#i think most people know this but just in case ''norting'' is a KH reference

[bootlickerhawks]

I don't know if it is a bit too late but could you do AFO for the character ask game? I just want to hear your thoughts about him.

/!\ 900 words of Pure Salt under the cut /!\

Hoo boy where to even begin...

AFO is a character that worked really well at the start of BNHA but now, the more time he spends on screen the more he drags the story down :/

AFO falls under the very hard to execute character archetype "all according to my keikaku" (i know there's an official name for it but shh) . These types of characters only work well when the plan is comprehensible and "simple". Allow me to elaborate with one of the best executed, imo, example: Sousuke Aizen. 

(spoilers for Bleach and more specifically the Soul Society arc, skip the orange text to avoid spoilers)   

Aizen completed 2 key steps that allowed the rest of his plan to run smoothly: he managed to hypnotize all the captains and lieutenants with his "shikai presentation" and he assassinated central 46 who serve as the judicial authority in Soul Society. So while the rest of his plan is complex it's believable for the readers because of the 2 key steps I mentioned.   

To the reader’s knowledge, AFO’s plan for the longest time was to troll All Might, recover and gather more quirks, and most importantly, to raise Tomura to be the Symbol of Fear. Now we know that raising Tomura was a facade in order to body snatch him because he needs “hatred” to obtain OFA. Also he wants to become the Übermensch Capitalist Demon Lord… cuz of Reasons. 

The problem with AFO isn’t his plan, that’s fine it’s boring but serviceable, the problem is that he makes decisions that work against his own interests. Let’s list some:

He refuses to take BJ’s quirk because it “wouldn’t suit Tomura” even though he planned on taking over Tomura’s body anyway. (I will concede that this one is nitpicky because it’s likely Hori hadn’t fully committed to the bodysnatch plotline and wanted to keep his doors open.) 

For some inconceivable reason he doesn’t take Overhaul (the quirk). This becomes especially bizarre if you take into account the theory that Chisaki was one of the kids in Ujiko’s orphanages. AFO wouldn’t have lost against All Might in the fight 5 years ago if he had had Overhaul! He would have been able to heal himself! And even if you disregard that theory, why take a risky gamble with Rewind now when he could have just taken Overhaul during the prison break?!!!!   

Hori is good at writing perceptive and observant characters (Izuku and Bakugou being good examples of this), but, and what I’m abt to say isn’t meant to disparage Horikoshi but uh… he’s not the best at writing smart characters. 

A good example of this is Hawks’ coded message to Endeavor. Full offense to Skeptic but if I was in charge of surveilling Hawks I would have known right away that something was up when Hawks kept insisting that Endeavor read the “highlighted parts” of the manifesto in chapter 245. Plus Hawks’ code was basic af but that could be explained away by Hawks’ thinking that Endeavor’s an idiot.  

Other examples include Deku’s revelation to start kicking instead of punching, and Endeavor’s advice to *checks notes* “learn to multitask”. 

Hori frames these instances as being a lot more clever than they really are. And honestly that’s fine, at the end of the day they’re just small plot points. But it does show Hori’s difficulty writing intelligent characters, which becomes a problem when writing a character like AFO. He's supposed to be smarter than the rest of the cast, he's supposed to have planned for every contingency and yet, as I’ve pointed above, he makes stupid mistakes which makes that hard to swallow.

But of course this isn’t where our problems end! AFO biggest crime isn’t murder, or kidnapping or grooming a traumatized child to be his sockpuppet. No no no no… his biggest crime is that he’s BORING AS HELL 😩

What do we know about AFO? 

He’s over 100 years old

He had a little brother and he still has hang ups about him 

He’s a petty manipulative egomaniac 

He won’t shut up abt a comic book he read with his brother as a kid 

This would be fine if he weren’t the Final Fucking Villain! 

And to add salt to the wound AFO’s continued existence has deprived us of the best character in bnha, Shigaraki, for over 50 chapters. 

This is the part where I feel conflicted. Because it does make sense for AFO’s character to refuse to relinquish his empire to Shigaraki. It makes sense for AFO, an egomaniac from a bygone era, to refuse to move on.  

I’ve seen people argue that it ruins the parallels between All Might/Deku and AFO/Shigaraki. And I can definitely understand that argument but it makes more sense than if AFO just gave everything away to an immature, at the time, kid that he groomed. 

So on a textual level I’m fine with the plot development of AFO Norting Shigaraki but as a reader it’s frustrating to watch because AFO sucks on all levels :/ 

AFO used to be entertaining at least, throwing All Might’s catchphrase to his face during the Kamino fight was funny as hell. But recently he’s just been throwing quips around like an MCU character 🤮 “iN tHe oLd CoMic I uSeD tO rEaD tHeRe WeRe JoBbEr ChArAcTeRs WhO oNLy ExIsTeD So ThE dEmOn LoRd CoULd ShOw WhAt He WaS mADE Of” Someone pls rip his tongue out I’m begging 😭

It's a shame cuz there are conceptual aspects of AFO's character that I enjoy: his opportunistic nature, his pettiness, "oopsie daisy" as cringe as it is could have been better if Hori leaned more into AFO's old-timiness, even his stupid comic book references could have been a nice subversion of the typical "villain monologues and quotes classic literature" trope if executed better.

[tapioca-puddingg]

Back on my bullshit part 2: Talking about the Master of Masters and Young Xehanort

Yo! I'm back with another KH3 Re:Mind hot take. This time, i wanna talk about the cutscene with the Master of Masters and young Xehanort. There's a lot to unpack in this scene, so this post may be long as well. Just for convenience's sake, I'm gonna be referring to the Master of Masters as 'MoM' and young Xehanort as 'YX'.

I think i may have said this before, but the fact that two such powerful characters are even talking to each other so casually is crazy to me. In both cases they're meeting someone extraordinary; MoM's eye can see into the future, so he knows exactly who Xehanort is and knows that he's the one that's gonna initiate the next keyblade war. And for YX, he's meeting one of the lost masters, or rather the very master of those masters. On top of that, Xehanort unknowingly works with Luxu himself many years later, whom also happened to be there when old man nort recalls the moment in hindsight. I just wonder; was MoM supposed to be here at this point in time to talk to Xehanort or did he just insert himself in the situation? How'd he even get here?

As the scene starts, MoM is casually sitting on a rock, waiting for YX to arrive. As I said in my analysis of the very first Re:Mind trailer, they have most definitely spoken before, and probably in the exact same spot, too. This isn't anything important, but it's a little funny to me how smol YX looks as he's standing in front of MoM, whom is still sitting.

Then we get the part from the trailer where MoM asks YX how his tour of the worlds went, and he goes on to elaborate his observations. I'm gonna do my best to summarize his beliefs cus if I quoted him word for word, we'd be here all day. As of right now, it's unclear what worlds he went to or, more importantly, what he saw, but I'm sure we'll get more information in Kingdom Hearts: Dark Road. For those of you who might be unaware, Dark Road is an upcoming KH mobile game that is supposed to be going more detail about Xehanort's backstory.

Back on topic, YX makes 2 observations:

People live their lives and believe that they are moral and virtuous, when they're really fooling themselves.

Those that are weak take power from the strong ones and try to justify their actions to say that they've earned that power, and repeat this cycle. Thus, darkness is created.

The whole time YX is speaking his observations, MoM never outright confirms or denies them and chooses to stay neutral. This is probably to ensure that he doesn't interfere too much with the future. Or rather, to not directly influence YX's decision. He does repeat his words back to him to make sure they're on the same page, and does make comments here and there to challenge his beliefs. All the while, YX knows that he doesn't agree with this 'false light' concept but doesn't know what he should do about it. And he knows that if left alone, the world would go to shit, so he's kinda going in circles with himself.

The last point of interest in their exchange is the reveal of MoM's name. Well, the reveal to YX anyways, we don't get to hear what he says. As expected, it's never that easy is it? It's perfectly hidden too, since the audio is cut off on top of the fact that we can't read his lips because of a lack of a face. So his name is completely up in the air. But because of YX's shocked expression, some have speculated that MoM's real name is Sora. There's a reason as to why I don't think it is:

Xehanort, at this point in time, had not yet been corrupted by darkness. I didn't mention this earlier, but he has his original grey eyes in this scene. This is years before he enacts his plan of starting the keyblade war, decades before Sora or the BBS trio are even born. Well, Aqua and Terra that is. If you've been keeping up on Union X, you already know the deal with Ventus. Then again, the logic I've been telling myself is that if they're going out of their way to keep his name a secret, it must be the name of someone we already know.

But who knows with Nomura? This could be some kind of bait to make us think he's someone we already know just to throw us for a loop Demyx. Or maybe he's a completely new character and just wants to save his identity reveal for later. He can't give us all the answers, after all.

As always, thank you for reading this far. If there's anything I said that was incorrect, be sure to let me know. Feel free to share any thoughts you have. See guys you in the next post o/

[excusemewhileiplaykh]

i can't be the only one super confused about how young xehanort split toy box in half, but i can't actually find many people talking about it... what's your take?

So I have a few ideas on this and one of them actually involves the possibility of Data Riku actually being in 3 despite what we are told

I talked about the evidence to suggest Data Riku is actually the Riku we see in San Fransokyo in these posts if you are interested in getting more context as to why I think Data Riku is in 3: here and here

TLDR: I find it weird that the Riku in San Fransokyo can summon bugs from the Datascape (We actually see him do this in game). Data Riku, as we know, can create portals between the real world and the Datascape as he brings Mickey and co. into the journal around the middle of Re:Coded. We know from DDD that YMX knows about the Datascape bc he mentions it himself. Maleficient also says the Datascape may be connected to the BoP, so YMX (and possibly Luxu) why be interested in the journal and thus Data Riku (since he is the journal) bc of its connection to the BoP. At the end of Re:Coded, there is a very strange, hooded Riku that speaks very strangely to Sora as if he knows of future events.

Anyways, why do I think that world spilt may be connected to Data Riku (take a shot everything I say Data)

So let’s look at some key cutscenes from Toy Box (luckily I had these ready bc I was thinking of writing this theory a while ago) 

So according to YMX, the Organization split the world (or created a copy of the world made of Data and inserted hearts from the real Toy Box into the Data Toy Box) in order to recover a vessel

So who is the vessel exactly? Well, let’s look at the scene where Sora confronts Xehanort after he kidnaps Buzz (who is compared to Riku)

This scene is a bit strange. We can surmise it is a reference to KH 1 and how Riku fell to darkness because he felt alienated from Sora, but why reference that now? Riku is part of the light now. Way to Dawn broke. He already reached dawn. He’s immune to darkness. The fear of him succumbing to darkness is gone. Also, although Mickey says the other Riku in the Keyblade Graveyard is Riku Ansem it turns out that is a lie so the Riku being referenced here most likely is not KH 1 Riku in any sense.

So Buzz parallels Riku… but the real Riku can’t be vessel…

So we can assume it must be another Riku the Organization is after. A Riku who would fall to Darkness if he was separated from his Sora. Moreover, a Riku whose world could easily be copied. Because it’s Data.

This also makes me recall a very strange scene from DDD that is never explained. In it, Xemnas explains to Sora how Data behaves.

We are given this exposition of how Data can be manipulated in DDD, and yet it never goes anywhere in this game itself. It’s as if Nomura was planting seeds for later.

It may be the case that much like Tron who is manipulated to to do “dark” things by CLU, Data Riku may have been manipulated and even Norted through Data by the Organization. Remember, Riku was always planned as a vessel, but his immunity to darkness complicated this. It would make sense for the Organization to look for another Riku. Moreover, it is possible that through The Grid, a Datascape, the Organization may have accessed Jiminy’s Journal, another Datascape. They could have possessed Data Riku like this and may have even separated him from Data Sora in a way to make him fall to Darkness.

Also note this line from Woody to Buzz

Hmm, did someone switch Data Riku into “dark and stormy” mode like they did with Tron to turn him into Rinzler?

Also keep in mind that in DDD, particularly in Riku’s story when he’s in Prankster’s Paradise, we see a hooded Riku

………… who Riku explains is his past-self………… 

but if that’s the case…. why didn’t we see past versions of Sora and Riku in Traverse Town? Moreover, as Sora himself notes, Prankster’s Paradise is a world that existed in the Realm of Light before Sora and Riku adventured through Monstro in KH 1

Also keep in mind that Riku and Sora for the most part inhabit the same time in DDD as they often influence each other’s actions, like in County of Musketeers when Sora and Riku work together to stop that big crate from dropping on Mickey, Donald, and Goofy. So in this instance, Sora and Riku are also most likely seeing events unfold in the world at the same time. Thus, when Riku goes through Monstro it is not based on his memories of Monstro. This is a past dream version of Mosntro that Riku never necessarily interacted with.

I would suggest that the Riku in Prankster’s Paradise is actually Data Riku after he was captured

(or it’s just a nightmare and i’m reading too into it good night)

Anyways, what do you guys think?

[khdiscussions]

Sleeping Realms Theory Rebuttal

Somebody was kind enough to leave some SparkNotes, so let’s get started on discussing the Sleeping Realms theory since I still don’t really have the time to read it. Might as well.

Since this is based on SparkNotes, I might be missing several key pieces of evidence, feel free to discuss my agreements and disagreements, maybe prove me wrong, now that I have some idea I’m at least more open to discussion.

Edit: Read the Liveblog here now that I have read it.

The guardians died in the real timeline, which we all saw

No comment. Definitely happened in KH3. Nothing to say.

Xehanort succeeded using princesses (and thus Kairi) so Kairi survived and used her power to keep Sora together in the afterlife (which we saw) 

So far you got me on this. Didn’t know this needed clarifying but the Final World stuff was a bit ??? confusing.

Sora, from the afterlife, got everyone together and brought them not to life, but to The Sleeping Worlds, cause death and sleep touch. 

Okay so now you’ve lost me for a few reasons. While yes it is the case that sleep and death touch (Re: Chirithy) I don’t necessarily think that’s what happened. In order to be in the Realm of Sleep, a world must have fallen to Darkness, not just one, but every single world that Sora and co. visited after being revived. Since Xehanort would’ve needed to find and gather the seven new princesses and then challenged them (a task I’m sure Yen Sid would’ve made as difficult as possible by summoning and moving around the princesses) this could not be an immediate process, meaning that he would not have been able to send the worlds into the Realm of Sleep in the brief amount of time Sora spent in the Final World gathering himself up and rescuing the others from the Lich (Which would have had to have been brief because otherwise their souls would have fully passed on). 

Furthermore, the Keyblade Graveyard isn’t in the Realm of Darkness yet, I know it looks pretty dark but like...it can be accessed by the Gummi Ship. As Goofy said, the Gummi Ship is only required for access to the Realm of Darkness.

The final point of question is Aqua herself. Rescuing Aqua is a huge deal in the game itself and you do it in the Realm of Darkness. The Realm of Darkness cannot be accessed in the Realm of Sleep because the location cannot fall into the Realm of Sleep It doesn’t make sense for them to be able to go there to rescue Aqua if she’s in the Realm of Sleep. Which I guess wouldn’t be necessary if they only come back in the Keyblade Graveyard, but we’ll address that point later when the timing of the drop comes up.

Because Kairi is still in the real world, the Kairi we see is a dream version - it's why her hoodie has Chirithy ears.

First of all, I do not like this idea. It means we haven’t had a game that actually had Kairi in it in four games. And that’s offensive on so many levels because it means she literally doesn’t matter and no.

But even from a non shitty standpoint like that, there’s still evidence against this, in KH3, we see Kairi in her KH2 attire.

When she’s talking to Lea. Furthermore, we know her outfit was designed and given to her by the Fairies and Yen Sid. Yen Sid even tells Riku to bring the outfits they designed to Lea and Kairi in the cutscenes prior to this.

And we’ll talk about why the drop doesn’t happen in the Keyblade Graveyard later. Because yes, in technicality, the drop could have occurred in there, hell it’s hard to notice her cat ears in the outfit in the scene where her outfit is first revealed (at least in the trailer), but that’s not quite what claims the theory is making.

Riku "drops" early on, which is why his hair changes to his Dream Eater hairstyle. 

And here’s the first conflict of interest. I’ll compare the renders in a minute, but if we assume Riku drops before the scene he interacts with Sora (which he does, he has the haircut very early on) then that means he should already be in the Realm of Sleep when Kairi has not yet received her new outfit. In fact, we should never see KH2 Kairi design in the same timeframe as KH3 Riku if this were the case, but we do. Furthermore, the drop occurs in the Realm of Darkness, is again physically impossible based on how the Realm of Darkness and Realm of Sleep respectively work. Worlds in the Realm of Sleep are not in the Realm of Darkness, therefore those in the Realm of Sleep cannot visit the Realm of Darkness and can certainly not visit the Realm of Darkness. As for the renders:

The hairstyles are similar, but not identical. There are minor differences but they’re close enough I’d call it the point. However:

Riku’s hair in KH3D looks almost identical to his nonsleeping self’s version, showing it’s more likely it’s just the transference of the short hair onto the KH1 era RIku model.

Anyways model references aside, there’s one other huge flaw with Riku dropping at this moment and that’s how? We watch Riku die in what would likely be “Alpha Timeline” or an exact replica of Alpha Timeline, so if that’s the case, how do we have Riku dropping in the Realm of Sleep for the Beta timeline. It shouldn’t at all be possible, given that Riku is one of the people Sora rescued, or alternatively, the Alpha Timeline Riku never showed up in the Keyblade Graveyard, so who’s the seven lights. Given that they must be Keyblade Wielders, they’d only have six of seven (Sora, Kairi, Lea, Mickey, Aqua, and Ven) and so they wouldn’t have approached the Keyblade Graveyard in the first place.

We also see Riku in his KH3 hairstyle in the ending, which implies we’re still in the Realm of Sleep. So if that’s the case, does it even matter if we aren’t in the Alpha Timeline if the happy ending’s only in the Beta Timeline. Which for the record this would also imply that Xehanort is still out there in the Alpha Timeline (aka the real timeline) and make the claim that this is the end of the Xehanort Saga directly false. Which also means we’d never see the real Kairi ever again which again, is incredibly shitty way to treat the female member of the Destiny Trio. A lot of really bad implications for how the series would continue, even if it doesn’t bring up the problems in general with a “It took place in a  dream” theory. Don’t like.

Everything after Kingdom Hearts II.9 is when the drop occurs, and when real selves land in the dream world. 

This is my biggest (well one of my biggest) issue in the theory. The timing of the drop. If the theory were presenting the drop happened in the Keyblade Graveyard, I would one hundred percent agree with it. Because there’s a lot of weird elements, but we have several things to run against this in earlier evidence. Which on that note.

This scene here is when the game shows the KH3 logo, meaning KH2.9 is over and KH3 has officially begun. (Please ignore commentary finding resources is not easy for this.) This scene happens before we see Kairi in her KH2 outfit, meaning that scene takes place in Kingdom Hearts III, not Kingdom Hearts II.9. If it’s in Kingdom Hearts III, then that means the scene takes place after the drop, meaning we should only be seeing Kairi with Chirithy ears on her hoodie after the scene. But we see the KH2 design.

Furthermore, Sora and co. visit the Realm of Darkness several times, which should 200% be impossible if they’re travelling sleeping worlds, as it’s a world that cannot enter into the Realm of Sleep and be a sleeping world.

Finally, why is Xehanort sending his Org Members? It’s one thing in KH3D, that’s a part of the plan in 3D, but by this point in the theory, there’s no reason for it. Xehanort can just use his backup plan and win, what Sora and co. are doing in the sleeping worlds literally does not matter, but in the sleeping worlds, characters who are there as echoes of the world and not actually residents of them don’t talk, as seen with the odd Riku who never talks or does anything. Just silently fills the roll and leaves.

(In hindsight, it’s also possible this could be a time travelling Rikunort. This Riku’s purpose is still unclear) 

Regardless of the above note, the Organization XIII members are actually there, and there would be absolutely no reasoning for it if Xehanort had already won.

It's not so much "everything is a dream" as it is "KH3 is just KHUX." Because everyone forgot the destruction of the real world and is living in a copy 

This is my other big area of issue because it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of KHUx. KHUx does not take place in the Realm of Sleep, while there can be an argument for it, we have seen through the creation of the first Chirithy in KH Backcover (Which is not a dream) that Dreameaters do not only spawn in the Realm of Sleep. 

Meanwhile, there is much more evidence that KHUx takes place within the Datascape or something similar. “Darkness”, in his conversation with Maleficent, mentions that the worlds are made of data. Brain, in his traitor reveal, calls himself the “Virus that will rewrite destiny” which is an allegory more fitting towards data. Finally, in the most recent KHUx update, we see glitches in the system, manifesting in phantom Strelitzia (In the Brain traitor video), a staticy conversation between Ava and the MoM, and the appearance of Bug Blox, which are synonymous with errors and darkness in data.

But in order to be in a Datascape, somebody has to open up a path first. And even then, it destroys huge elements of this theory.

Young Xehanort knows, and that's why he's all, "You're doing it again" with Sora during the Lich fight

No, that’s not it. Young Xehanort is specifically referencing KH3D, when Sora’s willingness and desire to help his friends led him to drive his heart deeper and deeper into the darkness to the point of him nearly being norted.

With different final results, that’s exactly what Sora is doing now.

It wouldn't invalidate the events as much as recontextualize them - there's more behind the scenes, but just because we're seeing dream versions of events doesn't mean they didn't happen 

This shows a fundamental lack of understanding in how the Realm of Sleep works, but the long and the short is yes, it still does.

The Realm of Sleep holds records of events as they happened, yes that is true, but that only holds true to the worlds leading up to the Keyblade Graveyard.

In order for this theory to be true, while the events of the Alpha Timeline may have played out similarly to the events of the Beta Timeline, they would need to still be in the Realm of Sleep after Sora saved them from the Lich, otherwise the Beta Timeline literally does not matter since the events of the Keyblade Graveyard occurred in the Alpha Timeline too. So while some scenes are largely unaffected, any scene after the Lich rescue did not actually happen in reality because again, Xehanort would be an idiot to enter into the Realm of Sleep after Sora when he won since Sora does not matter to the grand scheme of his plan since the new seven Princesses work just as well. This means the Sea Salt Trio and Wayfinder Trio never reunited and makes not only the scenes we did get absolutely useless, it takes away the emotional weight of these scenes in the future because we’ve already seen them and feels like a waste of time. It would remove all investment in their future arcs (or leave them dead and that’s even worse tbqh) and if I’m not invested in these characters, why should I keep going when they make up a majority of the important cast? It would drive away fans (myself included) by the boatload and is a terrible idea.

It explains a lot of things like Kairi's murder not releasing a heart, why Kingdom Hearts is the wrong color, why Roxas can still wield two keyblades with only one hearts, etc.

Kairi’s murder not releasing a heart is not the first in the series to do that. Sora’s in KH1′s does not when he stabs himself to save Kairi, and neither does Eraqus’s death. If we are to believe she wasn’t actually killed, it would be a much more simple explanation to assume she was a replica than to assume she’s a Chirithy.

As for Kingdom Hearts, it’s not the wrong color. Of the games we see it in, KH1 (box art), KH2, Days, and KH3 all show Kingdom Hearts as orange/yellow. Only BBS shows it as blue as far as I am aware (I can’t remember if it shows up in KHX. I don’t think it does but?) so therefore you can’t really make that argument.

Roxas being in the Realm of Sleep would have absolutely no effect on Roxas’s ability to dual wield without two hearts in him.

So at the end of the day, the theory as a whole explains very little and what it does can be explained more simply, unless these portions are explained separately from the “It’s all a dream” concept it wants to sell.

So the conclusion in all this? The Sleeping Realms theory is a theory that seems to cherry pick evidence to reach a conclusion and while it proposes some ideas that others might find interesting, it throws out an idea without fully taking into account how some of the ideas thrown out might outright disprove later parts. It’s fairly contradictory to itself while ignoring the idea of Occam’s Razor and character motivations as well as how the two timelines interact properly. That being said, it could very well have had some truth if, instead of trying to apply to the whole game, it focused only on the last portion of the game (Keyblade Graveyard and beyond), though if it were to become canon I still think it would drive me from the series.

Why are people declaring this as what actually happened again?

[moondriftingold]

hi! this is a post that’s gonna be about the decisions i’m making to step away from parts of the direction that nomura took saïx in kh3. basically it’s me just. Fuck You, Pay Me, I’m Keeping My Son. thanks. so lets go

one. saïx voluntarily rejoining the organization is not my canon. emphasis on VOLUNTARILY. when this was canon confirmed, it really confused and upset me, because we were literally shown that after being recompleted the first time, he was chosen by ymx to rejoin their ranks. his unconscious figure being perfectly framed above xigbar’s outstretched arms, and ymx’s cut-off response starting with an S is NOT a coincidence. vexen also referred to him to demyx as “one of the chosen” in their conversation in radiant garden, and said that his hands were tied because of it. chosen. saïx did not rejoin the organization voluntarily and we were literally shown this but ok nomura. so anyway, on this blog, isa had his heart extracted a second time and woke up yet again as saïx, still trapped in the nort nightmare and still involved in the organization as a vessel and important party number.

two. i am keeping the bit about saïx being the one who started the replica plan, but he didn’t do it for the same reason. he didn’t do it with the main intention of redeeming himself for his treatment of roxas and axel because that is, honestly, out of character for him. straight up. the last two times we saw saïx, he was fighting sora in kh2 with the intention to kill because he was looking at him as roxas, and to him, that fight was his revenge for roxas besting him in days. and the most recent time in ddd, he was attacking lea in the round room, with their last interaction before that being saïx literally stabbing axel through the back and inflicting a fatal wound. so, like. doesn’t really match his character to make him suddenly feel sorry for doing that? with no proof as to why, and without showing us how he came to this decision? so. how i am interpreting saïx’s betrayal against the organization is that he did it to finally get back at them for all that they’ve done to him over the years. it was a huge mission of saïx’s to overthrow xemnas, and that was a plan he and axel had shared for most of their time there, so to finally have the means to actually follow-through with sticking it to him was an incredibly motivating factor in coming up with his very risky, and very surprising backstab. the entire conversation he had with vexen on the rock pillars was completely staged, since he knew xemnas would be listening in. roxas, xion, and lea benefitting from this plan is an added bonus, and something that he understood he would be doing --- it was hard, knowing that he would be bringing back people that brought him so much frustration and pain, but it was necessary. the small part of isa that remained in him was also a deciding factor in this, and knew that if he was ever going to have a life outside of the organization, that he would have to make the first step towards repairing the damages, no matter how painful it would be.

three. the whole subject x thing? not wholly my canon. i will be keeping the bbs portion of this, because the idea that isa and lea came across something so disturbing and horrid (in this case, a live, human prisoner) in radiant garden that it would motivate them to continue their search into the castle beyond just curiosity is something i’ve had in mind for a very long time and has been part of my portrayal for years, and this can accommodate that. though i still don’t rly like it, i can buy that they would become guards to increase their chances of freeing her, but know that isa hated every second he stood outside those doors, knowing that he was working for an institution so corrupt and horrible that they were experimenting on people inside their walls. isa did care deeply for this girl --- he wanted to save her just as much as he described in kh3, because it was the right thing to do and through he and lea’s frequent break-ins, they became friends, but i draw the line there. the idea that saïx became who he was because of this newly introduced character is... degrading to his own character? and degrading to the importance of he and lea’s friendship and bond? it’s unnecessary. the kh team built him up so well before kh3 with his reasons for his downfall clearly being loneliness and anger and fear and intense pain at feeling betrayed and slowly abandoned by his best and only friend, and to replace all of that with just. “he really looked hard for this girl he knew for a few weeks!” really sucks, and disappointed me more than i can express. to also insert this jarringly sudden new plot point into saïx’s dying speech was so... i can’t even rly say. i wasn’t as emotional as i wanted to be during that scene the first time i saw it because i was just too angry at his character’s treatment to really absorb the moment. this post covers how i feel about the whole subject x thing so well, so please give that a read.

four. this isn’t rly a kh3 thing that i’m combatting (ig it kind of is? idk) but: saïx was, and has been, under the influence of possession for a very long time. we don’t know when his eyes turned gold and we don’t know when he got his recusant’s sigil, and we probably won’t for a long time because nomura apparently loves to make me hate him, but it’s been made clear thru the days game and manga that saïx has drastically changed from how he used to be as isa. we can obviously see that in bbs, where he was just another kid, joking around with his friends and being incredibly sassy, but still sweet and thoughtful. his berserker lore deserves an entire post of its own so i’ll cover this more in-depth another time, but with the knowledge that his own class of nobodies are canonically possessed by their weapons, it’s definitely not a stretch to assume the same with saïx. i’ve long portrayed saïx being barely-there and half in his own head due to being under xemnas’ influence and being slated as a vessel, and that will not be changed. the entire final battle with him in kh3 is the biggest testament to this that i can think of, and it just made me so incredibly sad to see him the way that he was --- completely enveloped by rage and utterly useless to do anything but fight for the sake of someone else. the second xemnas showed up in the ring, he became still and stalwart and stood quietly behind him like a soldier at attention, not moving once during the entire interaction until xemnas left, still actively in his berserk state. when knocked out of berserk mode in battle, he becomes disoriented and confused and reaches for his head, swaying on his feet and murmuring gibberish (a rare dialogue line has him disorientedly call out for axel and it makes me :-) die :-)), as if the fog is clearing for a moment before it all comes rushing back to him. tldr; saïx has been slated as a vessel for so long and was partially possessed by xehanort for a prolonged period of time and is traumatized by the fact that he lost so much of his life and nomura can eat my ass