History Headscratchers / KingdomHearts3DDreamDropDistance

** The underlying confusion, I think, is just what Xemnas meant by "this world is real", and just what importance this fact holds. This would imply that Space Paranoids, in contrast, isn't "real". Which would, in turn, imply that the Grid is not made out of data on a hard drive somewhere, but a real physical location that can be simply flown to. Taking into consideration the entire premise of the Tron franchise and Tron Legacy in particular, this is pretty damn nonsensical. The exact nature of data in general in Kingdom Hearts isn't entirely clear to begin with, what with stuff like taking the munny purse out of Digital Twilight Town, the relationship between hearts, memories and data, and Re:coded... just kind of in general. It seems as though Nomura thought that data being able to dream didn't make sense, but in trying to fix it, created a VoodooShark instead.

** There's no mention of a "Realm of Sleep" anywhere in the game, only the phrase "Sleeping Worlds". As far as I can tell, the Sleeping Worlds are located in the Realm of Light, but are asleep and all have a mega-barrier around them. So, there is no "Realm of Sleep". While I'm still scratching my head over exactly what the opening sequence at Destiny Islands was and what it meant, it seems as though whatever the hell they did there made them able to penetrate the mega-barriers around the worlds. The fact that they each have to do a separate dive for each individual world leads credence to this.

** But... how? How was Yen Sid able to do that without breaking the rules of KH time travel, introduced in this very game? Xehanort needed to be split into a Heartless and Nobody in order to time travel; seems like a lot of trouble in comparison. Not to mention that seemingly nobody outside of True Organization XIII knew about the time travel rules; even if Yen Sid knew them, a necessity for initiating time travel, why wouldn't he tell Sora and Riku? Seems like pretty critical information. And that doesn't explain Ursula, either; why the hell would she be in Destiny Islands circa Kingdom Hearts 1? And where was Kairi in this supposed instance of time travel? And why would Destiny Islands have anything to do at all with the Sleeping Worlds in the first place? My understanding is that falling into darkness =/= falling into sleep. Sleep is only what happens when you, for some reason, don't get properly restored to light following a fall to darkness (0.2 proves this; if Castle of Dreams, Dwarf Woodlands, Castle of Dreams and ''Destiny Islands'' were sleeping, how did Aqua get in to them, and why were they in various states of screwed up instead of dreaming?). Destiny Islands was restored properly after KH1, so what's with the Sleeping Keyhole? The whole intro to the game just doesn't add up on so many levels.

** Look at the combat system, it's very similar to Birth By Sleep. So even if their normal combos are unrefined, the way they perform their techniques and spells no longer require Reaction Commands or Mana. Furthermore, they can properly perform stunts that would make [[Franchise/DevilMayCry Dante]] [[CutscenePowerToTheMax jealous]], and implement them in combat too. This training essentially strips away Sora and Riku's previous limitations (in the same way that the combat system in the series becomes more refined with each new entry, no longer just mashing X and Triangle to win boss fights like in KH2).

*** If they took their time to train additional Keyblade wielders, then Xehanort will just attack the Princesses of Heart, since they can technically fill in for the 7 lights needed form the X-Blade. And this other explanation kinda falls into WMG territory, but if they train more than 7 wielders of light, it might create an imbalance between light and darkness, and who's to say that an excess of light would be any better than an excess of darkness?

*** If they took their time to train additional Keyblade wielders, then Xehanort will just attack the Princesses of Heart, since they can also form the X-Blade. And this other explanation kinda falls into WMG territory, but if they train more than 7 wielders of light, it might create an imbalance between light and darkness, and who's to say that an excess of light would be any better than an excess of darkness. Xehanort was right in his belief that a balance of light and darkness is the way to go, it's just that his methods to achieve it are way too destructive.

*** Expanding on the above, perhaps it's a Sleeping World, dreaming of Disney Town's past? Maybe a chunk of the world broke off, bringing a piece of the World's heart (the fragment containing the memories of that particular era), and it went to sleep because it's not a complete world. Merlin's magic has been known to get around world barriers that are supposedly impenetrable (Scrooge McDuck in BBS). And, since it contains a piece of Disney Town's heart, what happens in it could affect Disney Town in a more... psychological sense. After all, the theft of the Cornerstone of Light in the Timeless River didn't cause it to disappear in the present at the castle (which would violate the rule of "you can't change past events"), it instead caused a huge amount of vines to appear and dulled the protective abilities of the Cornerstone. In other words, the Nocebo Effect applied to an entire world; the Cornerstone was fine, the world just believed it was in big trouble because a piece of its heart dreamed of its theft. As for how the Heartless are in a Sleeping World, they got in through the same door Pete did.

* So, we find out in this game that [[spoiler: all of Ansem's apprentices have been resurrected due to the destruction of their Heartless and Nobodies. This makes sense...but what doesn't make sense is why they are all resurrected at once. Vexen, Lexaeus and Zexion all died during Chain of Memories, almost a year before Xemnas, Xigbar, Xaldin, Saix and Axel. Why do they all come back at pretty much the same time?]]

*** Terra, as Terranort, is probably one of the members of the new Organization, or more likely it's leader now that both of the VAs for old Xehanort are dead.

** I can understand about how the X-Blade comes about but some of the Xehanorts can't come back because, by the time of present day, they've either already been destroyed or they've already become future versions of themselves. In the case of Xigbar and Saix, they can easily be replaced by Braig and Isa. But the "main" Xehanorts can't come back because Young Xehanort had already become Master Xehanort, who had already become Terra-nort, who had already split into Ansem and Xemnas, who were already destroyed by Sora and Riku, and apparently have reformed, most likely into Terra-nort because if it's old Master Xehanort then that would defeat the point of possessing Terra in the first place(plus this gives Square Enix a way to have Master Xehanort without using his old self because both of his actors are dead). And they can't come back by time travel because the in-universe rules say that now that they've returned to their times they can't time travel again.

* If Sora and Riku both unlocked all their Sleeping Keyholes, [[spoiler:why was only Riku given the Mark of Mastery? I could understand if he got some special honor above and beyond just the Mark because of his saving Sora as well, but Sora completed the test too.]]

** True they returned to their own times at that moment, but there is the prospect of them all returning in the future, even if some have to take TheSlowPath depending on circumstances. As for needing them when it's time to forge the X-Blade, the conflict itself is what forges the X-Blade. It'll "start" whenever Xehanort launches his attack so there's no concern on that front.

* There's something that I don't understand about Master Xehanort's plan in this 3D. He gathers the various aspects of himself from across time to become the True Organization and wants Sora to be the new Number XIII. Except that whether or not he succeeds, his various selves have to return to their own times (he disappears in the same manner which implies to me that he was time displaced too, most likely from before he possessed Terra), so unless he expected the Seven Princesses and the Seven Guardians to show up in that exact moment to begin the Second Keyblade War, this plan was never going to succeed. So unless he has back up vessels that are not time displaced, I don't see how his master plan can ever be completed.

** Basically, Xehanort and his group, during the test, led Sora to their base, while messing with his head about the power of the connections he had to his hearts and the hearts within him, just to wear him down, probably cause they knew that he had unstable control over it and planned to use that against him. Then once he's in the TWTNW, they trap Sora and put him into a deeper sleep, he is left at the mercy of his unstable power of friendship (Heart Resonance as someone called it) and forced deeper into sleep. When Riku was about to wake him up, they put him into a second, much deeper sleep. Even when he started to gained better control of his POF, it was too late as he was so deep in sleep that he was left vulnerable to the massive inner darkness in himself and the other hearts within him (like Data-Roxas said, pain can lead to darkness, and considering the pain Sora was in and anger at the organization, not only from his own pain made worse by witnessing and feeling the pain and suffering of others, but also the fact that the nobodies are real people with hearts and anger towards MX for lying to them about it for his own personal gain, but also at himself for believing that lie and not trying to figure out if it was true, the pain and anger-induced darkness in Sora had to be overwhelming even for him) since he never learned to balance himself like Riku did. Does this make sense to anyone?

** Basically, Xehanort and his group, during the test, led Sora to their base, while messing with his head about the power of the connections he had to his hearts and the hearts within him, just to wear him down, probably cause they knew that he had unstable control over it and planned to use that against him. Then once he's in the TWTNW, they trap Sora and put him into a deeper sleep, he is left at the mercy of his unstable power of friendship (Heart Resonance as someone called it) and forced deeper into sleep. When Riku was about to wake him up, they put him into a second, much deeper sleep. Even when he started to gained better control of his POF, it was too late as he was so deep in sleep that he was left vulnerable to the massive inner darkness in himself and the other hearts within him (like Data-Roxas said, pain can lead to darkness, and considering the pain Sora was in and anger at the organization, not only from his own pain made worse by witnessing and feeling the pain and suffering of others, but also the fact that the nobodies are real people with hearts and anger towards MX for lying to them about it for his own personal gain, but also at himself for believing that lie and not trying to figure out if it was true, the pain and anger-induced darkness in Sora had to be overwhelming even for him) since he never learned to balance himself like Riku did.

** Basically, Xehanort and his group, during the test, led Sora to their base, while messing with his head about the power of the connections he had to his hearts and the hearts within him, just to wear him down, probably cause they knew that he had unstable control over it and planned to use that against him. Then once he's in the TWTNW, they trap Sora and put him into a deeper sleep, he is left at the mercy of his unstable power of friendship and forced deeper into sleep. When Riku was about to wake him up, they put him into a second, much deeper sleep. Even when he started to gained better control of his POF, it was too late as he was so deep in sleep that he was left vulnerable to the massive inner darkness in himself and the other hearts within him (like Data-Roxas said, pain can lead to darkness, and considering the pain Sora was in and anger at the organization, not only from his own pain made worse by witnessing and feeling the pain and suffering of others, but also the fact that the nobodies are real people with hearts and anger towards MX for lying to them about it for his own personal gain, but also at himself for believing that lie and not trying to figure out if it was true, the pain and anger-induced darkness in Sora had to be overwhelming even for him) since he never learned to balance himself like Riku did.

* How did Sora fell into the darkness? To be more precise, what cause Sora to fall into the darkness? I know that it was MX's trap, but I just want to be clear about how it went. Is it safe to say this:

Would that all make since?

** With the reveal of the secret ending in the 2.5 remix, apparently both Lea and Isa ''were'' wearing the organisation cloak when they were turned. Questions on ''why'' they were wearing the cloak aside, it seems that it's not a plot hole. Hopefully it will be elaborated upon in later games.

*** Terra, as Terranort, is probably one of the members of the new Organization.

**** Well in Lea's case, speed training was only done because something was amiss in Sora and Riku's Mark of Mastery exam, it was a contingency plan, and even then he STILL couldn't manifest it until the end of the game. Even if others were capable, they probably don't have the time to train since Xehanort will already be on the move with his plans, so time isn't exactly on their side. Hell, that's why the troper above us probably mentioned that training Kairi is a pretty desperate move on Yen Sid's part.