This is a list of Wild Mass Guesses which are still possibly true. Just for Fun and silly guesses go on the silly page. If a WMG is Jossed, please move it to the jossed page, if it is Confirmed, please move it to the confirmed page.
- DDD all but states that Roxas and Ven are completely different hearts.
- Technically correct, but it's more complicated. When Sora locked the Final Keyhole at the end of the first game, the walls separating the worlds should have come up; and made everyone forget each other; including events that lead to their meeting. This is a very complex tapestry of "Chains of Memory" with the Keyblade and its User being the primary thread. But...things didn't go as planned. The Keyblade user who sealed the Final Keyhole was incomplete (the Roxas split), and the world walls couldn't fully go up because of the connection between them and they were in different worlds. And then the Chain of Memories in that Keyblade user himself were ripped apart and put back together again. This created a sympathetic effect on the world walls, allowing some access and restoring memories sporadically. Before the walls restored themselves, Sora unlocked the world walls in KH 2 (but didn't touch the Keyholes to the hearts of worlds). Coded put Sora's memories together, thus stabilizing everyone elses.
- Alternately, Xehanort did take this possibility into account, which is why he tried to possess Terra at first instead of Ven/Vanitas. If Vanitas stayed loyal, then no harm, no foul. If Vanitas turned traitor, on the other hand, Xehanort would be fighting him in Terra's body instead of his own, old, frail one. If Terranort won that fight, then Xehanort could just take the X-Blade for himself or repeat the possession process on Vanitas. And if Vanitas proved too strong for even Terranort to handle, then at least he gave it his best shot, right?
- The awkwardness when he hugs Kairi, but the emotionality when he finds Riku (he's met Riku a lot more than he's met Kairi, and when he did see Kairi, it was when she was near-comatose
- Roxas's lack of any memory, while all other nobodies have memories
- Namine's ability to manipulate Sora (and Repliku) completely, while she could not manipulate Riku very well: Sora and Repliku have no memories of their own, while Riku has his own memories to rely on
- Sora's not going back to Destiny Islands at the end of the first game: it's not home to him because he has no memories; Riku (and Kairi, to some extent) is "home"
- Sora not recognizing Roxas as a near-copy of Ventus.
- I'm sorry, do you remember somebody you met a single time at four years old?
- I don't think Sora even met Ventus face to face at all. The closest they came was when Sora's heart merged with Ven's at the beginning of Birth By Sleep.
- I'm sorry, do you remember somebody you met a single time at four years old?
- They're alchemists working on creating a Philosopher's Stone. A philosopher's stone shows the path to the root of reality, where the physical and spiritual meet and one can change either. A true master alchemist has such a knowledge of the "path" to this root (In this multiverse, it's called "Kingdom Hearts") they can create a Philosopher's Stone with very few materials. However, there is a "brute force" method that takes a lot of Human Resources using Life Energy to carve a path. This usually requires large amounts of death, but the moogles found a shortcut in that all sides of the Keyblade War are willing to provide them with Anatomy of the Soul leftover parts that Heartless/Nobodies/Unversed didn't "digest"; thus keeping their own hands relatively clean. The Ultima Weapon extension to a keyblade is essentially a lesser Philosopher's Stone. These stones are temporary, so it's no big deal to use a stone they created to take a look into a part of the heart of reality, record their findings, and then hand it over to whoever is providing them supplies.
- Master Xehanort is essentially doing something similar, except on a much bigger scale and more directly. This is why the Ultima Weapon resembles the χ-blade.
- This may be practically canon, judging by the first game. In Sora's Awakening sequences, the platforms at each station show one of several Princesses of Heart, as well as major related characters. The ones who are asleep are either the Princesses who were abducted (Snow, Cinderella, Aurora, who were taken during Birth by Sleep or during the 10-year interim; or Belle, who was taken sometime during the first game) or those who were still at their respective world when the Heartless destroyed it (the Beast's servants). There are also silhouettes of characters who were alive or whose presence was unknown (the three fairies from Sleeping Beauty, Maleficent, the other three Princesses). Notice that the Beast, the seven dwarves, and the Queen (in her old hag form) are depicted as awake, and the Beast was the sole survivor of his world's destruction. Pull two and two together, and it's likely that the aforementioned characters somehow survived throughout that period, although this is made somewhat moot, as Sora's victory at the end of KH restored the worlds taken by the Heartless. Thus, the Queen may very well be back at Enchanted Dominion.
- Per the alternate scene (if you seal Deep Jungle before Wonderland), Snow White was captured during the first game.
- Marluxia's final form reminds me more of Zalera, even though he's not exactly classic. I could definately see Axel with a demonic Ifrit-inspired mode. Maybe they could have all come together to form a Knights of the Round-like form?
- Destiny's Embrace (Kairi's Keyblade) is one of Aqua's exclusive weapons, obtained after Kairi touches Aqua's Keyblade. Apprentice Xehanort knows about Aqua's armour and Keyblade, and possibly helped the others build the Chamber of Repose to put them in. Now, and this is a bit of a stretch, if Riku has access to "Ansem's" memories, he would know about the Chamber and be able to access it. Riku would probably have to be compelled by someone (maybe even DiZ) to retrieve Aqua's Keyblade, in hopes that Riku could use it. Not long after grabbing it, the Soul Eater turned into the Way to Dawn and he no longer needed Aqua's Keyblade, so he passed it on to Kairi, whose influence made it appear as Destiny's Embrace, rather than Rainfell or Stormfall.
- Normal living being: DUH.
- Princess (Prince?) of Light: had the heart of Kairi within him for almost all of KH. Also, Ventus' is still within him.
- Heartless: briefly in KH. Has an Anti Form in KH2.
- Nobody: Roxas is his.
- Replica: Xion is his.
- Data Copy: the main character in KH Coded is Data Sora.
- Unversed: Vanitas has the appearance of Sora.
- Sentiment: This is the craziest of the bunch. If we consider a Sentiment as a heart which still lives and uses his Keyblade and armour to fight, then Sora, who has Ventus' heart and is fighting Xehanort, could count as his Sentiment. He hasn't the armour because he doesn't know how to use it, and he still has a body anyway.
- Alternatively, Sora himself could be considered to function as his own Sentiment during the end parts of I and the duration of CoM. He has no real "body" as that was running around at the time as Roxas, but he still retains his heart and sentience.
- Or, Namine is the Sentiment. Note that unlike normal nobodies, Namine has no flesh. What is a sentiment? It's a manifestation of the soul in physical form, seperated from its body and heart. That pretty acurately describes what Namine is.
- Except that there is no digital Sora in Twilight Town, at least that we know of.
- I was under the impression that Ventus had that keyblade beforehand, and just summoned it.
- Xehanort's reaction of saying "a keyblade" rather than "his keyblade" would suggest Ventus never had the Wayward Wind before, regardless of the cutscenes say
- I'm pretty sure Ven's original Keyblade was the Lost Memory.
- Xehanort's reaction of saying "a keyblade" rather than "his keyblade" would suggest Ventus never had the Wayward Wind before, regardless of the cutscenes say
- Except that Cloud already had that piece of armor on his shoulder back in Final Fantasy VII.
- One of those things sticking out of that pad could be the button to call out the rest of the armor
- I dunno... I think this is a bit reaching. It's just supposed to be a stylized version of his FFVII look with some aspects of Vincent's design thrown in. If he was a Keyblade wielder, why wouldn't he use it (or his armor) barring some sort of amnesia?
- What unfortunate implications? "Christ raised from the dead, dies no more, for death no longer has power over him." There's no reason to expect Sora to perform a Heroic Sacrifice to fit the Messianic Archetype because he's already performed one. What we should expect is a climactic final battle to destroy evil.
- Except that this first Heroic Sacrifice was only for Kairi's good and nobody else's, and she was also the one to undo it. The real "climax of his existence" would surely be even more impactful (even though his Sacrifice for Kairi still had a pretty huge impact on the main cast. At very least.) and be for all worlds, not just his closest friends.
- No, it wasn't just for Kairi's sake. It was also to render the final keyhole into a condition where it would be possible to lock.
- Except that this first Heroic Sacrifice was only for Kairi's good and nobody else's, and she was also the one to undo it. The real "climax of his existence" would surely be even more impactful (even though his Sacrifice for Kairi still had a pretty huge impact on the main cast. At very least.) and be for all worlds, not just his closest friends.
- So this means, We killed Terra... *counts* 5 freaking times?! (Counting the Lingering Sentiment?!) NOOOOOOOO!
- Except for that when Aqua (somehow) joins Terra in his Battle in the Center of the Mind during the final battle with Terranort, both Terra and Xehanort's Guardian are both present. Master Xehanort, on the other hand, is conspicuously absent. If anything, it's more likely that the Guardian is Master Xehanort, or at least represents his overshadowing of Terra's heart.
- It's possible that the Guardian isn't necessarily Terra himself, but rather the darkness in his heart given sentience by Xehanort, much as Vanitas was with Ventus. A further hint at a potential connection to Terra comes in Dream Drop Distance, when in the cutscene following both Ansem battles, Riku echoes the words he told Terra in Birth By Sleep right after the Guardian appears to reach for his keyblade.
- Xehanort use a Keyblade simmilar to the one Sora used to free Kairi's heart, and turns Riku into a Heartless/Nobody.
- He then uses Riku's Heartless as the One-Winged Angel of the game.
- Upon finding out Sora holds Ven's heart, he recreates Vanitas.
- After using some Deus ex machina, he causes a second Keyblade war.
- Sora defeats Xehanort using a Kamikazi-esque move. His fate remains ambiguous.
- If Xehanort still holds Terra's body, his defeat will result in the death of Terra.
- Vanitas runs loose without his former master's control, setting him up as the new Big Bad.
The Upside:
- Xehanort is finally defeated.
- Kairi begins her own journey to fight in the Keyblade War, with the hopes to find Sora. This may lead to her getting A Day in the Limelight sequel/spin-off.
- Somebody did suggest it- going one step further and suggesting that Riku was a direct descendant of Master Xehanort.
- And it would be the most satisfying moment in the history of cutscenes. EVER.
- Cutscene? That should be a boss fight.
- And it would be the most satisfying moment in the history of cutscenes. EVER.
- This makes a lot of sense and also clears up the issue with Roxas being able to wield a keyblade. It, however, does NOT get the issue with The Lingering Sentiment and Xion being able to wield keyblades, despite both lacking a heart and being only made of Willpower/Soul and Memories respectively out of the way.
- Xion's case is actually justified; Replicas have been directly stated to have hearts, unlike Nobodies. The Lingering Sentiment does present a thorny complication on this matter, but it might be explained by Ends of the Earth becoming a "dead key" like the others in the Keyblade Graveyard after the Grand Theft Me, and therefore able to be picked up and used rather than having to be summoned and synchronized with the heart. It should be noted that Lingering Sentiment lacks the capacity to dismiss its keyblade like Terra could, and Ends Of The Earth lost its keychain in the way all "dead keys" we've seen so far have.
- Alright, I am absolutely convinced of this WMG now. Especially since this is one more piece of evidence for the very good "Roxas ended up WITH Ven's heart, not just connected to it" theory.
- Xion's case is actually justified; Replicas have been directly stated to have hearts, unlike Nobodies. The Lingering Sentiment does present a thorny complication on this matter, but it might be explained by Ends of the Earth becoming a "dead key" like the others in the Keyblade Graveyard after the Grand Theft Me, and therefore able to be picked up and used rather than having to be summoned and synchronized with the heart. It should be noted that Lingering Sentiment lacks the capacity to dismiss its keyblade like Terra could, and Ends Of The Earth lost its keychain in the way all "dead keys" we've seen so far have.
- So, what are the weapons used by the other members of Organization XIII? Lesser manifestations of this same idea?
- That actually makes a lot of sense. Remember, a lot of the research into Hearts and Darkness they did must have been driven by Braig, since Braig was the only one who knew the whole story—and, if you'll recall, Braig's driving motivation was to obtain his own Keyblade, and as such he was probably at least trying to guide the heart-and-darkness research towards Keyblades and keyblade analogs. The Nobody weapons—and possibly, by extension, the transformation into Nobodies in the first place—must have been a part or product of his research towards that end.
- Except that it will be a Medley of Guarndando nel buio, Darkness of the Unknown, Rage Awakened AND Forze del Male! With a serving of "Destati", of course.
- Well, Forze Del Oscurita has two of them. Close enough?
- Except that this kind of "Light Ball" already appeared in Kingdom Hearts, where all unidentified worlds looked like that.
- Critical Impact, Spell Weaver, OR a defense-based style (depending on which of the inevitable objects the player picks at the begining)
- Firestorm, Diamond Dust, and Thunder Bolt
- Cyclone, because Sora=Sky.
- Sky Climber, same reasoning as Cyclone.
- Perhaps a void-based style to represent Vanitas that becomes Wingblade if and when Vanitas is booted from his body.
- Fever Pitch, due to his Lightning Bruiser fighting style.
- Firestorm, Diamond Dust, and Thunder Bolt
- Rock Breaker, because Riku=Earth.
- Dark Impulse, because of his past brushes with darkness.
- Ghost Drive, because of his teleportation techniques.
Think about it: The authors did NOT expect Aqua to be popular. Which might perhaps explain why Aqua has little Character Development throughout the game. Now, however, they are aware of how popular she is, and they are taking advantage of it.
They are gonna make a game that focuses on Aqua during her time in the Dark Realm. "Birth By Sleep, Volume 2" might even be its ittle. Probably droping more hints around of something yet to come.
But hey, Aqua fans? Rejoice!!
- Except she's not the only character with a keyblade that's ever been in the Realm of Darkness. Nomura said after Kingdom Hearts II that Mickey's time in that realm was one of the stories he wanted to tell next. This game was planned long before her popularity took off.
- Unfortunately Jossed for now. Nomura apparently wanted to make a game centered around Aqua and Mickey's time in the Realm of Darkness, but Executive Meddling plus the possibility that fans wouldn't have been receptive to yet another spinoff title have forced him to focus on Kingdom Hearts III. We'll see if any elements from BBS Volume 2 get incorporated into KH3 or if the game gets made afterwards as an appendix.
- CONFIRMED. She got 0.2, a short story turned into a game. But hey, it counts!
The teaser shows events from various parts of the timeline.(Riku watching Kairi on the Neverland clocktower,Roxas acquainting himself with Xion, Kairi and the Twilight town kids at the mansion) which makes it difficult to properly place in the timeline.
While it's possible the game jumps between time periods (b) it's also possible there could be time travel,the main two points being Ventus disappearing from the chamber after a corrupted flash and the fact that the Mysterious Figure has a noticeable time motif.As is custom for the series, Bonus bosses like him are incorporated into a new game some point after they're introduced.Temporal displacement perhaps?
- Confirmed, except for Riku meeting Aqua: at the end she saves him at a distance from a heartless ambush, but Riku wasn't even aware that that was her until Mickey tells him in the present.
- As far as we've been able to see, though, the only way for a Nobody to be created is if a Heartless was created, and while there are exceptions to this (namely Naminé) it doesn't appear that Master Xehanort ever actually became one, seeing as how his heart was intact when it entered Terra. Though there is always his name "No Heart" to make you wonder....
- Maybe a Namine-esque being was created?
- Was it ever actually stated specifically that a Heartless needed to be created for a Nobody to be formed? Given that (like you said) Namine is a Nobody without a corresponding Heartless, I assumed that a Nobody was created when the body of a person with a strong will had its heart (and any other hearts within) removed from it, Heartless or no Heartless. Kairi probably didn't gain a Nobody when her heart entered Sora's body either because her heart hadn't been unlocked like Master Xehanort's had been, or because she transferred her heart to Sora's in such an unusual way (her body passed through his and then disappeared, rather than her heart floating from her body before entering Sora's).
- It was indicated here.
- is nothing more than a guardian to the gate into the true dark realm. The Invasion from the darkness that unleashed the heartless was not caused by Xehanort's machninery, but Aqua's entrance into the dark realm. She kills the guardian, which had kept the Heartless in.
- Why would one heartless be preventing other heartless from entering the Realm of Light? More likely it served to keep interlopers from the Realm of Light from getting too far into the dark realm.
- Maybe, in its growth into an utter badass, it either developed a conscience or theorised that allowing the rest of the Heartless to feed on every world of Light would eventually lead to the destruction of the universe, or something.
- Why would one heartless be preventing other heartless from entering the Realm of Light? More likely it served to keep interlopers from the Realm of Light from getting too far into the dark realm.
- Because who needs Ven when you have a being of pure light that probably isn't strong enough to fight back just hanging around?
- Vanitas couldn't merge with Kairi. The only reason he could merge with Ven is because they are part of the same person.
- Well, that's not entirely true. Aqua was noted to be so pure-hearted that she could have been used to create the X-Blade should Ventus have been too weak/unsuitable for the task. Not to mention that she's been stuck in the World of Darkness for over a decade without a Black Cloak and still is no worse for the wear. Vanitas even cryptically alluded to this with the line "Always good to have a backup."
- Ventus had to be close to Vanitas' equal, though. That was the whole reason for Vanitas' I Need You Stronger gig. The only way Vanitas would merge with Kairi is if she... oh...
- He was intended to be the Big Bad of KH 1.
- Now, I'm aware he was destroyed, but my theory is that he's just resting. I mean, he's the freaken devil! Remember how in Fantasia, he was weak by the light, and had to retreat? It's kind of like that.
- Instead of fighting alone, he'd summon his demon army like in Night on Bald Mountain.
- Alternatively, a revived MX will summon Chernabog to his aid... because why not?
- Or... Chernabog in this continuity will be revealed to be a type of Unversed, summoned by Vanitas, whose dark shadow still lingers inside Sora, waiting for a chance to claw his way free and takeover.
- Maybe all of the friends Sora has made along his journey donate their light to him to defeat Chernabog (or maybe Chernabog's Heartless?) while Ave Maria plays.
- Chernabog will be revealed to be the alpha heartless, the one that rules over all others. The similarities are a bit uncanny.
- If you finish Birth By Sleep, it'll make sense.
- How many times do people have to hear that it's Mickey to accept it? What does Ventus know about a Door to the Light? Mickey, however, knows all about it.
- I'm calling out Retcon. And about Ventus and the Door of Light, well, it wouldn't be far-fetched to think that Vanitas knew about it, and neither that Ventus absorved his memories after defeating him.
- It IS Mickey, that has been confirmed. Besides, Ventus does not talk like the voice in Sora's awakening does AND is also sleeping.
- How many times do people have to hear that it's Mickey to accept it? What does Ventus know about a Door to the Light? Mickey, however, knows all about it.
- I think that's probably true, mostly because of the scene with Roxas, Axel and Xion on the beach at Destiny Islands during Days.
- Birth By Sleep shows that not only can Sora's heart reach out and heal Ventus' heart, but it can also keep the heart safe by absorbing it.
- Kingdom Hearts 1 shows that Sora's heart has bonded with Kairi's, and as such provides a vessal for her heart when her body is at risk.
- Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories show that Sora's heart's bonds can be used against him, but in order to be manipulated a connection must exist.
- Kingdom Hearts 2 has a couple of things to note. Namine states that she has power over "The memories of Sora, and those close to him". How is this possible? Well, I think that Sora's heart forms such strong connections that Namine can use those to get into the hearts of others and influence them, to a limited degree. 2 also has the Drive system, wherein Sora takes his friend's powers into himself in order to greatly improve his own.
- It's both, really. In this universe not much of a stretch to call the ability to bond with others the ultimate strength of heart.
- I don't know about Vexen. It was him, Lexaeus, and Zexion (the loyalists) vs. Marluxia and Larxene (the defectors), with Axel paying the role of Wild Card. Vexen was merely feigning allegiance to the two to earn their trust. Besides, the part in the original game when you travel to The End of the World and use the corridors of darkness to briefly revisit all the worlds shows a laboratory in Hollow Bastion with these human-shaped pods and some cryptic inscription about the heart, implying that the original six used these machines to manually rip out their own hearts.
- To clarify, in Castle Oblivion, it was the loyalists vs the defectors, with Axel as a Pscyho Supporter to both sides so he could elimiate the traitors as well as Vexen & Zexion to ensure Saix's rise to becoming Xemnas' right hand man (since at that time, Saix & Axel were still "friends" and wanted to overthrow the Organization themselves at one point). Also, we see how (at least one of) the apprentices lose their hearts in 3D: Apprentice Xehanort manifests Master Xehanort's Keyblade and uses it to remove Braig's heart.
- And then, aside from the coolness factor of having freaking PK in your party, Sora would get a sentai / tokusatsu costume? Yes please.
- The Earth turns on an axis. I'd say it's more about Lea, which means meadow.
- 48 hours? She spent there for over 10 years, and the "trailer" showed her encountering the worlds that were suck by the darkness. I believe there's quite a story to tell there.
- I think he was referring to how long the game would be. Personally, I would like them both to be playable. Perhaps they could have multiple storylines, like in the first Birth by Sleep: Aqua's time in the Dark World, Mickey's story during the first game, and Riku's story during the first game.
- Given that the triplets eventually change worlds as well to move in with him by Kingdom Hearts II, and probably earlier given that they were in Traverse Town when Disney Castle hadn't fallen, it must be concluded that they are his apprentices.
- All that just to sell ice cream? It must be Serious Business
- Scrooge is, at heart, an entrepreneur. He may have figured that since he was travelling the worlds anyway, he might as well figure out how to profit off of it.
- The original poster forgets that the Beast broke through the walls dividing the world through sheer force of will. Surely Scrooge's greed could let him do the same thing.
- Two things. One, the walls were down from Heartless attack at the time Beast did that, making it much, much easier; Scrooge traveled before any of the Heartless ever invaded and before the walls went down. Second, Beast had a specific target to warp to, namely Belle. Scrooge would have had no such target other than "money and markets". If he were to warp directly to the largest source of money and markets, he'd have ended up in Agrabah (home to the Cave of Wonders and a very wealthy kingdom where his more advanced technological knowledge could make him a living god), not Radiant Garden, obviously selected for factors besides money and markets, like comfort of living and ease of hiding, which aren't emotionally strong enough to have been anchors.
- Also, its implied by the existence of portals of darkness that Beast, at the time a creature of raw fury not yet tempered by love, an Anti-Hero close to the Villain side of the scale at the time, opened up a portal of darkness to where Belle was. While Scrooge is greedy, that greeed is fully tempered by a sense of justice and need to make his fortune square, with no cheating- a positive desire strong enough to make it implausible that he could ever open up a portal of darkness. Flintheart Glomgold, yes, but never Scrooge.
- Further explanation from a different author (spoilers ahead, natch): At the end of I, two hearts went flying out of Sora. One of them was Ventus', which had been lodged there for several years. Now, Sora's heart had taken a lot of beatings from Darkness over the years, and his heart and Ven's had started to take a partnership to protect Sora. Without its partner for backup, Sora's somewhat weakened heart sputtered out briefly, creating a Heartless. In the meantime, Ventus' heart goes off on its own, to find its body. It eventually did find it in Castle Oblivion, where Ventus' body sits. However, when the heart tried to re-enter its body, a combination of fatigue and the Dark contaminants in the room/Ven's body forced it to die as well — but permanently. Thus came the process of Nobody creation. Since Sora had no Nobody, and Ventus' heart was now so 'infused' with Sora's energy that it had begun to lose its own identity, Roxas was recognized as Sora's Nobody and named appropriately. This is an explanation for the scene in one of the trailers, where Ventus' body is shown collapsed in Castle Oblivion and is gone after a flash of light; that was time passing, in which Roxas woke up and left the castle.
- The part about Ven's heart dying appears to have been jossed by Dream Drop Distance. In one of the videos you can unlock after beating the game, :Ven's body is shown smiling in the Chamber. He probably wouldn't be doing this if his heart was dead and his body was gone.
This will also foreshadow Sora running into these issues himself in the future, on a much grander scale. The Light Is Not Good part of Dark Is Not Evil that the plot has touched on and Sora's Knight Templar issue are all going to train wreak with this, with him being a boss faced in a future game. Sora will befriend someone who points him in a very wrong direction and it will be up to the others to hit him upside the head for the mid to late game Nice Job Breaking It, Hero moment caused by it.
At the very least, destroying Lea's. Re:Coded revealed that destroying a person's Heartless and Nobody reassembles them into their once complete being, and since Axel is on Sora's list of people to save, he'll have to find and destroy Lea's (possibly incredibly powerful) Heartless to recreate him. The same may go for several other members, though exactly who is up for debate. Ansem's apprentices are on the fence, as Birth by Sleep showed their original selves to be fairly decent people (with the exception of Braig), but it's also known that they were willing to betray their benevolent leader, though it might have been the darkness they were experimenting on corrupting them or something. Isa didn't seem so bad, but Saïx definitely was, and we know nothing of Demyx, Luxord, Marluxia, and Larxene's original selves to formulate enough of an opinion on them. Seeing as how many of Sora's foes have been Easily Forgiven by him, though, it's really up for debate.
- For that to work, the Heartless needs to be destroyed before the Nobody. So, for Lea to be saved, his Heartless needs to already have been destroyed.
- At least partially Jossed. It's not stated that eliminating a Heartless & it's Nobody in that order will restore the original. Furthermore, Most of the Organization have already been reconstituted. Lea, Evan, Dilan, Ienzo, Aeleus, Isa, Braig, and... Xemnas, have all returned.
- Except keyblades don't destroy hearts; they just reap them.
- And normal shields and staves work just fine against Heartless.
- This isn't a WMG; this is canon. Nomura already stated that III will be the Grand Finale of the "Xehanort Saga" (apparently, the series will go on after this climax) and The Stinger to re:Coded has Yen Sid telling Mickey that Master Xehanort has most likely returned to life by this time, which is why he has Sora and Riku undertake the Mark of Mastery exam (as to be detailed in 3D).
- Given that Nomura has now (re)drawn characters from every title for Dissidia and Dissidia 012, anyone is fair game for a cameo. Here's hoping for GILGAMESH.
- The Tri-State Area as a new world
- Lightning and the gang are new characters
- The Game will support 3d TV's
- Will have Multiplayer support online and offline
- The return of the Gummy ship sections
- ONE GRAND FINALE to end the Organization XIII story
- And that's just the minor ones.
- We all know that Saix has gold eyes (which equals darkness) and is a jackass to even his supposed best friend. Which means that a case similar to Braig/Xigbar occured when Isa went through something that caused his x-scar and opened his heart to darkness...which he eventually fell to. We also know that apprentice Xehanort was conducting horrific experiments on people's hearts to see their reactions to darkness.
- Isa may have gone through a more stable experiment on his heart that caused him to gain gold eyes and may have even been Xehanort's little lackey before Radiant Garden's fall. Otherwise, why did Saix become so willingly obediant to Xemnas and give up on his and Axel's plan to backstab him?
- After all, we know and/or can guess that everything a nobody possesses emerges from a trait of their original selves (duel wielding Roxas=Sora+Ventus; Xigbar's evilness, guns and scars=Braig's evilness, guns, and scars from getting pwned by Terra; Axel's motto and chakrams=Lea's motto and frisbees). Therefore, would be safe to assume that everything about Saix's demeanor emerged from Isa's last year as a person? (evilness=possible indoctrinization or darkness experiment, beserker mode=latent anger, loyalty to Xemnas=Xehanort manipulation, scar=incident related to a battle?)
- Instead, during the last major fight one of a couple things will/could happen.
a) Sora, as a way to save/free Ven, Namine, Roxas, and Xion, will give up his life. This leads to a whole new set of games where we now search for Sora/find a way to revive him. That, or it's unreversable.
b) Ven and/or Terra will die in the final fight. After 10-11 years, Terra and Xehanort are just to melded together to split up. The only way to do get rid of MX, is to kill both him AND Terra. The person to do this? Either Sora or Ven. If it's Ven, the last fight will be too much, and he'll die/disapear as well. There is no way to reverse it. Everyone honors their memories.
c) Mickey will sacrifice himself to save the group from darkness, avenge his fallen friend, and atone for his first great failure.
This is to justifie, or allow...
I get the feeling Ansem wasn't JUST talking about Ven/Aqua/Terra/Axel/Roxas/Namine/Xion when he spoke about freeing/helping those crippled beings, or however he said it. He seems to still mourn for the fall of his proteges. And since it appears that killing a person's Heartless and Nobody will allow them to be reborn, it's not exactly IMPOSSIBLE. Perhaps part of the journey in KHIII will be tracking down the missing hearts of the first six or what not. It seems that Axel is on his way to revivel, with or without Sora anyhow.
But it does somewhat paralle Eraqus and Terra. Father figure who does bad things but means good, only to realize it too late. Son who was manipulated into believing the bad was good, to help make things better. Yeah. Could be just me though.
- #1: Aqua. She features heavily in the Secret Episode, and it's clear that there's more of her story to be told yet. Plus, she's the only Keyblade wielder to specialize so heavily in magic.
- #2: Riku. Nomura said following Kingdom Hearts II that there were four stories he wanted to cover before moving on to Kingdom Hearts III... two of those stories, namely Xehanort's memories and Roxas's time in the Organization, have already been addressed, in Birth by Sleep and 358/2 Days respectively. Another one of those stories, the period of Riku's absence (presumably between Chain of Memories and Kingdom Hearts II) was featured to an extent in Days as well, enough so that Riku's absence really doesn't merit its own game... but it feels like there's just enough loose ends to fill up a spot in Volume Two. Additionally, Riku could serve as a parallel for Terra given his use of dark powers (he doesn't fit the strong-yet-slow mold of course, but hey, nobody said they had to be perfect parallels).
- #3: Mickey. The final story Nomura wanted to cover was the period of King Mickey's absence. This was apparently supposed to be in coded, but got cut out for whatever reason. By including Mickey in Volume Two, we'll get to see exactly what Mickey's been up to the whole time. He'd also be a good parallel for Ventus, armed with fast attacks and light powers.
- Valor Form represents Xion, with the term "Valor" representing Xion's bravery in sacrificing her own independent existence for Sora and Roxas's sake. Additionally, Sora can use two Keyblades in Valor Form because he is calling on Xion's Keyblade. I'm still trying to find an explanation for Sora's loss of magic while using Valor Form, though. Maybe it's a representation of her incomplete existence as a Replica and status as Ret-Gone... her true abilities have been forgotten, and Valor Form's unbalanced skillset symbolizes this?
- Wisdom Form represents the Magic Mirror (hear me out on this one). According to the Reports in Birth by Sleep, the Evil Queen managed to somehow temporarily turn the Magic Mirror into an Unversed. As we later find out, all Unversed come from Vanitas, and when they are defeated they are absorbed back into him. When the Magic Mirror was defeated, a copy of its Unversed self was absorbed by Vanitas, who later rejoined with Ventus and then with Sora. The term "Wisdom" represents the Mirror's reputation as all-knowing, and since it's a Magic Mirror, calling on its power augments Sora's magic in turn. Unlike the other drives, Wisdom Form doesn't gain a second Keyblade because the mirror doesn't have one.
- Master Form represents Ventus. In Birth by Sleep, Ventus seemed to be roughly on the same level with Terra and Aqua, both of whom are equivalent to Keyblade Masters (Aqua actually was named Master, and Nomura confirmed that Terra was on the level of a Master), explaining the name "Master" Form. Additionally, Ventus had balanced stats in both strength and magic, and so Sora has both powered up in Master Form, as well as gaining Ventus's Keyblade.
- Final Form represents Roxas. This is probably the most obvious one, given that Sora only gains access to it after Roxas allows himself to join completely with Sora. The term "Final" represents that this is the last form (natch), and therefore the final power boost Sora will get from the numerous others inside his heart.
- Anti Form represents Vanitas. This one is also pretty obvious, given Anti Form's dark nature and Vanitas's status as a being of pure darkness. Sora doesn't gain a second Keyblade in this form even though Vanitas could use one because Vanitas's darkness weakens his heart instead of strengthening it, to the point where he can no longer use even his own Keyblade.
- Limit Form is a possible subversion. It doesn't represent any of Sora's other personas, but Sora himself, since it gives him access to some of his old abilities, and is gained after Sora's attention is directed to Kairi and her abduction (as Xion's existence shows, Sora's most important memories are of Kairi).
- Zeus called it the Blade of Olympus
- Suddenly, the earlier trailers showing Master Xehanort confronting Ven at Olympus Coliseum make a lot more sense.
- Ansem: No-brainer. All Sora has to do is find a way into the Realm of Darkness, which he's already done at least twice.
- Aqua: Exactly the same as Ansem.
- Axel: Most likely, Axel's Heartless was destroyed already, so he will probably return as Lea.
- Confirmed by the Jump Festa trailer. He still looks like Axel, though.
- Eraqus: Although not specifically seen in Blank Points, I count Eraqus because his heart is inside Terra's, who also needs to be saved. Most likely, once Terra has been saved, they will simply have to unlock Eraqus's heart from Terra's.
- Namine: While Namine is Kairi's Nobody, she was made when Kairi's heart left Sora's body, and therefore she does not technically belong with either of them. I'm not quite sure how she'll be saved, unless it involves making Kairi's heart leave Sora's body again...
- Roxas: One of the most difficult, if not the most difficult. I truly don't see how they could possibly bring Roxas back without a total Ass Pull. First of all, according to Ansem in KHII he holds half of Sora's power, so they'd have to figure out how to get him out of Sora without weakening him. Second, Nomura pretty much confirmed Roxas had Ven's heart, and since he looked exactly like Ven that would imply that he is in fact an amnesiac Ven. Then again... maybe that's how they'll get around it, by saying that Roxas was Ven.
- Terra: At first, I didn't understand why Yen Sid decided to test Sora and Riku for the Mark of Mastery. Then I realized that Keyblade Masters are the only ones who have been shown to unlock hearts without using a Keyblade of Heart. Yen Sid's planning to have Sora become a Keyblade Master so he can unlock Terra's heart from Xehanort.
- Ventus: Since Ven's heart is inside Sora, most likely he's just going to have to extract it once it's done healing itself. He'll probably need to save Aqua first, though, given that she's the only one who can find the Chamber of Waking.
- Xion: Difficult, and will probably require Namine's help, but not as hard to puzzle out as Roxas. Xion is literally made of memories, right? And Namine can manipulate the memories of Sora and those connected to him. Now, I know she said she couldn't save Xion before, but I think that was because back then, she was made out of Sora's most important memory, and it was crucial she merge with him so he could wake up. Everyone's memories of Xion may be missing, but given that they didn't instantly forget her after she disappeared I believe that the memories are not actually gone, but just locked away. And Namine will be able to use that to recreate Xion, not by using Sora's memories but by using everyone else's hidden memories of her.
- She could have deconstructed Xion's memories and separated out Sora's so he could wake up without erasing Xion- if she had been given the time necessary for such a herculean task. She did tell Ansem that she was capable of it, but estimated that it would take years to accomplish- time they didn't have, not with Organization XIII having access to Roxas and likely additional Keyblade-wielding Replicas who would continue to construct Kingdom Hearts and/or track down Xion. Without the time constraint, however, it's just a matter of waiting long enough.
- Riku Replica (new addition by OP): Having never beaten Chain of Memories, I never gave much thought to Riku Replica's fate. But having seen what appears to be him in the 3D trailer, I realized that he has just as much of a right to exist as Xion. And then the Fridge Brilliance kicked in as to why he wasn't seen in Blank Points... he's not going to be saved by Sora, he'll be saved by Riku! No idea how, but I can totally see it happening.
- Alternately, you visit a world based on Fantasia/Fantasia 2000/Fantasia 2006/Fantasia World, and face the Firebird in an epic, Shadow of the Colossus-esque battle. Afterward, the sprite from The Firebird Suite will accompany Sora as a summon, in a role similar to Tinker Bell and Bambi in the first game.
- Unlikely. Vanitas resembles Sora because the latter merged his heart with Ven's. Plus, whether or not the novel is canon is debatable, but it suggests that Ven was an orphan who didn't even know what his parents looked like and that Vanitas was faceless until Ven's heart merged with Sora's.
- Team One: Sora, Riku, and Kairi go after Master Xehanort. Sora is the controllable one, of course.
- Team Two: Terra, Aqua, and Ventus go after Braig and/or Vanitas. Terra is controllable.
- Team Three: Mickey, Donald, and Goofy go after some form of Xehanort's Heartless (possibly a Replica). Mickey is controllable.
- Team Four: Roxas, Lea, and Xion go after Xemnas (again, possible a Replica). Roxas is controllable.
- But then how do you explain Tifa? After all, II arguably implies that, for Cloud, she's the light to Sephiroth's darkness.
- Cloud's a Nobody who's trying to regain their Heart. Sephiroth and Tifa are the Darkness and Light which were split in two - possibly in a similar way to Ventus and Vanitas - and had bodies created for themselves like when Sora was revived in the first game.
At the final world that serves as Xehanort's stronghold, Sora, Riku, Kairi, Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Roxas, Axel, Xion, Ven, Aqua and Terra shall team up to penetrate his lair. Sora, Riku and Kairi make up the main party, and as the player presses into the fort they encounter an assortment of Heartless, Nobodies and Unversed. When they come to a barrier, control switches to Mickey, Goofy and Donald, who must explore a side-path and battle an incarnation of "Ansem" to open the path. A second barrier is encountered, and Roxas, Axel and Xion explore a path and fight Xemnas. A third barrier switches control to Ven, Terra and Aqua, and they fight Master Xehanort.
In the final battle, Sora, Riku and Kairi face Xehanort himself in a multi-stage battle that mirrors his various incarnations in different regards. When Xehanort is defeated, he collapses and begins to fade into darkness, when he heart rises from his body and slams into Sora. Sora awakens in the Dive to the Heart, and discovers that there are two platforms — his, and Xehanort's. Xehanort declares his intent to conquer Sora's heart and take his body as his own, and the Battle in the Center of the Mind begins as the two Keyblade Masters clash for the last time. The battle ends with Sora shattering Xehanort's station, symbolically destroying his heart and ending the threat for good.
- The troper who originally made this predicition would add that with what Dream Drop Distance has shown, particularly Kairi is going to train with Yen Sid and multiple incarnations of Xehanort have been revived, this scenario seems more plausible than ever.
So first, a link To Kairi's Grandma's story.
Anyway, back in the begininning, things were awesome in the Kingdom Hearts universe. There were Keyblades, and Light, and everyone had access to Kingdom Hearts, and everything was bitchin' and everyone lived together in peace and love and happiness on the same world.
Then one day, a group of people, lets call them "Assholes", had an idea. They wanted Kingdom Hearts all for themselves, and started to fight over it, hoping to create the legendary X-Blade that would allow them to access it. The entire world was swept into the battle, known as "The Keyblade War", and as the darkness grew, the entire world was destroyed and everyone died.
The End.
Except little bits of light remained, the Seven Purest hearts in the whole world. These seven hearts managed to bring everything back from the brink.
But not completely.
The worlds were seperate, and could not interact with each other.
The Keyblade had all but disappeared, and only a handful of Masters and apprentices remained.
And Kingdom Hearts itself was in the Realm of Darkness, surrounded on all sides.
Kingdom Hearts is where all hearts wind up, but now, no heart could reach it.
Kingdom Hearts is light, but now darkness is in every heart, only seven still pure enough to join with it.
When a person dies, their heart goes to Kingdom Hearts, but can't reach it. As the heart goes into the Realm of Darkness, the darkness within it and around it takes shape, forming a shadowy creature called a Heartless. Heartless wait around Kingdom Hearts, at once wanting hearts, but also being bombarded with Kingdom Heart's painful light. Thats why Shadows melt into the floor, for protection from the light they are constantly being blasted with in their natural habitat. When a heartless is destroyed, the heart is freed and can rejoin with either it's body, or Kingdom Hearts itself. Which is fine, if you're The Messaiah and only have enough darkness to make a Shadow. For you, your heart will be purified quickly, and be able to rejoin with Kingdom Hearts in no time at all. But if you are a horrible, wretched monster, your heart will be dragged down by the darkness, and your heartless will be big, bloated and powerful, and Kingdom Hearts will take forever to deplete your HP and purify you.
Of course, if you're one of the seven pure hearts of light, things will be easiest for you, as your heart will pass right through the darkness without stopping and be able to be with Kingdom Hearts immediately.
The Realm of Darkness is Purgatory for hearts, where they can be purified of their darkness after they die, but before they rejoin all the other hearts.
Sora's last act while still posessing his free will would be to try to eject Ventus' heart from his body, so he can return and wake up. Ventus, however, in an act of gratitude, will turn it around, making it so that Sora takes over Ventus body, awakening it and leaving Ventus trapped with the evil that now controls Sora's body. Venra immediately goes to destroy the bodyhopper, aware that he might possibly be forced to destroy his own, mortal body on the way and fully intending to return Ventus' body to its rightful owner when he's done; effectively rendering himself dead for all purposes. Wouldn't be the first time Sora accepted suicide for the good of others.
A small amount of possible Fridge Brilliance here. In KHII, Pete was in that dimension prison, and Mickey was said to have put him him there. In Birth by Sleep, ten years earlier, Minnie put him in there to cool down for a bit.
Just consider... in that dimension, there's nothing to do, no food or water, NOTHING essentially. If Pete was REALLY in there for 10 years, before Maleficent broke him out, wouldn't he have gone mad, and/or seriously changed his personality from his time in there? Hell, any one of us would have done one or the other (or both) if we'd been locked in there for 10 years.
So, just think, Minne put in there to 'cool down for a bit'. A BIT. There's no way that translates to 10 years, and it's quite possible Mickey put him in there again for something else bad he did. It's not that much of a stretch if you think about it this way, but I could still be wrong.
- We actually see Maleficent bust Pete out of the prison dimension DURING Birth By Sleep. I don't think he was in there for ten MINUTES by the time the old hag got him out. Also, in KHII, the japanese for who banished Pete was actually gender-neutral. The translators, assuming Mickey did it, made it "His Majesty" instead of "Her Majesty". They were wrong.
If you think about it at first, Xion being designed in a way that will inevitably either cause her to kill Roxas or, if all fails, be killed by him herself, makes little sense at first if you think about it. Wouldn't two keyblade wielders be more productive than one? The hammer hits when you realize that Xemnas was basically Xehanorts' will and mind stuck in Terra's body. Chances are the Terra part of him rebelled violently at times due to Roxas' mere presence. It was distracting him, keeping him from focusing on his goals, awakening "foolish" ways of thinking and maybe even *gasp* memories of emotion within No.1 of the Organization, so he had to get rid of it. However, due to afformentioned rebelling he couldn't touch Roxas himself. It may have caused him a short-circuit or worse. Likewise, even if he wanted Roxas gone, he still needed his power and keyblade for his plans. So he had Xion created to absorb and slowly eat away on him.
Evidence for this are the fact that Xemnas apparently had quite a few of Terra's memories - making at least one throwaway line that shows that he recognizes Roxas as, at very least, a Ven-lookalike, not to mention his Companion Cube, Aqua's Armor- and the observation that, if you sum up, Xemnas really obviously was keeping his distance from Roxas throughout all of 358/2 for the most part.
Xion and her fate where thus yet another unfortunate sideeffect of Terra's eternal struggle against Xehanort's possession.
Coming to visit Roxas when he's fallen unconsious? Most likely Terra's doing. Talking to Aqua's discarded armor? Clearly Terra. Searching the Chamber of Waking? Terra, trying to find Ventus. Showing disdain upon being called "Xehanort" by Sora? Terra. Asking Roxas if he remembers his "true name" (Note that, interestingly, he said "True name" not "Old name")? Terra, hoping that Roxas would reply "Ventus", rather than "Sora". He didn't, unfortunately. (Maybe getting the correct answer would have caused a strong enough reaction to overthrow Xehanort's motives for good, though, this is just speculation.)
Finally... Xemnas, trying to rip out Sora's Heart during the final boss fight against him, asking if he "Could spare a heart". Remember, the Rip-Out Move is one of the most time consuming ones Xemnas has, it leaves him fairly vunerable to Riku's attacks and only takes out Sora, as opposed to him&Riku. Why would Xemnas do that? Did he want Sora's Heart? It makes more sense if you remember that the heart that Xemnas is trying to extract could just as well be... Ventus'. That move is an attempt of Xemnas to channel Terra's despair and stubborn desire to regain his friends and misguide it in a way that will ultimately benefit the MX' ideals: "Here... Here's your friend. Come and get him. You just need to crack that shell open and destroy it. Come, we will work together and free him from that shell..." Sounds like something MX would do to trick Terra, doesn't it?
Nomura has stated that the opening will be a song by Utada Hikaru, the "a" indicating that it won't be any of the previously used songs. Thing is, Hikki is currently on a hiatus, meaning it cannot be a new song either. Therefor I assume they are going to use one of her older songs. Traveling comes to mind because it has a simmilar beat to Hikari and Pasion and the lyrics, too, seem to fit all the things from previous games that are coming together in this installment.
- He won Dilan and Aeleus over to their side by bringing them in on his own plan to become a keyblade master; tempted by the power to traverse worlds and wield legendary weapons, Dilan and Aeleus's loyalty was weakened, even though Braig had no intention of ever making good on his promise to share power.
- Even, he corrupted by playing on his resentment of seeming to be second best to Xehanort as an apprentice and shifting it to resenting Ansem for "holding them back" from knowledge of the darkness.
- Braig turned Ienzo against Ansem by playing on the boy's fear of death, caused by the unfortunate demise of his parents; Ienzo turned on Ansem in the mistaken impression that gaining understanding and control over the darkness would enable him to evade age and death indefinitely, as Master Xehanort planned to.
- Isa, Lea, and the others besides Sora were all children in Radient Gardens Braig and Xehanort figured nobody would miss, and so they were abducted and experimented on; Isa in particular was corrupted by exposure to the darkness before he turned into a Nobody, resulting in Saix being considerably more evil than his human counterpart.
- Confirmed in Dream Drop Distance: Braig and a Xehanort attempt to corrupt Sora, of all people. They even succeed, although Riku saves him from the darkness. It also turns out that Braig is a Xehanort.
This, of course, will turn Kairi into a mentally unstable, suffering wreck, and the game will go to great lengths to show her ordeals throughout the story. When Sora, Riku and their companions arrive to defeat Xehanort and rescue Kairi, they'll notice Kairi's heavily unstable state and get really worried. Of course, they'll get all angsty at Xehanort for turning her into a half-dead wreck of a human being by tampering with her heart too much. We'll get the usual multi-tiered epic final battle against Xehanort, and it'll look like Sora's finally won, Xehanort is finally dead, and the story is finished.
But Kairi isn't back to normal again! Sora tries everything to restore her, but to no avail. Mickey (or some other mentor) tells the gang that Xehanort's tampering with the light in Kairi's heart has turned her into a ticking time bomb that threatens to engulf the entire multiverse in light and eliminate all darkness, and that pure light is just as destructive as pure darkness; there must be balance. Mickey explains further that the only way to save the multiverse is to seal Kairi's heart. With no other alternative, Sora must fight his friend if he is to prevent everything from being consumed. Kairi, now completely possessed by the light, grows a pair of angel wings, draws her Destiny's Embrace Keyblade, and the fight begins.
Throughout the whole final battle (which would probably be a Breather Boss), Sora will be extremely hesitant and unenthusiastic in his attacking, and will be visibly crying throughout the whole battle, Same for Kairi, to some extent, but she'll feel that she has no choice but to eliminate all darkness in the worlds to undo all the harm that Xehanort has done. We'll probably get some soft, sad remix of Kairi's theme as the battle music.]]
At the end, Kairi, now close to dying, will regain her senses, and thank Sora for ending her suffering and saving the worlds. She'll then dissolve into thousands of particles of light and float away. Although this could end up being Narm.
Sorry if that seemed random, but hey, it's Kingdom Hearts.
- This really does not warrant being in all spoiler tags, since it doesn't spoil any relevant plot details from Canon, so I removed them. They giant Spoiler Tag was more irritating than anything.
This is a completly serious guess, hear me out. So, Sora has always been known for representing "Light" in the KH Plot, despite not being completly pure himself, right? Well, what if this is a misconception? What if Sora actually is pure light and the darkness making up his Heartless Form and Anti Form actually solely stems from Vanitas, who was absorbed into him alongside Ven?
Let's go back, to the beginning of Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep. Ventus is dying, dumped on Destiny Island's beach and his heart about to break into shards. Suddenly, a toneless voice. We can't hear the voice yet. There's no telling if it's male or female. Maybe it's neither. The voice turns out to be a heart of a human who is about to be born. (Originally, it was explicitely a yet unborn heart, but the "abortion" debate caused Nomura to rephrase the skript.) The yet nameless heart saves Ventus by connecting their hearts to each other. This fills the void in Ventus' heart up... With nothing but light.Isn't that strange? Should there have been some darkness as well, had this been a regular heart? How was the heart even able to travel so far as to reach Ven's heart.Let's move on. Only after the bond has been made, we hear the other heart's voice for the first time. It's... Sora's voice. Speaking in unison with Ventus.
Now, it's not a secret that later on, many people notice that Sora is neigh-identical to Ventus in everything but haircolor. So let's just assume that Sora's bond to Ventus had the same effect on him that it later had on Vanitas and caused him to grow up to look almost exactly like Ventus. We will just assume that both of Sora's parents were dark haired, explaining his brown hair. Must have overruled Ventus' blonde. Following me so far? Good.
Now, what if those effects were even greater than that? What if the bond to Ventus influenced just about everything about what Sora would become. His purity, his personality... "his" gender?
My point is, Sora clearly isn't a normal heart. The fact alone that he was able to save Ven indicates that he was exceptionally powerful even before his birth. Nomura has stated that his keyblade isn't Ven's either... And Bb S indicated that "natural" keyblade wielders are exceptionally rare. Another sign of him being special. He can heal other hearts and when Kairi was kidnapped from Radiant Garden, he (according to KH Ultimania) was the "light" that kept her from drowning and guided her to the shore. Later, he even became her vessel. Also, his bond with Kairi... this brings me to my next point.
This theory assumes that Sora was originally meant to be born as a girl and a Princess of Heart at that. It was Ven's bond to him which disqualified him by altering his/her predestined qualities too far. However, there always have to be seven Princesses of Hearts... Notice how Kairi is slightly younger than Sora. What if she was born in order to replace him?
This would explain their exceptionally strong bond. They're the same in a way, Kairi has taken his spot and in this sense, they have a connection just like Ven and Sora. It explains further why Xion's default form is Kairi, beyond Sora's love for her... maybe this is also what he would have looked like had Ventus never bonded to him? It would explain the dark hair. Naminé was born when their hearts were seperated, but even Ansem DW isn't sure how that happened. Personally, I doubt she actually is a Nobody. I am not sure what exactly she is either, but I am inclined to believe she is a mirror image of kind that was created when Sora's and Kairi's familiar hearts met.
Bottom Line: Sora was meant to be the "Original" Kairi. The current Kairi is his replacement. The existence of darkness in his heart is nothing but proof that Vanitas is winning in strength again. If he isn't stopped, he might end up consuming Sora.
Throughout Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance], Kairi is left unprotected on Destiny Islands, and the story hints that Master Xehanort is after the Princesses of Heart to "cross their light with the thirteen darknesses" (see here). So, the prologue of KHIII will probably have you play as her on Destiny Islands as Master Xehanort (or one of his underlings, possibly Isa) and the Heartless/Nobodies/Unversed/enemies of the day invade and prepare to capture her to harvest her light. The prologue will end with a Hopeless Boss Fight against MX (or possibly Isa) and then switch to the main story with Sora and/or Riku with Donald and Goofy. Kairi's lack of Keyblade skills will be a good "excuse" for the playable character to be low-level and not have very many abilities.
Alternatively, it could be the previous Disney villains (including Pete) invading Destiny Islands a la KH3D opening, with Kairi having to fight them in succession and defeating them until just as she's about to fight Maleficent, MX or Isa appears, curb-stomps Maleficent, and initiates the aforementioned Hopeless Boss Fight.
- Update from OP: Less likely. The secret ending to KH3D shows Kairi with Riku in Yen Sid's Tower, possibly to begin her Keyblade training. It's possible that we might get Kairi's Keyblade training as the next game's prologue, but it would be more of a surprise than the previous idea would have been if she stayed on Destiny Islands.
- Confirmed. Sorta... Ven's heart went into Sora after Birth by Sleep, but it's unknown if their hearts merged like Terra and Master Xehanort's did or if it was akin to what Kairi's heart did in the first game.
- Definitely confirmed. Nomura said something about Roxas getting Ven's heart when he was made, which is why Roxas resembles Ven.
- Not confirmed. The closest thing Nomura said was that Roxas "may or may not" have had Ven's heart, but was not definite in his answer. Based on revelations in KH3D, it is starting to look like Roxas didn't get Ven's heart, and Ven's heart stayed with Sora during CoM.
- It's all but confirmed that Roxas carried Ven's heart because the body Roxas "inhabits" during the year he's independent is actually Sora's body and that's what gives Roxas the second Keyblade eventually. However, Ventus' heart has no further influence on Roxas beyond the second Keyblade and affecting his appearance due to it being inactive and damaged. Over the course of his life Roxas developed his own sense of self and thus an own heart. All these claims that Roxas actually IS Ventus are bogus. They are two completely different and separate individuals who just happen to look very much alike due to the circumstances of Roxas' birth and origin.
- Confirmed. Sorta... Ven's heart went into Sora after Birth by Sleep, but it's unknown if their hearts merged like Terra and Master Xehanort's did or if it was akin to what Kairi's heart did in the first game.
- It's unlikely Disney would allow Square to just kill off THE most famous Disney Character though.
- Yes...but the fans said the same thing when it was leaked that Spock was going to die in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan...
This may at first sound like a redundant attempt to save the "Roxas is not a facette of Sora"-brand of theories, especially in the light of Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance], but let me explain. An interesting ammount of evidence can be found to support this theory.
Roxas, soon after his birth, slowly beginns to develope thought processes that would correspond to actual emotions, despite having no memories he could base such thought processes on. This is the basic premise that most of the afformentioned brand of theories were based on to begin with. Now, of course, Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance] reveals that Nobodies develope hearts from their thoughts and connections to others over time, the speed varying from person to person, which makes Roxas case seem less strange. However, even in the light of this, Roxas' developement into a feeling being happens with a startling speed, especially compared to the other members of Organization XIII, who have been Nobodies for much longer, yet still seem very fake and hollow, even after having had more than 10 years of time to develope a newborn heart. In fact, Axel's growth of emotional capacity only seems to suddenly skyrocket once Roxas bonds with him, implying that it's Roxas' heart that speeds up his growth, rather than the other way around, which doesn't make sense, considering how young and underdeveloped Roxas' replacement-heart for Sora's should be by this point. A case in point could be made that Xion, as a Replica, might have possessed a much more developed heart to begin with and could have caused both their growths to accelerate, but this idea fails when you realize that she was just as hollow and awkward as Roxas himself in the beginning, albeit in a different way. Seeing how Roxas is the constant between Axel's and Xion's sudden growth, he must be the cause, which would mean his heart must either have had an incredible sudden growth spurt...Or he had a rather developed heart to beginn with and it only needed a "push" to awaken.
Now, the Kingdom Hearts Ultimania Book for Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep hints that Ventus' heart might have remained within Roxas and that this might be the cause for him looking exactly like Ventus, but there's one crucial flaw in this: Both, Kingdom Hearts coded and Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance] strongly imply that Roxas is to be considered an existence seperate from Ventus. Likewise, Ventus' heart was supposed to be pure light, yet Roxas is capable of opening Corridors of Darkness and his personality, while resembling Ventus' a lot more than Sora's, is also lot more aggressive, moody and overall negative. He does a lot of things that a "Heart of Pure Light" would never do... Like senselessly destroying a computer, just to express his anger. This is something Ventus would have never done, no matter the circumstances. However, it's also made very clear that Roxas' heart is very different from Sora's, which is striking, especially compared to Axel/Lea, who apparently had his old heart and his new heart merge seamlessly upon being turned back to normal. The seamless merging-process failed with Sora, as Roxas clearly retains a seperate conciousness. The question is: Why? If he is neither Ventus, nor a natural recreation of Sora's heart, then what is his heart?
Nomura himself implying that Roxas might hold Ven's heart despite evidence to the contrary seems especially strange, as the Ultimania was likely released in a stage where the plot of Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance] had long been written already. So, while Nomura is known to occasionally retcon details, why would he outright lie at the fans? That's where this theory comes into play. What if he didn't lie? What if Roxas did hold on to Ventus' heart- but just not the half of it we assumed it to be?
Due Vanitas' physical appearance, which was caused by Ventus' initial bond to Sora, people often tend to forget that Vanitas is, in fact, not Sora's Evil Twin... He's Ventus'. It has been stated that Vanitas's "true" form is a faceless being simmilar to an heartless and Sora's appearance was only a sideeffect. Note, when Vanitas possesses Ventus, Ventus' hair and face don't change, unlike when Xehanort possesses Terra. Regardless of what he appeared to look like, Vanitas is basically just a disembodied shard of Ventus' heart. Which means that if his heart was to enter a vessel and shape it, it wouldn't end up looking like a black haired Sora. It'd look like Ventus. This would perfectly explain why Sora's body changed the way it did (even if the changes were comparably small), upon becoming Roxas.
Further, let's move on to the next exhibit: The Kingdom Hearts Novels. While generally not considered direct Canon, their content has a certain tendency to be eventually made into Canon. Knowing this, the details the Novels reveal on Vanitas' past are... interesting. They describe his initial personality as very, very simmilar to Ventus', except more aggressive, depressed and moody... Starting to sound like somebody else? The novels further explain that Vanitas only turned into the cruel psychopath he was out of despair, loneliness, and a spiral of selfharm and selfworth issues. Meaning that he, in fact, wasn't "evil" to the core, just "dark", which makes sense. This fits with this theory, since it means that if Vanitas was to start over as a blank, like Ventus did after having his heart shattered, he'd likely start with this very moody-Ventus personality again... Which applies to Roxas. Like Ventus, after the initial seperation, he started Zombie-like and amnesiac before his personality suddenly started to show. Remember, Ventus shattered Vanitas' heart in their Final Battle. It's not far-off to assume that this had a simmilar effect on him as Master Xehanort's initial seperation of them had no Ventus. Very well, let's move on.
In connection with the assumption that Vanitas wasn't evil to the core and deserves to be saved like everybody else connected to Sora... How come he does not show up in Data Naminé's list of people connected to Sora then, when he clearly *is*, through Ventus? The answer is simple: He *does* show up... As Roxas.
Next up, superficialities, aside from his looks: Roxas wields the Keyblade forehanded, rather than backhanded. While he does not employ Riku's battle stance, as Vanitas does, this still closer to him than it is to Ventus, who wields his keyblade backhanded. Of course, this could be a simple effect of his connection to Sora's memories. He is deriving his battle style from Sora's. Still, it's worth mentioning. Something simmilarly insignificant, yet worth mentioning: "Vanitas" means "Emptiness" and Nomura stated this meaning was chosen on purpose, possibly even before it was decided he'd look like Sora. Now, Vanitas, himself, while being called "empty" by Xehanort is clearly not. He has wishes, desires, emotions and a lot of other things that defy the concept of "empty". This bears a striking resemblance to how Nobodies are threated in KH2, especially Roxas, making it possible that the name was supposed to be a hint. Probably coincidentally, but also worth noticing: Both names end on "as".
Next up: Evidence in Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance] (Which I actually played, rather than just reading spoilers, you mind.) Needless to say, this section contains some spoilers, so read with caution.Vanitas appears in the game for all but 2 seconds, talking in unision with Young Master Xehanort. This brief scene is very possibly just a vision Sora has upon hearing YMX speak, though it makes you wonder how active Vanitas' conciousness is within him by that point. Flash forward to Sora's Mind Screw Royal in The World That Never Was: In his dream, Sora encounters Roxas... Who promptly states that things aren't well the way they are and infuses Sora with his memories. All at once, suddenly, with little explanation and not preparing him at all, playing directly into Xehanort's plans with it. Now... Why would Roxas do this? The "Roxas" Sora meets clearly is completly aware of what is going on and, unlike the other dream-people Sora meets, actually speaks to him for a while, implying he is doing the memory transfer conciously and willingly. However, all the memory transfer accomplishes at that point is to scare Sora so baddly that he goes into an Heroic BSoD and finally has his heart shattered by Xemnas, which benefits Team Xehanort greatly. So if Roxas was even one bit aware of what was going on he knew this was going to happen, and he still did this. Why? Being allied to Xehanort somehow (which is tragic) seems to be the only plausible explanation. Also, look at Roxas face when he transfers the memories. His expression looks surprisingly like Vanitas', when he held the X-Blade and challenged Ventus within their Dive Into Heart and is pretty much identical to Vanitas' expression in afformentioned One-Scene Wonder moment. Even more striking: If you take a close look at the timelines of Riku's and Sora's stories, you will notice that Roxas' disappearance from Sora's dream almost immediately coincides with Riku's battle against Anti Black Coat, a Nightmare-Type Dream Eater, who looks exactly like what Vanitas' "true" form has been described to look like, even featuring a simmilar battle style. A point could be made that for Sora only a few seconds pass between Roxas' disappearance and hearing Riku's post-battle pleas for him to wake up, but remember that Sora is dreaming. It was been outright stated that time doesn't flow normally within his dreams, so the entire battle against Anti Black Coat could easily have taken place in those "few seconds" between Roxas's disappearance and Riku's pleadings. Anti Black Coat being Vanitas is likely, due to all the simmilarities and Vanitas being pure darkness at the core (Though, should this theory be true, it is likely that Roxas' friendships with Axel, Xion and the virtual Twilight Gang gained him a bit of Light), so it would make sense that he'd manifest as a Dream Eater within Sora's dreamworld. After all, Riku, too, manifested as a Dream Eater, albeit as a Spirit-Type, rather than a Nightmare. It would make sense that Roxas, sensing Riku trying to interfere, "beamed out", in order to stall for time while Sora succumbs to his BSOD. Anti Black Coat being slain by Riku means nothing. He might simply have disintegrated to return to the depths of Sora's subconcious... Where Riku later finds Roxas, alongside Ven and Xion.
Summing this theory up, basically Roxas and Vanitas were the same entity all along and Vanitas basically failed twice at living a "complete" life, despite not even being a bad person and genuinely caring for someone the second time around, which would only add insult to the injury. Note how the Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep Novels implied that part of Vanitas' issues came from the fact that he found himself unable to touch anything without destroying it by impuls... And now connect this with Roxas' experience of being forced to kill Xion, one of his two dearest friends. It would make his sudden rush of rage even more justified, given that this experience probably ripped open old wounds from his previous life's trauma, even if he didn't remember conciously.
The only thing that appears unclear in this case is Roxas' motivation for aiding the Xehanorts in Kingdomhearts 3 D Dream Drop Distance. Xemnas destroyed his second chance at a life. Why would he want to aid him? The only explanation I can find: He is desperate, realizing that being merged with Sora forever is not a good prospect for him after all, despite what Naminé had said. His dialouge before the Memory Transfer seems to support this. Perhaps he was led to believe that destroying Sora's heart might be his only chance to break free, unable to believe that Sora might be able to rescue him, Xion and Ventus, thus preforming a Face–Heel Turn in a desperate attempt to escape Sora's heart? (Possibly taking Xion along with him, seeing how he clearly had the memories of her, if not her name.)
Only time will show if this theory is true, but if it was it would be a genius move by Nomura to create a character that embodies "Dark Does Not Have To Be Evil": Making us sympatize with Roxas for 2 games and then spending an entire other game making us hate Vanitas, while leaving us unaware that the two of them are basically the same person would serve to create a character that perfectly shows one of the central points of the series: Evil does not equal Darkness. Evil is something that can be shaped within the Darkness.
On the other hand, Marvel would be able to create a comic crossing over the mainline 616 universe with the series. Hell, if they can pull off Marvel vs. DC, JLA/Avengers, Avengers Vs. Transformers and (I know this doesn't really fit in but it's close) Avengers Vs. X-Men, I am looking forward to a Marvel vs. Kingdom Hearts.
- Oh god... just imagine Deadpool confronting a JRPG villain.
- It should be noted that Lea wasn't specifically confirmed either way, not to mention that Xehanort made a remark about one of the remaining three being on his side (much like how he planned on turning Sora into the thirteenth Xehanort), most likely alluding to Terra(nort). An alternate theory that seems to be spreading in some places is that with Kairi serving double-duty as both a princess and a protector, the protectors (if the configuration is indeed Sora, Riku, Kairi, Terra, Aqua, Ven, and Mickey) and princesses add up to 13 total, counterbalancing the thirteen hearts of darkness Xehanort is gathering. This, however, seems shot down by Master Xehanort speaking of how the χ-blade was broken into twenty pieces, seven light and thirteen darkness.
- But that would mean Alice has to fight.
- Actually, if you think about it, there are 7 protectors, and 7 princesses, with 1 being a member of both (Kairi). so, 6+1+6...
Bear with me here, so, we've already had YRP and Tidus, Wakka and Auron appear, so why not have them appear in their own world? So, in 3D it is stated there are seven sleeping worlds, right? It, as far as my knowledge goes, says there are more. With that, it could be possible that Spira was sleeping, which is why Tidus and Wakka are on Destiny Islands, Auron's in the Underworld and YRP are in Radiant Garden. While sleeping, Yuna is on her pilgrimage, and, in the visit in III it would now be in it's X-2 state, and Sora/Riku/Kairi/whoever is thrown in the middle of Chapter 3, where YRP fights the aeons. Later, he comes back to help the girls fight Vegnagun, but not against Shuyin, as they wish to fight him themselves.
- You are confusing something here. The "7 hearts of light" are the Princesses of Heart. The "7 protectors of light" are the keyblade wielders. They are not the same. The protectors of light are meant to guard the princesses, most likely not to become the X-Blade.
The current fragmented Realm of Light was rebuilt from the light of children's hearts. It stands to reason that instead of rebuilding a world fashioned on our old one. It was fashioned after what the children of our world knew of world or at least things with the most innocence or light came through. Thus, a realm based on Animation, Films and Video Games came into being.
The Worlds in Between are worlds made from the non-AniFilmGame fragments of our world that children can remember of it.
And the Realm of Darkness is made from the leftover fragments cast into darkness from the events that split up our world in the first place.
This explains why parts from our world is seen is various places, such as the middle of London. (It is either a fragment of the original London itself or most likely a recreation of London based on the Peter Pan film explaining why London is attached to Neverland and why Neverland's keyhole is not actually in Neverland but in London, the keyhole gravitated to the fragment closest to original world.)
- Unless, of course, Riku brings back Repliku, in which case his parents will have to deal with having identical twins.
- Assuming Repliku actually comes back, why would he want Riku to bring him back to Riku's home? The parts of Repliku's arc in CoM where he's not having his memory screwed around with revolve around Repliku asserting that his existence isn't a mere shadow of the original's. By that logic, he might not want to be living with the parents of the guy he's a copy of.
Mickey will be the 13th receptacle. His shoes sport the X mark. Plus, he wields a keyblade from the realm of darkness (the only character in the whole serie to do so). Also, Master Xehanort during 3D's cutscene showed some respect to him, almost marking him as an equal. What better receptacle there is for Xehanort than his antithesis ?
- The problem with this theory is that keyblades can be from either light or darkness. Just as far as we know the kingdom key D, Vantas's keyblade, Void Gear, and maybe master xehanorts are the only darkness based keyblades we have seen.
Since Isa and Braig's physical changes in appearance after becoming Nobodies were attributed to becoming part Xehanort, this could also explain why Zexion and Axel appear older than Ienzo and Lea. Their morphing into Xehanort caused them to grow older in appearance, even though Nobodies are confirmed not to age. This probably happened without their knowledge. Axel becoming more Xehanort-like could also account for Lea's sudden ability to manifest a Keyblade, even though he showed no hints of having the potential to when seen in Birth By Sleep.
- And this explains why Ienzo looks about 20 after being reconstituted how, exactly?
- Just because they returned to human form doesn't mean they would have lost whatever effect Xehanort had on their hearts. Lea looks about that age too when he's revived, and it doesn't seem like he could have been that old when he lost his heart.
- Perhaps, but until the next game supports/rejects this theory, I'm calling Immortality Begins at Twenty.
- This also makes Kingdom Hearts The Golden Land incidentally.
- Eraqus specifically said that "Both of you may prevail, or neither." Yen Sid said that if both Sora and Riku unsealed the seven sleeping keyholes and made it back to his tower unharmed, he would make them both masters.
- I'm fairly certain the secret message in 3D (let alone the plot of 3D itself) hints at the next game finally being the long-awaited KHIII. That being said, there's still the possibility/rumors of BBS Vol. 2 out there...
Until we learn about the Recusant's Sigil. Placing an X on something, from a piece of clothing to a name to a scar, allows Xehanort to track that thing. Before she ended up on the islands, Kairi was in the possession of Apprentice Xehanort, who 3D has also implied had his memories of being Master Xehanort all along. What am I getting at here?
Kairi has the Recusant's Sigil somewhere we can't see it. On the bottoms of her feet, perhaps... or under her clothes.
It's why she wasn't able to escape the Organization when they were looking for her in KH2. It's why Xehanort knew to look for keyblade wielders like Sora on Destiny Islands... It's why he likely knows Master Yen Sid is training her. And he's planned accordingly.
- You might be on to something here. Xehanort captured Kairi during the fall of Hollow Bastion, but instead of keeping her, he threw her into the oceans of the worlds, and she landed on the Destiny Islands. Marking her with a Recusant's Sigil would accomplish two objectives: 1. Make it easy to retrieve her when he had captured the other six princesses, and 2. Track the keyblade wielders that he knows are on Destiny Islands.
There is going to be one world for Marvel and it's going to follow the Marvel Cinematic Universe. How it's going to go is simple.
Sora will visit the world several times throughout his journey and each time he'll do something different.
He'll first meet Tony Stark and work though his movie. Then he'll leave and continue his journey. Eventually, he'll go back and meet Bruce Banner while we work with his movie. Then he'll leave again and continue to fight the bad guys of other worlds. After that we'll go back and meet up with Iron Man for the sequel. Once again (I'm starting to see a theme here) he'll work on Thor's movie. After that Sora will see Steve Rogers waking up from his Timeskip. He'll leave once again and come back and this time will meet up with all of the heroes that were on this journey.
- If the game allows you to play as Sora, Riku, and Kairi, they will encounter Nick Fury, who will task them to meet with the heroes.
- Sora will recruit Tony Stark since they're both the fun loving heroes. Iron Monger will be a warm-up boss before fighting Whiplash.
- Riku will recruit Bruce Banner since they both have that inner darkness thing going on with them.
- Kairi will recruit Thor since they both have a form of mythology to their characters.
Basic idea is simple. For this let's use New Orleans for an example. Sora will fight Dr. Facilier in the world and will meet up with Xehanort. We'll think that He's just there to mess with Sora's head. But in reality he just wants to get Facilier recruited onto New Organization XIII. He might even pull him out of whatever hell he was dragged into at the end of the movie.
Because apparently, the Japanese have a fetish for unexplainable weird stuff, so Nomura's pandering to them, not giving any care about us more logical Westerners.
- First off, Nomura already explained most of the Kudzu Plot in the Ultimania and the games. He just goes on to either make more Kudzu Plot or contradict previous explanations later. Secondly, since when has the west been in any way logical? Certainly not after Lost and Mass Effect 3.
Nomura... you magnificent bastard, I played your game!
Similarly to Roxas' part of II, you play as someone other than Sora, but unlike Roxas' part of II, you have a little elbow room, in the form of two or three worlds, maybe based off of TV Shows.
After Kairi is done with The Mystery Shack, The Tri-State Area, and Saint Canard, we shift to Sora, flying through the woods with a Komory Bat (Riku's, probably) on his back and a couple more Dream Eaters by his side, when suddenly, a cackle is heard in the distance. 'The Encounter' starts playing, and leaping onto the scene... The Headless Horseman!
- wields a Keyblade of Darkness
- possesses an Organization XIII trenchcoat
- was present during the Gathering of the Thirteen
- is a vessel for Xehanort
- To elaborate even further on this point and the idea that Mickey might die in the next game
*Mickey has the dark keyblade*Everyone says that the brightest light had the deepest darkness.*Mickey feels incredible guilt over the fate worse than death bestowed on Terra, Ven, and Aqua.*It is implied throughout the games that Mickey feels weak for not being able to save anyone. Remember the original “Ansem?”*Xehanort still needs that 13th vessel.*Nomura admitted that with every game he makes up the story as he goes along just to give a shocking ending
“I couldn’t finda way to save ‘em….. but I wanted to believe that their sacrifice stopped you for good…” He pauses and his voice cracks as he asks the simple question that’s probably been plaguing his character the majority of the games.
“Why? How was I so blind?”
And now we get into speculation of the next game. I believe that his dark keyblade will finally come into play as a plot point. Since he’s been holding the darkness in for so long, only letting it come out a few times (Kingdom Hearts II anyone?) he would be the perfect vessel for Xehanort. I think the next game will have Xehanort mess with Mickey’s head to try to make him succumb to darkness. So how is he gonna do it? Kill Minnie. I know, I’m a terrible person for thinking this, but you remember Mickey’s reaction when he thought Goofy was dead?
No grieving. Just anger.
“They’ll pay for this." Now if Mickey reacted that way for just a friend and barely retain his darkness, imagine his reaction if Xehanort killed his own wife? To go even farther… Xehanort can control people with darkness inside their hearts to do whatever he wants against their will. What if Xehanort catches Mickey off guard and takes brief control then makes him kill his own wife? Now that would definably open up all the darkness Xehanort needs for his 13th vessel.
So all of this is conjecture, but if Nomura wants a shocking ending, he would make Mickey somehow the final boss. We find Mickey at the end of KH 1. It would be a ridiculous sense of irony if King Micanort was the final boss of KH3. And think about how it ties things together! We would have gone full circle in this ending. If Mickey is killed this way, it would be symbolic of Xehanort, the deepest darkness would go down with King Mickey, the brightest light.
- Now that Disney bought Star Wars, KHIII will feature a Star Wars themed level. Imagine a boss battle with Darth Vader...
- And it will end with a Trench Run of the Death Star in a Gummi Ship.
I mean after all, whoever the protagonist is he (she?) has a magic weapon noone else has, of COURSE Gil is going to challenge him for it.
He'll also make a comment about being 'late to the party'.
In Kingdom Hearts coded not only does Data Roxas seem to be in pain, Data Riku mentions that Kairi and himself are or had at one time felt Hurt and since Sora's supposed to save everyone plus considering that Maleficent has interest in the Data worlds as well according to 3D maybe we'll see the Datascape and have Sora help Data Riku(then again Data Sora may have took that hurt away so Sora might not need to help him), Data Kairi(that is if it hasen't gotten it's Data equivilant of the heart) and Data Roxas(by dumping him into the Data Twilight Town since he wants to go there)
It'll be the darkness itself. Considering how use of darkness seems to eventually backfire on everyone (and Riku had to go through hell and back to be able to use darkness without consequence like he does now), why should Xehanort be immune to its corrupting effects? It'd make a nice Break the Haughty moment too, showing Xehanort in his final moments that despite his "destiny", he's really no better than any of the other villains we've seen get consumed by the darkness.
- Basically a Fate Worse than Death by Irony?
Riku's companions will be King Mickey and either Lea or an Aqua rescued from the Realm of Darkness
Kairi's Companions will be Queen Minnie and either Mulan or Merida.
- One of the problems with adapting "A twist in time" is that Tremaine and her daughters were sort of burned to death in Birth by Sleep. Unless their world falling to darkness and coming back brought them Back from the Dead. Unless maybe when the pumpkin blew up, they got thrown into a Plot Hole and crawled out.
- Judging by the boxart and the recent trailer, I think the tagline refers to Riku's venture into the light coming full circle, whereas Sora somehow falls to the lure of The Dark Side, most likely manipulated by Xehanort himself.
- Or that this Sora is more serious, arrogant, and dismotivated.
- A change in personality is possible, but I doubt he'll turn arrogant or ruthless. Considering his heart's supposed to have almost no darkness and all..
- Then again, Darkness can grow. Antiform is evidence of some dark influence. And while Sora may have nearly the strongest Heart shown in the K Hverse, he was designed from the start to be nowhere near as natural a hero as Riku.
- On that note, while he wasn't overly serious (which in itself could be a coping mechanism), Sora was fairly impatient and more willing to use violence in KH2.
- I figured Anti Form was more of a stress thing than darkness. But if not, it's proven in the series that all that's bad about darkness is bad people using it. Since Sora's good, maybe it means the player can have him use dark powers for good?
Twilight town, while seemingly large enough to be self sufficient, is shown to be part of some larger world(possibly the same one as Destiny Islands). This is indicated by the sprawling mountains and plains outside the town and an aqueduct/bridge connected to some unknown location. Places outside the town are also discussed.
Various Disney worlds, such as those of Mulan, Beauty and The Beast, Tarzan and the London segment of "Neverland" would indicate that they are located on some version of earth( or at the very least Eurasia). Some of these (Peter pan, Tarzan,101 Dalmatians) could be seen as a single industrial era earth, but other's (baring time travel) would need to separate.
- The full implementation of KH 1's beta Bahamut summon.
- All the Final Mix content.
- With it the ability to switch enemy palettes.
- Some Heartless from Days will appear. Most likely in Monstro
- As will some Heartless from II like ehe Assault Rider
- A revamp of the Gummi mission to bring it closer to II's version.
- The World Terminus will have Boss Rematches.
- The Dummied Out Crumbling Isand Area form End Of The World will replace Homecoming as a boss area while Destiny Islands will appear in the World Terminus.
- You can revisit the Hollow Bastion/Radiant Garden part of the Terminus. And maybe access the Cavern of Remembrance from there as well.
One possible swap would have to be Sora or Riku switching with Kairi. The idea behind this swap is that it would somehow make Kairi a better Keyblade warrior, only by having her best friend in the world inhabit her body and kill a few Heartless and Nobodies with it. I'd also see Sora managing to turn into Roxas/Ven, or Xion, since they're technically him. We also have the idea of Xehanort pulling off an Agent Smith move and jacking people's bodies and turning them into copies of himself to control. Or we can have any of the main trio turning into Ms. Most Badass Keyblade Warrior In Existance, Aqua and using some of her skills. Why? Because Aqua. Alternatively, we may end up seeing Kadaj, who as we all know, turns into.... Aerith. Exactly.
Possibilities:
Squall Leonheart: He is a veteran of the Hollow Bastion coup and the war between the denizens of Radiant Garden, Malificent and her Heartless army, and Organization XIII. He is well trained in the use of a gunblade, so transitioning to a keyblade would be relatively easy. Battling Xehanort could be part of his Redemption Quest that allows him to use his real name again.
Prince Phillip: He fought Malificent in her dragon form alongside Aqua. He's already trained with a sword, making his transition to wielding a keyblade relatively easy, just like Leon. He has the motivation to fight to protect Aurora.
Ventus: The entire point of Sora and Riku's Mark of Mastery exam was that they would learn how to awaken sleeping hearts. What other purpose can this have but to awaken Ventus? He is already a well-trained keyblade wielder.
Xion: Same principle as Ventus- awaken the sleeping heart of a keyblade wielder. Xion's existence would be stable without the Organization's influence, so this isn't a problem if they can figure out how to revive her.
Beast: A good ally in the past, but not likely due to his problems dealing with his own darkness. The fact that he fights without a weapon is also a liability.
Eraqus's Nobody: Also a longshot because of how vulnerable Nobodies are to darkness, but if his heart has had a chance to regenerate, he could be quite useful. A keyblade master is not to be lightly dismissed.
- Keyblades:
- Shields:
- Either of Captain America's shields.
- One with the crest for S.H.I.E.L.D. engraved.
- Staves:
- The Staff of One- Aesthetically, otherwise Donald would only use the same spell once.
- Loki's Scepter.
- Any of Mockingbird's Battle Staves.
- Gambit's staff
- Given that X is the recursant's sigil, and gives Xehanort the ability to track stuff, even if he's killed, I suspect Sora will be avoiding that letter and anything resembling it like the plague whenever possible, just in case.
As a precaution, Master Xehanort infused his heart within Vanitas, who has since been concealed in Sora's heart. If Riku ended up succumbing, Xehanort would simply have destroyed Sora and assimilated Vanitas. When Xehanort ended up attacking Sora in 3D, he was simply finishing the transformation, which Ven had been preventing. That's why he does not care he 'lost', since the XII Ith is already made.
- Keep in mind though, Roxas and Namine are very unique existences due to the atypical nature of their formation and their Somebodies; they are significantly different from those somebodies. Axel and Lea, by contrast, are very similar people, basically identical outwardly. Even if "normal" healed Nobodies can talk to each other like Roxas/Sora and Namine/Kairi, would they bother to talk to a person that is almost exactly the same as their are? Would they even notice if the two minds look and act basically the same?
- I think he is a failed, or nearly failed, vessel.. We can also pinpoint a very specific time as to when this happened, using just the events of KHII and Birth By Sleep. In Mickey's flashback to meeting Terranort in KHII, you can see Ansem the Wise has brown eyes and normal ears. Yet when we finally meet him, this is not the case. His skin is the same tone as it was in the flashback (he's only as tan as Xehanort when being DiZ), but his eyes are orange like Xemnas's and The Seeker of Darkness, and Ansem the Wise's ears are clearly pointed. It would seem yellow eyes, like those of Isa/Saix, Master Xehanort, and Braig/Xigbar are a different story. I think those with orange eyes are still fighting for control of their body, heart, mind, and soul. Those with yellow eyes are either willingly sharing their body or have had their true selves suppressed. What happened to Ansem the Wise happened very soon before the conversions of Braig, Dilan, Even, Aeleus, Ienzo, Isa and Axel and a very long time before the Fall of The Radiant Garden. It happened before this because a second before Terranort stabs Braig to get his heart, he specifically refers to himself as "Ansem". Braig's reaction to this as well as the delivery of the line show this is the first time he's done this. We also learn from this that Xemnas was not the first member of Organization XIII. We know this because of the events in Space Paranoids and Hollow Bastion, specifically what Tron and Mickey say about Ansem in KHII- which is that Terranort hung around for a time after stealing Ansem's identity. Tron says Ansem suddenly changed (this is supported in the manga for why Sark is the way he is), and Mickey says Terranort went around using Ansem's name and identity, and that the real Ansem disappeared before that. Ergo, we can very easily deduce that Ansem the Wise was supposed to be disposed of in some manner. Considering his strong heart and will, Terranort may have tried to possess him, and is not succeeding as well as he'd like. So he was banished to the Realm of Darkness in the hopes that Ansem's true personality would be extinguished and Xehanort could take over, making Ansem the Wise a vessel. If he succeeds or not is up in the air, but there are no coincidences in Kingdom Hearts.
This may also have certain implications for Sora; perhaps it means he'll be unable to fight in the final battle, perhaps it means he'll be forced to fight Master Xehanort "alone" (as one or all of the aforementioned incarnations), perhaps he'll become a Living MacGuffin, or perhaps Xehanort will be able to use the X-Blade to make him a puppet. Or perhaps none of the above. That's assuming he doesn't Screw Destiny, of course.
So, if Nobodies do have emotions, why do they claim they don't? Why are they so determined to get hearts? Why do the other Nobodies have so much trouble explaining emotions to Roxas? Psychological research may have an answer.
According to Wikipedia, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexithymia|Alexithymia]] is a psychological trait characterized by difficulty identifying and describing emotions in the self. Essentially, while people with alexithymia do feel emotions, they struggle in recognizing that they are feeling emotions, identifying what these emotions are, and/or describing their emotions to others. The four cardinal features of alexithymia are:
- difficulty identifying feelings and distinguishing between feelings and the bodily sensations of emotional arousal
- difficulty describing feelings to other people
- a stimulus-bound, externally oriented cognitive style (denying the importance and value of emotions or internal experiences)
- constricted imaginal processes, as evidenced by a scarcity of fantasies
So, do Nobodies have alexithymia? Well, let's look at the four cardinal features.
Difficulty identifying feelings - assuming Nobodies have emotions, their repeated claims that they do not could be a reflection of an inability to recognize when they are feeling emotions. Roxas, in 358/2 Days, is uncertain if he has emotions, largely because Axel and others keep telling him he doesn't have emotions. On the vacation day, Roxas was told vacation was a time for him to do whatever he wanted, but struggled because he had no clue what he wanted to do. Meanwhile, Axel decided to sleep and Xion trained, both activities that don't seem to take much self-reflection to decide upon.
Difficulty describing feelings - throughout 358/2 Days, Roxas keeps asking other Nobodies about various emotions and displays of emotion. Their answers are typically simplistic and confusing. Axel, for example, claims that friends are 'people who laugh together' and 'people who eat ice cream together'. [[http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1128905?uid=3739472&uid=2&uid=3737720&uid=4&sid=21103198604147|Qualitative research into children's friendships]] suggests that description of friendships based on common activities and enjoying time together is typical of grade 1-3 children, with older children emphasizing acceptance, loyalty and commitment. Given that Axel appears to be an adult, his concept of friendship seems to be well below what you'd normally expect.
Externally-oriented cognitive style and devaluation of internal experience - many of the other Nobodies openly derogate emotions, with Xaldin even describing the Beast's desire to protect Belle or the rose as a weakness. Saïx seems contemptuous of Axel and Roxas' concern for Xion's well-being. In general, many of the Nobodies encourage logical thinking, while any suggestion of emotion is met with disbelief if not disdain. However, the Organization's goal stands in contrast to this attitude - they are trying to regain hearts, which they believe will make them feel emotions again.
Poor fantasy life - this is hard to assess, because very little information is given about this area. None of the Nobodies show clear signs of a strong fantasy life, but they might simply not have talked about it. However, Wikipedia mentions a realistic dreams as an example of this, and whenever Roxas is shown to be dreaming, his dreams are replays of actual memories he's lost. He is never shown to have dreams of events that did not actually happen, much less any dreams with elements that are impossible (for the setting he lives in - hanging out with Goofy and fighting Heartless are realistic for that world). Contrast this with normal dreaming, which often involves bizarre, unrealistic events and situations.
The two more important features of alexithymia - difficulty identifying and describing emotions - are clearly typical traits of most, if not all, Nobodies. The other two cardinal traits are suggested to be present in at least some Nobodies. Although it's tough to say for sure, it certainly seems like many Nobodies do have alexithymia.
So, why do they want hearts? Well, alexithymia is negatively associated with life satisfaction - even apart from the link between alexithymia and depression and anxiety disorders. While Roxas and Xion, due to their memory loss, don't know any different, the rest of the Nobodies can remember when they had hearts, and therefore presumably realize that life is less enjoyable for them now. Alexithymics also struggle with forming emotional bonds with others, taking away one of the most important sources of happiness in many people's lives. Given this, it makes sense how desperate the Nobodies are to regain their hearts.
- Jossed by 3DS. Nobodies have tiny remnants of hearts, that feel emotions but very weakly, and can regenerate into full hearts by living life; Xehanort simply lied to them and claimed they had none at all and no hope of regrowing one to trick them into not regrowing anything long enough to infect and possess all of them. They can identify their emotions just fine, its just that the emotions are weak and hard to notice and they've been tricked into not believing the tiny remnants they feel that drive them are real.
If Kingdom Hearts III is going to feature their former selves (and Luxord's and Marluxia's too), expect them to have an Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other moment or two.
- As a LarxenexDemyx shipper, I hope this is true.
- As of late September 2014 this is starting to look likely, although still completely unconfirmed. If it does happen, my guess is that it will be released on the New 3DS.note
- Obviously I'm late on this one, but confirmed with the announcement of Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue, which will release in January 2017.
- Another thing to note is Xehanort explicitly saying that the "χ" in χ-Blade was a letter of endings.
(Just FYI, Sora, Roxas, and Lea are exempt from the list because 1] a lot of Sora's character revolves around him being a kid who isn't really supposed to be there and yet kicks ass anyways, 2] Roxas's Keyblade is technically more Sora or Ven's than his, 3] Lea just got his Keyblade and even then he had to really work for it, compare to the above five who got theirs with presumably little struggle when they inherited the power)
- Anguis- The keyblade bears a striking resemblance to Aqua's Bright Crest and while the animal, a Snake can be associated with Cunning, like you'd expect from the Mage in her own trio, it can also be associated with rebirth with the whole shedding its skin ability. I'd say this represents either Riku or Lea but leading towards Lea due to his cunning as Axel.
- Ursus- The keyblade resembles Terra's Dark Maw and had a stone like quality to it. The animal, a Bear, is treated as a major powerhouse in the animal world and commonly believe to be prone to fury just as Terra is the more physically oriented member of his trio and the one with the most anger.
- Leopardos- The keyblade bears a mixed resemblance to different keyblades used by both Ven and Roxas which is fitting as a Leopard is associated with speed more than anything else
- Vulpeus- The keyblade doesn't really resemble many older keyblades but the colour scheme is remarkably like the Destiny Embrace a Keyblade used by both Aqua and Kairi. The animal, a Fox, is treated as feminine and cunning fitting Aqua more so than Kairi but it could go either way.
- Unicornis- The keyblade bears a heavy resemblance to Vanitas' keyblade, and the animal a Unicorn is associated with purity. Vanitas is pure darkness but its possible Kairi to fit in this category instead as the likelihood of Vanitas being one of the Guardians of Light is far too unlikely.
But what if it is the heart? Anyone's heart? Specifically, what if it's the manifestation of a heart's will to return to its idea of home?
When Sora and Riku ended up in the RoD they were content to live out the rest of their lives there until Sora got Kairi's bottle. It's then that Sora's heart yearns for the Destiny Islands and his friends strong enough to summon the door. It remembers the Destiny Islands, and since it hadn't changed from its foray into the oblivion of darkness, it was waiting for him just as he left it. Thus the door opened.
Aqua's will to return is probably incredibly strong since she's been there so long and promised Ventus she'd come back soon with Terra, but she hasn't summoned the door. Why? Because she's wishing for a home that's changed so much in her absence it doesn't exist anymore. She wants to go back to Radiant Garden (ruined), to Olympus Colosseum to see Zack and Herc again (Zack's gone, Herc's grown), the princesses's worlds (destroyed in darkness and no confirmation if they've all returned safe and sound or if some are sleeping), maybe even to see the islands with those two little boys who are now cosmos-spanning heroes who've matured and changed immensely. The point is, the home Aqua's heart knows is not the home there is now, the two fall out of sync, and the door does not open.
Ansem's two times in the RoD can also be explained this way: the first time he wanted his perfect Radiant Garden back, but it was ruined by his apprentice, Xehanort, so it was revenge that fed his darkness for him to escape. The second he barely has any memory of his home in the RoL so he can't have enough will to summon the door.
The point is, you can only summon the Door to the Light if you have a strong desire for your home, but it has to match up with what your home is at that moment of time in the RoL.
- Keyblades:
- Up to three Keyblades based off the XIII triogy, wither representing Etro and her brothers or just representing the games in general.
- Brotherhood, bonus points if Tidus and Wakka are somehow involved in getting it.
- A Keyblade called Seventh Dawn, based on XIV's version of the Curtana as well as referencing both the Scions of the Seventh Dawn and Kingdom Hearts' "7 lights" plot thread.
- A Keyblade based on Odin's Zantetsuken
- A Keyblade based on either the Treaty-Blade, Sword of Kings or Tornesol
- Staves:
- The Stardust Rod.
- Nirvana
- Shield
- Crystal Silence and/or Dark Discord. both shields look fitting for this franchise
- The Holy Shield
- Alternately, in a similar vein to the Akashik Records, An Omnilex or the Veil of Wiyu
- The Zodiac Escutcheon
- Traverse Town is made of parts of worlds / discarded pages from book destroyed by the darkness.
- Sora's interference is almost always making sure that the worlds he goes to run as close to the established canon as possible, while the Heartless, the Nobodies, and the Unversed are typically trying to derail the story.
- Kingdom Hearts is the ultimate muse and Xehanort is trying to take it over so that he can control all the stories or rewrite his own.
- Memories are easily edited by Namine, which would be a lot easier to do with a written or drawn medium than manipulating actual brains.
- It's a Recursive Reality. This is why the Foretellers in Kingdom Hearts χ have their books connected to the Big Book. Maleficent is looking for this book in Coded, she is almost on the right track in that you have to hack reality to get to it. After all, 100-Acre Wood is a book...and a world. It's a Layered World after all.
- This is why one can get Akashic Records in Dataspace, although they can't read it. (Being a Heartless corrupted it)
- It's a Recursive Reality. This is why the Foretellers in Kingdom Hearts χ have their books connected to the Big Book. Maleficent is looking for this book in Coded, she is almost on the right track in that you have to hack reality to get to it. After all, 100-Acre Wood is a book...and a world. It's a Layered World after all.
But what would spur on such an action?
The Keyblade War of course. If you think about the setting being pre-War, that war is definitely on the horizon and inevitable. Right now it's just "friendly" competiton over Lux between the Foreteller's factions, but we know it'll escalate into a battle that will tear apart worlds and almost destroy the entire universe. But aren't the Foretellers, due to their Tome of Prophecy, trying to avoid this? They will probably send you back to see if you can try again and get a different outcome, but they sadly forget one lynchpin: events that are destined to happen cannot be changed. And so with your higher level and super powerful deck, you get sent back again, and again, and again, going through the same worlds with tougher battles as you try to stop the Keyblade War from happening and only getting involved in it time and time again.
- We see Neoshadows in the flashback that shows Vanitas being created, so they already existed and were able to enter the realm of light before Ven's heart was shattered.
- The Paradox Cup gave the arena the same coloration as the River Styx; which is related to the Well of Souls. The Paradox Cup is in the Well of Souls, essentially. He sets up his lesser avatar (it wasn't his entire godly essence trapped in the Well) to host the Cup and manipulate the lost souls into Heartless or the forms of enemies Sora had already fought. At the very end of the Paradox Cup, Sora fights Hades again, and knocked him out of the Arena....well, he actually knocked his trapped essence out of the Well of Souls.
- Restored Hades doesn't kill Sora because....why would he? This kid is useful!
Furthermore, each will have a separate combat style. Sora will use Flowmotion and whatever new abilities KHIII gives him, Roxas will prefer Synch Blade, Xion will use Sora's memories of his Drive Forms, Ventus will use Command Styles, and Vanitas will use a frenetic style by darkness. They may even be able to work together to power up, such as Ven and Vanitas giving Sora the χ-blade, Xion giving Roxas Oblivion for Synch Blade, Roxas combining with Xion for Final Form, Ventus gaining Synch Blade from Sora's heart (and possibly wielding the χ-blade via Sora & Ventus), and Sora & Ventus giving Vanitas the ability to use light in conjunction with darkness (and possibly going to Riku for help learning to balance the two). Sora, Ven, and Vanitas (and eventually Roxas) will be able to share Ven's Keyblade Armour, while Xion either uses her replica armour or gets to use Ven's, too.
Considering similarities to other playable characters, Sora will likely remain the "main" personality, and only be able to switch to the others for short periods of time. All 4/5 (and maybe copypasta Ansem) will eventually be separated, with Ven and Vanitus either becoming one or learning to work together and balance each other out.
Data-Sora becomes their Voice with an Internet Connection.
How is this relevant to future events? If changing the past is possible after all, then Young Xehanort suddenly becomes a massive liability to Master Xehanort's plans. If he dies or turns good, then all of Master Xehanort's schemes fall apart before they even began. But since Xehanort has become so entwined with the series' history at this point, removing his influence from the timeline would have immesurable consequences, possibly requiring a total reset on the universe like what happened after the Keyblade War.
And how would such a cataclysm come about? Sora undergoes a Face–Heel Turn, like many of us already suspected, but instead of joining Xehanort, he destroys him (by destroying Young Xehanort) and takes over as the series' Big Bad (or is just barely stopped from becoming the Big Bad by the timely intervention of the other heroes).
- Xemnas explains this a little bit in III- I-VI are Ansem's apprentices. VII and VIII "joined thereafter" implying there is no real reason, or one he cares to share, for Saix and Axel, but then he explains IX-XII. Demyx, Luxord, Marluxia, and Larxene all ancient Keyblade Weilders, and were brought on to awaken the sleeping Keyblade legacy within them.
- Not quite. Xion just takes on the physical appearance of someone relating to Sora if the person looking at her knows someone who fits that role. Roxas sees a girl who looks similar to Kairi, Xemnas sees Sora himself, while Saix sees her with just her hood up. Xigbar sees her as Ven due to his heart being within Sora's.
- Jossed- Daybreak Town, while it does fall to ruin, is actually Scala ad Caelum.
- One must be able to Leave their Body. This throws a wrench in the works here considering Sora released His and Kairi's hearts after this scene, but Kairi's heart entered Sora's at the beginning, thanks to an enchantment from Aqua.
- The past can't be changed: Sora appears as a ghost in that scene, floating and all, so its unlikely he is able to interact with the Younger Kairi or her grandma.
- One can only travel back to a point where they are still alive. It's obvious that Sora and Kairi are of similar age, but if there is a spatial limit as well then it's almost rules that out.
- The time traveler must return to their otigianl time and cannot remember anything about the timeframe they visited: The scene is a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment. And the sequels haven't brought up that memory outside of maybe a flashback in Roxas' Dreams
- All true except maybe the sixth Foreteller being the traitor.
- Seemingly jossed- Elrena was at worst standoffish as a Somebody, and was ultimtely rather selfless.
And admit it, she'd look cool in Widow's outfit.
- Jossed. Elrena is met in X, and is a distant but good person. She also dresses in a cute teal leather jacket with matching boots, a black skirt, and a white blouse with a black tie, so no Widow costumes either.
It's also safe to assume characters like Namine or Xion are also meant to be Take That! and deconstructions of typical Mary Sues found often in fanfics.
- Even if this is not canon, this is my headcanon, thank you.
- Sora travelled to the past, but somehow, Roxas was splitted from him. They both had their own body.
- Master Xehanort completely defeated Sora and used his body as an experiment to create 'Vanitas'. Other WMG pointed out how Sora's probably no longer human at this point for all the things he'd gone through.
- Roxas lost his memory, adopted the name 'Ventus' and trained along with Aqua and Terra.
- 'Ventus' destroyed 'Vanitas'. Since the future!Sora was gone, Roxas could only return to reside inside past!Sora.
- Jossed, full stop.
The power of Kingdom Hearts can only be accessed with somebody with both Light and Darkness in their hearts; if, for example, Kairi or Ventus attempted to access it's power, it would be destroyed by the darkness of Kingdom Hearts instead. This is to ensure that the wielder of the Χ-blade can always access the power of Kingdom Hearts. Conversely, however; somebody without Light or Darkness within them whatsoever could also access its power, as it wouldn't be recognized by Kingdom Hearts enough to warrant destruction.
- (Backstory-wise, the beings watching over the Marvel Multiverse saw the darkness coming for them as soon as they were folded into Disney's Multiverse, so they sacrificed a single universe to keep it from affecting the rest of the Multiverse. The AEMH Universe was the one unlucky enough to be axed, and it was ripped to shreds.)
The chess theory suggests that Luxord will be part of or allied with the Seekers of Darkness, as his supposed symbol - the dice - is a piece on Xehanort's side of the board. Now, his possible motivations for joining them are a complete mystery since we know NOTHING of his backstory. What we DO know, though, is that while he stayed with the Organization till his death, there is nothing so far that suggests that he was in it for anything more than regaining his heart. If he was recompleted, then the most likely outcome for him is to simply continue living a normal life. Thus, his alignment will have to be addressed one way or another; if he was forced to join, why was he important enough for the New Org. XIII to take him? If he joined of his own accord, why would he, the Gambler of Fate, be willing to become Xehanort's Soul Jar? The answer will no doubt be an interesting one, and there is potential for him to play a role like Xigbar/Braig's - a secondary but very real threat with his own enigmatic agenda to fulfill.
Also. Time powers. Nuff said.
When Sora released the hearts within himself at the end of KH1 and turned himself into a heartless, His body was cast off to become a Nobody, but Ventus's heart was also released. Since it couldn't rejoin with his body (either its still too weak or just unreachable), it grabbed onto the next best thing: Sora's discarded body, which it then reshaped to better resemble Ventus's real body.
- Depression/Anxiety/Other Mental Illnesses: The way Aqua keeps facing herself and her negative self-talk in A Fragmentary Passage is very reminiscent of intrusive thoughts, a symptom of anxiety and bipolar disorder, in which your mind tries to convince you to do ego-dystonic things (things that are basically the polar opposite of your personality). So because Aqua is dead set on not falling into the darkness, part of her brain is telling her to do exactly the thing she fears the most.
- Meanwhile, her behavior with Terra is very much like a person helping someone with an addiction or compulsion towards other destructive (or self-destructive) behavior- concerned and afraid that he might do something dangerous, but trying to believe in him.
- Anger and Other "Flawed" Traits: Darkness is pretty explicitly associated with impulsiveness and anger, but the belief that darkness and light must co-exist is An Aesop about the fact that we all have these traits, and that we cannot overcome them without accepting them first.
This is under the assumption that it'll star our characters who didn't vanish. But... even if they're retellings, they aren't filler adventures, they end up giving the heroes something to go off of...
- Return to Arendelle - The characters visit Arendelle again... but this time it's the events of Frozen II. (...come on, you know Disney would be strict.) Despite being somewhat of a retelling, ending with a boss fight of the Heartless of Elsa & Anna's grandfather (fused with the dam - a representation of it), it frees everyone from being trapped in space. Thus they end up wondering if this is what happened to Sora, and if there was something that could free him.
- Motonui - since Te Ka is basically a heartless already. Another "direct adaptation", but this actually fits into the lore of Kingdom Hearts already since the goal is for Moana to restore the Heart of Te Fiti. This ends up giving the characters the idea that if they were to find Sora's wandering heart, he could possibly be restored this way, much like how he was back in Kingdom Hearts. Even is even told about this and contrasts it to Davy Jones in The Caribbean, since Davy Jones's heart was more of a literal thing (his organ) rather than the symbolic term used in Kingdom Hearts. (What makes you, you)
- Four Kingdoms - a world required to be played after Motonui because our heroes, citing the events of Motonui, wonder if Mor'du can be restored in such a way since the bear form is basically Mor'du's heartless. Unfortunately, all it does is allow Mor'du to die as himself, so the heroes wonder if this is what might happen to Sora, but since Merida's mother was restored, if maybe it was the timing, that since Sora wasn't gone as long as Mor'du (and isn't selfish like Mor'du was), he could be restored.
- The Land of the Dead - which takes place after Coco, but shows the characters viewing Day of the Dead and showing how people can still exist as long as you remember them... thus tying it into Chain of Memories in a way, and establishing that as long as Sora is remembered, he's not lost. Also Ernesto's heartless tries to make people get forgotten as revenge.
- He appears to be a retroactive example of Prompto from Final Fantasy XV and Final Fantasy Versus XIII, just like how Luxord is a retroactive example of Ignis. Since he's stated to have a Friendless Background, it's very likely no one noticed his disappearance when he lost his heart and became a Nobody. This is probably why he became the first of those connected to the ancient Keyblade War to join Organization XIII. Demyx will most likely play a small, but crucial role in helping the heroes get to Yozora's world.
- Moana Waialiki: Her journey to return the Heart of Te Fiti may serve as the ultimate test for her in becoming a Princess of Heart.
- Tiana: Her love for Naveen and her Character Development will most likely fill her heart with light.
- Merida: Her Coming of Age Story and Character Development (Becoming more mature and willing to admit her mistakes) will fill her heart with pure light.
- Pocahontas: Very unlikely, considering that the Kingdom Hearts franchise will use 3D animated films for new worlds from now on, but the possibility still exists. Her desire to bring peace between her people and the settlers will make her a good candidate for a Princess of Heart.
- Asha: Asha's attempt to free the wishes Magnifico hoarded will fill her heart with light, and Star's presence will also serve as a Secret Test of Character for the girl. She will also likely be the last new heart of pure light to be revealed.
- Judging from the scenes in Melody of Memory's trailer, Kairi was also probably experimented on by Xehanort before she ended up on the Destiny Islands. It's during those experiments she met Subject X and befriended her, with the unidentified girl becoming a big sister figure to her in the short time they had before Subject X disappeared.
- First of all, pun. Nothing has been stated in the story so far that would explicitly ban a Keyblade from being a card. Bonus points if the Wild Card that Luxord gave Sora turns out to be Luxord's Keyblade. Why he gave it to Sora, and how did he get it back while Marluxia, Demyx and Larxene didn't, I don't know.
- Hawaii: A proper adaptation of the film, including the franchise's human characters for the first time in KH. The story of Stitch finding Ohana just feels right for KH feel-good heart stuff.
- Game Central Station: Accessed in a similar way to Space Paranoids, via an arcade machine in Radiant Garden or wherever. The Heartless could resurrect the Cy-Bug King Candy, who's just begging to be made into a boss fight in a real video game.
- Alternatively, The Internet.
- Springfield: Hey, it's a total possibility now. It could probably include a ton of Lampshade Hanging and Self-Deprecation jokes about common KH tropes like the constant use of "light" and "darkness" or the overly-convoluted storyline. Sideshow Bob could lead a Heartless invasion in order to get revenge on Bart, who would be your party member along with Homer.
- Or alternatively, a Simpsons world could be an adaptation of the arcade game with Maggie being kidnapped since it's believed she's one of the New Seven Hearts.
- Tri-State Area: Doofenshmirtz accidentally summons the Heartless to Danville in yet another petty scheme. However, this world would be visisted twice during the story, a la KHII. Once with Sora, who teams up with Phineas and Ferb to defend the town and do whatever Sora is doing in the worlds in this game, and once with Riku, who teams up with Perry to stop the invasion at the source.
- Zootopia: There are so many creative things they could do with this world design-wise, and the film's social commentary could lend itself well to something about the nature of the heart and how it connects people. It could also be a great world to introduce Ensemble Dark Horse Freya, another Funny Animal discriminated against for her species, to the franchise in.
- A Galaxy Far Far Away: Could loosely follow A New Hope as Sora and co. visit Tatooine, get pulled aboard the Death Star, and take part in the trench run in the most epic Gummi mission ever.
- Marvel Universe: A more action-focused take on the Hundred-Acre-Wood formula: collecting pages in a comic book across the worlds in order to take part in different missions where Sora teams up with a new Super Hero against an epic boss fight with an iconic villain:
- Spider-Man vs Green Goblin
- Captain America vs Red Skull
- Iron Man vs the Mandarin
- Fantastic Four vs Doctor Doom
- Thor vs Loki
- Hulk vs Abomination
- X-Men vs Magneto
- Wolverine vs Sabretooth
- Avengers vs Ultron
- Guardians of the Galaxy vs Galactus
- Nova vs Abominus
- Doctor Strange vs Dormammu
- Captain Marvel vs Thanos
- Daredevil vs Kingpin
- Black Panther vs Klaw
- Ghost Rider vs Blackheart
- Deadpool vs Taskmaster
- Gravity Falls: So much creative potential with this world. Dipper trying to understand the Heartless scientifically, Mabel shooting them with glitter cannons, epic, mind-bending Bill Cipher boss fight, the list goes on.
- Ducktales (either the original or the reboot): Magica DeSpell teams up with Maleficent & Pete to search for the Black Box, which leads to a grand adventure across the worlds with Scrooge and the triplets by your side.
- The Boiling Isles: Because whatever armies of enemies and weirdos who show up here will be, no one will bat an eye because everything on The Boiling Isles is weird and creepy enough as it is. Only Luz and Eda would notice something is wrong and will help Sora set things right.
- Kumandra: The Drunn already look like Heartless, so people learning there is a difference between the two might actually surpise them. A Drunn/Heartless fusion shaped like a dragon is a must for a the final boss of the world.
- The Grid: With the more modern, sci-fi look of KH4 and TRON Ares on the horizon, it'd be cool to see Sora and crew return to the TRON world.
- Xigbar (II) - Toy Soldier
- Xaldin (III) - Storm Rider
- Vexen (IV) - Blizzard Lord
- Lexaeus (V) - Antlion
- Zexion (VI) - a Bookmaster.
- Saïx (VII) - Assault Rider
- Axel (VIII) - the Trickmaster in Wonderland from KH 1.
- Demyx (IX) - Turquoise March
- Luxord (X) - Minute Bomb
- Marluxia (XI) - Creeper Plant
- Larxene (XII) - Yellow Opera
In the first Kingdom Hearts, the first numbered entry in the Dark Seeker Saga, Chernabog was fought just before Ansem. So how about making the final villain of Fantasia's sequel pay tribute to that moment by being fought before the final boss in the first numbered entry in the second saga of the franchise?
What could happen is that the Kingdom Hearts teams could make games with the same quality as KHIII with different protagonists for each game (such as Yozora, Kairi, and the Clock Tower and Wayfinder trios, and maybe a few others as well) before it all culminates in KHIV, similar to a typical Phase in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
- Jossed; KHIV will be the next game to come out of the franchise (not counting Missing Link. Guess those plot points will have to wait.
\\This is not getting into Tetsuya Nomura having worked out a way to canonize Sora's Smash inclusion as part of the Kingdom Hearts lore, and may even by why he came up with the "Worlds of Fiction" concept in the first place. This could also mean we'll be seeing Nintendo characters in a later Kingdom Hearts title.
- Lightyear - As mentioned above, Lightyear is a fictional property in the Toy Story world, similar to Verum Rex, so it's perfect for a fictional world.
- Bolt - The main character is a dog that stars in a TV show where he has superpowers. A world where we team up with Bolt and fight Dr. Calico is another ideal choice for unreality.
- TRON and Wreck-It Ralph: Both take place inside digital video game-type environments.
Roxas actually being Ventus's Nobody might also explain the weirdness with Sora's Heartless (of which there are many oddities). Sora's Heartless, a Shadow, is an unusually passive and gentle Heartless, non-offensive and really only capable of bouncing around. Kairi is instantly able to recognise him. Sora's Heartless knows to go after his friends, and is aware enough that the very first person he goes to is not Kairi who he spent the whole game trying to save or Goofy, but the healer, Donald. He looks up at him, presumably for help. Sora actually says he wasn't yet consumed by the darkness when he heard Kairi's voice. Sora didn't become a Heartless the way other people do, after all, so he still had the light in his heart when you play as his adorable Heartless. Something else that actually points towards Sora not actually losing his heart is the fact he does become a Shadow. It's said time and again that powerful hearts make powerful Heartless. So why does Sora, whose heart is very, very strong, become a Shadow? Sora has been wanted repeatedly by the bad guys for his powerful Heartless. Yet when he becomes one it's one of the weakest and most common Heartless? This doesn't really make a lot of sense. This may be because Sora's heart went into a kind of shock thanks to the fact until right then, Sora had something like 266% of a heart, courtesy of Kairi and Ventus. this shock, as well as the fact he still had his light to a degree, may have been why Sora retained who he was. It also might explain why Kairi was able to restore him. Nobody knows where Sora's body went when it disappeared, but since he only produced a puny Shadow, it's likely Sora did not produce a Nobody at all, as only those with strong hearts produce Nobodies. With this in mind, it actually kind of makes sense Kairi's heart of light was able to restore Sora without destroying his Nobody or Heartless. There was no Nobody to destroy, so naturally the rules might be different, as they are for Nobodies who don't have Heartless. It may be that all a Heartless with no Nobody needs is to come in contact with light again to be restored. So again, Sora did not produce a Nobody of himself. He instead produced one of Kairi and one of Ventus. Unrelated, but I suggest this unusual reversion might be the real reason why Anti-Form exists. Sora's heart is super unstable.
Another thing worth taking into account is the fact that Namine... never encounters Ventus in Sora's heart. She never comments about finding things within Sora that she can't touch. She should see Ven, considering he is so intrinsically tied to Sora's heart, but she doesn't. This may mean Ven is not in Sora's heart at the time. Ven's heart does seem to actually be in his Dive to the Heart. This is tricky to explain, but when Sora finds his Power of Waking, he does not unlock a keyhole over his Station's heart. He instead unlocks a keyhole in the middle of the floor. Yet when he releases Ven's heart, he unlocks a keyhole over Station Ven's heart. This, to me, says Sora isn't unlocking his heart to free Ven's. Instead, it seems that Ven's heart took refuge in his own Station, since it had nowhere else to go on being released from Sora's heart. Sora unlocked the Power of Waking at his own station, and called forth Ven's Station to free Ven's heart. Notably, Sora's Station doesn't transform into Ven's. Sora is floating over a dark abyss that Ven's blooms from.
If Roxas is actually Ven's Nobody, and not Sora's, this would still tie Sora to Ventus even without Ven's heart still in Sora's. It would mean Sora still has part of Ven within him, explaining why Sora has intrusive thoughts and reactions that are actually those of Ventus, when Sora never had that kind of problem before. Roxas, being a Nobody born of pure light, is still tightly connected to his Somebody. Roxas has his connections to Sora mostly courtesy of Namine's tampering and the fact that he is born of Sora's body, just like Namine, but not of Sora's heart. Roxas does "return" to Sora, but this may be because he was born out of Sora. Notably, when Sora Awakens Ventus, Roxas doesn't disappear. He stays in Sora.
Roxas being a Nobody born of a heart of pure light would also explain why, unlike the other twelve in the Organization, he maintained his "good" personality, just as Namine did. Both of them also dress in whites and creams, and Roxas dresses a lot like Ventus (side note: Namine may be blonde because she was born of a heart of pure light. Ventus was already a blonde, though). Even as their reformed Somebodies, Lea and Isa lean towards dark colours.
- Anastasia
- Aladdin
- Alien
- Atlantis
- Avengers
- Bendy and the Ink Machine
- Black Cauldron
- Cuphead
- Disney Land
- Duck Tales
- Emperor's New Groove
- Epic Mickey
- Fantastia
- Ferngully
- Haunted Mansion
- Hercules
- House of Mouse
- Gargoyles
- Gravity Falls
- Great Mouse Detective
- Lightyear
- Lilo and Stitch
- Nightmare Before Christmas
- Phineas and Ferb
- Pirates of the Caribbean
- Pocahontas
- Predator
- Princess and Frog
- Radiant Garden
- Spies In Disguise
- Star Wars
- Sword and the Stone
- Timeless River
- Toy Story
- Traverse Town
- Treasure Planet
- TRON
- Turning Red
- Twilight Town
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
- Wreck-It Ralph
- Zootopia
In Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories, Axel, then still part of Organization XIII, exposits to Sora the following: "Our most precious memories lie so deep within our hearts that they're out of reach." His words are echoed by Xemnas, in Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance: "The memory and heart are tightly linked. Rub a few memories together, and you get a spark of emotion, a feeling." These sentences in conjunction can be read as: a heart contains MEMORIES.
Now, where do hearts go? In-universe text tell that the hearts go to Kingdom Hearts:
- A mysterious text in Ansem's laboratory in The End of The World (Kingdom Hearts 1) says thus: "[Heartless] Seize all hearts and consummate the great heart. All hearts to be one, one heart to encompass all. Realize the destiny: the realm of Kingdom Hearts." (bold not in original)
- Saïx's speech at Hollow Bastion during the turning point in Kingdom Hearts II: "Pitiful Heartless, mindlessly collecting hearts. And yet they know not the true power of what they hold. The rage of the Keyblade releases those hearts. They gather in darkness, masterless and free... until they weave together to make Kingdom Hearts." (bold added)
- King Mickey explains the nature of the Kingdom Hearts that appears in the first game (Kingdom Hearts 0.2: A fragmentary passage): "Welp, it's not the Kingdom Hearts you know. Not exactly. But even though it's smaller, it's still the heart of many worlds." (added bolding)
Kingdom Hearts is an aglomeration of hearts, whether of people or of worlds, as Maleficent muses in Kingdom Hearts II: "The heart of all kingdoms, the heart of all that lives."
If an individual heart learns from EXPERIENCE and holds MEMORIES, then the longer-lived hearts contain the most experience and the most memories. This includes skills, secrets, and powers. If Kingdom Hearts exists since time immemorial, and Kingdom Hearts is, in itself, both ONE HEART and "the heart of ALL worlds", surely the combined hearts that comprise Kingdom Hearts are to be avidly sought after by many parties, as Maleficent puts it in the first game: "(...) a door will open to the heart of all worlds. Within lies untold wisdom." (bolding added)
Since Kingdom Hearts is the aglomeration of every heart in the universe, and one heart contains EXPERIENCE and MEMORY, the great heart certainly contains the EXPERIENCES and MEMORIES of every heart that ever lived and ever will be. That is what it makes Kingdom Hearts such a prize: whoever takes hold of it will surely become a god.