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holydragon2808 · 6 years ago

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Addam, Rex and the Aegis (An In-Depth Comparison/Contrast)

Yep….It’s that time again for me to rant about the things I love the most. I was on the Xenoblade reddit after completing Torna the Golden Country last week. I had been anticipating this expansion release for quite some time and for the most part it did NOT disappoint. There will be massive spoilers for both the main game and the expansion so read at your own risk.

There was yet another one of those Addam vs Rex topics in relation to the Aegis (Pyra/Mythra) that I responded to on the Xenoblade Reddit page. There seems to be this IMO, rather skewed perception of both Addam and Rex’s accomplishments throughout the whole story. Generally people either think that the former was a complete failure and the latter a total success (based on the sole reasoning and hyper focus of one succeeding with the Aegis and one failing) which, once the entire story is put together, becomes ridiculous to be candid…..

I wrote this post (as well as my response on Reddit) because I wanted to remind people that there’s more to both of their characters and their accomplishments for the entire world at large than JUST how they handled the Aegis. I’ve personally always believed that both succeeded and failed when it came to the Aegis (and Pyra/Mythra’s experiences with both Addam and Rex eventually led to Pyra/Mythra finding the closure and happiness they deserved in the ending of the base game).

Addam may not have been able to do for Mythra/Pyra what Rex ultimately could as a driver, and “Torna The Golden Country” might have fallen on his watch, but we still cannot gloss over the fact that Addam DID save the entire world at large from Malos’s rampage back in the day by essentially giving life to Mythra. Had he not resonated with her, Rex and co, or anyone else between that 500 year gap and beyond would not have had a chance to do anything because the whole world would have ended centuries ago.

Seriously folks, there’s a very damn good reason why Addam is still regarded as a hero 500 years later despite the heavy devastation left behind by the Aegis War. He also played a pretty vital role in getting Mythra in touch with her “humanity” underneath her course attitude back then which ultimately made it easier for Rex to bond with her. Not to mention that he put A LOT of specific measures in place to ensure Mythra/Pyra would be taken care of in the future, and to be frank, Rex owes a lot of his successes with the Aegis to Addam and what he and his allies sacrificed centuries ago.

Rex might have been able to accept Mythra/Pyra in a way that Addam ultimately did not, but it still doesn’t change the fact that Rex made a lot of dumb and reckless mistakes throughout his story and that his inexperience as a driver caused a LOT of problems for himself, Mythra/Pyra, and the rest of the party on more than one occasion…..

Yes, Rex played a very key part in finishing what Addam and his friends started 500 years ago and righting many of the wrongs that came about from the past. However, it’s made very clear both in the base game and TTGC, that Addam and his friends were the ones that ultimately gave the future generation that the Aegis returned to a fighting chance with their many sacrifices and hardships that they endured and I wanted to do a comparison/contrast between Addam and Rex as thoroughly and objectively as I could.

I posted a response on the topic in question here, but I’ll copy and paste what I said here on tumblr. It will be a post of very considerable length so be mindful of that too lol. Needless to say, if you haven’t completed both Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Torna the Golden Country then don’t read any further. Massive spoilers abound here. Final warning.

As much as I liked Addam (I thought he was a very human character, flaws, virtues and all), I often felt like the DLC Torna the Golden Country glossed over his flaws as the driver of the Aegis (and since almost everyone thought so highly of him he was hardly called out on anything) because the expansion was too busy constantly calling Mythra out on all her short comings (to the point where it often felt like Monolith were laying it on a bit thick) which was a little unfair IMO (further reason why I wish that this DLC had been told from Mythra and Addam’s perspective instead of Lora and Jin. Don’t get me wrong, Jin and Lora’s story is truly gut wrenching and I did find Lora to be a good lead character but overall the DLC really doesn’t tell us anything more than what we already knew about them from the main game outside some extra interactions with that Gort guy).

With that said though, it was cool to witness and experience some of the finer details surrounding the Jin/Lora/Haze dynamic such as who Lora was as a character, how the bond/affinity between her, Jin and Haze was ironically (and tragically since we know what will happen to all of them) not so different from the one Mythra/Pyra will later forge with Rex five centuries down the line (which was the very root of why Jin went down that dark path after Lora was killed, which we knew from the main game, but to actually witness said bond makes it all the more tragic), and how she basically redefined what the bond between drivers and blades could be for everyone back then both on and off the battlefield and more or less single-handedly invented what would later become a common staple for Blade/Driver combat (passing the weapon).

It’s also worth noting that the bond Lora had with both Jin and Haze five centuries ago was considered extremely rare. By the time Rex and co come into the picture, it’s truly heartwarming to see that sort of bond between drivers and blades much more common place. On another note, the mask that Jin wears… Lora made it for him (which is tragic in itself) but just what the hell sort of materials did Lora use for the thing to hold up for five centuries?

Anyway, it’s true that Mythra was definitely often too eager to use her OHKO move (the Artifice Siren), was immature, brash, and inexperienced (and those faults played a part in Addam and Mythra’s resonance problems certainly. The DLC spent far too much time beating us over the head with that fact IMO so I’m going to focus more on Addam’s issues in this post just to be clear), but Addam’s fear was ALSO just as much a wrench in their bonding issues as it was justified (and just as bad a problem if not more so than Mythra’s recklessness and immaturity IMO) and I really wished Torna had expanded on that fact a lot more considering he was always holding Mythra back from using her power period out of fear rather than trying to compromise a bit and help her find more creative and less destructive ways to utilize it (you know, like a real driver is supposed to do….?).

Seriously, there’s a fine line between wise caution and crippling fear. If a person lets fear hold them back from NEVER using the power they’ve been granted then no matter how well meaning their caution is they shouldn’t be surprised when they can’t control it when it matters…..It’s sadly no surprise that Addam couldn’t control Mythra in the finale of TTGC when everything went sideways because he never actually did anything to better himself as her driver.

He was too busy trying to be her “with great power becomes great responsibility” parent (though to be fair that role was quite necessary to an extent) which, while definitely playing a huge part in bringing out her dormant “humanity” underneath her attitude, somewhere along the way, he forgot, (or didn’t realize the importance of him conquering his fear until it was too late) that Mythra ultimately wasn’t his daughter but his blade and the Aegis at that. To put this in perspective, it’s worth noting that 500 years later, it wasn’t until Rex proved himself to Mythra (and Pyra) as their true driver that they finally stopped with their suicidal plans and revealed their true self and their power to him despite both of them having grown very fond of Rex beforehand.

With that said, Mythra was fond of Addam as well. At the very least she respected him enough to stay loyal to him and put up with being belittled and insulted by everyone around her in direct contrast to Malos who took the first opportunity he had to rid himself of Amalthus despite both Aegises being tainted and/or corrupted by their drivers during this time period. Mythra was corrupted because of Addam’s fears and insecurities and Malos because of Amalthus’s despair and hatred. It’s unfortunate that Addam never could realize the full ramifications of his fears and how those fears tainted his resonance with Mythra from the outset until it was too late. The whole tragedy of Torna is just further proof of how crucial a strong resonance/bond of true acceptance really is to a blade. It’s ultimately the most important bond a driver can forge with his or her blade. That applies to the Aegis most of all.

In other words, Addam still needed to actually man up, move past his fear and become the true driver of the Aegis, and view Mythra as an equal and ultimately prioritize learning how to accept that side of her rather than either (subconsciously) viewing her as an in-born dangerous monster in the making just because she was an Aegis and/or merely treating her like a “kid” simply because that was easier for him to accept (and it was pretty clear she didn’t appreciate that anyway and thought it was somewhat patronizing despite Addam’s good intentions “What the hell is with that tone? Where do you get off acting all parental?”). Hey, all immaturity and recklessness aside, Mythra’s real father was the creator of the world, and yet she’s was stuck with a driver/human that kept inadvertently talking down to her like he knew everything and couldn’t/wouldn’t accept her true self, so in a way her frustration/annoyance was somewhat justified honestly IMO.

In TTGC, shortly after Hugo leaves the party for a bit after arriving at the Aletta Garrison and right after the party cleared the bridge of those Gogol monsters, Addam told Mythra to her face (and in front of everyone) that he’s apprehensive about facing Malos because she needs more training and needs to be mindful of her power, which was admittedly fair to a certain degree. The problem was it was coming from a place where Addam didn’t think he himself had much to improve while believing that Mythra had everything to improve which wasn’t completely fair or true. Never once did he admit directly to her his own issues of fear or tried to work on conquering them too (and either didn’t seem to understand or didn’t want to admit that him “not being man enough” was a much bigger problem than he wanted to believe and that he wasn’t 100% prepared to fight Malos either. And given what he admitted outright to Lora a few scenes prior about his fears, I’m inclined to go with the latter interpretation).

Honestly, I can’t be the only one who found it ironic (and sadly a bit hypocritical of him to be frank) that Addam was supposed to be the prince of a nation that prided itself on treating blades and titans as equal partners and friends and forging true bonds with them…..and yet he couldn’t extend that courtesy to his OWN blade and properly bond with her? As the driver of the Aegis that was even more damning. It didn’t help matters that the expansion all but confirmed that Addam kept Mythra apart from not just his militia, but from his own family out of fear of her potential wrath (Mythra had to directly ask what’s so special about Aletta once the party first arrived, indicating that Mythra had never even seen the place until that moment).

Addam and Mythra had been together for a year prior to meeting Lora and Jin so there’s a few more unfortunate implications and further mention of the huge lack of trust between them as driver and blade…..It wasn’t completely fair of them (the party) back then to belittle Mythra for her initial “lack of compassion” towards humanity when Addam was the one who kept her apart from humans prior to meeting Lora/Jin/Haze. Even though Addam stated that she’s the one that “purposely kept herself apart,” it’s not like Addam helped matters with all of that either (again at least not until Lora/Jin/Haze came into the picture). So…what did they expect? It’s not like Mythra was even a blade from Alrest anyway but rather stolen directly from Elysium. HOW could she have known any better prior to having the opportunity to forge her OWN connections and bonds with others?

He and everyone else around him instead just kept constantly calling Mythra out on and putting her down about her problems and her power which would have been fine if it hadn’t happened to the point where it seemed like none of them had any real faith in her (from her point of view) and (unintentionally) making her feel like a dangerous outcast, regardless of what they might have meant or intended or how much of said treatment Mythra might have brought on herself. Never mind the fact that regardless of what Addam and Co might have believed back then, they were against a rogue Aegis at full power and in complete control over said power.

The only thing that could/would possibly turn the tide completely in their favor against one rogue Aegis at full power and in complete control of said power was the other Aegis fighting on their side at full power and in complete control of said power. And when I say ”completely in their favor” I mean the party achieving victory against Malos without 1) the cost of Mythra losing herself in rage and her sinking the Tornan Titan to the cloud sea bed, 2) Team Hugo’s tragic sacrifice to save the rest of the party from the combination of Mythra’s attack the Tornan core’s explosion, and 3) Milton’s untimely murder at the hands of Malos. All of that isn’t even getting into what Amalthus ends up doing after the battle to Team Lora and the surviving Tornan refugees that evacuated to Spessia….

With that said, without Mythra (the other Aegis) and her full power (and complete control over it), they were all essentially screwed against Malos. Needless to say that the party members’ overall fearful and constant negative attitudes about her power and/or shooting her down whenever she tried to use her Aegis power or even mentioned using it throughout the campaign because they just assumed she’d destroy everything (and consequently both Addam and Mythra never had the opportunity to learn how to properly control her powers or for him to learn to accept that side of herself) and constantly (even if unintentionally) reinforcing the belief that she was just a reckless and dangerous “simpleton” super weapon came back to bite them all in the ass hard come the final battle against Malos and every other tragic event that took place afterwards (self-fulfilling prophecy if I ever saw one. More on this point later).

However, as Rex and Mythra/Pyra will demonstrate five centuries later (once Rex gets a serious reality check and a clue or two about what he’s truly involved himself in with her that is), with a proper and strong driver/blade bond, with genuine trust between driver and blade unclouded by fears and doubts, an Aegis using their full power wouldn’t automatically equate to destroying everyone and everything (just like practically any other blade in this story), something that Addam might have been able to realize eventually for himself had he not tainted their resonance from the outset with his fears and negative preconceived notions about Aegises that he never bothered to try and reconcile or that no one thought important enough to call him out on (despite the implication that a few characters within the party picked up on some of his resonance issues or even outright knew about them in Lora’s case) because everyone (both in the party and out) treated him like a near flawless hero who could do no wrong.

Seriously, the 100% adoration rating trope got deconstructed with a vengeance here in a way or at the very least explored in a harsher and more realistic way with Addam as a character along with the humble prince archetype. When people think that highly of a person in general, they are far less likely to see any real flaws in a person and thus far less likely to call a person out when it could benefit them.

Unlike Rex with his issues of inexperience and naivety that he was constantly called on and eventually forced to confront and overcome, Addam’s (subconscious) views of Aegises and his fears of Mythra were never truly challenged in any significant way that would have forced him to change his perspective or his actions until during and after Torna’s destruction by Mythra’s hand (again, because everyone either thought too highly of him to note any real flaws or because they shared in his views about the power).

And simply being a “humble prince” who would prefer to (and often finds any excuse to) run away and live like a farmer rather than tend to his royal duties actually doesn’t automatically entitle a person to a peaceful farm life surrounded by his close friends and family, especially when he’s either given or forced into opportunities of heroism and greatness that would help him achieve his desired peaceful outcome (in the most ideal way of everyone close to him surviving and his nation not being doomed to destruction), and yet instead choose to not properly seize those opportunities simply because he won’t get over himself.

Addam was (understandably) so hyper focused on achieving his dream of a peaceful farm life existence with his family that in the end all he thought about was himself and thus, despite treating Mythra with compassion in the face of his fear of her, he still wasn’t properly taking care of her and acknowledging her true nature as a blade/Aegis by truly connecting with her as a driver. That’s not even getting into how he outright shied away from politics and ruling his nation out of fear even before Mythra came into his life.

It’s a very similar issue/pattern that Rex will find himself in and Jin will actually call him out on 500 years later at the end of chapter six in XBC2 (because Rex was (understandably) so hyper focused on doggedly pursuing his dream of reaching Elysium that he was naively ignoring everything else around him including properly understanding Pyra/Mythra): “Look at the state of you. You hadn’t even noticed. Your own blade has been wounded so deeply, and all you can think of is yourself. You awakened the Aegis, I thought that…you might have been different. But you’re just a fool. A pitiful, childish fool.”

Not to say that Addam should not have tried to pursue a life of peace with his family after defeating Malos in any capacity (I’d never declare that), but it was incredibly short-sighted and somewhat arrogant of him to assume that he’d be able to completely remove himself from the world’s troubles since he was the driver of the Aegis even if he had managed to elude the Tornan throne. Living the life of a hermit in the sticks completely removed from it all as he wanted likely wasn’t going to happen after the fight against Malos even if Torna’s tragic fate had been averted.

In Torna, Addam was depicted as the popular and warm hearted prince of his nation with the majority of his people preferring him to be the next in line towards ascending the Tornan throne over his far less popular uncle (Prince Zetter). The ONLY reason Addam was not was because he’s fourth in line to the throne while Prince Zetter was first in line.

However, Addam didn’t want to rule. He didn’t care about power and he was ultimately afraid of the man he might become should he ascend the throne. He didn’t want the pressure of ruling. He didn’t want power or to be in the spotlight in any way. All he wanted was the freedom to live his life in peace with his wife and soon to be born child away from politics, away from heroism and glory.

Definitely not bad or unreasonable desires in and of themselves for sure, and again, in ANY other story, he surely would have been the relatable, noble, humble, down-to-earth prince who just wanted to be free of it all and would have probably been “rewarded” with the chance to live in peace with his family after achieving victory against a great world threatening force (again, Addam did still save the whole world despite everything else).

Instead, that very attitude of doggedly pursuing his desire for farm life completely removed from it all at the expense of EVERYTHING else happening around him in his life (including his status as an Aegis driver, that in itself a life long commitment to “heroism” in his case whether he knew and/or wanted it or not), combined with his deep insecurities and fears, sadly only served as the root cause of all his issues both as a prince of his nation and the driver of the Aegis, as well as contributing to his ultimate failure at saving and helping either one. He (understandably) didn’t want the throne so he often discouraged people from talking about him ascending it mainly because he was afraid of what sort of person he could potentially become while ruling.

Never mind the fact, that regardless of what he wanted, he might have been forced to accept the responsibility of the throne due to popular vote alone (as well as the King himself constantly saying and declaring that Addam was far more fit to rule despite it being Prince Zetter’s birthright). Also, by being the driver of the Aegis, he would have been forced in the spotlight no matter what. He could/would have been forced to play the role of hero for longer than just stopping Malos had things played out differently.

I seriously doubt that even if Torna had been spared and everyone made it out alive that Amalthus (and others in Indol like him) was just going to stand idle. He was going to use those flawed blade eaters and those flesh eaters for something surely, and he probably still would have eventually murdered his way towards becoming Praetor….Given that Amalthus was already a scheming monster even back then, he definitely would have taken the opportunity to retrieve and/or kill Mythra even if everything had turned out fine for Torna and the party.

The bottom line was Addam was a prince of Torna, meaning he had responsibilities that he may not have been able to completely avoid regardless of how frightened he might have been about ruling his nation or how much he longed for a peaceful existence completely and utterly removed from politics and heroism after defeating Malos.

Sadly though, he held himself back from fully embracing those responsibilities (largely out of fear) even before everything went to hell and even well before he brought Mythra into his life. And by the time he sealed Mythra/Pyra away, he had lost the majority of the people loyal to him (the Addamites as well as Team Lora) to Amalthus’s awful attack on Spessia where they had evacuated after Torna fell, and only the Counter-Addamites were left in power in Tantal.

So, even if he had gone back to Tantal, I’m not sure if he would have been able to do much and his presence probably would have caused even more conflict and war, probably being the reason why he “chose not to return” to Tantal after everything had happened. Well, and it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to assume he was ashamed that his weakness with Mythra doomed Torna to its tragic fate and couldn’t bare to face his people because of it.

Addam’s weaknesses as Mythra’s driver, the subsequent tragedies, and her eventual sealing, combined with his inaction with politics regarding the Tornan throne throughout his campaign and his eventual disappearance from the world and history after the Aegis War, sadly only left a power vacuum. And Amalthus (along with Addam’s other opposition in Prince Zetter and the other Counter-Addamites) were all too ready to take FULL advantage of it.

Though to be fair, despite the power vacuum left behind, Addam sealing Mythra/Pyra away did effectively keep her out of Amalthus’s clutches until a time came where someone truly worthy of her would awaken her again (considering Amalthus’s status as a master driver and what we saw in the base game, he would have been able to control her eventually too).

Even so, Addam still fell into a similar pattern with being Mythra’s driver. He saw what Malos could do prior to even resonating with Mythra and thus he was (understandably) afraid of the wrath that he could potentially bring down upon the world (see the unfortunate pattern?), and thus closed his heart and mind from learning about the true nature of her powers.

Mythra’s true Aegis power (from what we eventually see in the base game with Rex and Pneuma), can only be described as “All Creation” or reality manipulation, i.e, “The power to manifest what you imagine”. Addam thought that Mythra’s powers could only cause destruction based solely on what he saw from Malos so he held himself (and by extension her) back from using those powers out of fear. If he only had a more open heart and mind towards her, he would have realized that her power could have been quite literally whatever he wanted it to be (something that’s implied he realized during Mythra’s rampage in their final battle against Malos, but again, it was too late at that point).

He forgot that Mythra, even if she was another Aegis, was still her OWN person and being an Aegis didn’t automatically mean she was just going to run wild like Malos eventually did. Nor should Addam have constantly compared himself to Amalthus. He and Amalthus were two different people and drivers and just because Amalthus lost control of Malos didn’t automatically mean that Addam would lose control of Mythra.

As unintentional as it might have been on his end, Addam had no faith or confidence in himself as the driver of the Aegis and thus no faith or confidence in Mythra as his blade. Never once during his time as her active driver did he truly consider that his negative thoughts of him being too afraid to properly use Mythra’s power would taint her perspective on herself as well through his resonance with her. Never once thought that, rather than saving people from her potential wrath by opting to not use her true powers in any capacity that he was instead completely preventing himself from truly connecting with Mythra and learning about her.

And once he finally did get a clue on all of that, it was far too late for him to fix his issues with her. And even though Addam saw Mythra more or less as a surrogate daughter or “kid” of sorts, that otherwise heartwarming bond was fundamentally undermined by his fear of her, and it kept him from truly accepting her as both an individual and the Aegis, as well as kept him from seeing and respecting Mythra as an equal partner, friend and comrade in the same vein he saw Minoth, Team Lora and Team Hugo.

Addam’s desire for a peaceful life and being a father was perfectly fine. Subconsciously imposing the “daughter” identity onto Mythra through his resonance with her to the point of outright rejecting her true nature (Pneuma) as an all powerful blade/Aegis (as in the daughter of the Architect himself) out of fear? Yeah…not so much and he paid a HUGE price for that.

The world didn’t need an all powerful blade with a “childish” mentality to save it even if Addam (understandably) longed for fatherhood himself over being a hero. The world needed the Aegis in her truest form (Pneuma). And the world needed a driver for her that was actually willing to accept and use that power to not just stop Malos, but to also guide humanity towards a brighter future (again, all things he realized far too late and outright mentions in the final message he entrusted to Pyra).

While the surrogate parenting or mentoring (or whatever) from Addam was necessary to a certain degree (since again his desire for fatherhood combined with his intense fears of Aegises is implied to have completely messed up his resonance with the green Aegis core from the very beginning), again, ultimately, Mythra didn’t need a “father” figure in him (nor did she really want that deep down as I pointed out earlier).

She wanted and needed a driver. A TRUE driver. She was expected to be the light of hope for humanity in their darkest hour 500 years ago. However, as Rex will later eventually see and understand once he comes along 500 years later, Addam had failed to truly understand (again until it was far too late for Torna) that Mythra needed someone to be HER light of hope before she could bring hope to everyone else. Again there’s a reason why 500 years later that it wasn’t until Rex proved himself to her as her true driver (i.e., her true emotional anchor) that her true power and nature was ever revealed to him.

Addam was always either too afraid or too hesitant to step up when and where it mattered the most sadly despite his potential for greatness and heroism whether it be with possibly ruling his nation or being the driver of the Aegis. He spent far too much time in his own head stewing in negative hypotheticals (i.e. worrying about the potential consequences of his actions) and that hindered his ability to step up and act when necessary.

And again, a lot of the fears he carried plus the lack of acceptance in all facets of his royal upbringing were his own personal problems and flaws that he never reconciled even before he became Mythra’s driver. Not helping matters is that Mythra represented literally everything in his life he wanted no part of (heroism, royal duties, notoriety, no peace and quiet, basically his life wouldn’t be his own in a way, etc).

Addam being hindered by the “potential” consequences of his actions was definitely one of the major differences between him and Rex despite a lot of other similarities. And in the end, all it amounted to was Addam fundamentally having the opportunities to do great things with both his country (and by extension the world) and his blade, but failing to truly capitalize on them.

By not (subconsciously) fully committing himself to the role as driver of the Aegis, and by not fully seizing the opportunity to guide his nation and the world towards salvation and prosperity when he had the chance (again being too (understandably) hyper focused on achieving his dream of a peaceful farm life with his family completely and utterly removed from everyone and everything), he instead, unwittingly played a part in causing irreparable damage to his nation (and the world for 500 years until Rex and co come along) in spite of achieving victory against Malos. That’s not even getting into the (near) irreparable emotional damage that Mythra (and Pyra) suffered and carried alone for 500 years as a result of his incompetence and fear as her driver. And well….because of all of that….the rest was tragic history….

Not helping matters is that Addam resonated with Mythra in a time period before the “core cleansing” (Amalthus hadn’t yet become Praetor and hadn’t yet started tampering/abusing his master driver powers and stealing data from core crystals) and the whole “passing the weapon” battle style, something that deepened the connection between driver and blade both on and off the battlefield was still a new concept for most other drivers and blades in this time period (including Addam himself) prior to meeting Lora/Jin/Haze.

Despite how wrong Amalthus was for later doing so (because he was starving the world of Titans for people to live on and hurting other blades to suit his own twisted idea of salvation), the core cleansing DID increase the pool of potential drivers by a much larger margin by the time Rex and co are involved, meaning that there were far more drivers around that could offer tips and other useful information about drivers and blades and their connections with each other.

However, in Torna’s time period, people everywhere had to rely on the natural pool of potential drivers (which was stated to be naturally very low and exactly why we only see a very small handful of drivers and blades around in Torna’s time period outside the main party). As a consequence, the synergy/affinity/bond/connection between drivers and blades at large wasn’t near as developed as it would become centuries later. As I mentioned before Lora’s type of bond she forged with both Jin and Haze was considered extremely rare back then.

So, in other words, there were very few people back then outside the party who could have offered a second opinion or perspective. I have to wonder how different things might have been for Torna 500 years ago had there been a “Vandam” type character outside the party that could have helped both Addam and Mythra get over themselves with all of his “Power depends on the heart of it’s wielder” and “If we don’t use our power because we’re scared of it, we’re done for” flavor of wisdom…

It’s all even more tragic in a way considering that some time during the interim between TTGC and XBC2, during her long slumber Mythra must have thought of ways to become more creative, strategical, refined and precise in the use of her powers on her own considering her introduction to the base game party and how she guides Rex against Malos and Akhos.

Not to mention Mythra/Pyra was often the one taking charge and leading the base game party out of trouble and/or coming up with the battle strategies and/or insights on where to go or what to do next. The second encounter against Brighid and Morag as well as the first boss fight against Mikhail and Patroka were a couple prime examples of many, showing that she indeed had the capacity to learn in that regard. It could have very well been possible in Addam’s time had he just not been so afraid of her power and encouraged her a bit more when it came to using it.

Don’t get me wrong, Addam was completely justified in worrying about Mythra becoming the next Malos, and she flat out says that she has no interest in the fate of humans, the world or its future on more than one occasion to be fair. Those are words from her that Rex never hears keep in mind by the time he comes into her life, so Rex has even less cause to be wary of her.

And as I mentioned earlier, Addam seemed less interested in getting to understand Mythra’s powers, her feelings and bringing out her full potential and getting to understand what it truly meant to be the driver of the Aegis and shouldering that burden, or even trying to understand what an “Aegis” truly was because of that very fear and more interested in just stopping Malos so he can work the fields in peace (and given the fact that he’s married and expecting a child no one could truly blame him for that), which while good for him (and again perfectly understandable), that still would have left a divine and all powerful being like Mythra wholly unfulfilled which she alludes to in a rather chilling moment between them when she and Addam were in Indol together after she asks him what they were going to do after defeating Malos “Well that [going home and working the land was Addam’s response] might be good enough for you. But some others might….not be…too pleased with that….”

While definitely unintentional on his end (Addam was a kind hearted man and I’m 100% positive he more than likely intended for her to be a part of his family along with Milton. Well, after defeating Malos anyway), the fact that he seemed overall more interested in merely using her to defeat Malos so he and his family could live in peace and ultimately less interested in becoming the driver that Mythra needed and deserved (at least until it was far too late for it to matter to him, to her or to the rest of the Tornans and their Titan/Nation), there was this sort of unintentional, but still rather unfortunate implication lingering between them that Mythra was only a means to an end for him. He was unintentionally relegating her existence to little more than a super weapon against Malos with nothing really concretely planned to do with her after that regardless of how much he genuinely wanted what was best for her like a father would have in a sense (again, totally 100% unintentional on his end but still somewhat there sadly).

That crippling fear again also definitely played a huge part in that rather disastrous resonance issue between them when Mythra totally snapped after Malos killed Milton. It’s pretty tragically ironic to note that the scenario that Addam feared the most and was trying desperately to prevent throughout the DLC (Mythra losing control of her power and basically becoming the next Malos in a sense) came about ultimately (on his part in their resonance issues anyway) not because Mythra was “inexperienced” or “careless” like he half expected because before Malos did the unthinkable and killed Milton, she was completely on board with the idea of taking down Malos together alongside her friends at that point and had come to value the ties of friendship she forged with all of them and had matured greatly as well as becoming far closer to the more tempered Mythra that we’d eventually see in the base game five centuries later. She had changed for the better, but Addam had not.

Sadly, the disastrous situation came about (again on his part in their resonance issues) because he himself never did anything to try to overcome his fear (despite acknowledging the fear to Lora in an early cutscene) and strengthening his resonance with Mythra.

Even with all of that said, his fear of the Aegis wrath in general was justified sadly because Malos at full power was already on the rampage sowing death and destruction long before Addam resonated with Mythra so that understandably didn’t help with the fear at all (and sort of subconsciously colored his perception of Aegises in general in the negative from the very beginning unfortunately but understandably).

However, Torna The Golden Country did also show that for all intent and purposes, Addam actually did possess the purity and strength of heart and character to potentially wield the true power of the Aegis (the “aptitude” to quote the base game) because face it, if he didn’t hold the potential in itself to do so he would not have been able to resonate with Pueuma’s core crystal period.

Not to mention that he was far more experienced as a driver than Rex, but tragically, that crippling fear held him back from ever realizing his potential for both him and Mythra and things sadly got really FUBAR in the final hours of the expansion as a result. Though of course not all of it was his fault for sure. Circumstances just weren’t on Addam’s side. Mythra definitely was a loose cannon in this DLC for certain particularly in the beginning which didn’t do the best of jobs reassuring him, and Malos, the other Aegis was making a terrifyingly destructive ass of himself, in addition to giving Addam a clear, tangible reminder of who and what Mythra could become if he didn’t exercise the upmost caution. Let’s not forget that Addam was a prince of his nation and already had hundreds of people’s lives dependent on him and his actions with or without being the driver of the Aegis (but becoming so certainly amplified his already large list of responsibilities).

Anybody would be hesitant in the above scenario, and it’s a scenario that Rex was never subjected to thanks in large part to Addam and the heroes of the past) but his fear does play a pretty huge part in why things go to hell for him and Mythra ultimately…Like he said…. sadly in the end, no matter how anyone looks at it, he just “wasn’t man enough” and unfortunately (but still understandably) he ultimately paid the tragic price (said price being losing everything important to him) of being only half committed to the role of “Driver of the Aegis”.

Even Jin, for all his respect for Addam back in the day could tell that he was ultimately not meant to be Mythra’s true driver and that Addam’s bond with her lacked…something. And no I don’t mean “romance” or anything like that. A driver and blade don’t always have to be romantically linked to have a strong bond and resonance. Romance certainly helps to be sure, but it’s not an outright requirement. Hugo’s bond with both Aegeaon and Brighid in the Torna expansion as well as Nia and Dromarch from the base game are two examples of many. Rather, Addam and Mythra lacked a genuine sense of trust, faith, understanding and affinity with each other as driver and blade even though they got along well enough otherwise. And this is before everything goes to hell.

Lora and Jin (after the latter overhears the conversation Lora had with Addam earlier in the expansion about his fears and he gets to know Mythra better) see Addam’s issues with fear and that his resonance with Mythra was lacking because of it (and seeing that it wasn’t so simple a problem as Mythra merely being “careless” or hard to deal with as it appeared on the surface. Partially, but not completely). The problem was neither one seemed to think it important enough (or their place) to note to Addam directly prior to the final battle.

Nor was Addam ever forced to confront the full ramifications of said fears and how they tainted his resonance with Mythra until it was far too late. Lora thinks Addam will figure it out with time (never mind the fact that time wasn’t exactly a luxury they had and it’s not like that wasn’t obvious) and Jin flat out went meta and said to Mythra that he honestly believed that the bond she had been searching for (”A driver and blade are one in body and soul”) ultimately wouldn’t be found in Addam but with another driver well into the future (which is probably why he didn’t bother to note anything to Addam himself).

Though to be completely fair, just like Addam had ample reason to fear the true power of the Aegis, Rex had plenty of reasons and completely differing circumstances from Addam that worked in his favor that led him to ultimately being able to accept Mythra/Pyra.

Despite that though, Rex does still start off with a true lack of understanding of Pyra and Mythra’s feelings and their true burden, as well as the knowledge of the ends and outs of being a driver period, (let alone the driver of the Aegis) before shit hit the fan for him too. Because let’s face it. He was more or less an immature, inexperienced, clueless and reckless idiot for roughly seven chapters before he finally got it together (something he himself notes at the end of said chapter). And just because Rex did ultimately help Pyra and Mythra by accepting them doesn’t mean he didn’t fail a lot before it happened (and even somewhat after the fact).

Seriously, I get tired of these Rex vs Addam topics that frame Rex as a complete success in every way (as if the boy never failed in any capacity, or as if his successes took place solely in a vacuum of his own skills. Yeah hardly) and framing Addam as a total failure in every way just because the former succeeded with Mythra/Pyra.

Again, that is a very distorted picture of both their accomplishments for the world as a whole to say the least…Never mind the fact that Addam’s actions five centuries ago kept the entire world from completely ending and gave the future generation a fighting chance, as well as his time with Mythra also had a humanizing factor on her which gave her the experience, clarity and perspective for a blade necessary to counterbalance Rex’s inexperience, naivety and recklessness as a driver.

I’m honestly not trying to take away from Rex’s long list of accomplishments or his eventual character growth (hence the coming of age story), but rather to remind people that the boy actually DID fail at times and that there’s more to his story than just his success with the Aegis. (Not trying to shit on Rex but the boy WAS dumb from time to time….just saying).

Anyway case in point for Rex’s failures, his character flaws, and him just ultimately being a child that’s “stumbling his way forward” (at least for a good stretch of the story):

Chapter 1 (Encounters)

He gets himself killed by Jin because of his childish naiveté. He didn’t take the time to investigate the job and his employers. All he heard when he accepted the job was “200,000 gold in total” and common sense just flew right out the window. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is…and he would have remained dead had Pyra not brought him back out of the kindness of her heart…..

Well that and she was initially just using him to get to Elysium to die herself. Yeah, it’s complicated I guess and this encounter with her shows that Rex is far too naive and trusting for his own good (hell, being too trusting already got the boy killed). Seriously, Pyra and Mythra are subtle as sin when it comes to manipulation and lying by omission, particularly with Rex and this side of their characters will show up again in the final chapter…..

But to be fair, this particular encounter does also put Rex in a better position to bond much more deeply with Pyra (and later Mythra too) because it sets her up as his savior that he’s indebted to rather than a potentially scary world destroying Aegis as the latter was the case for Addam.

However, let’s not forget the fact that had it not been for Azurda’s daring rescue (which almost cost him his life btw), Rex, Pyra, Nia and Dromarch would have been screwed. And to be frank, this sort of starts a trend for the first five or so chapters of Rex getting bailed out of dealing with his issues of driver inexperience and naivety by some sort of plot contrivance instead of his own skills…

Chapter 2 (Aptitude)

He and Nia were outmatched by a solo Brighid, and when the enemy captured Nia in one of those ether suppressing nets Rex didn’t want to run and leave her behind. That’s kind on his end but at the same time it also shows a few of his character flaws (immaturity and not knowing when to withdraw from the battlefield and realizing that sometimes a person really can’t save someone) and childish nature working against him.

Thanks to Rex’s inability to let go, he almost missed his chance to escape and would have been captured as well had (soon-to-be-new-party-member) Tora, (who was trying to snipe the soldiers because he thinks they’re bullies) not missed his target and hit the water pipe that Brighid was standing under, and the water (rather conveniently) weakened Brighid, giving Pyra and Rex a lucky opening to retreat.

And later he and the party were practically useless against Morag and Brighid together and Rex and co have to destroy a whole water tower JUST TO GET THE HELL AWAY FROM THEM. Though, to be completely fair, the way Rex and the team destroyed the water tower was an impressive display of teamwork and timing (and did a good job of showing that Rex did indeed have the capacity to think on his feet as well as his “good instincts” that Brighid notes).

However, we find out a bit later that little stunt caused A LOT of problems for both him and the common folks. Bandits attacked and ransacked the village of Cordell, one of the only few places left in Gormott that had accessible water, which led Rhys to stealing Roc’s core crystal in an attempt to avenge his now lost home and family not to mention that a lot of the town folks’ livelihoods depended on that water tower and Rex screwed them over by toppling it (though Rex does help little Rhys and his friends find their start as salvagers, enabling them to earn their livings).

Chapter 3 (Our Own War)

The idea to take an airship straight to the World Tree to get to Elysium….(sigh)…..come on Rex, if it was that easy then the World Tree would be far more accessible to practically anyone with a ship (and Elysium would have been discovered a long time ago). The fact that everyone went along with that idea was pretty egregious…I would have expected at least Nia to call him on that one…not to mention thanks to crashing the ship that Umon let him borrow, it really put Umon out on a limb when it came to his airship business for the majority of the game and made him a depressed suicidal wreck (though to be fair, Rex and Co can later do a series of quests and Merc missions to help Umon get back on track).

Let’s not forget his first encounter against Vandam showed his complete inexperience as a driver (not listening to Pyra telling him to wait because she can’t transfer power that fast) despite having the Aegis on his side and how his bullheadedness there would have gotten him killed had Vandam actually been serious and not the kind man he was. Not to mention that while he does learn and embrace some life long lessons that Vandam passes along to him, Rex still immaturely brushes off Vandam’s warnings about the true burden of being the driver of the Aegis. Vandam rightfully points out that “the whole world is gonna try and scalp you. You realize that?” and that Rex sharing a life force with Pyra is a bigger problem than Rex understands.

All Rex can respond with are his typical empty platitudes about banding together and that he’ll protect Pyra no matter what and “That’s just how the chips fell. It is what it is” regarding the “sharing their life force” thing. Those are all kind and admirable things to declare for one so young definitely, and I applaud anyone able to smile in the face of adversity don’t get me wrong, but Rex is still so incredibly green at being a driver period and so hopelessly naive about the world and life in general at this point in the narrative that he doesn’t have the power, skill or mature perspective necessary to understand the burden of being the Aegis driver.

Nor can Rex erase everyone’s (valid) increasing concerns and doubts about some random kid salvager with no obvious driver skill somehow being the Aegis’s driver. Rex is being pretty naive now and will grow somewhat arrogant and complacent once Mythra awakens due to her immense power, “feeling like he can do anything”, but he will pay a very hard price later for brushing off Vandam’s concerns (that hard price taking place towards the end of chapter six and the majority of chapter seven but we’ll get to all of that soon).

Anyway, that’s not to mention Rex’s sheer uselessness and incompetence against Akhos and Malos a bit later contributes to causing the death of his mentor and friend Vandam. And even when it’s clear that he’s outmatched, Rex still goes charging in like an idiot twice. And by the way the first time he doesn’t have the excuse of being in a grief stricken rage because Vandam is still alive the first time.

Even so, thanks to Rex’s idiotic and reckless behavior, he ends up forcing Vandam to rush in to try and save his ass after he rushes ahead without thinking, charging at Akhos as he starts prattling on about using Obrona’s abilities to disrupt the ether flow in the area with Rex screaming “You’re bluffing!” at Akhos like a cocky and reckless dumbass (sorry I couldn’t resist lol I love Mythra so much. Hey at least she didn’t call Rex one even if admittedly it would have been somewhat justified lol), and the second time Rex rushes off without a plan when it’s clear he’s outmatched is after Malos killed Vandam (when he should have listened to Vandam mere moments prior and fled the battlefield).

So, I’ll say it plain: it’s pretty clear that it was only thanks to Mythra’s awakening that Rex survived this battle at all considering all he did prior to this point (for pretty much the whole chapter with every fight he was in including this current one) was rush ahead recklessly with no plan of action combined with a rather wasteful use of blade artes. Yeah….if Mythra hadn’t stepped in soon, him charging in like an idiot would have gotten himself killed a second time.

Despite him and the party not really knowing and understanding the full weight of Mythra’s anger at being brought back (and how her lashing out was less directed at him and more her just being utterly frightened at being back in the real world and just reacting very poorly) her harsh words to him about his incompetence and him not possessing the maturity to know when to hold back and withdraw and learning to accept his own limitations as just one person in the world (something that Addam will also later call him out on) and blindly rushing the enemy weren’t without merit which he even admits and notably, to give Rex some credit, from this point on he doesn’t just go charging his enemies blindly anymore.

It doesn’t really help that Rex’s only defense to Mythra calling him on his immaturity and recklessness is “I couldn’t hand you over to them. I wanted to keep you safe”. Sure, that line from him sort of stopped Mythra’s rant, (and it’s clear she feels guilty about taking her frustrations out on Rex at the moment and wasn’t expecting the concern from him), but it still didn’t negate her main point at all. Now, his intentions may have been noble, but the bottom line was that sometimes if a person is outmatched in battle then they’re just outmatched. Period. And that sometimes fleeing the battlefield IS the proper way to ensure the safety of one’s friends/comrades in arms especially when given an opening to do so.

And before anyone tries to say “well there’s no guarantee that Rex and Co. would have escaped anyway”, well maybe and maybe not but that’s not really the point here to be candid. The fact that Rex didn’t even attempt to do so when Vandam clearly gave him an opening only further highlighted both his immaturity and recklessness, as well as the fact that Rex wasn’t quite ready to do what it took to not only “fight his own war” but to also win it (i.e accept that sacrifices are sometimes inevitable during a war and learn to respect that choice when another person willingly decides to make that personal sacrifice for the greater good).

And merely charging forward in a blind rage regardless only just further endangered the team and those around him and was just foolish and immature (and frankly, just spitting on Vandam’s sacrifice) and would have cost more lives in the long run (something Mythra is ALL TOO AWARE OF given what happened to her 500 years ago against Malos). So, as far as I was concerned, it was about time someone really called him out on his stupidity of charging into a battle blindly and/or losing his head and wasting blade artes when provoked (again, from this point onwards he stops all of that) so he could start developing beyond that crap…

However, to be fair, this whole first encounter with Mythra’s awakening sets her up as a savior and protector to Rex (and the rest of the party), and since she used her powers (that she apparently loathes for very valid reasons not immediately obvious to the party at the moment) to ultimately protect and save them all from certain death, they’re all more than willing to learn about her along with Pyra and they accept Mythra into the group wholeheartedly despite her abrasiveness and her “pretty crazy” powers, something she more than likely wasn’t expecting given all the insults and bullying she suffered in the past.

This becomes more obvious a bit later when the party is in Mor Ardain in the next chapter. Mythra does have a nice bonding moment with Nia and Poppi in the hot springs with Nia trusting her with a very important secret of hers no less, and Rex declares shortly after (once he teases her a bit about her “touchiness” lol) that he wants to get to know about her too just like he does Pyra.

Though again, as Rex outright admits when Pyra tries to apologize for Mythra’s behavior, her harsh words towards him weren’t exactly without merit and he takes it as tough love and ultimately learns something from the whole experience (and is willing to accept his culpability in Vandam’s death). He outright THANKS Pyra/Mythra for “Protecting everyone” with her powers (a very significant gesture even if Rex isn’t fully aware of just how much so at this point) and declares that “Her powers are incredible. I could feel the truth behind the legends”, implying that he’s hoping that he has the opportunity see more of what Pyra and Mythra are capable of in the future. Also, he is actually encouraging them to use their power when it’s necessary and wholeheartedly believes that her power is the power “to keep others safe and smiling” (again very significant).

The only thing Rex admonished Pyra/Mythra for was their constant apologizing for using those powers at all. A stark, but very much needed and welcomed, (if unexpected from Pyra/Mythra’s perspective), contrast to everyone around her 500 years ago (especially her driver back then) constantly implying and declaring how dangerous her powers were and that she’d only cause “too many casualties and too much destruction” if she used them in any capacity whatsoever.

Chapter 4 (Aegis)

He’s pretty helpless against Rosa story wise (Pyra’s not strong enough to make a dent in her and Mythra’s power doesn’t work that well in the tight indoor space they were in lest she bring the entire building down around them) and it’s only thanks to Poppi’s new mode that they won that battle.

Not to mention that he has to be saved by Morag and Brighid when Mikhail and Patroka show up and even then, Mythra was the one who ultimately defeated them (by killing off their blades). Then he’s bailed out again (after Patroka snaps and is about to unleash hell) by Haze/Fan La Norne’s ability to restrict blades (which forces Mikhail and Patroka to retreat) and she does kind of show up out of nowhere from Rex’s point of view.

Chapter 5 (Masters and Slaves)

He and the team fail to defeat Jin despite Haze’s ability to restrict his powers which resulted in Haze’s/Fan La Norne’s death. Not to mention that it takes Amalthus and Indol stepping in to prevent Mor Ardain and Uraya from going into all out war (Jin and the rest of Torna had set the two countries against each other). The whole reason Rex and co went to Temperantia was to try and stop the fighting between the two nations before it started. They took too long fighting off Jin and that titan weapon and again had Indol not stepped in there would have been a meaningless war between Uraya and Mor Ardain.

It’s also worth noting that when Amalthus calls the meeting of the world leaders and the ceasefire between Mor Ardain and Uraya, that Rex, despite being Mythra’s driver, isn’t deemed important or experienced enough to stand beside her during the meeting to testify about Malos and Torna. It’s actually implied that had he attended the meeting, Mythra, Zeke, and Morag’s credibility would have been questioned if not outright compromised.

Chapter 6 (Wounds)

Do I even need to go into how Jin utterly humiliated Rex and the party here and took Pyra/Mythra away? Not to mention that this chapter does a very good job of showing that even with the power of the Aegis on his side, and despite some improvements in his driver capabilities, Rex still really doesn’t know what he’s doing and up until this point he’s just been beam spamming Pyra and Mythra’s abilities (and that’s just been enough to keep him alive up until this point thanks in large part to Mythra and her power/experience) and not really understanding what it truly means to be driver and blade (as he said in chapter 5 he’s just “stumbling his way forward”).

As Jin points out to him, despite the heavy wounds Pyra/Mythra had, Rex didn’t even notice and all he was thinking about in the moment was himself (and to be blunt, Jin had a valid point on Rex being a “pitiful, childish fool” at this point in the story). At the moment, he’s on a similar path as Addam was when it came to the Aegis in a way (on the path to failure with her because he can’t or won’t get over himself).

In Addam’s case he was too focused on stopping Malos and not truly understanding and realizing that there was much more to being the driver of the Aegis than just merely stopping another Aegis’s destructive rampage and that he needed to work on conquering his fear so he could truly bond with Mythra (and get out of his own head about said fears and worrying about what MIGHT happen with Mythra instead of focusing on what WAS happening with her, i.e., she was remaining loyal to him, indicating that she had more faith in him than he ultimately did in her). Not to mention that regardless of his desire to take up farming and settle down with his family well removed from everything, his troubles in his kingdom as well as his status as the Aegis’s driver would have all but prevented that. And sadly he didn’t realize his short-sighted mistakes until everything had already gone to hell around him (right after Torna’s destruction).

Rex, in comparison at this point, is too focused on trying to get to Elysium so he can “find the answers they’re all looking for” and merely trying to pay Pyra and Mythra back for their kindness of bringing him back from the dead by fulfilling their request to be escorted to Elysium. He’s naively believing that everything will just somehow work out for everyone once they arrive, (and not realizing that there’s much more to being an Aegis’s driver than just an escort mission) and just ultimately not understanding what it means to be driver and blade and what he’s truly involved himself in by being the driver of the Aegis.

Similarly to how Addam didn’t understand how his fears messed everything up for him and Mythra from the beginning (and were steadily doing so throughout his campaign with her until it was too late), Rex is not realizing just how detrimental both his inexperience and his ignorance (of “Aegises”) really is to Pyra and Mythra and not truly understanding the immense guilt, loss, and sacrifice they’ve carried over the centuries, and not truly understanding what it means to carry those burdens with her.

Seriously, being completely ignorant of everything (Rex) can be just as bad as being too fearful and unprepared to act when and where it matters most (Addam). And regardless of whichever the lack of understanding is stemming from (fear or inexperience from Addam and Rex respectively), at this point, it still amounts to the same thing for the Aegis: That Pyra and Mythra aren’t truly being understood and accepted for who and what they are. That they’re being held back and feeling alienated by their drivers (unintentional as it may have been in both cases) and feeling like they have no real place in the world.

None of that is even getting into Rex’s lack of knowledge about being a driver period since this is the same chapter he even finds out how blade weapons work and we’re over halfway through the game at this point and his driver inexperience is still serving as a serious issue and hindrance.

To be perfectly candid, prior to me as the player experiencing just how badly the party was going to lose here, I was wondering “Okay….so just what sort of plot contrivance is going to bail Rex out of dealing with his issues of inexperience, immaturity and naivety THIS time?”. I mean let’s recap, chapter 1) Pyra sacrificing half her life and Azurda’s rescue, chapter 2) Tora with his boom biter, chapter 3) Mythra’s awakening, chapter 4) Haze/Fan La Norne coming out of nowhere with her blade restricting powers, chapter 5) Indol and Amalthus stepping in to prevent war between Uraya and Mor Ardain……Yeah.

But to my surprise there was nothing bailing him out this time and of course, because Rex is so inexperienced with being a driver period (much less the driver of the Aegis) the expected thing happens: He’s finally forced to confront head on the full ramifications of essentially being a light hearted kid (and somewhat cocky kid as well because of Mythra’s power until it didn’t work here. As Rex said “No….Mythra’s attack didn’t…..”) playing at hero with an all powerful blade but with he himself possessing little to no driver skill and understanding.

In other words, he straight up loses both the battle and Pyra/Mythra and he has nothing but his own shortcomings and inexperience to blame for it. He even says at the beginning of the next chapter that “When I became the driver of the Aegis. Her driver. I felt like I could do anything. But I was just kidding myself” indicating that his ego received a massive boost until reality hit him hard here (which would probably go a long way towards explaining a lot of Rex’s earlier recklessness in previous chapters prior to this moment). Yeah….having an all powerful weapon/blade at one’s disposal actually doesn’t make a person invincible, especially when said person is lacking in skill, experience and understanding. Who knew?

Well that and to be completely fair, given the title of the next chapter (”The Fear She Carries”), as well as what we saw her do to Malos back in TTGC in their final battle and the immense power she generated out of rage, it’s also heavily implied that Mythra was holding back A LOT of her power to avoid a repeat of Torna because there’s NO way Jin would have stood a chance against Mythra otherwise (let alone her true Pneuma form which is proven in the next chapter) even in his full flesh eater form.

Chapter 7 (The Fear She Carries)

Now don’t get me wrong, Rex’s despair at losing so thoroughly to Jin (and losing Pyra/Mythra to the enemy as a result) was very justified. However, it still doesn’t change the fact that had it not been for the party talking him out of giving up he would have straight up left for Argentum like a little kid just because things were getting too tough for him. It’s just further reason why I personally believe that had Rex as he is in the base game had been in Addam’s place 500 years ago, his inexperience as a driver would have been far more damaging and would have doomed the world. (More on this point a bit later).

That’s not getting into the fact that ultimately Rex was partially responsible for putting Pyra/Mythra in that position in the first place (by them giving him half her life force because he got himself killed back in chapter one), and his inexperience at being a driver cost him the battle with Jin, which forced Pyra/Mythra to surrender themselves to the enemy (as well as not yet understanding the full weight of being the Aegis’s driver due to said inexperience) and was more or less spitting on all the sacrifices they made for him by even entertaining the notion of leaving them behind without even trying to rescue them (basically taking Pyra/Mythra and the gift of life they gave him for granted) which both Nia and Brighid waste no time calling him out on given what the latter overheard between Pyra and Corinne back in Fonsett Village.

The full weight of the responsibility as the “driver of the Aegis” (along with all the hardships and fears that come along with that role) and what Vandam tried to warn Rex about back in chapter three is only just now beginning to truly sink in for him (that “Rex, you’re the driver of the Aegis. The whole world is gonna try and scalp you. You realize that? How are you gonna live when you’ve got everyone gunning for you? Be easier to run. All you’ve gotta do is ditch that girl.”).

And now Rex has to confront (and ultimately conquer) a similar fear that Addam struggled with all throughout his campaign with the Aegis (and that Addam ultimately failed to conquer): the fear of ultimately not being up to the task and possibly, unwittingly, causing irreparable harm to the people he cares about and the world. Only now Rex has the additional weight of retrieving her from the enemy that completely handed him his ass a mere two days ago….

As I said before, Rex immaturely brushed off Vandam’s warnings back in chapter three with his typical optimistic nonchalance and empty naive platitudes of “I’ll protect her” and “We can make it together”, and now he’s paying the price for his complacency and arrogance born of naïveté.

With Pyra/Mythra effectively stolen from him directly under his watch (despite declaring that he’d protect her), he’s now forced to see that blind optimism alone is not going to be enough for him to achieve success in his quest towards Elysium or being Pyra/Mythra’s true driver. Nor does merely having that power make him a completely invincible hero and he now has only two choices before him:

1) He can either continue to internalize those self-doubts and negative feelings and shy away from the responsibility as Pyra/Mythra’s driver out of fear and distance himself from her like Addam did throughout his campaign (and after the Aegis War). Notably, this is actually exactly what Rex initially starts doing in the beginning of this chapter after waking up from his two day coma trying to head for Argentum after losing her.

2) Or Rex can choose to face himself and those self-doubts and fears head-on, do what even Addam himself could not, and truly rise to the challenge of being the driver of the Aegis before it really is too late for her and the rest of the world.

Thankfully, unlike Addam and Mythra’s old friends and allies from the past who shared in Addam’s fearful concerns about Mythra and her power (not without reason though admittedly) and unwittingly reinforced those fears and (unintentionally) pushed Addam toward the first option (with disastrous consequences), Rex and Pyra/Mythra’s friends in this time, (along with the King of Tantal outright revealing the third sword and it’s speculated location, renewing the party’s hope with the mention of Pyra/Mythra’s greater power existing in their obvious time of need), they all (not so gently) outright shove Rex toward the latter choice and help him realize that now is not the time to shy away from that duty or his dream of traveling to Elysium alongside the Aegis, and that it’s hardships and defeats like this one where a person can truly have the opportunity to see and reach their full capabilities and potential.

However, the game still doesn’t shy away from calling Rex out on his inexperience, as several characters throughout the XBC2 story even prior to this moment (both in the party and out) have noted how “green” Rex is as a driver, and were understandably worried that his inexperience as a driver would cause the Aegis to either 1) lose control of her power just like she did in the past, and considering she brought the world’s most powerful titan down (Torna) in a matter of minutes if not in a few hours 500 years ago in a fit of pique with her full power that not even “the great hero Addam” could control….well yeah, or 2) the Aegis would fall into the wrong hands. Reality finally kicked in for the plot regarding Rex and his inexperience. The latter outcome happened and now it’s all come to a head.

King Eulogimenos of Tantal said it best: “Now Rex, you were defeated by Jin. Doubtless, that man is a powerful warrior. But even so, can this be right? Can the Aegis herself truly be outmatched by a single opposing blade? Would it not make more sense to presume…that you lost because you have yet to unlock the true power of the Aegis?

And later after trekking to the end of the Spirit Crucible Elpys, while admittedly a victory in itself (and his salvager training does indeed come in handy with helping him deal with the “hard to breathe” conditions of the place that hinder most of the rest of the party), he still would have gotten overwhelmed by Addam’s Phantasms (long before they acknowledged Rex as “the one”) had Nia not revealed her flesh eater status to the party and saved him. Though to be fair, the fact that Nia had finally grown comfortable enough to reveal her true nature to him and the party was due in large part to Rex himself.

Not to mention that while Rex is the one that rouses them (and that is his victory of course. Not saying it isn’t), it still doesn’t change the fact that he and the party were just mere seconds shy of being completely doomed against Jin and Malos at the end of the chapter (whom which the latter had just regained ALL of his Aegis abilities and from what we saw in TTGC, that’s not a good thing….) had Pyra/Mythra not woken up when they did in their “true” form…Because as Mythra will say to Rex in chapter 8, she and Pyra made a choice as well to continue on and “not to live in fear”.

Had Rex not finally gotten his shit together in time, they might have not chosen to accept him as their driver or chosen to live on period as I noted near the beginning of the post about just how crucial a strong driver/blade bond really is to a blade. Despite that though, it was ultimately still Addam who told Rex what to do in order to help Pyra/Mythra. We can’t just selectively ignore that fact either.

It is also worth noting that the Aegis herself was almost disposed of permanently, and history was mere seconds shy of tragically repeating itself in an even worse way when it comes to Pyra/Mythra and them having issues with their drivers not getting it together and causing them and the world to suffer because of it thanks to Rex’s immaturity and him stumbling forward without a damn clue for well over half the game.

Despite all of what I said, I’m not blind to Rex’s successes here in this chapter (just not blind to his failures along with his successes). Of course, to give Rex his due, he does acknowledge most, if not all of what I just said on his own in this chapter, and rather maturely and calmly readies himself to face Malos and Jin despite what the former bastard just did to Pyra/Mythra rather than just blindly charging forward like a fool. A stark contrast to how he acted when Vandam was killed (even Malos respects this newfound maturity in Rex enough to note it) and as a result he holds his own pretty well against Jin with some pretty impressive swordsmanship as he’s trying to rouse Pyra/Mythra to come back.

And in the moment when Rex reaches out to Pyra and Mythra and they’re willing to answer his call by baring their whole being to him mind, body, and soul, (showing that they now don’t just view Rex as a very loving and kind hearted but ultimately a naive and inexperienced boy that stumbled into both their power and their many, many issues (to put it mildly), but now a young man who could and would accept all of who and what they are without fail), it finally and truly feels like he’s legitimately EARNED the right to be the Aegis’s driver (fitting, as this is Pyra and Mythra’s “one true” sword form) instead of just stumbling into the power by complete chance and/or recklessness and stupidity (Dying his way to becoming Pyra’s driver in the beginning due to his childish naiveté/his sheer idiocy and immaturity in chapter three forcing Mythra to come back into play to save his ass). And in light of TTGC, a lot of specific quotes that Rex says to them in his speech stand out so much more now such as “We’ll find out together! We’ll find your place in this world!” and “I won’t let the world burn a second time”.

This is also just as much a victory for Pyra/Mythra as it is for Rex. In the moment where they accept Rex as their true driver, it really feels like they’re both FINALLY able to start moving forward and look to the future thanks to having someone to truly live for, and gaining a new hope for a future they can safely be a part of to be sure. And it’s not just them feeling and receiving a sense of true attachment and acceptance towards/from Rex, but towards/from everyone else in the party as well. To be honest, these are bonds of true acceptance and love Pyra and Mythra have never truly felt for anyone or received in turn from anyone since being stolen away from their home (courtesy of Amalthus) all those centuries ago.

Not to say that Mythra didn’t grow to eventually cherish her first group of friends by the end of their journey together. Notably, during her final battle against Malos 500 years ago, she sees visions of her current friends first before the future visions of Rex. So she certainly did. However, in this new generation, it truly feels more like Pyra/Mythra have a place and acceptance in the world with Rex and co in a way that honestly wasn’t really there for them with their first group of allies 500 years ago.

I think Jin said it best 500 years ago “Your real affinity lies somewhere in the future, not in the time we’re in now”. Sure, he was talking about Mythra’s true driver affinity, but I think that sentiment could also extend to the newfound group of friends/family she’s a part of now.

To me, Rex being chosen as the salvager to find Pyra/Mythra was a mere technicality in being the start to setting everything right after what happened in Torna’s time period. No. THIS moment here was truly the beginning of the end of the “500 year long curse” , the first real visible crack in the tragic cycle, as far as I was concerned.

And to give Addam some credit too, this is the chapter in which we find out that he was the one who founded Fonsett Village five centuries ago. What if Addam hadn’t done that? Rex’s biological mother and father would have had nowhere to find refuge for him (both of his parents were fatally wounded in some unknown tragedy and Rex was barely two years old at that point). Rex would have died long before the story began. So, Addam indirectly saved his life. Just something else to consider.

Not to mention that Hero’s Rest/Fonsett Village itself was founded on the dream that Addam always held for himself but could never truly achieve: A carefree village well removed from the woes of society and politics where the people there all love and support each other. The game makes a point of saying that only someone from this sort of village in general could become the true driver of the Aegis. Growing up removed from the harsher realities of the world gave Rex (and others from the village) a very unique flavor of optimism and hope for the future not found in other settlements and titans (things that both Morag and Zeke note).

And again, Addam was ultimately the one who guided Rex in helping the Aegis rediscover and reconnect with her “true” self. With his final words of wisdom to Rex in the Elpys (”When you take on the weight of all the fear she carries, then you will be her true driver”), and trusting that Rex will be able to achieve what he could not, Addam’s spirit is finally able to find peace and move on from the past after being bound to the world for 500 years, and I’d say that Addam and Mythra’s story has come full circle now with Mythra/Pyra finally finding what they were looking for and with Addam finally able to truly help and support her without fear (as he admits he should have done in the first place).

Chapter 8 (World Tree)

Rex does get a break here at least and to be fair he’s matured quite a bit from the inexperienced and reckless kid he was from the start. And it’s nice to see him and Mythra bonding and him able to finally get her to open up to him considering the bulk of the “ship tease” has centered around the Pyra persona. If I recall correctly, this point (and beyond) is where the player may start receiving a post battle quote between Azurda and Mythra with her admitting that “her spirit is all the warmer thanks to him [Rex]” after he asks her if she thinks Rex is shaping up to be a good driver for her or not. Though despite all of that, some of the aforementioned inexperience driver problems still exist for him which leads me into….

Chapter 9 (Rain)

Even if Rex has unlocked the master driver program….Amalthus’s level of experience and mastery with the same power puts Rex to shame to be honest even considering the Amp towers/half of Haze’s core crystal that Amalthus was using. Just a case of reality ensues. Rex might have unlocked Pneuma’s true powers, but there’s a huge difference in merely unlocking that power and truly mastering it. All Rex can really do with the master driver program is borrow blades from the other party members, and to be fair he’s still a decent fighter with or without that power so that helps a bit.

Still nowhere near what Amalthus demonstrates overall (bonding, or I guess stealing in his case) with other blades in addition to: erasing blade memories, stealing data from their Core Crystals, creating Blade Eaters, as well as the “core cleansing” that Amalthus does earlier in chapter 5. Of course, Rex wouldn’t abuse the power like that even if he had full mastery, but it still doesn’t change the fact that ultimately Amalthus’s experience with the master driver program is more developed than his by far.

Though to be completely fair, he, Mythra and Poppi do succeed in destroying the Amp towers Amalthus was using to control the other titans. However, even later when the party faces Amalthus in battle, even with Pyra/Mythra’s true power, Rex still gets overwhelmed (thanks again to the whole “sharing their life force” issue after Mythra takes an attack that was meant for Jin) and ultimately Jin is the one that saves the day there at the cost of his life (though he goes out with a smile at least and it is nice to see Jin and Mythra patch things up in a sense before his heroic sacrifice after all the pain and resentment between them especially in light of TTGC).

Chapter 10 (An Thus, Boy Met Girl)

Finally making it to Elysium to find it a barren wasteland devoid of life. Not to say that that in itself was Rex’s fault (hardly) but it did show that ultimately Rex was putting far too much of his faith in a childish pipe dream to save the world with no clear alternatives should said dream prove to be the total opposite of the reality. The dream world of Elysium was a good one, the reality as we all saw….not so much. And this was something Nia called him out on as early as chapter two but he never stopped to even consider the possibility.

And furthermore, what if Elysium hadn’t been the barren wasteland we found but instead a bountiful land already inhabited by people living their own lives? I personally don’t think those people would have been happy with foreigners assuming they could just move in on their territory. Rex could have been responsible for starting a whole different war on that front so his initial plan to travel to Elysium to save the world was doomed to fall apart one way or another…..

That’s not even getting into how Klaus/The Architect basically ripped into Rex’s deepest insecurities about the harsh reality of Elysium and his own short comings and it takes Pyra literally just telling her father to stop torturing Rex and the party (they were all going through their own separate tests independent of the one we as the player experienced with Rex) before things really got out of hand. Nothing Rex himself did during those moments disproved or challenged those insecurities.

Though of course to give Rex his due credit, the Architect himself does decide to no longer remain passive and unresponsive to the troubles of his created world (Alrest) thanks to Rex being who he is and seeing the bond Rex has forged with his daughter (Pyra/Mythra) and that definitely gives the party an edge against Malos in the final battle. And considering Malos has linked up with the ultimate Artifice Aion at this point….well….yeah. Not to mention that had he not met Rex and saw the bond he forged with Pyra/Mythra, the Architect would have just sat by while the entire world was destroyed (and would probably have not granted humanity the “last gift” of the current titans joining together to create enough land for humans to settle on. A new “Elysium” of sorts).

Despite all of that though, Rex still hasn’t quite learned that his constant whining about not wanting to leave people behind, while definitely kind on his end, is still ultimately a problem (and in some cases have left him and the party wide open to the enemy when in a battle or dire situation that forces them to retreat) with his rather long tirade with Mythra/Pyra getting ready to sacrifice themselves before Zeke literally says “How long do you plan on being a baby?”.

Not helping matters is the fact that Pyra/Mythra had to essentially manipulate the entire situation prior to this moment in such a way that would ultimately force Rex to let them go rather than him coming to the conclusion on his own that as much as he hated it, there was nothing he could do to help Pyra/Mythra at that point. Seriously, they can read the boy like a book and show that they’re willing to manipulate a situation to override Rex’s immature stubbornness if need be.

To Rex’s credit though, he eventually does man up here and move on but the cutscene to get to that point was a rather unnecessarily long one because this lesson should have stuck at least a bit better considering what happened with Vandam way back in chapter three….Now don’t mistake that. I’m not in any way saying that Rex didn’t have a right to be upset that the girl he loved was more or less preparing to sacrifice herself (hardly). I’m just merely pointing out that his inability to let go of people in itself (trying to save everyone is admirable but ultimately just not feasible at times) and learn to accept that life is sometimes about sacrifice (harsh but true) has been a recurring flaw in his character and has often caused him and the party a lot of issues that could have been avoided.

Hell, by the time the ending scenes came about with Rex, I was actually glad the game didn’t follow through completely with Pyra/Mythra’s sacrifice…..I was like “damn just throw this kid a bone already”…Hey, I’m just pointing out that Rex failed just as much as he succeeded really. Him accepting Pyra and Mythra doesn’t just all of a sudden negate all of his failures, his character flaws, and his often sheer stupidity and immaturity IMO for well over half the game.

Nor does his success with Pyra and Mythra somehow negate how Rex’s childish and naive nature often proved to be, yes his greatest strength. That childish innocence being the very factor that helped him save Pyra/Mythra from themselves which in turn led to a lot of other positive changes for the world and ultimately the breaking of the “500 year long curse”).

However, at times it also served as his greatest weakness (his complete inexperience as a driver and his inability to see his own limitations and accept that sometimes life is about sacrifice especially when he’s the driver of the Aegis often caused him and the party a lot of issues), even with us as the players knowing the full weight of how Addam’s fear held him back from doing what Rex did when it came to the Aegis.

Also worth noting that I see a lot of is that it isn’t fair to constantly call out Addam on every failure that he made (even if admittedly said failures did lead to a lot of unfortunate events and devastation for both Mythra and the world) without acknowledging his accomplishments and truly appreciating the fact that he did prevent the entire world from burning 500 years ago and how he stepped up for the Aegis after the fact to at least ensure that Mythra and Pyra (and by extension the whole world) would eventually be saved (which again, gave the future generation a fighting chance thanks to Addam and his friends and their sacrifices).

Sadly again though, Mythra losing her head in rage and blowing up Torna was his rather unfortunate reality check on how damaging his preconceived fears were for his resonance with her which obviously (and unfortunately) didn’t afford him time to make things right to prevent the devastation she caused….Even so, Addam surely devoted himself to Mythra after the fact despite sealing her away (for 500 years even after his death no less) to try and make up for not being the driver she needed him to be during his time with her.

By contrast, it isn’t fair to completely gloss over and/or ignore Rex’s often sheer stupidity and his failures even if he did manage to save Pyra and Mythra from themselves by accepting them and even if admittedly, that was a major first step in setting right everything that had gone wrong in the past. He even acknowledges himself how clueless, immature, inexperienced, happy-go-lucky and reckless he had been for over half the game at the end of chapter seven and just how damaging that really was for Pyra and Mythra because he wasn’t truly understanding their plight and their despair/fear (though to be completely fair, Pyra and Mythra went out of their way to explicitly hide it all from him until it came to a head but still…).

Not to mention that his complete inexperience as a driver, nearly cost him and the world Pyra and Mythra (i.e. the Aegis on the side of humanity was almost killed off for real. The one person who could possibly match Malos was almost disposed of permanently. That would have spelled doom for the entire world with absolutely NO hope for any sort of comeback). And his inexperience was an issue that Rex really wasn’t forced to confront head on in any significant way until the XBC2 plot stopped bailing him out of trouble which I noted at the end of chapter six and gave him a serious reality check and he was just lucky enough to have been afforded the time to fix his problems after the fact.

Anyway, another point to consider with Rex and his acceptance of Pyra/Mythra is that when we make it to Leftheria in the main game for the first time (chapter five with Haze/Fan La Norne), it’s clear that Rex (and several other kids from Fonsett Village because the small settlement couldn’t afford it) didn’t have a formal education.

Instead, he started salvaging (basically joining the workforce) when he was barely 10 years old to support Fonsett (he’s 15 in the main story so he’s been doing it already for 5 years). Also, Azurda, his father figure, clearly did not mention hardly anything about Addam or the “Aegis” to him. Which later we find out the reason for that being because Rex himself (or anyone else for that matter) would have to find out if they were truly worthy of that power on their own without Azurda’s input as a crutch. Azurda was also personally responsible for guarding both the village and the sword so of course he wouldn’t bring any of that up in casual dialogue, so Rex is even less aware of the “Aegis” and the destructive part she played in history than most. Rex’s first encounter against Morag back in chapter two made his lack of formal education clear as well.

Another very important detail to note is that Rex never bore witness to just how destructive and/or out of control both Mythra and Malos could be beforehand unlike Addam since both were underpowered for different reasons in his time. Not to mention that Malos doesn’t get his power back in full in the base game until, rather conveniently, Rex unlocks Pyra/Mythra’s true power by accepting her, so that too played a part in Rex not being afraid of her. Not to mention every time Pyra/Mythra got an upgrade to their powers throughout XBC2, it was ALWAYS framed in a positive light for Rex and his friends (and saved all their asses on more than one occasion).

But as I said in another reddit topic, credit where it’s due. Maybe Addam wasn’t meant to be Mythra’s true driver, even so, it still doesn’t change the fact that at least Addam was able to impart some much needed guidance, the value of teamwork, social skills, and a sense of restraint in Mythra. And let’s be honest, the man had the patience of a saint when it came to dealing with her especially in the beginning. The fact that they’d been together for one year before meeting Jin and Lora implies that she was probably even worse before then. He would have been a good father for his children for sure. And that’s coming from someone who was a fan of Mythra long before Torna the Golden Country came out lol.

In all seriousness though, she’s far less abrasive and much easier to get along with in general by the time Rex comes along and far more mentally mature and aware of her destructive power and the harm she could bring to the world if left unchecked. Five hundred years later people would be rather hard pressed to call her an inexperienced and foolish “kid” or “simpleton” with too much power, arrogance and lack of control in the party.

She’s now a shell shocked veteran, easily the most experienced in the base game party with the mentality of with great power comes great responsibility. Though to be fair, it takes her a bit to truly get to the point of “great power, great responsibility” because of her fear and guilt over the past, but she’s still definitely far more cautious in her use of her power which is what Addam was ultimately trying to achieve with Mythra during his time with her even if his fear caused him to go way overboard with that particular lesson.

It’s rather interesting to note the shift in the dynamics here. In Torna, Mythra was the inexperienced and reckless (but still all powerful) Aegis blade to Addam’s experienced driver (who harbored fears and self doubts and kept them from Mythra), while five centuries later, she (and Pyra) are now the experienced and all powerful Aegis blade to Rex’s completely inexperienced and reckless driver (with them now harboring all the fears, self doubts with added suicidal tendencies and keeping them from Rex).

And to be candid, it’s a very good thing that Mythra isn’t as gung-ho, or immature, reckless and inexperienced as she was back in her Torna days given how ignorant of blades, inexperienced at being a driver, reckless, immature, and naive Rex is for a good chunk of his story. That could have and more than likely would have spelled a very bad combination given some of Rex’s dumber calls and decisions I noted earlier to say the least. She literally goes from preferring to constantly spam Siren’s Sacred Arrows on everything and being gratingly arrogant/prideful about her power to five centuries later berating Rex for waking her up because “I didn’t want to come back! I left EVERYTHING to her [Pyra] so I’d never have to use this power again!”

Let’s not forget that she’s now constantly analyzing the structural integrity of buildings and whatnot to avoid needless collateral damage when using her power and is much more strategical, graceful, precise and refined in the use of her power than she was in her Torna days. She also has far more compassion for the world and life in general (though I’d say this part is a bit debatable. She was far more caring than she let on in her Torna days, but five centuries later she’s much better at expressing it externally). Then there’s the having three levels in girl talk instead of just one, (girl power woo! Lol) showing how much more sociable she’s become (interesting to note that the “Pyra” side doesn’t have girl talk despite being arguably more sociable). Not to mention cooking no longer being one of her field skills lol, showing that she did take some of her former allies/friends (admittedly fair to a point) assessments of her flaws to heart in a much healthier way independent of her Pyra persona even if it definitely hurt Mythra to hear them back then. (no offense to Pyra of course but given how and why she was “created….”).

A lot of people love to bring up the fact that Rex ultimately could control Pyra/Mythra’s full power and Addam couldn’t (which admittedly is fair and true). But even so, it’s not like Mythra’s time with Addam and her old friends played absolutely NO part in the person Mythra becomes 500 years later (for better or for worse) making her much easier for Rex to bond with ultimately. Basically, her time with Addam and co. helped bring out the dormant “humanity” within her for lack of a better word.

And as I mentioned before, throughout XBC2, every time Pyra/Mythra got an upgrade to their power, it was viewed or framed in a very positive light (no pun intended lol) that saved the party on more than one occasion. So, while Rex and Co. certainly respected and acknowledged her power, they didn’t outright fear her like everyone around her did five hundred years ago since they’ve all come to know and generally love both sides on a personal level throughout the story, nor did they automatically begin warily assuming and expecting Pyra/Mythra to be just like Malos (or in danger of becoming like him) simply because they were/are both Aegises once the party was made aware of Malos being another Aegis.

In other words, Pyra and Mythra have a much stronger and positive (if unexpected from their point of view) support network overall when it comes to their power and abilities than Mythra ever did five centuries prior, (something that was surely needed given all we witnessed in TTGC), but more importantly, they all respect and admire them as individuals too.

Again, the ONLY positive side effect of Amalthus’s core cleansing is that it increased the pool of potential drivers by a MUCH larger margin compared to Torna’s time period. So, the extremely rare bond that Lora had with Jin and Haze is MUCH more common now, meaning that there are more humans out there that can see blades as their own individuals in a way that wasn’t completely there 500 years ago.

It certainly helps that Mythra is now more or less a living relic and legend with a lot of people around her in this generation being both intrigued and honored to have the chance to see what she’s truly capable of after hearing about all the “heroic tales” of Addam and his blade saving the world five centuries ago, something that Morag directly mentions to Pyra/Mythra in chapter five. Whether those “stories” are 100% historically accurate or not is another matter entirely though but still….

Not to mention, that there were several moments throughout the main plot and a few H2Hs that showed Rex himself desired strength and power to protect his rather long list of people in his life and often lamented his own weakness and was frustrated with himself for his inability to save and protect the people he cared about (particularly with the deaths of Vandam and Haze/Fan La Norne).

These are Rex’s words in chapter five after Jin (mercy) killed Haze/Fan La Norne (poor girl….) “I don’t get it. I’m meant to be a driver now. I have a blade of my own. But I couldn’t do anything. Fan…. NOTHING’s changed. I’m just as weak as I’ve always been!” I mean really….is it any small wonder that he’d be all too eager to utilize immense power when the opportunity is presented to him? Like he said in chapter seven against Jin after having finally unlocked Pyra/Mythra’s true power: “I don’t get it. But I’m not complaining! THIS is what I’ve been searching for!”

Let’s not forget that Rex was more or less put in a position to devote himself to Pyra and Mythra more fully than Addam had ever been. Both sides of the green Aegis core crystal are introduced to Rex saving his life. That’s a very crucial difference between Rex and Addam’s circumstances with the Aegis.

In Addam’s case, however, he was introduced to Malos’s rather sadistic glee with eradicating humanity from the face of the world, along with said Aegis Malos having all the power required to do so and then some, and then only resonated with Mythra, whom by all accounts had the same frightening world destroying powers, when Prince Zetter failed to do so, indicating that Addam never truly wanted the role to start with if he could have helped it or at the very least Addam would have been fine with someone else taking the role of “Driver of the Aegis”.

Anyway, the fact that they saved his life was more than enough for Rex to devote himself more fully to the Aegis. Rex was indebted to Pyra and Mythra because they were his saviors. And even though I criticized his inexperience earlier, (and the fact remains that it caused a lot of problems for both himself and everyone around him for a good chunk of the story), the fact that he didn’t know anything about being a driver, much less the driver of the Aegis, (and was still more or less thrown into the fray regardless), and that they were all sharing a life force, that very inexperience put him in the position to both want and be required to learn about what it meant to be a driver and by extension learn more about Pyra and Mythra on a personal level just for the three of them to stay alive.

Rex often declared that “He was going to be the driver that Pyra and Mythra deserve” and eventually that becomes his number one goal in life as he even declares to both of them in chapter seven that going to Elysium would mean absolutely nothing to him if Pyra and Mythra weren’t by his side (keep in mind that traveling to Elysium was Rex’s biggest dream even before Pyra and Mythra came into his life). Also, unlike Addam, as I said before Rex wasn’t born of royalty and didn’t have too many obligations to others. He was an orphaned child who chose to take up salvaging to support Fonsett Village true, but to also find some way to Elysium which, as I mentioned earlier, was in alignment with Pyra and Mythra even if they weren’t being entirely honest with him on why they wanted to go there themselves.

By stark contrast, Addam, who in the end, wasn’t really trying to be a hero (despite possessing the potential in itself for great heroism) and wanted nothing more than to live his days in peace as a hermit with his family, resonated with Mythra in her “original” and “destructive” form first after having already witnessed one rogue and all-powerful-and all-too-happy-to-kill-and-destroy-everyone-and-everything Aegis at full might (Malos) on the rampage even before resonating with her.

And then Addam only resonated with her because again 1) it was the only way to stop Malos who had already sunk one Titan (Coeia) to the cloud sea bed and was hell bent on sinking the rest of the world and also because 2) Prince Zetter had failed to bond with her core crystal before Addam tried to himself). Let’s not forget that Mythra being a blank slate, misanthropic, arrogant and immature loose cannon (all the while possessing the same world destroying powers Malos had) at this point in the story didn’t exactly help either. Couple those facts with Addam being an adult and more aware of the world around him with age giving people in general more wariness, and that sadly but understandably left a fearful and alarming first impression of the Aegises in general on him which was all but impossible to reconcile.

Not to mention the “Pyra” persona didn’t show up until literally the end of the expansion and he was only with this side of the Aegis for a short time but sadly only after everything had already gone to hell for him and Mythra at this point so it didn’t matter either way. And let’s not forget the fact that “Pyra” was only “constructed” from the very depths of Mythra’s immense guilt and despair, which Addam was partially (if unintentionally) responsible for because he couldn’t/wouldn’t accept her and didn’t step up to be the driver she needed probably didn’t help much if at all either.

Then of course there was the fact that “Pyra” in and of herself sadly was “created” as an obvious counter to all the insults/bullying Mythra received about her abrasiveness, lack of compassion, arrogance, bad cooking, recklessness, etc., indicating that Mythra’s own self-esteem was damaged a long time ago deep down, and the final battle against Malos, plus all the trauma she endured during said battle and right after (Poor Team Hugo, Poor Tornan Titan and Poor, Poor, Milton….) just shattered it completely.

Seriously, the “butt-monkey” and “friend that nobody likes” tropes got explored in a more realistic approach with Mythra as a character. No one in real life would be able to put up with that sort of treatment from the people around them without either separating themselves from the people constantly belittling them for the sake of their own self-esteem, or staying, putting up with it, and eventually suffering some lasting emotional scars…Yeah, just guess which one of the two happens to Mythra…..

Anyway, considering that one Aegis was already running amok it’s no real surprise that he (and the rest of her allies back then) often admonished Mythra for using that power period out of fear rather than trying to help her come up with more creative and less harmful ways to utilize it. Again, there’s a big difference between wise caution and crippling fear, and sadly but again understandably, Addam comes to later realize, admit, and ultimately regret that he was more the latter with her as a driver than the former despite his good intentions.

And again, it’s also worth noting that in contrast to the base game, in TTGC every time Mythra tried to use her Aegis power or even mentioned using it, it was ALWAYS framed in a negative and/or reckless light. Examples being her not listening to Addam when he told her to stop when the party was in a ruined Torigoth and nearly killing Brighid upon their first encounter, and Addam (and the party) often discouraging her from using her power period because to him (and the others) there would be “too many casualties and/or too much destruction”. He even says to Lora at one point “When we first met we could have burnt you to pieces. But we avoided that thanks to Jin”.

It takes Lora literally pointing out to him that all recklessness aside (because Mythra was admittedly out of line when she fired Siren on Brighid and didn’t stop when Addam ordered her to), Mythra was still in fact actually NOT going all out when she was using her power (if she was, I imagine she would have left Torigoth in the same state Malos left the city of Feltley in with that giant ass crater).

And, Mythra desiring to utilize said power she has in SOME capacity in and of itself wasn’t exactly wrong or reckless nor does her using said power immediately have to equate to “I want to destroy everyone and everything”, (or rather in Addam’s mind): “I will destroy everyone and everything if I use her power in any capacity” simply because another Aegis chose to follow that path (something again Rex and Mythra will prove together 500 years later) and it wasn’t completely fair for Addam to keep subconsciously imposing that upon Mythra just because she was an Aegis.

It was an early sign in the expansion that for all her immaturity and arrogance, Mythra was actually not quite as “careless” and “lacking in restraint” with her power at this point as he and everyone else kept claiming (if anything, some of it was in Addam’s own head) and that she cared far more than she let on about making sure she didn’t become like Malos.

It’s too bad Addam didn’t take the moment to realize that his crippling fear and his (subconscious) lack of faith in her is what was ultimately holding him back from “not being completely in control of Mythra’s power”. Okay, to be fair, he did realize that he “just wasn’t man enough” at the time, but the problem was that he never was really thrown into a situation or crisis moment (or called out on hardly anything because as Aegaeon pointed out “He’s far too esteemed for his own good”) that would have forced him to realize just how crucial it was for him to man up and become both the driver that Mythra needed him to be and the driver that he possessed the potential to become (even the year he had with Mythra prior to meeting Jin and Lora was implied to have been rather uneventful on that front) until she, and the rest of Torna for that matter, blew up in his face during the final battle against Malos. And of course, as I mentioned before, by then it was far too late for him to rectify his resonance issues with her.

But again, given the very specific and deliberate measures Addam took for Mythra/Pyra to ensure their eventual salvation (and the world’s salvation as well), he surely stepped up after the fact even if it was too late for him and Torna. With that said, I honestly have no doubt in my mind that if Addam could have gotten a far less harrowing reality check moment that would have forced his hand (similarly to how Rex got his reality check in losing so thoroughly to Jin in the base game, but he still had precious time to make things right because again, neither Aegis was at full power reaping havoc and destruction in the wake of his failures) Addam could have and would have lived up to the potential that the core crystal saw within him….

That’s not even getting into the fact that by the time we FINALLY make it to a point in TTGC where it would make sense for Mythra to go all out without being spoken down to about it (the final fight against Malos)….naturally she doesn’t because of a combination of both the implication that Addam’s fears tainted their resonance from the outset causing her to subconsciously hold herself back because she fears her own power, and the constant belittling she’s put up with about using her power at all (and also she’s become more mindful of her power at this point due to character development to be fair but still….) which causes Malos to goad her into going all out (simply because he wanted a good fight) by attacking the Tornan capital and killing Milton….then she DOES finally let loose and go all out…but…she’s totally out of control in rage and sinking the Tornan Titan to the cloud sea and inadvertently killing Hugo, Brighid and Aegaeon….and still couldn’t save poor Milton either way…..and Mikhail blamed her for not keeping her promise of protecting Milton after she convinced him to stay behind at the Tornan capital which only reinforced her perception of everything being her fault…I mean of course she’s not exactly completely blameless considering the fact that technically her power ultimately sank the Tornan Titan and killed Team Hugo but still…..Even so, honestly, the poor girl just could NOT catch a break in any way back then…

And again, as another stark contrast to Rex, Addam was a married man (whom which his wife was pregnant) and he had already had many adventures even before resonating with Mythra and was getting ready to settle down for the rest of his life with his wife and soon to be born child. Not to mention that Addam was born into royalty with a long, long, long list of duties and responsibilities that he only wished to be free of anyway so he could live with his family in peace.

So, in his case, as bad and unfortunate as it might sound for Mythra, being the driver of the Aegis from his perspective was just yet another burden on his list that he didn’t really want to bare (subconsciously) but took up the mantle of hero anyway for the greater good of his people and the world in the hopes that he could settle down, be left alone and just be with his family afterwards.

Again though, that’s not to say that Addam didn’t have the purity of heart and/or character to bring out Mythra’s full potential (as I said before, if he never possessed the potential in itself, I imagine his attempt to resonate with Mythra would have ended like it did with Prince Zetter when he tried) or that he wasn’t willing to lay down his life for his people. He surely possessed the potential and he outright stated (and proved by facing down Malos) that he would absolutely lay down his life for his country and its future if that’s what it took.

However, when it came to truly accepting Mythra, the very thing required to both access and control her true power (which again he realized far too late), well….there were several factors working against him unfortunately when one compares his circumstances to Rex’s:

1) Being handicapped by his royal upbringing, and trying too hard to save everyone. He wanted to save his militia, his family, his people, and the whole world from the wrath (and fearing the wrath) that he could potentially bring down upon them by potentially losing control of Mythra that he lost sight of his own limitations as just one person in the world. And again as a result, he closed his heart and mind towards Mythra and her power out of fear, (both consciously and subconsciously), often hesitating to use that power in any capacity if he could help it. That is to say again, trying to save everyone is admirable but ultimately just not feasible no matter the circumstances.

As a result, he further crippled his already dwindling ability to accept Mythra for what she was, subconsciously rejecting her from the beginning (which she in turn sadly rejected him when she started conjuring her true sword and abilities). And again, which is exactly why Addam tells Rex five centuries later after Rex goes on and on and on about the long list of people in his life he wants to protect that “It’s not necessary to protect everything. There IS a limit to what one man can do”.

2) Dealing with Mythra’s rather poor and misanthropic attitude. That alone, coupled with his fear of the Aegis wrath in general spelled a pretty bad mixture for disaster and eventual tragedy too. But again, her attitude would not have been as bad as it was had Addam put more effort into treating her less like a dangerous weapon to be kept apart from everyone, and instead more like a true comrade and friend and gave her the opportunity to meet people and forge her OWN connections with them prior to meeting Lora, Jin, and Haze. As I mentioned earlier, the implications of Mythra having to ask about Aletta when the party first arrived there and what’s so special about the place, coupled with knowing that Addam and Mythra had been together for a year prior to meeting Lora, Jin and Haze are rather unfortunate (i.e. He kept her away from his wife and friends back home out of fear).

3) His main desire for his life was NOT to constantly play in the role of “hero” as I pointed out earlier (and of course, being Mythra’s driver would have all but forced him to stay in that role). She literally represented everything in his life that he was ultimately trying to distance himself from so the lack of acceptance ran much deeper than just his fear (subconsciously). With all of that in mind, the bottom line is that again compared to Rex, Addam never truly had an honest/fair/clear opportunity to live up to his potential as the true driver of the Aegis.

Addam’s failures, fears, (and lack of acceptance of both Mythra and in nearly every facet of his life as a member of royalty) instead ended up tragically becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy (because again, he brought his fears and doubts into their resonance, corrupting it from the very beginning) due to less him being unworthy or incapable of being the Aegis’s true driver in itself (again, as I’ve noted countless times already, he definitely possessed the aptitude) and more because of the unfortunate circumstances with which he resonated with her (and not really being driven or challenged to truly understand how damaging his fears were to their resonance nor to actually try to conquer said fears until it was too late). And again, given that he tells Rex five centuries later that he has to accept her heavily implies that Addam had become all too aware of where he went wrong with Mythra far too late….

Anyway, with all the above in mind, I’m honestly not sure if Rex could have handled blank slate and loose cannon Mythra to more compassionate and aware of herself Mythra the way Addam did with the tough love and sort of “experienced driver/warrior and adult” parenting here and there because 1) Rex is still a child himself still trying to find his own place in the world and wholly inexperienced in how blades work or being a driver period for a good chunk of his story. Not to mention that 2) Rex would more than likely not have had the experience and skill necessary to survive back then against a fully powered Aegis from the outset (as we see in chapter one where Rex was getting overwhelmed against Malos who wasn’t even fully powered and would have died again had Azurda not come out of nowhere to the rescue and that’s not even getting into chapter six where Jin utterly humiliated him).

I guess, to be blunt, the world five hundred years ago just didn’t need an inexperienced salvager/driver child stumbling his way forward in a really long coming of age story (in comparison to TTGC I mean) to lead the charge against Malos, who again, back then was at full might and out there sinking Titans to the cloud sea bed. The bottom line is that the world back then just wasn’t going to wait around for Rex to gain the experience necessary to stand against such a foe like it did in XBC2 (admit it, things WERE pretty convenient for Rex in a way they never really were for Addam). The world five hundred years ago needed experienced warriors/drivers/blades who could get things done against such a threat in SOME capacity as quickly as possible (i.e. Addam and his allies) before the entire world was annihilated. I’m saying this because there was some speculation in another Reddit topic on whether or not Rex could have “humanized” Mythra faster than Addam and accepted her back then.

My view on that personally is absolutely not, because again, Rex probably would not have survived long enough to have gotten the chance to do so. Had Rex gone against Malos (as Malos was in his Torna days at full power) at the start of the XBC2 story….Full powered Aegis vs Inexperienced green driver……yeah….let’s just say the base game would have been MUCH shorter so I’m personally really not seeing how his inexperience wouldn’t have been far more damaging for the sake of the world had he been in Addam’s place five centuries ago….

Then there’s Addam sealing the third sword in the Spirit Crucible Elpys as a test of worthiness (and a clear death trap for the greedy if I ever saw one) and that played a part in discovering who was meant to be Pyra/Mythra’s true driver, also founding Fonsett Village which would later become Rex’s home, (or Hero’s Rest at the time rather), getting Azurda to guard the village and the sword, and sealing Pyra/Mythra away so no one unworthy would ever abuse her power or hurt her again.

Though again, he did plainly say in his last message he left with Pyra after he sealed her that the seal was not for eternity and that he hoped someone worthy would awaken her so humanity could live alongside the Aegis because “She is our hope”.

Considering the devastation she caused that he bore witness to during the war, not to mention the fact that she sank his entire home and kingdom and killed Emperor Hugo, his best friend (though of course that was all unintentional it still doesn’t change the fact that it happened by her hand), coming from him, that means something, and says quite a lot about his character honestly despite how he failed as a driver with Mythra and shows exactly why, in a similar vein to Rex, the green Aegis’s core crystal saw Addam as someone worthy to wield the true Aegis power even if he ultimately failed to live up to said potential.

The moment right after Malos’s defeat 500 years ago where Addam left his best friend’s dead body lying on the ground and still embraced Mythra upon her exiting her siren was a truly powerful moment. It’s clear he understood exactly where he went wrong, the self-fulfilling prophecy aspect of it, what he lacked for her as a driver the entire time (acceptance), everything….but again, it was too late. But the moment does show that not only did Addam truly care about her despite his fears, but was also willing to own up to his part in the tragic turn of events that led to Torna’s downfall instead of solely blaming Mythra like a lot of others in his position might have opted to do (and frankly, what he and the party had been unintentionally guilty of doing with all their fears, insults, negative assumptions and bullying up until that point).

So in one sense, Addam really was every bit the pure hearted hero the legends claimed and it shows that he did see Mythra as a sort of surrogate daughter and cared for her as such despite everything that happened between them and it’s clear by his expression during the credits of TTGC, and in how he somberly and shamefully turns and walks off as the ship that Pyra/Mythra are now sleeping on sinks to the cloud sea bed, that he was overall not happy with sealing her away or with knowing that ultimately he proved himself unworthy of her as a driver and that all the deaths and devastation might have been prevented had HE not been so afraid to truly USE Mythra’s power while he was her active driver.

Notably, he realized that just because he failed to step up and control her power and didn’t have the faith in her or himself that he should have had beforehand doesn’t mean that he believed that no one else could or would succeed someday or that her power couldn’t be utilized as a positive force for the world.

It’s just a real shame that Addam never had the opportunity to find this faith/revelation/acceptance in Mythra and/or himself during the time when they were actually together…if he had I imagine they could have accomplished a lot of good things during his day and “Torna the Golden Country” might actually still exist in Rex’s time. The whole situation between Addam and Mythra was just tragic and it’s honestly not that hard for me personally to picture an alternate reality in which Addam could have conquered his fears and stepped up to the role as the true driver of the Aegis, or could have had a better chance to eventually understand her had he bonded with her under different circumstances.

Though as I said near the beginning of this post, credit where it’s due: It may not have happened in the most ideal JRPG happy ending way, but Addam DID save the world at large from Malos’s wrath back in his day. Had he not resonated with Mythra (essentially brought life to her) and fought the good fight back then (because as he said “The powers-that-be bicker among themselves, ignoring the larger danger”), and rallied good people and allies to aid him in his cause, the entire world would have ended long before Rex’s time for certain.

Again, for all of Addam’s faults and how he screwed up with Mythra (as her driver anyway), we can’t just selectively ignore and/or gloss over that bold fact considering what the alternative could have been and it IS worth praising him for which the base game does even 500 years after the fact despite the devastation left behind by the battle. He might have failed Torna and Mythra in his time, but Addam certainly put forth several steps and made many sacrifices to ensure that both Mythra and the future would be saved even if he ultimately would not be around to witness it.

Personally, considering the poor man lived and died with the regret of knowing he failed Mythra and Torna (and still couldn’t pass on after death for 500 years in an attempt to atone by helping Mythra/Pyra find their true driver) I’d say that Addam more than made up for his mistakes and his failures when it came to being Mythra’s driver and the man was hardly a coward despite his fear of the Aegis’s power (hell, he still took on another Aegis at full might despite that. I’d say that a prince who’s willing to do that and more for his people is far from a coward but that’s just me).

So, I guess by seeing how both Addam and Rex succeeded and failed when it came to Mythra/Pyra, I’m able to better appreciate both their roles in helping her achieve her wish and purpose of being humanity’s hope and use her abilities and powers to their full potential (without her sinking a Titan to complete ruin the second time) as well as her eventually realizing that she’s not a horrible monster just for being born with immense power (Vandam said it best: “Power depends on the heart of its wielder”), Pyra/Mythra also gains a sense of peace, salvation and happiness in the end. And it would not have been possible without both Addam and Rex (for better or for worse) resonating with the Aegis in different moments in time and circumstance.

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