and we see this not just in the vague notion of personality but in the fact that even after the charm breaks, ansbach still uses bloodflame incantations of the formless mother, nor does he express horror at being forced to kill innocent people when he was under miquella's influence.

the point i'm making isn't "the charm had no effect" it's that these characters do not undergo a fundamental personality shift. all that changes is who they work for. mohg was likely still willing to do all the murder and cult stuff before the charm.

all that really changes about ansbach when he's charmed is his allegiance. even in that state he still doesn't trust miquella, even if he doesn't know why. that's why he keeps trying to learn more about miquella and his true intentions while charmed.

ansbach is the character that made people get a lot of weird ideas about how charms work and i still feel like i'm the only one who paid attention to his dialogue sometimes. he's still friends with freyja after the charm breaks and it seems like a lot of people didn't ask themselves why that is.

then again i don't know how much clearer the DLC could have been that people who are charmed are still fundamentally the same people they were before the charm, rather than pretending they got a lobotomy or however people rationalize the idea that mohg was secretly a great and noble hero.

remembering xenoblade 3 is crazy because xenoblade 1 feels like that kind of game any sequel would inevitably live in the shadow of (basically what happened to 2 and X for me) and then for no reason at all 3 decided to be so good that i can't decide which one i like better.