one of the things I love a lot about Xenoblade as a series is how deep and hard it goes into gnostic themes. this is true of all the Xeno games but I think Xenoblade does the best job of making them actually, like, coherent and enjoyable as an experienced narrative. putting a gnostic concept like the Monad upfront as the Monado, your magic plot sword, was particularly smart.
this allows them to lead with the weirder elements and have them slowly unfold, as opposed to Xenogears and Xenosaga, which both have problems with exposition-dumps.
for context: 'Monad' is the name of the true God, the 'first being' who begat all others, in many gnostic sects, standing in opposition to the Demiurge, the soulless 'idiot god' of physical reality who uses the Monad's trappings and tools but cannot truly comprehend the divine.
a big thing with a huge amount of gnostic belief systems is the idea that the mortal world is an external, artificial imposition on the inherently divine nature of the soul, put in place by the Demiurge as a form of flawed vanity, meant to punish us for our free will. the Demiurge cannot conceive of any being greater than it; it can perceive the results of divinity, but not their source.
since it has no ability to imagine the divine, and can't picture anything as an equal, it can't develop compassion, and wastes itself on empty, hollow order.
if this sounds like *flips through notes* every single major antagonist in the series, have I got news for you!
@hystericempress In the series and in reality, yeah. It's impressive how well it works as a political metaphor too, isn't it.
@zebratron2084 Yep. A lot of Xenoblade is actually sort of about the classical Christian theological 'problem of evil,' and that's true for both Xenoblade 1 AND its sequel; in Xenoblade 1 the answer is the classic gnostic 'god is all-knowing and all-powerful, but a sociopath,' whereas its sequel goes for the perhaps darker option: 'god is all-knowing and all-loving, but powerless to affect his creation.'