Manika

let's start with the most obvious connection between xavier and the moon : lumière ( 光猎 )

while some claim the choice of the moon is purely aesthetic, i would counter that argument : if it were just for visuals, why not stick to sunlight ? after all, his identity as lumière ( literally lightchaser in chinese ) would naturally align with a clear, sunny sky. in fact, i even recall xavier mentioning that if we ever need him, we only have to call his name, preferably when the sky is clear ( if anyone remembers exactly where this dialogue occurs, please let me know !!! ) and yet, instead of a bright, sunlit sky, the creative team deliberately chose the moon, a silver, shimmering moon. if you look closely at the gifs above, you can see just how distinctly the moonlight shimmers.

in fact, the moon doesn't produce light of its own : the most fundamental rule of lunar physics is that the sun permanently illuminates exactly 50% of the moon's surface, and the changing phases are not a shift in the moon's actual light, but rather a shift in our own perspective as it orbits the earth. why focus specifically on the moon phases, then ?

let's take a look at xavier's chinese name, shen xinghui ( 沈星回 ). it is a beautiful name on its own, it literally translates to the return of the star or the answer from the stars. the character 星 ( star, celestial body ) is self-explanatory, but if we dive a little deeper, the character 回 has multiple layers of meaning. beyond meaning to return or to reply / to answer back as seen above, it can also refer to time in terms of occurrences, as well as chapter ( of a novel, for instance ).

that being said, he character 回 is a component of the term 回溯, which means to go back in time or, more literally, to retrace one's steps. in this stance, xavier's narrative is basically hidden / hinted in one single linguistic choice that, to me, seems pretty intentional. taking this a step further, the character 溯 is built from the water radical 氵 and the character 朔, which brings us to our original question : why is the moon so central to xavier's identity as a character ? 朔 means new moon, it explicitly refers to the exact moment that marks the first day of each lunar month, thus the start of the cycle.

note : the character itself is composed of the radical 月 which means moon.

anyone familiar with his narrative knows just how crucial the concepts of space and time are to his character. in chinese culture ( more extensively, in asian folklore and buddhism ), the link between the moon phases and time is symbolic, historical and philosophical as it is tied to the concepts of cycle ( samsara ) and return. i highly encourage anyone interested to do some research on this if you're interested, as the the connection is too vast to be covered here⸻briefly, the lunar phases embody the ideas of rebirth and time travel. time is immortal, and ironically enough, is not governed by its own concept, and xavier is the one that navigated backwards against time's current ( 屰月 ) and reversed the cycle to get back to the precise moment it all began ...