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For those who have not completed games in the Xenoblade Chronicles series, this page contains spoilers regarding the plot. Discretion is advised. |
- "If such a place did exist, maybe we could all live in peace, without the need to fight."
- — Rex
Elysium (Japanese: 楽園, Rakuen, lit. Eden, Paradise) is a location in Xenoblade Chronicles 2. It is a fabled paradise supposedly located on top of the World Tree in the center of Alrest.
The Aegises are able to visit an imaginary version of Elysium in their dreams, created from their own memories. This distant memory appears multiple times during the course of the game.
Rex and Pyra's quest to Elysium, and the struggles they face to reach it, form the main premise of the story.
Story
During the year 20XX, Elysium functioned as the residential area of a research institution located in orbit: the First Low Orbit Station, Rhadamanthus. After the Conduit was activated, all the inhabitants of the station disappeared, and Elysium became a barren wasteland devoid of life.
As new life began to settle in Alrest, legends of Elysium spread among the people. Amalthus followed the legends and climbed the World Tree with the expectetion of reaching Elysium and meeting the Architect. However, despite being able to reach it, Amalthus found Elysium to be empty, and brough back with him the Core Crystals of the Aegises as proof that he had been to the divine realm.
Due to the psychologycal scars that they had suffered during the Aegis War, Pyra and Mythra wished to go back to Elysium so that they could ask the Architect to allow them to die, as their condition as Blades made them immortal. They asked Rex, a Leftherian salvager who wished to reach the place of legends, to take them there on the promise that, by doing so, he would be able to save Alrest, as the Titans that formed the land were beginning to die out.
Once the party reaches Elysium, they find it ruins, but by following the path they find in an Old Temple, they reach the Architect's Room, where they meet Klaus. As Artifice Aion is defeated and Klaus is dying, he removes the Cloud Sea and instructs the Titans of Alrest to form a new land in the sea. As the party reaches the new landmass on Azurda's back, they realize that this was the true Elysium they were searching for.
- "So Elysium was... here all along..."
- — Rex
The Legend of Elysium
Indoline mural depicting the creation of Alrest
The legends spread through Alrest stated that humanity had once lived on Elysium along the Architect, but that they had been expelled to the surface due to unknown reasons. The legend also states that Titans were sent by the Architect for humans to live in after he took pity on the them due to the tough circunstances of living on the surface, and that this was how Alrest came to be.
Despite not seeming like so at first, several points of the legend of Elysium could be identified with elements present in the real story. Humans did once live at the top of the World Tree, and literally vanished after the Conduit, a "divine gift", yielded unexpected results when activated. Due to the destruction caused in the surface of the planet by the battle that had taken place, as well as the Conduit's activation, Klaus recreated life, and Titans were one of the first steps of his plan, being sent to the surface in the form of Core Crystals.
Etymology
In Greek literature, Elysium refers to an afterlife paradise separate from the underworld. It was created by the gods for heroes and mortals related to the gods. Unlike in the underworld, those admitted into Elysium were said to have a happy and blessed afterlife.
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