#indol

Jin Xenoblade is such an amazingly written tragic character. Going from Hero to Anti-Villain, Jin begins the story as a loyal blade and a lifetime partner of Lora. But as their feelings for each other grow and come into conflict with the evils of this world, he loses himself to his grief. He spends some amount of 500 years suffering before deciding the solution is to wipe the slate clean. Some might not agree this makes him an Anti-Villain, but I say he is because his reasoning for destroying the world is to purge the corruption of people like Amalthus. In the end, he returns to a more traditional hero archetype by sacrificing himself to bring an end to Indol’s tyranny.

Also, holy shit he’s so cool (no pun intended)???? Ice blades are usually Not Great(tm) but he takes the idea of Ice and explores the idea of ABSOLUTE ZERO and his whole ability to literally freeze everything including TIME is just such a cool exploration of the worldbuilding. And Nodachi is such a cool weapon!

2 may be my least favorite of the main 3, but Torna the Golden Country is as good as it is thanks in no small part to Jin.

I am a certified Jin Enjoyer. If he has a thousand fans, I’m one of them. If he has one fan I’m it, and if he has no fans I have died.

Before starting the World Tree, I leveled up my party to level 70 because I didn’t want to be constantly harassed by the enemies in there. An unintended consequence is that all the Indoline troops that were supposed to be trying to kill me were completely ignoring me instead since they are all in the high 50s to low 60s. And since I had Zeke in the party, I had a random thought: maybe the in-universe reason they’re not attacking is because they’re scared of him?

I mean, think about it. Zeke has been living at the Praetorium for at least a couple years now, so anybody who lives/works there has probably heard of him and the kinds of shit he can pull. So when Amalthus tells them to go and kill the party, the entire army has a collective moment where they’re all like “ha ha, us, kill ZEKE, that’s a good joke, ha ha - you’re serious aren’t you?”

Furthermore, I like to think that most of the Praetorium has basically adopted Zeke, both in a “yes he’s an idiot, but he’s OUR idiot” sense and in a pseudo-big brother sense. Yes, he can’t step five feet into the Titan pens without being mauled, and nobody is quite sure what to make of his fashion sense, but he also gives great pointers in the training room and picked up the pipe organ on a whim and is shockingly good at it and they would rather not see him dead if they can help it. Not to mention, Zeke is like, one of two, maybe three people that Amalthus shows any kind of real fondness for, so its pretty weird that HE of all people is trying to kill him.

Speaking of Amalthus acting weird, he’s been doing that a lot lately. And not his usual brand of weirdness, the “puts ether in his coffee” weird or the “can hear someone talking shit from opposite ends of a very large room” weird. Now its more like “suddenly has a way-too wide mouth filled with Piranhax teeth” weird or “is caught having a shouting match with nothing” weird. 

(The night after Fan’s funeral, the two guys assigned to guard his room came back with thousand-yard stares. When asked, they said that the moment Amalthus locked the door “he started screaming and ranting about all the things he was gonna do to Jin when he caught him. It was the kinda stuff I feel sick just thinking about. And he kept breaking down into laughing or sobbing or promising Fan that he would avenge her and it went on for HOURS.”

That was just the first of many tales like it.)

When those stories starting making the rounds, many found it a good time to bail and handed in their resignation. Many more were considering the idea before the battle in the skies above, and the order to kill Zeke was their final straw. 

I wonder how many people were aware of the horrors the Gormotti refugees experienced.

I wonder how many people stopped and asked whether the reason for the Anti-Blade protests being given by Indol were true. How many people questioned Indol's teachings at all.

I wonder how many people died at Amalthus' hands. 500 years is a long time, after all.

I wonder a lot. About Indol. About Amalthus.