Tear Jerker / Xenoblade Chronicles 3

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

In the world of Aionios, where Child Soldiers experience endless strife in a Forever War, depressing moments are inevitably bound to catch up to them.

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Main Story

• After Vandham breaks up the groups' fight and asks them if securing the Ouroboros stone is really the only incentive they need to fight each other, Taion, Lanz and Eunie bitterly recount the countless friends, comrades and loved ones they've all lost to the opposite side during the years of constant fighting.
• Sena and Lanz remarking on each other's physical differences without knowing why they are that way. While it's reassuring to see that they don't face the same challenges as their predecessors, the fact that the cultures that inhabited the world of the first two games have effectively been erased as a result of the Forever War seen in 3 is depressing, especially when one considers how the redemptions of Egil and Jin ultimately amounted to this.
• After freeing Colony 4 from Moebius' control, Mio is confronted by a Keves soldier who lost his best friend to Agnus, and he's none too pleased about having Mio, Sena, and Taion in the Colony. Mio, without hesitation, offers to let him kill her in retribution, which the soldier only declines once he realizes how close she is to her Homecoming.
• Eunie coming across the husk of her past self in a long-abandoned battlefield - killed by Moebius D, no less. When she realizes that the young High Entia girl with a frightened expression on her face is actually her, the revelation shocks her to her core and only goes away once Moebius D is defeated for good at the end of Chapter 6.
• The end of Chapter 5, good god:
  • The prison break sequence that the party had worked on alongside Ghondor ended up being derailed because Shania told everything about it to the Consuls. From there, the party tells Ghondor to flee as they take what they assume to be their last stand, and are then forced to fight against a horde of Agnian soldiers and Levnises.
  • Once they defeat the Agnian soldiers and the Levnises, N and M step in and reveal that M has the power to hijack their bodies and force them to fight each other. Taion eventually figures out a way to bypass M's abilities, and things seem to look up from there, only for N to then take her place and completely pulverize the party, even in their Ouroboros forms.
  • Just when all seems lost, Sena and Lanz decide to pull off a Heroic Sacrifice by grabbing N and flying upwards while overheating, in hopes of causing an annihilation event that would take out N at the cost of their own lives, despite Noah and Mio's protests. But even that is rendered completely useless when Consul X appears and seals the party's powers, thus preventing them from summoning their Blades or merging into their Ouroboros forms. Indeed, with the sealing all six of them together are rendered weaker than a single normal soldier, metal bars they could break easily before now an impassable obstacle.
  • The party is then left in the prison cells of Agnus Castle — but with Mio separated from the rest of the group. From there, N reveals that they will all be kept imprisoned until the next eclipse...which is when Mio's final term is up and when she's due to have her Homecoming, thus turning what was a happy occasion until then into a twisted and demented execution for the party to witness. And then he reveals to them the difference between a Homecoming and a regular death, just as the party's morale can't go any lower — souls that reach their Homecoming aren't reborn into the cycle of rebirth. Meaning that since the rest of the party will be stuck continuing to be reborn in Aionios, they can't hope to meet her again in a future life and their separation from Mio may be eternal.
  • From there, the player is treated to a gameplay sequence in which they can do nothing but prompt Noah to bang on the bars of his and others' (barring Mio) shared cell. After that comes a montage of the month the group spend in the cell, showing them desperately trying to find some way out of it, yet failing as time wears on and on. During this period of time, Shania comes to visit the cell to tell the party that she intends to kill herself on the day of Mio's Homecoming in order to be reborn, and rubs their failure in their faces. The whole party is clearly struggling to not completely break down as the weeks pass. The vocal song A Step Away playing during this section serves only to twist the knife even more.
  • Throughout all of this, Noah destroys his knuckles from pounding endlessly on the cell walls and bars, to the point where they're bruised and bleeding continuously the closer they get to Mio's Homecoming. Then, on the night before Mio's Homecoming, she tells the group how much she wants to live and how if she were to continue living, she'd want to spend her time left with "my Noah". Throughout all of this, Mio doesn't lose her composure, which results in the rest of the party crying tears for her, knowing that they have no escape. A Life Overflowing from the OST only makes the scene harsher.
  • While the party is imprisoned, Ghondor is dead set on attempting a rescue mission for them, only for Monica to stop her and tell her in no uncertain terms that it would be suicide to do so with Agnus Castle heavily fortified as a result of the previous attack on Keves Castle and the prison break. It's clear that Monica doesn't want it to be this way, but attempting to rescue them would endanger the lives of everyone in the City.
  • Finally, the day of the Homecoming arrives, and the player is treated to the party sans Mio being forced on their knees in the Ascension Grounds where the Homecoming will be held, basically confirming that once the Homecoming is over, it'll be their turn to be executed for their "crimes". The Queen of Agnus then appears, but the party knows full well that she's nothing but a mechanical doll serving Moebius — and yet, the audience cheers her on, explicitly calling her "Queen Nia" — the first time her name is mentioned in the game proper. "Nia" proceeds with a speech full of platitudes about her love for all Agnians, her desire for them all to reach Homecoming, etc. All the while, Sena in particular laments the fact that they've spent so much time prior to Ouroboros fighting and dying for a queen that wasn't even a person, let alone capable of caring about them, and the party resigns themselves to Face Death with Dignity, knowing that they'll return to the cycle and be reset, and hope that the City and Ghondor will succeed where they'd failed.
  • The Homecoming then begins. As the Agnian off-seers start playing, it is then that Mio is brought out. Noah desperately lunges forward, but fails to make any movement due to his hands being bound and the Agnian soldiers behind him subsequently pinning him down. From his perspective, we then see N walk up to him...upon which he drops Noah's flute in front of his and undoes his restraints, telling him that he's an off-seer, and to "send her", and even echoing Noah's recurring creed that this is Noah's "role," continuing his efforts to completely break Noah (just as he was once broken).
  • We then see Noah crawl to the flute, holding it in his bloody hands. Out of sheer enforced habit it seems for moment he might actually start playing it, only to drop it from his trembling hands as the weight of the situation overwhelms him. Then, golden motes of light appear and the eclipse reaches its apex. Mio then turns to look at Noah and the party, smiles and tells Noah that "it's been fun". She then disappears into light, with the party all tearing up as Noah screams her name in grief. The Agnian soldiers restrain Noah (who has seemingly crossed the Despair Event Horizon) once again, when N comes to him, lift up his sword, and brings it down on Noah's neck, with a Smash to Black a moment before the sword touches him. If it hadn't been for the fact that the game continues beyond this scene, this would've been a huge Downer Ending.
    • But wait, there's more! After the cutscene is over, the screen marking the end of Chapter 5 that tells the player to save their game doesn't show Mio's diary or has her speaking, and instead just shows her flute.
• Chapter 6's beginning isn't any better.
  • Noah wakes up in a formless grey void with a mysterious hooded child, and then watches the memories of his past lives — all of them show him and Mio together in a variety of situations: being part of the Lost Numbers, having a son, watching Mio pass away (again and again, often due to her reaching the end of her tenth term, with Noah dying some time after), and then Noah leaving his son alone in the woods as he too passes away. Multiple traumatic encounters with Z are also shown. In one particularly bitter life Noah and Mio run away from everything only to die together in a frozen wasteland. After Noah is shown all of these, he is then shown one final memory — he sees himself in a theatre, being shown the memories of his past life by Z. Z then offers the past Noah the chance to live eternally in the "now" with Mio instead of continuing to be reborn and lose her again and again... which he then accepts, thus revealing that Noah was watching the life and memories of N and M.
  • The child then asks Noah "why is it that you exist" (given that he shouldn't exist at all, since the other Noah stopped being reborn), and why he split off from and turned out differently from his other self. Noah then recounts why he became an off-seer: to know the meaning of the smile. We then find out the name of his mentor, Crys, and discover that Crys intentionally left himself in the line of fire one day on the battlefield, weeks before his own Homecoming. Noah then mentions how Joran and Mio were also smiling before their deaths, and concludes that while he at first thought they were seeking death, he now thinks that they smiled because they were content with the life they lived.
  • Noah then concludes that "[he's] here" because he wants to change the world so that everyone can be as content as Crys, Joran, and Mio were, and so that he could "repay those smiles". Noah then declares that if he was given the chance to go back, he'd do his best to change it, as that "was the legacy that Mio left [him]". In that moment, the child is then revealed to be Mio, who extends her hand and offers Noah "to walk together". This is heartwarming in hindsight as it is an indication of how this Noah and Mio were formed out of the dreams and intentions that the Moebius Noah and Mio left behind, the desire to accomplish the things they abandoned.
  • We then return to the end of Chapter 5, just as N is about to execute Noah. However, the instant before the blade is brought down on his neck, M uses her powers to prevent N from striking the final blow. She then picks up Mio's flute, walks down to where Noah is, picks up his flute, and holds both of them in her hands as she walks to him, unmasked. She then tells Noah that...that she's sorry, that "[her] hair got kind of long", and asks him if he still wants to walk alongside her. It turns out that M and Mio had swapped places the whole time, ever since the confrontation at the prison.
  • As Mio helps Noah up, N comes to the realization that M was Mio, and looks at her eyes to see that she's Ouroboros, thus confirming that she is in fact Mio. As the fact that M and Mio swapped places settles in, he then realizes that it was M who had been sent off, and N loses it completely.
    N: Wh... What? Impossible... You're... Ouroboros? (horrified gasp) Does that mean... Back then, the two of you...? So, the one who died is...
    (stares at Mio's empty clothes, realizing M, his Mio, died instead of Noah's)
    N: AAAAAAAAAAH!!! AH HA, AAAAGH!! WHY, MIO?! Why would you do this to me?! You said you'd be by my side! MIO!! All I did, I did for you!
  • N goes berserk and futilely asks why M did this to him after everything he had done "for [her]", Mio then addresses him directly, and tells him M's greatest secret: M didn't want to go on, and was horrified at what N had become. We are then shown a flashback to the prison break, when M first demonstrated her powers to the group, and it's revealed that M had switched places with Mio from the start. She confided to Mio her misery and regret at what N had become due to his possessive love for her, and expresses to Mio how she and Noah embodied everything she had hoped N and M could've been (and indeed, the current Noah and Mio were formed and born out of those cast off desires, split off from the essence of the Noah and Mio who had become Moebius). M then expresses that she hopes her death would result in N realizing what she actually wanted — that she didn't desire all of the destruction he had wrought in her name, and that the time they had spent was more than worth it to her. Mio then reveals that M passed along all of her memories onto her, in order for Mio to deliver that message to N personally.
  • As the rest of the party realizes the gambit that Mio had taken, Noah then questions why N would even become Moebius, expressing disappointment in him and confronts him for all the atrocities he has committed, with Noah asking N if there's even a trace of who he once was left inside. N then goes insane, claiming that his feelings for M were the same as they have always been, and declares that he'll have to kill himself and them just to restart the clock, fully losing any semblance of sanity he had until then as he blames Noah for "stealing" Mio from him.
  • After getting his ass handed to him by the party, N is then beaten thoroughly by Noah and Mio's Ouroboros form, with Noah decrying every one of N's justifications and rationales for his actions in no uncertain terms. Mio then tells N that M swapped places with Mio because she hated how controlling N became, and that she was tired of living forever as she watched N slip further and further away. N then questions the point of everything and the world in his grief, wondering how he could live without M, still not realizing why M chose to die. On top of it all, N sustained damage to his core during all of this, and would have died had it not been for X's intervention. X then activates the fake Queen Nia and sends her (a robot) into an Unstoppable Rage where she activates her Flame Clock throne as a mech and vocalizes via primal screaming, laying waste to her "own" Castle and the people there.
  • After Ouroboros fights and defeats the animatronic Queen of Agnus, freeing the Castle from its Flame Clock, X then reveals that Agnus Castle had its own Annihilator, to the horror of the party. When they ask what it was going to even target, X reveals to them through their irises that the target was The City — and then the party realizes that Shania had sold out everyone in it to Moebius, which Shania gleefully admits to doing, before ranting about how she would prefer to be reborn endlessly than have only one chance at happiness within the City, and declares that everything can go to hell.
    Lanz: You scum... You've even sold out the City?
    Shania: Just what the hell do you know?! You dream of living out your days in peace? You wanna protect the natural way of life? AHA! All that shite... is a right AFFORDED ONLY TO THE POWERFUL!! What about those who can't live in peace, huh? Are they meant to survive in all this chaos, until the very day they die? I have not one thing to my name. I don't even have the power to choose! Screw it... For all I care, all of this CAN GO TO HELL!!
  • The Annihilator then fires and hits the City, hidden on the Sword of the Mechonis. While it initially seems as if everyone died and that everything was for naught, Ghondor then shows up with the Lost Numbers and reveals that the City had been a giant Ferronis the entire time, thus allowing them to move it once they realized that Shania's betrayal meant that its current location was compromised. While that provides some relief to the characters, it's still nonetheless depressing to see part of the Mechonis Sword be hit by the Annihilator, knowing its significance in the first game and seeing it being desecrated despite it being the weapon of Meyneth, the all-loving goddess of Mechonis, as well as that of Egil, a Tragic Villain who used his final moments to strike Zanza with the Sword of the Mechonis and critically wound him.
  • As Shania realizes her schemes and betrayal all amounted to nothing in the end, she questions why she's always had to stand by herself, before breaking into a bout of insane laughter, claiming that she's "had it", and materializes her gun in front of her to seemingly try attacking the party... until she then holds it up to her own head. Ghondor then tells Shania to drop it, only for Shania to declare it as only being "the beginning" for her. She then pulls the trigger and shoots herself, and we're then treated to Ghondor and Sena running towards her body. Sena kneels over Shania's body in regret, before Noah and Mio help her up to her feet.
• The people Z demanded N kill to bring M (whose body he cruelly starts disintegrating when N hesitates) to life? They included the descendants of his and her son from their previous life. M reacts with appropriate angst when she sees the burning city, mourning that N has destroyed everything they sought to build in previous lives. N, his eyes now having lost their lustre, can only focus on how their sacrifice has allowed him to continue to live with M without death separating them time and again. M's response is a bitter and heartbroken statement of how their fates have been sealed and she doesn't even hide the fact that she would have chosen to die rather than let this happen.
  • Future Redeemed makes this even more tragic for N, as it turns out that the alternative to destroying the City was letting all of Aionios be destroyed by Alpha, and that N's primary target had been Alpha all along.
    • And on top of this, there was also the reveal that N killed his own son while trying to get Alpha. That little boy he held in his arms and cried for? He achieved everything his father told him to, only to die trying to protect his granddaughter (who was possessed by Alpha).
    • Even though M doesn't know about Alpha at all, it's quite likely that she is aware that her own son was killed by the man she loved and his own father, meaning that she essentially has had to live for millennia knowing her son died because of her. Is it any wonder why she chose to die rather than enjoy the eternal life she could have with N when you realize she's not only grieving for the people she didn't know but still cared for, but is also suffering from the immense pain of her son's death being on her?
    • If you think of it, the fact that M doesn't know about Alpha means that N kept the truth from her, even though it could have at least given him some justification for his actions. It might as well as be N punishing himself by leaving M with a reason to hate him.
• The final battle with N. The former incarnation of Noah just looks so utterly broken and in full despair that despite all the cruel things he did to Noah, it's quite easy to sympathize with him.
  • N bitterly acknowledging how he got his "just desserts" for what he did to Noah. It may be misguided, but clearly shows how ever since M died for Mio, he has started to realize just how much he screwed up, even if he still refuses to admit it.
  • It is clear that with M gone, N only clings on to being a Moebius because he knows just how far he's fallen now, having seen just how he had left M broken, and that he can't hide himself from the truth that he was the one who caused all his and M's suffering. His rants about how Noah and his friends are just fooling themselves and being arrogant that they could be the saviors of the world all but conveys how much despair he feels about his situation, lamenting and regretting becoming a Moebius yet having caused so much damage to the other side that he has nothing left to come back for, especially since he had killed the people of the City, the descendants of the son he and M had. Even though he tries to act that he just saw himself as taking their lives for it was his right as their sire, it's clear that deep down, he is wrecked with guilt, especially as he would have seen M regretting what he did.
    • This is even worse when Future Redeemed comes. Not only is it confirmed that he was completely lying that he didn't care about killing the people of the City, as he shows melancholy whenever it is pointed out and acceptance of his great-grandson punching him, but it's made clear that the love and sentiment he still has for them is what ultimately drove him into the character he is now, as no matter how hard he tries, the regret of having killed his own son just keeps building up until he unhealthily tries to suppress it, but when it's pointed out, he snaps out.
  • Noah even says that N has become regret itself, obsessively clinging on to the past and blaming himself for every failure he made, and he doesn't even deny it, just snapping back that if he is regret, then what is Noah. To N, there is no hope, not just for him, but for the entire world. It's clear that he's not just talking about his mess. He's also talking about the experiences he had shared with M, the many people he knew who either died or gave up on the cause.
• The events at Colony Omega, both before and during the events of the game:
  • Before relocating to Colony Gamma, Mio and Sena were stationed at Omega. However, an accident released deadly, flammable gas within the compouned. Mio's off-seer partner, Miyabi, pulled a Heroic Sacrifice to place the barely-conscious Mio and unconscious Sena into an escape pod before giving Mio her flute. The Survivor Guilt that Mio feels over this is perfectly apparent when she reveals what happened to Noah.
    Mio: It's not fair! She was the younger one! She should have been the one who lived!
  • During the events of the game, Mio learns from M's memories that Miyabi is alive and still at Colony Omega, so the team heads there. When they arrive, they find Miyabi and all of the recently-deceased Mwamba, Hackt, and Cammuravi completely under Moebius Y's control and programmed to kill Ouroboros. The musical "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight reveals that Miyabi, and very likely the others, are not willing participants.
    Miyabi: Mio... Help me...!
• At the end of the game, the main party plus Riku and Manana try to hold it together and play it cool when their worlds start to separate, but they can't and run towards each other as the worlds come apart until there's a chasm between them. That being said, it's much more bittersweet, as despite being separated, the party makes a promise to find each other again, and surpass Moebius by ultimately accepting the need to be separated for the good of both worlds, not once giving into despair as N had all those years ago.
  • Just a few seconds before the scene shifts, while the Agnian side waves back towards the Kevesi side, Taion falls to his knees, presumably out of despair at having to separate from the others in general, and Eunie in particular, for an unknown amount of time if not forever.
  • Before parting, Lanz and Sena try to give each other a casual goodbye and a fist bump. Sena ends up breaking down into tears.

Sidequests

• Ashera's second sidequest reveals that beneath her devil may care exterior, she is in actuality deeply traumatized by her memories of being horrifically executed by the Consuls for her Homecomings in the early years before they came up with the Queens and off-seer system. It's why she's so insistent on dying gloriously in combat, even at the hands of a friend, because anything beats the undignified tortures she had to suffer beforehand.
• Irma/Moebius I is implied to essentially use Fiona and Ouroboros to pull a Suicide by Cop by attacking them because she's so conflicted and ashamed of her manipulation of the former after becoming her friend, in particular killing off her friends through using her illusion powers to attack them to make them stronger, that she feels that her death is the only way she can atone for her actions. Fiona's mournful wail as she takes up her banner to fight against Irma solidifies the pain she's feeling at having to do so. Irma as well uses as painful a challenge as possible to motivate Fiona into fighting.
  Moebius I: Crying about it won't change the truth! The fact is, your friends are dead! And I'm the one who killed them!
  • Even before this, Lanz, who out of all the team bonded with Fiona the most, is furious at what I did to her, and I's response makes it clear that he's absolutely right and that she deeply regrets what she's done.
    Lanz: Cut the crap! how could you do this to Fiona?!
    Moebius I: I KNOW PERFECTLY WELL WHAT I DID!
  • During the beginning of Fiona's Ascension Quest, she cries in the Bed of Woes and Wishes over her complicated feelings regarding Irma, and her inner monologue has her angry at herself for feeling this way even though Irma was responsible for the deaths of many of her friends.
• Taion's side story gives the backstory of Nimue, his mentor. She had been from a Colony that's been without it's Flame Clock for many generations, but left five years prior to the story after a chance meeting with an injured Isurd. During his explanation to Taion he mentions that he didn't understand her motivations to leave until he himself was free from the Flame Clock. The implication of the Flame Clock inhibiting romantic feelings combined with the party commenting on how many memories the pair would have together gives a rather tragic look at Isurd, down to him being unable to save Lost Colony from an attack beyond sending the party to do it in his stead. His last involvement in the quest has him blaming himself for Nimue's fate and pleading to Taion that if Nimue was reborn to not allow her to leave the Colony. Tellingly, Riku and Manana are required to be the heroes for this side quest in part to prevent the player from bringing Isurd, who refused to tag along in part because he couldn't bear to repeat actions that led to her leaving the Colony last time.
  Isurd: It was me... I'm the one who threw Nimue's life into chaos. I should have just left her where she was...
• Sena's sidequest fills out the backstory of Shania, and we learn that her issues of inadequacy and deep jealousy towards Gondor that led her to ultimately join Moebius and betray the City were born out of having to deal with her abusive mother constantly comparing her to her deceased father and older sister, and all but stating that she'd wished Shania was never born because she was simply not a fighter in the same way they were. Despite coming in 8th place out of a 100 people who applied to become candidates for Ouroboros, Shania's mother dismissed the impressive result as no better than coming in last (since there can only be 6 Ouroboros at a time, meaning Shania was "just" a reserve in case a higher scoring applicant was incapacitated or killed). Ghondor's attempts to reach her by pointing out her strengths in painting were interpreted by Shania as Ghondor simply calling her weak, creating a wedge between them that X would use to drive Shania to gain a Flame Clock and betray her hometown. Despite her betrayal of the City and Ouroboros in general and them in particular, and only failing to destroy the City the first time around because she wasn't privy to its nature as a giant Ferronis, and Mio managing to warn them in time, both Sena and Ghondor openly mourn her deaths. When Shania's mother calls her a "pathetic child" for falling prey to Moebius' manipulations while they're mourning in front of the Remembrance Stones (not bothering to reflect on her own part in Shania's fall to villainy), Sena and Ghondor appear ready to beat her to a pulp. They don't do so at least in part because Monica wordlessly threatens her away first.
  • Afterwards, Sena openly wonders in front of Monica if the things they saw in the City, namely the love between parent and child, was merely a illusion due to how clearly Shania's mother didn't care about her.
• Triton’s "Friendship" sidequest, available after completing the game and his Ascension Quest. The quest starts out innocuously enough, with Triton meeting his old drinking buddy, Jaggar, in the City canteen. They’re having a good time, and the conversation turns to a legendary fruit Jaggar’s grandfather used in preparing miso soup. Figuring out that the fruit is the Bright Fig, Triton and the party resolve to find it for Jaggar, the party being far more supportive than during Triton’s Ascension Quest. After obtaining the elusive fruit, the quest takes a somber turn when the party returns to the canteen to find Jaggar gone. It’s obvious where this is going, and despite Triton grasping for benign explanations for his friend’s absence, Cubibi, the Nopon Jaggar adopted, confirms that Jaggar is indeed dead. The quest concludes with Triton and the party going to the Remembrance Stone, where he lays the Bright Fig on the stone in Jaggar’s memory. Notably, the annoyance the party expresses at the end of Triton's Ascension Quest isn't present here, and they willingly accompany the uncharacteristically somber Triton to the Remembrance Stone.
• Triton’s storyline as a whole becomes this in hindsight in light of the ending. While exploring the Erythia Sea, you discover a Colony led by a Moebius that, for once, isn’t evil; in fact, he’s a pretty fun guy. He joins the party as a Hero, and after his Colony gets pressganged into the City, he can only visit them in the company of the party. After a series of sidequests, in a Heartwarming Moment, his Colony, realizing how lonely he is when not traveling with the party and unable to visit the City (which you can see firsthand if you come across him while traveling with a different Hero), makes a deal with the City, effectively allowing Triton to stay there when not traveling with the party. To top it off, they all consider Triton to be family. Then the ending comes, in which it is heavily implied that Triton, being a Moebius, is Killed Off for Real. Although Triton is far from the first party member to die in a video game, it is especially unusual and sad that his death results from the success of very quest he is helping you undertake.
• Although Nia and Melia both appear as High Queens of their respective worlds and seem to adjust fairly well, their story quests can still be rather sad as it delves into their pasts that we already know despite initially ending happy ultimately became upended.
  • In her Ascension Quest, Melia is quickly angered by her aide's willingness to sacrifice themselves, and solemnly states she cannot bear to lose another friend, having lost enough. This is especially poignant to those familiar with Melia's introduction in the first game: she was traveling through Makna Forest in order to dispatch the Leone Telethia, and initially failed to do so. She only escaped thanks to the sacrifice of her personal bodyguards, one of which is named Aizel, the same as her primary aide in this game. Ouch.
    • When Melia meets Nia, Nia sadly recalls how while their experiences lead them to becoming the rulers and warriors they are now, such experiences are painful and their gains would never fully undo all that they had been through. Melia not only fully agrees, but does that in a tone that just sounds straight up tired. Suddenly, the two well-composed queens sound so human and reveal just how beneath all their power and intellect, they are both tragic survivors. Everyone in the party can tell how somber the mood became.
    • The full context of Melia's life in Aionios is a real tragedy. Unlike Nia, who was laid to sleep, Melia has been conscious the entire time since Z took over Origin and used her as a battery (albeit, she states mercifully her time imprisoned still felt like just a very long dream, even that dream state she remarks later almost drove her insane at times). The engine that was designed to save both worlds is used to turn Aionios into a living nightmare. Not only that, but Melia's likeness, name, and ancestral home are all used to run that nightmare, Melia seeing in first-person her robot doppelganger be Moebius' puppet. While Nia had faith that someone would use the Ouroboros Stones to save the world and entrusted the Cloudkeep key to M, Melia had considerably fewer reasons to be hopeful, nevermind Moebius intentionally trying to crush her hope. Finally, while Nia still has Poppi and possibly Mio (if the latter is really her daughter), Melia's friends, even if they survived into Aionios, would have definitely died by present day, and she seems to have left no heirs. Tyrea is nowhere to be seen either. One positive, at least, is that her words to Shulk's Monado REX+ implies that restoring Bionis may bring her friends back. All of this and her existing Trauma Conga Line...
  • Nia and Mio's heartfelt talk. The High Queen of Agnus sadly muses about how she so dearly wanted to be able to interact with Mio, but couldn't. It's heavily indicated that Mio is either Nia's daughter, the one she had with Rex, or a descendant of said child, and you have to remember that if Mio is Nia's daughter, chances are she was only still a child when Nia had to do whatever it was that led to her surviving. Nia only had perhaps eleven years or so to be with her daughter, and that would explain why she bitterly lamented it, as well as how she kept looking at her longingly yet decided against telling her the truth behind their relation. It's quite possible that she didn't see herself worthy of being called her mother after being utterly powerless to do anything to help her and thus decided against telling her, especially when you have to remember Nia HAD met M before to entrust her the location of where she was going to sleep. To tell her of their relation now when she didn't before would, likely in her opinion, confirm how she watched as her daughter suffered as M for centuries while she slept, and she most likely feared that Mio would reject her entirely out of bitterness and resentment and settled to just watch over her, unable to expose their relation out of fear of being disowned.
  • While she does have moments of levity (she's still Nia, after all), there's a bitter undercurrent throughout all of Nia's quests. It's obvious that unlike Melia (who has been training for her role her whole life), Nia never wanted to be Queen and only took the job out of necessity, letting slip that she finds palace life boring and lonely and jumping at the chance to drop her royal persona and go out on adventures like she did with her old party. Nia's situation is also something of a microcosm of Pyra and Mythra's journey in the previous game; Nia basically went through the same long sleep that they did after the Aegis War, and like them, she has no one from her own time or place to relate to anymore, but unlike them, this time she doesn't even have Rex or someone like him to help her cope with it. And after the Consuls puffed up her reputation to near god-like levels to keep Agnus loyal to their fake Queen, she's not likely to find anyone other than Melia and Poppi who treat her as an equal any time soon (even Mio has trouble with this at first). At the end of the quest, Nia abruptly asks the party to take her to the highest point in Aionios, probably because she's feeling nostalgic for the Cloud Sea and wants to see the closest thing to it, though darker reasons may also come to mind. When they get there, Nia stands at the edge of a cliff and entrusts the party with defeating Z in a way that implies she won't be there with them (which both Sena and Mio are alarmed by). Thankfully this scene loops back to heartwarming when Mio gives Nia a pep talk that would make Rex proud (whether she's his daughter or not) to convince her that the party wants her to stay with them even after Z is defeated and the worlds split apart again, all while gently holding Nia by the elbows as if to keep her from falling backwards (a gesture which Nia reciprocates, hence the name of the quest, "Grasping My Future"), which finally snaps Nia out of her funk and has her recommit to forging a new future with all of them.
• The Jumbo Tirkin's fate during Ghondor's ascension quest: The party sets out to track down a monster that had been laying waste to Ghondor's soldiers. When they finally track it down, they discover that it was only fighting the soldiers because they had attacked him first, and that the only reason he was around the soldiers in the first place is because the war had forced his family out of its old home and his only goal was to collect food for them and then travel in search of a safe place to live. The party decides to help him by gathering food, but by the time they return, he's being attacked by a group of Keves soldiers, and despite the party's best efforts, he's mortally wounded during the battle. He makes a final request to the party, to take his children somewhere safe, before he succumbs to his injuries.

General

• The Consuls as a whole can come off as over-the-top and hammy... and then you find out that when someone is made a Consul, they regain the memories of every single one of their deaths since the war began. As J's memories revealed, it is almost certain that several of those memories are terrifying and painful. After recalling literal lifetimes-worth of suffering, it's no surprise that it could make someone as kind as Joran snap and be sadistic in response to those memories. It also puts their intentions of living forever and a lot of the childish cries of not wanting to die in a new light; when they are killed in the story they are possibly suffering flashbacks of their prior deaths at the same time. In that regard, the Consuls are just as much victims of the whole cycle as everyone else even if their actions are inexcusable.
  • A fact mentioned by Crys after Joran's sacrifice reveals that those who are reborn as Moebius are removed from the cycle and die permanently when killed. Whether they like it or not, their lives as Consuls will be their very last.
• Eunie and Sena have surprisingly saddening fall damage quotes. With Eunie, she lets out a long "ooowwwww" that makes it sound like she broke a bone. Sena gets it even worse, as upon landing, she starts audibly crying. And it's not exaggerated, either; she sounds completely broken from the pain.
• Erythia Sea is the region most obviously made out of the ruins of two worlds, which will make any fan of the first two games wistful upon finding a familiar site or locale, and the music for Erythia Sea (which samples Fonsett Village's theme from 2) is surprisingly melancholic, though considering the giant Drama Bomb that happens during Chapter 5's ending and Chapter 6's beginning, it makes it that much more fitting. Beyond that, however, the music especially resonates when coming across the broken Alcamoth transporter at what was once Centre Gate and the remains of Spirit Crucible Elpys. Knowing how much history Eryth Sea and the Leftherian Archipelago had in their original games coupled with the melancholic music makes it all the more depressing to see the various locations of the two regions in various states of ruin and decay, especially considering that they were the homes of Melia and Rex respectively. Even the sight of the Bionis' head under Agnus Castle is another reminder of the history that remains forgotten by the characters of 3, especially since it's the last remnants of Klaus/Zanza left in Aionios.

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