros outside of the Li Garte Prison Camp and only didn't kill them because he wanted to torture Noah and drive him over the edge as part of his "sideshow" — though once it was revealed that M switched bodies with Mio so that she would be the one sent off in place of Mio, N's concentration breaks completely and while still powerful, he is unable to defeat the Ouroboros as he did previously due to Noah gaining access to his own Sword of the End. It also didn't help that part of his reason for tormenting Noah was to alleviate his own guilt by proving to himself that Noah would also turn when faced with Mio's death, and upon that blowing up in his face, it only cemented his regrets over joining Moebius and protecting the "Endless Now".
  • Future Redeemed takes this even further, as the power generated from the copious amounts of despair and anger built up by his failed attempts at killing Z, his regret over joining forces with the Moebius, and the destruction of the City as well as him accidentally killing his son has turned him into the only being on Aionios who can duel Alpha to a standstill, and is able to pull a Big Damn Heroes moment in Origin by saving Matthew and Na'el from being pulled into another world by Alpha alongside the rest of the City inhabitants. His status as this is further established by Alpha managing to pull a Curb-Stomp Battle on Shulk, Rex, and Z years before the events of Future Redeemed, and by the implication that the sheathe of N's Sword of the End has the Logos core (Malos' Core Crystal) embedded inside of it, meaning that N's already-enormous feelings of regret and guilt are likely enhanced by the Logos core in the same way Jin's own despair was built up as a result of Malos' influence.
• Yandere: While he used to love M in a sane, genuine way, guilt from abandoning his mission to save the world and massacring the Lost Numbers to get enough embers to revive her as a Moebius has warped him and his idea of love into a crazed possessiveness that refuses to see how desperately unhappy M is.
• You Can't Fight Fate: He claims that others have tried to fight it but haven't managed to "escape its flow." He's speaking from bitter experience — he tried to fight against Z, but watching Mio die several times over caused him to lose faith the world could ever be changed, and he eventually became Z's agent to live an eternal life with Mio.