I have a lot to say about Addam that I’ve been sitting on for like 2 weeks MONTHS because i forgot this was hanging out in my drafts.
ft. screenshots of varying quality
I love Addam. I knew I was going to like him, but not nearly as much as I did. He’s probably favorite character in TTGC, and one of my favorite XC2 characters in general. It certainly helps that he’s a slightly more grounded and mature Zeke (the way they play is even pretty similar; in fact, did you notice that some of Addam’s arts have the same effects as Zeke’s do, like a frontal attack and a launch?) except without the chuunibyou trope. I don’t mind that particular trope, but some of Zeke’s best moments was when he was wasn’t acting so much like so tropey. Thankfully for me, that was “most of the time” after he became a party member.
I’ve seen some people have issue with Addam’s character that he apparently didn’t live up to the hype the base game gave him, and that was kind of the point. Whether or not they like the point or think it’s good is a completely different story, but I’m pretty sure that was what they were going for. The base game talks about him more like a character in a legend rather than a historical figure and just another person like everyone else. But the thing is, when we look at the history of the Aegis War the game provides, including an actual conversation with Addam, he fails. His character even solely exists solely to be a mirror to Rex and accent how the latter surpasses him. He’s specifically and deliberately given character traits to contrast his successor.
One of those traits in particular is his dislike of power. This one is very important and where we see him begin to fall apart as the Aegis’s driver. It’s established very early on that he doesn’t like power and is doesn’t like seeing how it changes people.
Addam: “Ruling is... Frankly it’s a scary thought. Just imagine becoming someone you don’t recognize...”
And he’s not even wrong. He’s a prince, and as such, a pretty high-profile political figure. He’s probably seen how power corrupts dozens of times, so became more jaded and wary because of it. Going back to Rex, he didn’t have this same reaction to people when seeing how awful they could be at times (Bana and Amalthus, for example). He continued to see the best, even for the person who literally killed him by stabbing him in the back. Calling Rex naive for this isn’t wrong, but it was one of the reasons he could accept Mythra/Pyra/Pneuma where Addam was never able to. By rejecting Mythra’s power the way he does, he was also rejecting a part of who and what she was.
Addam: “Rex, what is it that you seek? Wealth? Power? Dominion?”
Rex: “Errr... None of those things, really. Though...power might be useful.”
Addam: “Power, then.”
Rex: “Power to protect.”
Ironically, Rex had a more nuanced view of power than Addam did. Addam treated power like it was inherently bad and should generally be avoided, but Rex accepted it with open arms. He knew that in the right hands, it could be used to protect the people around him. It needed to be treated with respect and used in moderation, but there are certainly advantages of having it.
Going back to Addam, of course obviously, the best idea is to give the man who doesn’t like power one of the two most powerful blades in all of existence. Normally, this would have ended up working in most other stories but that obviously wasn’t the case here. Not because he was destined to fail, it was because of his own personality and thought process. There weren’t even necessarily character flaws that caused his failure because in other stories, Addam’s hesitance would probably be seen as a good thing. By all accounts, he should have had everything he needed to succeed, but the way he reacted to everything was so very different than what one would normally expect, even if it lines up with his established character.
Lora: “You’ll get used to [Mythra’s power], little by little.”
Addam: “If only time would slow down and afford me the chance.”
Addam knew he should have tried to adapt and change, but he never did, and having very little time to do so was only part of the reason why.
Addam: “I know I’ve yet to unlock the depths of your power.”
Mythra: “Really? I feel like I’ve been giving it my all.”
Addam: “But you never stop growing. At any rate, Haze’s ability to restrict other Blades is indispensable. It’s perfect for training. We’re lucky.”
We do see him try to unlock more of Mythra’s power, but all the same, he still tells her to do her best to hold back from doing too much damage. He finds Haze’s ability to restrict her necessary because he doesn’t trust Mythra or himself in their ability to hold back. This could have been his way of warming up to the idea, or it could have him trying to see everything she could do so he’d know what to avoid, but there’s no way of knowing.
(Unrelated, but I always got a kick out of the fact that Jin is nice enough to make everyone dinner, but they go and eat fruit instead.)
There’s a post-battle line of dialogue from Addam has where he compliments Mythra on how well she was able to restrain herself. Said with the best of intentions sure, but...still. There was far too much at stake if he did adapt, and if he messed up, he knew a lot of people would die. It should be noted that teaching Mythra to hold back was not necessarily a bad move on his part. She did need to learn how to not blow everything up whenever she wanted to. Her being able to hold back as well as she does in XC2 is probably because of Addam. We see Rex not going all out even with Pyra in chapter 2, so I reiterate: it wasn’t necessarily bad. What made it bad was his motivation for it. It was to keep collateral damage at a low yes, but it was also how his own fear manifested itself. Not to mention, his words to Haze imply he doesn’t even trust Mythra enough to hold back properly so he’s grateful for something of substance rather than blind trust to fall back on. Rex trusted Mythra in a way Addam didn’t, so they never had this problem. Addam and Mythra had a glaringly massive hole in their trust in each other (and their relationship as a whole), and that’s ultimately what killed their driver/blade relationship in the end.
Addam is not nearly as open to change as Rex is (in fact, changing and adapting is a pretty big theme in XC2 but that’s a completely other topic) because he doesn’t like risks. Post-battle dialogue implies that Addam is overly critical of himself (and sometimes of others too), so he probably didn’t even have the confidence to seriously try. That same post-battle conversation sheds some light for us that he’s overly self-reliant, so he wasn’t about to open up to anyone about his reservations either where they could maybe help him through it. He doesn’t even notice when he closes himself off or is being unnecessarily harsh, so he’s not especially the most self-aware person in the world either. Unlike Rex, Addam’s priority wasn’t being Mythra’s driver; iIt was to stop Malos, and then go back to his normal life before everything went to shit. Rex was almost completely devoted to accepting and adapting to Mythra, becoming her true driver, and was willing to go farther than Addam ever would have.
Addam really made me appreciate Rex more, and care more about his relationship with Mythra. I already cared about their relationship, so all of this background was just icing on the cake. It made Rex accepting her all the more meaningful, especially since the person who she considered one of the best people she ever met couldn’t even do that. It puts her death at the end of the game in perspective too; she’s finally able to be comforted in the knowledge that she’s been accepted completely after nearly five centuries of guilt, self-hatred, and want for death but almost immediately after finding a reason to live, she has to die in order to save everything she fought for. ...Not that she stayed dead, but she didn’t know she’d come back.
Before we finish though, I don’t want to make it seem like Addam was completely to blame because he had some pretty good justifications for how he handled Mythra for the most part. It obviously wasn’t an ideal way of handling it, but getting into his mindset isn’t too difficult.
Like Addam, Rex was very careful with Mythra’s power. He didn’t outright reject it, but he preferred not to use it if he didn’t have to. And that was convenient because Mythra tried to generally avoid it too. Whenever Rex saw a fraction of Mythra’s power, he got a restrained and precise version of it that was only used under extreme duress and always used to cause as little damage as possible. This even extends into gameplay with her IV special. Even though she completely could incinerate the rooftop, it was unnecessary and she wasn’t going to do it. He knew he could trust her to not abuse her power.
But Addam on the other hand...
Brighid: “If that had actually hit me...”
Mythra: “Oh? Didn’t like that, did you?”
he got a blade that tried to MURDER BRIGHID AND THEN ACT SMUG ABOUT IT. Yeah, she killed the Torna blades but as I said before, it was done under extreme duress, and their backs were against the wall. Brighid just vaguely annoyed Mythra and then she immediately tries killing her. She doesn’t even listen to Addam when he yells at her to stop because she’s having too much fun curb stomping Brighid.
The other times Addam gets to see more of her power is when she’s showing off so everything she does looks far more flashy and devastating than it necessarily is. Mythra doesn’t even deny the fact that she would completely demolish everything within a ten mile radius if she decided to shoot it with Siren yet she still regularly tries to goad him into letting her do it anyways. There’s a joke near the beginning of the game where Mythra accuses Addam of thinking that she’s a complete loose cannon, but she kind of is. He has every reason to believe that she could become another Malos. She barely gives him any reason to believe otherwise.
He’s already hesitant about her, it’s completely and entirely possible he didn’t even want to be a driver much less the driver of an Aegis, but he is anyway and then was put in a constant state of worry she’ll nuke an entire country like Malos did out of sheer boredom. What makes it even worse is that if she did, he knew it would be entirely on him for not being able to control his blade. Torna does treat blades and humans equally (or at least that’s what everyone says--there aren’t that many blades we run across in TTGC so it’s unfortunately a case of the game telling rather than showing), but the driver is still held responsible for the blade’s actions.
Here’s Rex and Mythra fighting Brighid in XC2.
Mythra: “I know, I know. I won’t use that power, OK? If you really need to attack, I’ll hand it over to Pyra.”
Pyra: “We can do this without hitting them.”
Rex: “Hah! It’s like you read my mind.”
Rex doesn’t have to chastise Mythra like Addam did because she didn’t try to murder someone, actually listens to what he has to say, and is on the same page on what they want to do.
I don’t have a good way to end this so here’s a cute screenshot of Rex and Pyra.
