#stoptheeraqushate

[masterxsquare-blog]

You know what really doesn't help motivate me to write Eraqus? Going into his tag, or the bbs tag and finding Eraqus hate, or rants about how Eraqus was the real villain of bbs, or how Eraqus was abusive to his students.

Before you ask, I'm not going to follow this post up with a '#eraqusdidnothingwrong' tag, because Eraqus made his share of mistakes in BBS. He's not entirely blameless.

Do I think he was abusive to the wayfinder trio? No. People are quick to say Eraqus is responsible for Terra going down the path he took, because he held Terra back during the mark of mastery exam. Because Terra had darkness in his heart. Because Terra couldn't keep his darkness in check.

Eraqus relationship with Terra isn't abusive, I would however go so far as to say it was more neglectful. Now, some people tend to consider Neglect a form of abuse. Abuse is something you intentionally do. Neglect is unintentional.

There are three points people often bring up against Eraqus. His treatment of Terra, his opinions of light and darkness, and, of course, the major elephant in the room, him trying to kill Ventus.

Going back to his neglecting of Terra, and how people, apparently, call Eraqus' treatment of Terra 'abuse', here's where I feel this is not Abuse, but that Eraqus was neglectful of the big problem surrounding Terra. Eraqus has likely been training Aqua and Terra from a very young age, he's not just their teacher, but their parental figure as well, and he has raised the two of them to be fine keyblade masters. With Terra viewing Eraqus as the father he never had, what boy wouldn't want to make his daddy proud? But with that desire to make Eraqus proud, also comes the doubt that he won't be good enough to make Eraqus proud. Not only does doubt come into play, but maybe also a hint of jealousy towards his fellow student? After all, Aqua excelled in magic while Terra seemed more focused on improving his physical strength. Of course, Eraqus had always been proud of his students, why wouldn't he be? Eraqus either knew about this and chose to do nothing in hopes that Terra would correct it on his own, or Terra was really good at hiding his insecurities to the point that no one noticed, and it allowed the darkness in him to manifest.

Then comes the day you've been waiting for, the mark of mastery exam. The day Terra and Aqua have spent their whole lives preparing for. Eraqus even stated before the sparring match that this wasn't about winning or losing, but it's a sparring match, and Terra is determined to win. Aqua gets a momentary upper hand, and suddenly all those doubts come back and manifest in a little burst of darkness. That right there is an automatic red flag for Eraqus. The mark of mastery is about demonstrating a mastery of one's own heart, and that momentary slip up shows that Terra has not mastered himself yet.

Imagine, if you will, that you are in driver's ed., youve spent your entire course working towards getting your license. Your teacher tells you that if you keep at it, you're guaranteed to pass the final exam. Then, after all that build up, you blow a red light on the driving test and your teacher fails you on the spot. The instructor tells you that you did everything else right, but that mistake at the red light is an automatic fail, because that mistake could cost you your life, the lives of the people in your vehicle, and the lives of those around you.

Terra's momentary manifesting of the darkness made from his doubts is the same as you blowing that red light. He didnt keep his heart in check and allowed his doubts to get the better of him. Eraqus even states, after the exam that he would have made Terra a master in a heartbeat, if it were up to him, but he can't so long as Terra can't keep his heart in check. What if Terra gives in again? What if the next time his darkness manifests, someone gets hurt? What if the darkness in his heart proves too strong for Terra to control?

Eraqus gives Terra a second chance, which is sending him off to protect the worlds from the Unversed. However, Eraqus neglects to address the problem of where Terra's darkness came from, and how to overcome it. More than likely, like before, Eraqus trusts that Terra will be able to sort it out himself. As a precaution, he sends Aqua to keep an eye on him, in case his fears are realized and Terra loses control.

He neglects the obvious problem, a problem he may have had a hand in unintentionally making. It's not as though Eraqus began berating Terra and calling him a failure, he gave him another chance, he offered Terra assurance, not harsh remarks.

The one who twisted Eraqus' words and intentions around was Xehanort. He is the one who stoked the dark flames in Terra's heart, told him what he wanted to hear, and also fed him lies to fill in the gaps.

What Eraqus should have done was call an end to the mark of mastery exam, and speak with Terra directly about him manifesting the darkness, find the root of the problem and nip it in the bud. What he did was negligence, he turned a blind eye to a serious problem, but he never abused or berated Terra over it.

What also didn't earn Eraqus any points was sending Aqua off go spy on Terra. What Eraqus did was out of parental concern for one of his students, his child. However, because of Xehanort twisting the truth, Terra saw it as a lack of trust.

Next, let's talk about one of the other strikes against Eraqus that people love to bring up. His feelings about the darkness.

Eraqus is a keyblade master, he has been trained to be one from a young age, just like Terra and Aqua. And one of the duties of a keyblade master is to protect the worlds from the darkness. Now, some claim the Eraqus' bias borders on bigotry (don't ask me how this applies to a metaphysical concept like light and darkness in everyone's hearts, I'm not having this argument today.). Maybe his opinions were made that way by the order of the keyblade wielders, or maybe Eraqus has seen what the darkness can do to a man, considering the path Xehanort went down when he became obsessed with the keyblade war. It's possible that Eraqus took his duty to preserve the light so seriously that it altered perception, that light = good and darkness = bad. We don't know the full story regarding Eraqus' feelings and resentment of the darkness.

We don't know what caused the rift that grew between him and Xehanort. Considering Xehanort's journals have him say he once considered Eraqus a brother. We don't know what pushed Eraqus to go from protecting the worlds to 'let the darkness die!'

We know what happened as a result of the rift. Xehanort left the land of departure, gave Eraqus his scars, and then went to experiment on Ventus. We don't know the root cause. What made Eraqus take the stance he did against the darkness? An overzealous sense of duty? Maybe. He saw what the obsession turned Xehanort into? Possibly. We won't know for sure. It could be answered in KH3.

Eraqus bias towards the darkness and that light is right is a skewed viewpoint. But while Xehanort talks about true balance, let's also remember that this is the same guy who drowned the worlds in darkness, twice. Somewhere along the way, these two friends lost sight of the path.

He is biased though, there's no denying that. Does that really make Eraqus a bad person though? Zealous, yes. Villainous, not really, we all have our personal bias

Finally, we get to the 'killing Ventus' portion of the argument. (I've spent most of the day writing this on my phone while I should be working.)

Let's imagine the scenario. First, your fellow apprentice who you once considered a brother has turned down the dark path and left after you two had a fight. Years later, you find out that friend has been experimenting on a boy and nearly destroyed him and left him a vegetable. You would hope that this mistake would turn Xehanort from the dark path. You agree to take the boy in to help him recover.

Time goes by, Ventus recovers, forms a bond with Terra and Aqua. Much like Aqua and Terra, you come to think of Ventus as one of the family.

Okay, so the mark of mastery exam didn't go as planned. Aqua was the only one who ascended to the rank of master, Terra is showing signs of darkness, and now Ventus has run off for reasons unknown.

It's possible Eraqus had Aqua sending back reports regarding Terra's current state, and her reports haven't been very good. Citing the number of worlds Terra visited where he reportedly helped cause chaos. Things aren't looking good for Terra, and Ven still hasn't come home.

Suddenly, Ventus comes home, and he's not happy. He's learned the truth of his origins, and what Xehanort did to him. He knows he's a component to forge the x-blade, and you realize Xehanort never abandoned his ambitions, merely put them on hold.

What do you do? Track down Xehanort and try to stop him directly? No one knows where he is. Find the boy in the mask who is made of Ventus' darkness? Finding him is as hard as finding Xehanort. You have only one option to prevent the creation of the x-blade... and that's to kill your student.

To your surprise, Ventus seems willing to go along with it. He doesn't want to be used as a tool to hurt Terra and Aqua. You can even hear the regret in Eraqus' voice when he says 'you must exist no more.'

It's possible, that if Terra hadn't intervened, things might have gone differently, Eraqus might have stopped himself. Much as he wants to prevent another keyblade war, can he really bring himself to kill one of his students? One of his children? He probably would have stopped himself, and tried to find another way.

The problem is that an already tense situation is thrown into chaos by the arrival of Terra, who has grown stronger with the darkness. One of your students is key to a madman's plan to cause a universe ending catastrophe, and another has given into a chaotic force that brings only corruption. You are now enraged, and blinded by your own grief and inability to see the writing on the wall.

He neglected Terra and he caused this, he didn't stop the spread of Terra's darkness and allowed him to fall into Xehanort's hands, and now he's trying to fight Eraqus with that dark power.

The situation has spun out of control, Ventus has been blown away to who knows where, and Terra and Eraqus are at each others throats. It's exactly how Xehanort wants it to go.

And of course, we all know how it ends for Eraqus.

From the dialogue, and the fact that Eraqus and Terra quickly lost control of the situation, and the dialogue from Eraqus, you can tell he doesn't want to do this. He doesn't want to hurt Ventus, he doesn't want to fight Terra. He is torn. Torn between his duty as a keyblade master and his duty as a teacher and caregiver. No matter how the situation plays out, no one benefits from it... except one guy, Xehanort.

Eraqus is by no means a perfect character, he's made mistakes, so have a number of the other characters. He is neglectful, he is biased, but he is not abusive, and he is not the villain here.

As I said before, I'm not going to tag this with a '#eraqusdidnothingwrong' tag. I will however, tag this with a #stoptheEraqushate tag. I'm sick of seeing posts showing up in the various KH tags talking about how Eraqus is the real villain, and dragging him through the mud. Especially posts that claim they aren't Eraqus hate, but they don't like the character and still tag their posts as Eraqus hate.

Eraqus is human, he makes mistakes, he has his imperfections.

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone... hey! Put that rock down!