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silverjojo08 · 25 days ago

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General KH Brainrot

I have finally caught up to every Kingdom Hearts game released so far. To celebrate, I decided to write this thing about all my thoughts. This is not organized. It’s not formal writing. It’s a mix of general rambling and speculation and shipping and just fun stuff. Topics will be in the order I think of them. Great games imo (tho I think some other action RPG series do certain things better, more on that later).

Spoilers for everything including Union Cross (I recommend this fandub if you’re not familiar with it) and Dark Road (I recommend this cutscene compilation). And again, I’m not really trying to proofread or write this as a proper article or anything. It’s just literally my assorted ramblings. Most of these will be familiar if you’ve followed my ramblings on twitter as I played through the games. I have not read really anything from outside of the games (interviews, guidebooks, etc) nor have I watched any theory videos. I have picked some theories up from others, but I’m not fully convinced of anything. Anyway here we go.

(If I linked to your stuff and you’d like that removed just let me know. I wanted to source discussions/thoughts I had, but I don’t intend on being intrusive.)

I Think Apprentice Xehanort Should/Will Return

Mainly to me, I feel like it doesn’t make sense that he’s considered to just be old man Xehanort. Xemnas has some memories from Terra which indicates that the apprentice is not just old man Xehanort in there, and the KH3 battle uses the young version of Terranort (from the fight vs Aqua) rather than the apprentice somewhat implies that the apprentice was simply too much of a unique entity to have been used for the evil plan. Old man Xehanort does have a scene in ReMind where he explains that Terranort simply recompleted into a younger version, but that was nonsense to me and I reject it. Either he was simply wrong or simply lying. Yes this is more hopium than actual speculation. I like him. He’s hot. I need him back. Also he specifically being the one connected to Kairi’s origin and also telling the cast about Quadratum suggests to me that he is important enough to show up again.

Kairi Being a Princess of Heart

I find this notion to be particularly curious because given the evidence so far, it seems as though princesses for each world should be characters of which the narrative focuses on. And of course as we all know, Kairi is severely underused and has mainly been portrayed as a damsel in distress. In addition to this, her native world (Radiant Garden/Hollow Bastion) hasn’t really been all that important to the narrative honestly. Yes, I understand the heart experiments were going on there but it doesn’t seem like the intrinsic nature of that world is particularly crucial compared to Disney Town (has the time portal there), Keyblade Graveyard (literally all the dead children and Keyblades and has been used as a nexus point to summon the chi blade), Daybreak Town/Scala ad Caelum (again, just magical in nature due to *waves hands*), and other actually important original locations (Land of Departure/Castle Oblivion!!!!) thus far in the lore other than the fact that the modern ongoings are essentially Ansem the Wise’s fault (maybe more on him later but I do not like him). And I get there’s been some retcons along the way on everything (arguably Radiant Garden as a concept in itself, arguably the idea that the princess of heart duties can be passed along to others, etc etc), but I’m not sure the retcons are really that important here. At this point for this narrative notion to kind of matter it feels like she needs to do something huge for the sake of her world imo.

To me the stronger possibility is that her world for the purposes of princesshood is actually considered Destiny Island since that’s where the story actually jumpstarted and there’s also a door to darkness there plus there’s the Child of Destiny concept (see below), but we’ll see.

Kairi and Riku’s Fated Oomfship

This is one of the last sections I’m writing despite being one of the first sections I thought of. Part of this is because I wanted to go over some of the old Ansem reports again after beating Melody of Memory. The other part is that it’s kind of hard to nail down what it is that I have to say on this matter. But I just think it’s really, really neat that the story begins when Kairi is literally sent as a beacon to Riku. They were fated to meet and bond, and then it worked! In some stories this sort of destiny hogwash (sorry to plagiarize Fire Emblem Awakening, it will happen again) can feel like a prison for the characters. But here between Kairi and Riku (also somewhat paralleled with the BBS kiddos, more on that later) it’s just really sweet and magical to me.

Now of course it was a sinister plot. Apprentice Xehanort didn’t send her to find Riku out of the goodness of his heart. He wanted a Keyblade wielder to study and manipulate for his own purposes. But these kids are just funny little guys and villains never think about the power of love and friendship. Even in KH1 during the worst possible cringe 15 year old, 9th grade year angst possible Riku was concerned over Kairi’s safety.

They don’t get a lot of scenes together, but those that they do get are to me a nice mix of playful and touching and just truly pure friendship goodness. I think that’s truly just a really lovely thing. At the end of KH2 I was so excited for the idea of them as a duo (and then I learned that she doesn’t get to do shit most of the other games, tragic). Their scene in Melody of Memory after she woke up inspired this whole section honestly because their chemistry is truly so bestie-coded.

Anyway as I spent time waffling on this section I came across this twitter thread that does a way better job than me at thoroughly analyzing Kairi’s friendships and other relationships in general and I think it’s really good and insightful and you should read it.

The Child of Destiny

Ok, so this could really just be grouped with the KH4 theories, but I started speculating too much so it will be separate here. This is from the Dark Road epilogue. Our dear Player-kun who reincarnated to Missing Link raises Xehanort and believes Xehanort to be the Child of Destiny. They turn out to be incorrect, but here’s some stuff they say about the theory:

Now obviously this could refer to multiple characters. Sora is the no-brainer pick (especially given the “connect their heart with another to become one” note tying to his connection with Ven) and maybe it really is just him. Kairi could fit too if we ignore the gendering in the statement. But Riku is also a curious possibility. A lot of the hints point to him: Kairi landed on Destiny Islands due to his presence, Destiny Islands fell due to him opening the door, he and Ansem SoD did sort of become one together and he gave Ansem SoD form (more on that in the KH4 theories section btw), during CoM in particular he has been shown to be able to sense (“smell”) darkness and identify people (again, the smell thing lol) in a sort of innate way, he is the literal representation for the narrative as the avatar for Jiminiy’s journal, and he uses both light and darkness together in a harmonic sense for the powers of good more than any other named character. This is another “we’ll see” situation I think, but if it turns out to be Riku I wouldn’t be shocked.

Vanitas, a darkness entity vs The Darkness™

Skip to the next section if you don’t want even more Union Cross or Dark Road spoilers. Anyway my interpretation of the events is that I do not believe Vanitas to be one of the true Darknesses. Old man Xehanort certainly thought he was on some level, but it is imo very clear to me that isn’t that case. As we all know, Ventus did absorb within him one of the true Darknesses. However, when he was sent to the future (ie current KH present time before BBS) old man Xehanort tried to split the Darkness from his heart. I believe Xehanort’s split attempt was somewhat imperfect and Vanitas had a little bit of Ven’s heart within him. This fragment of heart was enough to make Vanitas a unique and individual entity. To put it more succinctly: I believe he was once part of that Darkness which Ven absorbed, but he is now a separate being due to having a sliver of Ven. Ultimately Kingdom Hearts is all about unique circumstances and having your own sense of self even when “nature” argues you should behave otherwise. There’s more to this theory in that the Darknesses notoriously cannot act without controlling another being, and also Sora fights the Darkness still within Ven during ReMind but also I’m lazy and don’t feel like explaining any further. The end result to me is that ultimately I think Vanitas is a separate dude who could keep showing up if they wanted him to even after the Darknesses are taken care of. He could even team up with the good guys to fight the Darknesses!

There’s Only One Canon Ship to Me (and it’s not Sora/Kairi)

To be clear here, the title is somewhat facetious. And it’s inaccurate, I actually have two instances. Also I’m judging things on a bit of a curve. There is basically no explicit romance in Kingdom Hearts outside of what is canon in the various movie worlds. And that is fine honestly, I like the flexibility given to interpretation.

That being said, when I say “canon” I mean both “intended by the writers” and “portrayed more than ambiguous on screen” which are obviously both extremely loaded and interpretive sentiments.

Don’t use anything I say against others. Shipwars are dumb. (This actually applies to the whole essay not just the ships section. It’s a fucking video game with Donald Duck. None of it is serious enough to be harassing people.)

Anyway it’s Lea/Isa, they are so good omg. I was invested from the moment I saw them in Days. There’s just so much tension built into every one of their interactions. So much history. So much weight. They are so married. They are so divorced. It’s crazy. Isa literally conspired against the True Organization XIII to bring back Lea’s kids (that yeah he treated terribly when they were first alive) and then in the Keyblade Graveyard intentionally goaded them all into remembering each other. It was crazy.

The first time you see them you assume they’re the usual fire+ice duo. But then you learn the ice guy is Vexen so that can’t be right. And then you learn the water guy is Demyx, so they’re not fire+water either. Then you see Saïx in battle, and you understand: they’re sun+moon coded. Then you think about the concept and name of TWILIGHT TOWN. It’s just crazy.

Xehaqus is the other instance that feels basically canon to me. They are literally so teenage couple-y in Dark Road. All the other students constantly comment on them. They have the best chemistry just talking to each other. How they bounce off one another is really cute. Yeah it gets complicated and toxic as they both choose the most self-destructive ways of coping after all the horrors. But then it takes literally just one letter from Xehanort for Eraqus to welcome him back. The BBS trio literally feels like their kids (Aqua being closest to the one who left the other, Terra being split between the two, Ven moving from one household to the other). Their KH3 reconciliation???? (Scroll down for more on that) They’re so married. I hate them (complimentary).

Other Notes on Ships Tho

Sora/Kairi: They’re really cute and obviously intended to be read as canon, but I find their scenes to be like oddly ambiguous. They feel like a straight ship being written as if it were a queer ship trying to duck the censors. I like thinking about them conceptually more separately than together, but together they are still good. The fruit scene was really good in KH3.

Sora/Riku: Speaking of “queer ship trying to duck the censors” but Sora is very shippable he’s a nice kiddo who has good chemistry with everyone. I do think Riku having a crush on him feels fairly canon after DDD especially. And the Sora action command in KH3 was CRAZY. I feel like I should write more because I think they are genuinely my favorite duo of the series, but idk I do that every day on twitter probably anyway. They’re good.

Aqua/Terra: I think the prevalence of it in the fandom is mostly heteronormativity rather than something to be fully read into the writing since she treats him basically the same as Ven. In concept I kind of like it because there’s tragedy in their story, but I don’t know that it’s like there on the screen. They’re cool tho. If they got fully canonized I’d dig it.

Riku/Naminé: The replica Riku is the one who has the bond with her and does the huge sacrifice for her and everything. Maybe that in itself proves there’s potential there for him so also have something with her, but I don’t really see it personally.

Axel/Roxas: I extremely give a pass to the people who only played the games before BBS. But given that BBS confirmed Axel is an adult, I truly don’t understand shipping this. Like even in an AU setup where Roxas is “aged up”, it’s still conceptually weird? His character is all about being a young teenager. What is the appeal besides being a creep? (That is a rhetorical question; if you ship this please don’t speak to me.)

Terra/Ven, Aqua/Ven, any other combo of “clearly 19+/an actual 8th or 9th grader”: Literally what is wrong with y’all?

Sora/Roxas, Roxas/Xion, Roxas/Ven, Xion/Naminé, Roxas/Naminé, Kairi/Naminé and other ships that are morally fine but they feel too related to me: I wouldn’t call them siblings (maybe cousins?) but they definitely feel like family of sorts and I don’t really get how folks don’t feel the same (belatedly, I realize it might be the Marvel comics fan in me defaulting to “shared brainwave patterns = related” logic idk). I don’t think poorly of anyone who ships these, but they creep me out. True neutral NOTPs.

Ven/Van: Kind of a more specific version of the previous bullet, but I think they’re more related than those. Scroll back up to the Van section if need be, but given my interpretation I think they’re the closest to literal family even if the “brother” stuff is mostly just for taunting purposes. Anyway it’s more of a squick for me than the above section to me even if I don’t know that it’s like immoral or anything. Purely vibes-based, and if canon proves me wrong maybe I’d reconsider my interpretation.

Riku/Roxas: This is inherently really good for a drama-enjoying sicko such as myself. They canonically may never speak again, but it’s really good imo.

Elrena/Lauriam: I like this flavor much better romantically than their Nobody versions. Interested to see how they will behave with hearts after all their years together. It feels like we’re supposed to believe that they’re canon since like she followed him through space and time, but we haven’t seen them enough to be certain (largely due to all the troubles).

Anything else not listed here is probably fine to me or even enjoyable (like Aqua/Cinderella is really good to me), but I don’t have as many thoughts on them in particular. I’m very much an omni-shipper at heart. You can almost convince me of anything that doesn’t have consent issues, and I will at least see some cuteness in it.

Xehanort-Specific Brainworms

This is mostly about how the KH3 ending for him was perfect. Yes, he earned the happy ending. And yes specifically the version of him who will get to enjoy that ending is not quite the adult version who committed all the crimes. But also it sort of was? Let’s explore that.

The child version was set up to fail every step of the way, and I’m genuinely not sure it’s anyone’s fault in particular besides maybe MoM for starting up the whole “grooming children to die for your cause” Keyblade warrior culture. We don’t exactly know the circumstances that led to Xehanort being sent to Destiny Islands (#BringBackMissingLink), but it’s clear he was believed to be the Child of Destiny.

The teenage version especially just very doomed by the narrative in a way that is truly haunting to me. Player tells him all that stuff when he’s little and fills his head with hope that he must/would be the savior of everyone. Before he faces any proper training he is shoved through the realm of Darkness with no protection by Ansem SoD, thus changing him irreparably. Then he has a few good years with his newfound oomfs before they all experience everything in Dark Road. Then MoM comes to him when he is very emotionally vulnerable after all of those losses and basically offers him a deal with the devil (this post from the official twitter about the usage of this imagery in the series was really cool btw). His future adult self pulls him to the present to die and he doesn’t even get the chance to make things right after this (another good twitter post here, sorry for linking all these but folks on there are cooking a lot).

It’s just very sad to me. It’s sad in a way uncharacteristic of Kingdom Hearts, a series built upon hope. That’s why he does get a happy ending in the end I think. Not un-marred of course. He can’t undo the evils his adult self has committed. But the inner child who had gotten a raw deal all his life gets to hang with his bf for all eternity or whatever, and that’s nice to me.

Also in Dark Road he says something about how he’d need 13 lifetimes to make things better, but then corrects himself and says 14. The final life would be to experience the world after he was done, so I think the KH3 ending was meant to illustrate the beginnings of that 14th life after the 13 from the war all died, and we may see him again. Sorry this is hopium again, but I really like the ‘Norts. I hope some of them come back.

Unimportant Axel vs Lea Distinction

Absolutely does not necessitate its own section but I think he was only going by Axel because his heart was trying to remind him about Xion and this is supported in the ReMind stuff where Saïx also uses the name Axel to trigger the memories. This is not intended to be transphobic, so if you want to use it as an allegory or a chosen name for textually trans headcanons like that’s cool. I just mean canonically I’m not sure he actually would use Axel over Lea now that the kiddos are back and they properly made the bond their own. This whole section could probably be deleted, but whatever.

Thoughts on Trios

Similar to the Kairi and Riku bestie section, this is one of the first ones I thought of and will kind of be one of the last ones I write because I got intimidated by it. There’s just a lot of feelings I have about the cast of these games and how they link and how related and different there are from one another and it fascinates me. I don’t want to leave out non-player (Sora-Donald-Goofy) or mobile game trios (Player-Ephemer-Skuld), but that’s a lot to touch on and I’m running out of steam and kind of just want to post this essay thing ASAP. Maybe I’ll revisit this in a separate post one day, or maybe not. Anyway, I’ll do my best starting with the thoughts that first got me to this point and see how much I can talk about before I feel like dying idk.

I feel like the usual (both in the games and in the audience) comparisons between the main playable casts are mainly Sora=Roxas=Ventus, Kairi=Xion=Aqua, and Riku=Axel=Terra. And yeah there’s a lot of connections there. And of course there’s a lot of mixing things up. I feel that while the Days trio does work to parallel the other two groups the other two groups repeat story beats from one another much more strongly, and that’s what got me thinking of this.

I ended up feeling closest to Sora=Axel=Terra, Kairi=Roxas=Ventus, and Riku=Xion=Aqua which still sounds vaguely insane typed out, but also works in my brain for whatever reason.

I guess I will start with Sora and his parallels. Sora=Ventus is obvious based on their narrative connection and both DDD and KH3 reference him as such. Sora harbored his heart, slept for a while, etc. DDD to me is almost literally Sora=Terra as literal as they could get without saying it in the script given how he fails the Mark of Mastery exam and gets kidnapped by the bad guys (also he has brown hair, hair color is not really important in this but it’s fun). And then KH3 does Sora=Aqua explicitly in the English script and the parallel there is very clear. Sora=Roxas feels too obvious to need to type up, honestly; that’s literally what KH2 AND their scene in re:Coded AND their scene in DDD were about. Sora=Axel feels right though because of both of their protective natures and how they both use humor to lighten a situation as they drown under the weight of that role. This feels kind of like a weak statement as I type it out, but it is mainly just vibes honestly. It feels right. Sora=Xion is probably his weakest one across all of them for me since it feels more reliant on her nature of copying memories (again not bad, I like the plot ones obviously but the personality parallel isn’t quite there for me).

Kairi=Ventus is extremely obvious given their origins. They were both literally sent in the lifeboats and fell from the sky to end up with their current friends. They both literally have hearts of pure light. They both literally had those hearts sheltered by Sora at times. They are both sort of spending a lot of their time “chasing” after their friends who have more (or at least more remembered, since Ven *handwaving* y’know) Keyblade experience and dealing with that insecurity to varying degrees of success. Roxas comparison is a bit weaker here, but all the Days ones feel weaker to me so whatever. But Roxas shares that sort of “chasing” concept as well. He also has amnesia like them, and a “weird” Keyblade wielding technique like them (Kairi does a funny thing where she like dismisses and resummons hers a lot in Melody of Memory, Ven has his backwards grip, Roxas has his dual wield). DDD visually did Kairi=Aqua, and KH3 went heavy with Kairi=Xion as well but I do think that was mainly to service Xion’s return through Axel feeling the visual/auditory similarity more than them really being too similar otherwise.

Riku=Aqua is the one I felt first while playing the games. He’s literally her son. He plays just like her. Going from her in BBS to him in DDD felt like I was playing the same character. Their animations (and hair color, I know lol) are similar. Their spell lists are similar. I’m sure the way a lot of this went developmentally is that they had some plans for Riku (there’s concept arts of him as a dancer) and then used them for her, but the similarities remain for whatever reason they were cooked up and I love it. Riku=Terra is obvious for tall (taller than his friends at least) boy darkness reasons and he was literally chosen to be Terra’s successor. Riku=Xion(=Terra) comes from how they physically experienced trauma and losing their bodies/sense of being to others. Terra had less control than the other two, but they reacted by trying to pull away from their friends and shielding them from things (tho all Keybladers do that it seems, my poor children).

I don’t know how to end this section honestly, but I just feel like it’s really cool how the franchise plays with all of these even if it’s also somewhat inherent in coming-of-age stories. This is a chart my friend sketched up once on twitter when we were talking about this before.

Other Character Notes, Etc

Could have included this above but the only trio I see as strictly romantic all the way around is Player-Ephemer-Skuld.

Also could have been above, but I mentioned it a little in the shipping parts: really loved how Saïx scheming against the True Organization with Vexen and Demyx was like so subtle that it’s easy to miss.

It’s really funny to me that both of Ven’s (evil) adopted dads were descendants of two guys he was besties with. Like if he ever gets his memory back from the age of fairy tales he’s going to be so annoyed lol.

Gee Ventus, why does Nomura let you have like 5 (Brain, Lauriam, arguably Player, arguably Ephemer, Terra, arguably post-skip Axel) big brothers? Greedy as fuck

Bro we gotta kill Ansem the Wise. Especially for the way he was talking to Ienzo in KH3; it was CRAZY. That boy was like 10 when he became a Nobody and owes no one anything for his “crimes”.

Ienzo in general I think about a lot. They stole his adolescence from him. He was literally just a baby when they stole his heart. It’s truly horrific what happened to him in particular. I feel very bad for him. (Tho maybe skipping puberty and its associated emotions aren’t THAT bad.)

I don’t have any specific theories on her at the moment, but I find myself thinking more and more about Strelitzia. I feel like she’s being relatively underrated considering she was a strong enough wielder that she was chosen to be one of the vessels for one of the Darknesses.

I doubt they had decided this far when making the decision, but I wonder if Marluxia being originally designed as a woman meant that we would get a sister duo with Strelitzia or if it could have been a role swap (older sister Strelitzia and younger brother Lauriam). Fun food for thought if you want to do an AU.

Luxu reveal was nuts. I stood up and applauded (I did not, but I felt like I did). It changes everything. It changes nothing. It’s amazing. Kingdom Hearts is good as hell.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again: we NEED a Days era workplace sitcom. Everyone scheming and backstabbing is just enhanced by the knowledge that Xigbar is just waiting for everything to fall apart so he can rejoin his real gang.

Sora as a Madoka Kaname Parallel

Ok so I came up with this idea while going through Exedra’s (the newest Madoka gacha) story mode and Madoka reiterating that she isn’t special nor does she have any talents. And like god, that is such a Sora-coded notion to discount all that is cool and good about yourself. Of course much of the overlap is kind of the nature of the beast in that they’re protags of coming-of-age narratives, but there’s a lot there. Both start their journeys at 14 years old. Both constantly downplay their importance while propping up others. Both are nice kids who just want to help people. Both willing to sacrifice their personhood to make things better for others.

There’s some other parallels in general that could be drawn (like Riku feels strongly Sayaka but also with threads of Homura, could also buy Kairi as Sayaka, can you tell that Sayaka is my third fave? Sorry), but I do think Sora = Madoka is the clearest one. Like you could very easily swap their franchises and literally nothing would change (ok, the genders would screw things up especially because both Homura and Riku are gay as hell so things would not play out exactly the same, but I feel like Sora and Madoka would make basically equivalent choices).

Before I was able to write this section, I came across this thread (which does have some inherent Madoka spoilers, actually stop reading this essay and just go watch the show it’s like 12 episodes and really good) on twitter where someone else spitballs the same idea. And yeah, like it’s kind of just us linking concepts together that we like a lot, but also we’re so correct and right.

Guy-Who-Has-Only-Played-Tales-of-Playing-His-Second-Action-RPG-Franchise:

Ok this is where I’m giving myself permission to be a hater, but I feel like mechanically speaking there’s a lot of things that KH just does…. objectively poorly to me and makes the games harder that they should be to play. A lot of the menus just don’t explain things well and makes it uncomfortable to play the games to some degree. The first screenshot above is from Tales of Symphonia (a GameCube game from 2003) and the second is from KH3. You’ll see the tooltips are much more descriptive and give actual numeric information that allows the player to make better decisions when it comes to party setup even while working with much less screen space. And again, this is a GAMECUBE game. You don’t want me to compare to newer entries with even more options and information.

Maybe most of this isn’t a big deal to most people. As the section header suggests, I did play Tales of games (specifically Vesperia, Symphonia, Zestiria, and Arise so far) before Kingdom Hearts games. But because of this it’s kind of crazy just how bad to me it feels to play Kingdom Hearts sometimes. I feel like even something as simple as the skills and statistics are also confusing. I can’t often tell how much damage a thing will do because the game doesn’t say. I can’t tell which stat an ability will use the calculate damage or reduction because the game doesn’t say. I can’t tell what the opening game choices mean and at this point despite having played all of them I am still mostly just guessing or checking gamefaqs for the recommended one. It feels bad to have to deal with this when I feel I should be comfortable with how the series works. But I don’t, and I consider that a flaw. Anyway despite all this I do think the games are good. I just wanted to vent a little at how I feel like it has poor communication of mechanics.

MoM Identity Theories

I think MoM is definitely immoral, but in typical twisted guy fashion if he’s operating on a logic that says he’ll be able to bring all the Keyblade wielders who have “died” back to life (via Chirithies) then it becomes easier to follow the logic of this being a character who may be acting for the “good” of everyone still. I don’t think he’s behaving selfishly at least (which may just be me falling for his act). I just feel like there’s way too much going on related to birth and rebirth to say that MoM doesn’t believe they’ll be fine in the end. I do think it’s still obviously very cruel and evil to put those children through so much suffering in service of a plan that ultimately may fail, but from the MoM’s perspective he might “feel” that they would honestly be fine and it’s ok if they’re still alive in the end.

Baldr dropped this quote in Dark Road which feels apt (also I just wanted to include it somewhere because it’s rad): “darkness grown from your unwavering devotion to light”.

That all being stated: this is why I love the Sora theory. And just in general I love a fucked up and twisted version of a hero showing up. A lot of how Sora behaves does follow a “we’ll fix it in the end, it’ll be fine” vibe especially in relation to himself. Now obviously this is a mask, but if something happened to make him live through so many lives and so much time and so many worlds restarting then it’s possible eventually this version of him could become this Machiavellian figure who believes his mask. The main reason I think people don’t like this is they don’t want to see him becoming this type of character, and I get that. But it is a narrative choice that would get my brain chemicals going. (See also: Legion of Super-Heroes Legion Lost miniseries from 2000-01 for a further illustrative example of this.)

The Demyx theory is intriguing to me. They definitely share many mannerisms, though I’m unsure if that is a clue or just animations being reused. I think the fact that we know so little about his Somebody makes it less compelling right away, but it could be a cool usage of a character who hasn’t done all that much just yet. And just like the Sora theory, I think it’s potentially really good and funny if Luxu didn’t know all along and would be upset by such a reveal.

Anyway he’ll probably just be some dude we don’t know yet, ignore this section unless I’m right.

Miscellaneous KH4 Theories That Are Definitely Happening

This is just things I’m saying now that I’ve generally considered that will hopefully become true and make me look smart:

Ok so as we (everyone who watched the full mobile game scene videos I linked at the beginning of this) all know the basics of MoM’s plan are that he intends on inserting the True Darknesses into people with strong hearts to make the Darkness fightable because without being inside someone they do not have a form. Once they’re fightable he’ll destroy them properly, but he didn’t have the ability to do it back during the age of fairytales. There are 13 of these and the current locations by the end of KH3 seem to be: 1 inside his own heart, 6 in his kids mentees (Foretellers+Luxu), 1 inside Ventus, 4 trapped in the Wreck It Ralph world originally intended for the other Union leaders, and 1 is unaccounted for. I’m not speculating on the final one’s location, but what I will speculate on is that we have seen a prototype of his plan sort of work with Riku. Riku’s heart has been shown to have darkness immunity and this exchange on twitter kind of got my brain cooking in that I think this ability will become highly relevant.

MoM’s battle theme will be a play on the Dream Eater theme, if not a full remix then at least it will be interpolated

Luxu is probably going to die and make MoM go sicko mode surprising himself and everyone else because he thought he calculated everything well and protected his funny guy

Subject X is Skuld because I like that theory more than her being Ava, and I don’t believe Luxu would have allowed Ava to be experimented on at all given that she is housing one of the Darknesses. But yeah if MoM told him to do it then yeah he probably would, so that’s not really a good argument. Idk, she’s Skuld to me until proven otherwise by KH4 itself or Missing Link (RIP Missing Link, gone but not forgotten).

I was just kind of spitballing on twitter but I think Sora could have inadvertently created MoM when he had the chi blade or something. I don’t know. This is not a developed theory.

Jiminy Cricket’s journal is the book of prophecies or at least connected to it. This was another joke theory of mine I posted on twitter, but it also feels like the sort of thing KH might do to “explain” a feature of gameplay.

I don’t have any Yozora thoughts and I never even watched the game over bad ending scene (I played against him on easy difficulty with maxed stats), so there’s a lot about him I’m missing. I liked reading this piece tho as a Morrison-head.

The box intrigues me because I thought at one point maybe it was the mechanism for the resurrection (or whatever) of MoM and the Foretellers. But MoM is already there in the present day before Luxu regains the box, so that can’t really be it. So at this point I’m out of theories. Hopefully it’s cool tho.

Ok I think that's all I have for now. I think these games are really fun.

#kingdom hearts #essay

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silverjojo08 · 4 months ago

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yes engage’s prologue make sense

sometimes talking to some people is bound to fall in deaf ears however if you are some one who like Engage but got confused by the prologue here is a simple explanation of what happened

(warning : discussions of heavy subject ahead)

So that we are in the clear, the prologue of the game or begining scene refers to that first battle against Sombron serving among others as a tutorial, right before Alear awakens

first off i’d like to adress first Alear’s amnesia since it is an important piece of the puzzle

at first we dont really know what caused this Amnesia, its assumed that Alear lost memories while sleeping however later informations of the game slowly lift the veil about the nature of said amnesia

for instance in chapter 1 we see that Alear is scared of the Corrupted, in chapter 3 they cry and are in general deeply affected by Lumera’s death despite not remembering much about her, Alear also has a bond support with Tiki where they reveal that when they see the corrupted they make nightmares at night, they also occasionally express some sensation of déja vu notably in regards to elements linked to the Fell dragon such as the dragonic time Crystal for instance

all these little elements are in reality foreshadowing in regards to Alear’s true nature however when you take into account the usage of their memories everything point out to Alear having dissociative amnesia

Repressed / subconscious memory now more refered to as dissociative amnesia is a type of defense mechanism resulting from PTSD where the subject is exposed to intense trauma and sees their memories being locked away resulting in an incapacity to remember the traumatic event that happened, however even if they lack their episodic memories they can still feel the sensation linked to a specific place where the trauma occured or things linked to their past

for example if someone got assaulted in an elevator, even if their memories get locked, they will still feel unsafe in an elevator

you can read more here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_amnesia

Now these elements does corrolate to many elements that are presented about Alear in game such as the fact that despite their Amnesia they still fear the corrupted or that despite not remembering much about her they still feel deep love for Lumera which lead them to cry at her demise

However the bit I want to focus on is Tiki’s bond with Alear where Alear state they make nightmares when meeting the Corrupted

We see an instance of this in the story : chapter 3

Alear had fought against the Corrupted and later on Lumera’s creations which reminded them of the Corrupted

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However in chapter 20 Alear tell their friend about this nightmare realizing it wasnt a nightmare

And in fact if you Check the name of this cutscene at Somniel, the title is « Crimson memory/Aka no kioku » which by the way, the ost playing in this scene is also titled « Memory of red days » which is one of the possible translation of « Aka no kioku »(literaly red memory)

Now having said that : what is the prologue ? Well for simplicity’s sake we will Check the name of the cutscene and its description

« A past battle » or « final battle of the past ». Because it involved Sombron many believed it was in reality the final battle of the game however it is in reality a reference to the final battle that took place 1000 years ago, you know ? The one the characters constantly mentions upon Alear’s Awakening ? The one where they got injuried and fall into coma

Yup this one, in fact when i played Engage for the first time I thought that this was a flashback since Alear wakes up right after and that we get several characters talking about this battle against Sombron that took place in the past

But you light be thinking « hold on … this look nothing like what happened » since in chapter 21/22 we see what truly happened during this battle

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This cutscene’s title is « memory from a millenium » or « memory from a 1000 years » which refers to Alear’s recolletions of this day

the 3 cutscene i mentionned are in reality the one and same scene

in the case of « crimson memory » not only is the name self explanatory but Lumera’s lines in the Japanese version of this scene are identical to the one she has in the Japanese version of « memory from a millenium » so proving that these two scenes are one and the same isnt that hard

the hardest bit comes now into tying these two scenes with a « past battle »

firstly, if you go to Somniel the section of the menu where you can check the cutscene are called « recollections », meaning that what the players sees are current Alear’s memories. You are given access to you memories which includes support convos, wake up events and cutscenes however if you look at all the cutscene they are all story events as in happening in the present

3 cutscene are exceptions as they are explicelty linked to the past aka 1000 years ago : « memory from a millenium », « Crimson memory » and finally « a past battle »

this coupled by the emphasis on this period of Time and the developers themselves talking about Alear having to encover the true of the past says it all

Secondly : these scene all takes place in the same place : Lythos Castle

This is even referenced in the opening song

You see a clear dichotomy and change between the blue and the red, one set ablaze and the other not which refers to the difference between how Lythos Castle is presented between the dream version and the nightmarish version

Moreover this part of the opening plays while the lyrics are singing « aka no kioku moe agari » which in english has been translated by « memories red and blue » however have you noticed ? The lyrics are singing « aka no kioku » involve the same wording as the title of the cutscene of chapter 3 « aka no kioku/red memory », so its an explicit reference

Moreover regarding the very very begining of the opening

It begins by seeing Past Alear falling in asleep dith Marth’s ring going from red to blue following after them and in the next sequence bicolored Alear appears

you can tell its Past Alear due to their clothing and the fact the whole scene is in red, however the transition of Marth’s ring going form red to blue is so fast you can easily miss it

here the meaning is simple : Past Alear fell asleep and when they woke up their appearance changed

lastly regarding the presence of the royals in the prologue it’s very easy to answer : chapter 24 establishes that Alear created a time loop where the reason they meet Lumera was themselves

During this chapter Past Alear meets All the Royals in this scene however in Battle, Past Alear’ default quotes are « you are strong you should be fighting besides me » indicating they’d rather have the people they fight be their allies rather than their enemy

Moreover when discussing with Alear in their battle quotes Past Alear established that they suffer from self loath (as they compare themselves to the Corrupted) and that they envy Present Alear for being open about themselves among others

and while they got a good knock-out Past Alear does mention they remember Alear even if they believe it was a dream

therefore what is « Past battle » ? Its a dream that Past Alear has while they are in the coma where the battle against Sombron we see in chapter 22 plays out differently

Alear appear as their ideal self : White clothing, a shining sword and the same physical trait as the doppleganger they envy, the Royal’s presence reflects the desire Past Alear had to have allies specifically the Royals, instead of a fiery chaotic and sombre scene its an heroic one where Alear can finally accomplish their dream to be a hero, a dragon that saves the world

furthermore do you know the name of the Song that plays during this scene ? Its called « The dragon’s dream » and its a pun on the fact its a scene Alear see when they are asleep and the fact its something Alear wants to achieve, a vision they want to see come true

while the past battle is a heroic reactement of this scene, Crimson memory is a nightmarish version where Alear appears as how they believed they were : a Villain and thus the context being removed make their genuine happy smile appear as scary

this also mirror how Alear feels intimidated by Past Alear in chapter 24 and is one of the many elements that points to Alear’s self loath (that and the fight that they are literaly fighting their past self)Now you might be wondering why exactly are these scenes different ? Well from a non diegetic pov its because the story operates in a progression where it reveals progressively elements about Alear’s path to prepare the twist and no the twist isnt that Alear is a fell dragon its that they were always kind despite being a fell dragon that’s the real twist

However from a diegetic one its linked once more to Alear’s dissociative amnesia, in fact it has been observed that some people suffering from dissociative amnesia got their memories « rewritten », basically it doesnt just lock them away but it also rewrite the unpleasant memory so that the subject can live with them

this phenomenon is called false memories

This video on the rule of Rose also discusses this phenomenon

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All that to say that these dreams Alear are having are fake memories that are in reality both rewritten version of the real event that took place : one is an heroic version where Alear’s wishes are reflected while the other is a nightmarish version reflecting Alear’s negative feelings about themselves

and in case I get some of the same annoying replies I initially got

1-« that doesnt suddenly make Engage’s story good » I am not talking about the quality of Engage’s story here so any discussion regarding whether it adds or remove to its quality is irrelevant to my point, whether you like this explanation or not is an entirely different debate from the one I am tackling aka : The meaning of this scene

2-« if you have to check the name of the cutscene to know what it means than it is bad writing » I disagree as I think that something doesnt always need to make sense at the moment the scene plays to be considered good or bad writing, writing moments with the idea of recontextualization is in my opinion valid form of writing and adds a lot of meaning to story moment when you revisit them

3- « that’s just you reading too deep into this » or its just me noticing the many many hints and implications. Unless of course you believe that something being implied = bad writing and that instead Alear should have turned to the camera and say

If you prefer this approach that’s your prerogative but in that case dont come crying that Engage doesnt do show dont tell and then complain it doesnt explicitely tell things and instead trust the audience to come up with these conclusions

4-« but its still a useless scene, it doesnt add anything » I am sorry you think that scenes that showcases Alear’s determination, their complicated relationship with themselves, their dream and so on arent adding anything ? Even though Alear is the main protagonist whose journey we follow ?

for the record in a gigantic 3 hours long video i analyze this scene among many others things so i am not quite sure i will agree with you there

Anyway i hope this post was interesting

#fire emblem #fe17

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