What Do You Expect From a Mad Man?

(Understanding Albedo)

A meta by Jessi Ray

(Please note: This does article does not reflect the opinions of the Godsibb community as a whole, but instead reflects only the author’s personal opinion. Enjoy!)

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Albedo Piazzolla. Anyone who’s played through the Xenosaga games knows that name. He’s the white haired bad guy, right? Indeed.

He’s one of those characters you love, or you despise, really. The haters say “How could anyone love such an evil, despicable, sadistic, crazy character!” And the fans? “You must be as crazy as he is not to!”

Honestly, neither notion to me is correct. I am probably one of the biggest Albedo fans on this website (though I know a few people who could give me a run for my money). I love his character lots. But, in order to not make him what TV Tropes calls a “Draco in Leather Pants”, I think it’s important to realize a few things.

The first: Albedo is not someone you want to take a Sunday stroll with. Yes, he is crazy. Yes, he does evil things (and please note how I phrase that sentence. I’ll get to that in a moment). Yes, he is a sadist who likes little girls. How kind of you to ask! But I think there are a few things that set him apart from the general “badass” bad guy. He’s not necessarily a Sephiroth clone, nor is he quite like any other white haired Japanese originated villain. There are a few things that set him apart, in my opinion.

I think the first thing lies in his intention. What does he really want? A perfect race? No. A perfect world? No. To become a god? At first you might think that at first, but not really. Ultimately he just wants Rubedo’s acceptance. We need to remember that he worshiped the ground he walked on as a child. He loved him to death, literally!

Rubedo and Nigredo were the only people he had, and it would be safe to say that all only had each other except… except there was Sakura. Now, I don’t hate Sakura, I actually feel sorry for her– she was alone too. She was having to share Rubedo with Albedo, just like Albedo was sharing Rubedo with Sakura (though albeit, unwillingly). I don’t think it was right for him to resent Sakura, but anyone who has ever been a younger sibling, or even extremely attached to their sibling, can feel a tinge of what he felt when he started losing Rubedo to her. Rubedo started spending less and less time with them (“them” because he was leaving Nigredo too). He was slacking and cutting training to spend time with Sakura. The cutting practice bothered Nigredo, and both he and Albedo noted that he was becoming distracted. This on top of the emotional loss can be upsetting when you’re attached to someone like he was.

Also, since Rubedo was training less during the time he was “dating” Sakura, he was probably less prepared during the conflict. And if he had been training when he was supposed to and not “distracted” as Nigredo put it, maybe he would have handled linking with U-DO just a little bit better. The way I see it: I’d resent her too if she attributed to that disaster. Of course, you might be shaking your head and thinking “now wait Jessi, Albedo hated her before the conflict.”

Well yes, he did. But this was for emotional reasons, in fact I don’t think he truly hated her as much as he claimed. He felt sorry when she died, so the database said. He knew she was an important part of Rubedo, just like he was. I have never seen Sakura’s death in the DS version, but when I picture it, I picture a scared little boy and a helpless, sweet, little girl who decided he was more important. I don’t picture Albedo mincingly pushing her into a wave of U-DO and laughing while she got taken over and killed. Young Albedo had problems and resented Sakura for taking his (precious) time with Rubedo away, but I don’t think he truly hated her or wanted her killed.

His time with Rubedo, as he learned would be limited. He always knew he couldn’t die. He’d never had a scratch or bruise in his life, and he thought he would be with Rubedo, Nigredo and his 665 other brothers and sisters forever. But then he learned that that notion was absolutely wrong. He didn’t have much time with Rubedo after all. Rubedo and Nigredo would die and he would live on without them. Which is probably when the urge of “I MUST BE WITH RUBEDO ALL THE TIME” intensified. They were URTV, soldiers of sorts. How long would he have with Rubedo (and Nigredo)? Years? Months? Weeks? Days? Hours? For all he knew Dmitri could have said, “URTV, I want you to perform a sneak attack on federation headquarters!” and Rubedo, being Rubedo, would do something reckless and be shot and killed. Or maybe U-DO would come back to Sakura’s encephalon, and take over his body like it did their brothers. The worry was eating him, obviously. Their lives were total danger traps, which is why I resent it when people remark that it was dumb of Albedo to be upset. He knew he would eventually lose everyone around him and it was driving him to the beginnings of insanity.

Then there’s the issue of his life after the conflict. I wish we knew more about that gray area between that night and the day Margulis tells him to retrieve the Y-Data. We do know a Kirchwasser found him and took him to Dr. Sellers in The Song. The Database says that Seller’s raised him from that time onward, and I do wonder what influence Sellers had on the mad child. I see it sort of as that classic mad scientist/insane assistant relationship.

In his early days with Sellers, Albedo probably helped Sellers on whatever projects he was working on and spent time and befriended the Kirschwassers in his own twisted ways. Remember, the Kirschwassers did love Albedo, and spent fourteen years with him before he killed them. So I’m thinking he couldn’t have been cruel to them that whole time. Even the lower Realians would know better if he acted cruelly from the get-go. I believe his feelings of anger toward them probably intensified as he reached his later adolescent years: the years when most boys become men, their brains reach maturity, and their hormones stir. Those are the years when most mental illness intensifies and the sufferers become more violent and less predictable. Young Albedo was depressed and instable, whereas older Albedo translates that depression to violence and acts of sadism. I think even under the influence of U-DO, post-conflict Albedo would become extremely instable, and violent (albeit, VERY violent) only during fits of anger or instability. Remember, we only see true U-DO infected child Albedo once in the games- during the Episode I KOS-MOS encephalon dive. The other times we see him in II (including when young Albedo goes crazy in the MOMO encephalon), this is only adult Albedo creating an image of him to anger Jr. into Red Dragon mode. I also believe it was during his late teen years when he started taking up U-TIC mercenary work, as an outlet for his growing appetite for violence.

That said, I do count Albedo as a member of U-TIC, because even if he doesn’t like it, it’s still a part of his rising. U-TIC to him definitely does not have the same meaning as it does to Margulis or Pellegri. To him, it’s a job, an outlet, something to do, and a means to achieve what he wants. He doesn’t give KOS-MOS’ butt about Michtam, or the will of Ormus. In fact, seeing as he was one of the few in contact with the Testaments during his life, he probably knew that Wilhelm and Heinlein were one and the same. And I’ll bet he laughed his ass off.

Anyway given all of this, much of which is educated guesses, I’ll admit, I don’t think Albedo is completely evil. I think that he’s delirious and misguided. He wasn’t raised in a church or with a loving family, he was raised as a little soldier who couldn’t die and who knew his closest friends were going to leave him. Then he got infected with U-DO and was found by none other than Dr. Sellers- who is pretty twisted himself, I might add. But for all of that, he doesn’t want world domination or to create some wacky ideal world (though he does act like he does at one point). He just wants his brother to love him, even if he has one heck of an unconventional way of achieving that. But what do you expect from a mad man?