Kingdom Hearts

The only way to die in Kingdom Hearts is if Disney loses the legal rights to you, like poor Clayton.

I think her merging completely stopped being possible as soon as she gained a heart and mind of her own. Even now, she is a separate person within Sora's heart.

That's kind of what I mean. It seems like once you develop a separate personality you can never really go back to being a part of the original. At most you're just dormant in them. Contrast the Sora/Roxas/Xion situation with what happened with Lea/Axel. He considers himself Lea but there's never any hint that Axel is a separate entity within him. I'm guessing this is because he never lost his memories and developed a separate persona.

@InkDagger

But the purity of the Princesses of Hearts comes from the 7 light fragments of the shattered X-blade, meaning there should only ever be 7 natural pure lights at a time. So it would make sense if the past generation of Princesses (except for Kairi) lost their purity, or else it'll upset the balance of 7 lights and 13 darknesses.

By retaining their memories, normal Higher Nobodies have a sense of continuity that bridges their non-existences with their former complete existences. So yeah, Axel is just the continuation of Lea's life, while Roxas, Xion and Sora ended up being entirely different individuals.

edited 17th Jun '18 6:12:53 PM by sleeping-in-bloom

@Drag: How do you figure Nomura doesn't care for Sora?

It was my reading of the earlier quote about how he thinks of him primarily in terms of what attacks he would unleash on him or something, but in retrospect I glanced over it too quickly and didn't read it properly.

I'm going to need some sources on how concrete that '7 lights from Chi Blade = 7 Princesses of heart'. Particuarly since my understanding was that the Princess of Heart predate the Chi Blade and are needed to forge it, not the other way around. Even then, I don't remember any actual scene seriously discussing it so clearly in which case I'd still argue its the easier retcon to just say there are more Princess of Heart.

Not like Fan Fic writers haven't been going that route for years anyway.

As for death, no, it has to exist. And I don't mean 'They got better', forgetting, or 'temporary headache' death but real actual death. Because everything in the series, especially the Disney worlds, lose stakes if death isn't a thing and start to fall apart.

• Mufassa dies in Pride Rock. Scar gets killed by Simba at the end to bring order back to the world. This plot does not work if no one can die. Not only would the plot starting event be impossible, Scar's death would mean nothing if 'He didn't die. He's just gone for now'.

• Anna and Elsa's parents die to put Elsa in a deep depression. That loses its weight of... they didn't die.

• Hades is Lord of the Dead and even refers to himself as this. If death doesn't exist, who is populating the Underworld? Are people just... born dead?

• Kala's child dies in Tarzan before she comes across the infant Tarzan who's parents had just been killed by the Jaguar. All three of those deaths are important to them as characters as its what puts them together. If none can die... What's the motive for Kala? Or, does this mean Tarzan's parents are searching for him somewhere?

• Mulan's journey in Kingdom Hearts takes a turn when she wasn't around to help defend a village and the village was destroyed and, in the reciprocal scene in the film, many people died including a little girl. This is important to Mulan's journey as a character and... It doesn't work if 'Nah, no one died. Lol Only the village burned. We got everyone to move to the city safely'.

• Both the Evil Queen and Maleficent want to kill Snow White and Aurora respectivly. Neither of them would really settle for some 'Temporarily gone' state and, in fact, that kind of a state is what thwarts BOTH of their plans as others are able to free the princesses. They want them DEAD and gone.

• God help us if they ever have a Coco world.

I don't care if Word of God claims that death doesn't exist or people just come back later on. The plots fundementally cannot work otherwise and it raises more questions that we're never going to get an answer for. For example, if no one can die, do people age? We've seen old people and children, so does this mean people get to death's door and just never die? How does royalty and succession work if no one dies? How are the terms of combat and warfare decided if neither side can actually lose people? Do some worlds have a population crisis?

It just can't function like this. I'm sorry, but it can't.

I agree with you on the whole death thing, so I'm not gonna go into that.

But according to the Kingdom Hearts wikis, the phenomenon of seven Princesses of Heart only came into existence after the Keyblade War had happened and the World had split into fragments of smaller Worlds, so to answer your chicken-and-egg question, the X-blade came first. Also, from what I remember of Xehanort's Reports (or the glossary in KH3D), the X-blade and (the real) Kingdom Hearts existed before anything else in the universe, so there's that.

And like I said, retconing the lore so there could be more than seven natural pure lights at a time would only upset the balance between 7 lights and 13 darknesses.

edited 17th Jun '18 7:50:06 PM by sleeping-in-bloom

I thought of an idea for a story for a NieR: Automata world; Max Goof is in the world training to be a keyblade wielder with A2. However, Goofy is worried that A2's training is having a negative effect on Max's psyche, so the two of them don't get along.

I think its important to note that that quote from Nomura about his feelings regarding Sora and stuff came out at more or less the same time that SE took Versus/XV away from him. Considering how much his dream project got fucked over by XIII and XIV, I can’t blame him for being in an angry state of mind after getting booted as soon as the game received enough priority and resources to actually start getting made. And then there’s even everything Tabata did to it (I will never not be salty about Stella).

I think someone here proposed that maybe the Hearts of pure light changed due to that time in 1 where they were ripped out of the Princesses to form ASOD’s abomination of a X-blade. I like that idea.

edited 17th Jun '18 8:32:16 PM by TheAirman

The quote "There is no concept of death in kingdom hearts." isn't literal, Nomura explains it as someone who has lost their heart or been trapped in a magical coma or vanished into the realm of darkness isn't truly gone and they are only waiting for their "Birth By Sleep"

x4

They could honestly just handwave it as Ansem wasn't entirely correct in his estimation. He knew of seven and assumed there were seven and Maleficent seems to get her knowledge of the seven from both Ansem and Xehenort so it wouldn't be out of place. His password is even their names and, to be clear, he would have had to program that password within a year of BBS (because Radiant Garden is "destroyed" and Ka-...Huh, plot hole but I'll get to that later) and... Alice is actually younger than Kairi. This seems odd to me. So none of the "Lights" changed in a period of ten years? But suddenly a number of them change in the two years or so between KH 1 and KH 3?

Nevermind that the "new" lights are around 20 years old and thus their life times overlap with the "old" lights they replaced. Did they suddenly become "pure untouched by darkness" recently? How does that work? This doesn't make any sense.

I don't think it upsets the "7 lights vs. 13 Darknesses" because its not like the 13 darknesses are inherent either. Xehenort created them so there's no reason to think he couldn't concievably create extra. They just need 7 vs 13 to get the Chi blade. I've yet to see anything to suggest that it couldn't be a mix of "Guardians" and "Princesses" and that has to be true anyway if Kairi is going to be one of both qualifications.

Anyway, plot hole I noticed. So, Kairi's homeworld was said to fall to darkness and she survives and is ejected to Destiny Island. But, later we find out that Hollow Bastion survived and is just being used by the Big Bads as their base of operation. It never actually fell to darkness. So... how did Kairi end up in Destiny Island? Did he 'heart' sense the darkness and will herself into an escape? If so, why didn't this happen again later when Destiny Island was swallowed by the darkness?

Well that explains his negative emotions.

I feel for the poor guy, especially with how much of a disaster XV became.

And don't no one say they fixed it with time because no your supposed to get it right from the start not a year later with a bunch of DLC & expansions.

edited 17th Jun '18 9:22:59 PM by slimcoder

Final Fantasy Versus XIII

Noctis even dies at the end after losing the love of his life, his father and going into a coma where he loses 10 years of his life.

Perhaps the force (Kingdom Hearts? Or the 7 light fragments themselves) that keeps the Princesses of Heart pure sensed the threat of Xehanort and his Seekers, and decided to 'move' the pure lights around and 'put' them in girls that are more capable of defending themselves (hence why Kairi's still a Princess. She's training to become a fighter.). Or the change in Princesses (except for Kairi because her heart was safe within Sora while the others were captured) already happened because of Ansem SoD's actions all the way back in KH1. We don't actually know if Snow White and co. were still pure after the events of KH1. Either way, it's possible that Princesses of Hearts aren't actually born pure, and the purity they acquire later in life is in fact just temporary.

The balance exists because the X-blade was shattered into 7 light fragments and 13 dark fragments during the Keyblade War. It's not an arbitrary rule Xehanort made up.

We're talking about pure lights, not all those who are on the side of Light. So Kairi being both a Princess of Heart and a Guardian doesn't contradict anything. There would still just be seven natural pure lights.

The spell Aqua cast on Kairi's pendant in BbS detected the impending danger and transported her to Destiny Islands. And when Destiny Islands fell to the Darkness, Kairi's heart found refuge in Sora's heartspace, so it did technically happen again.

edited 17th Jun '18 9:47:23 PM by sleeping-in-bloom

Ansem SOD's actions making a group of seven young women who are 'pure of light and free of darkness' suddenly... not pure and free of darkness has some Unfortunate Implications.

If there's some 'Force that can shift the lights around', even if its just 'Kingdom Hearts' needs to be explained. And we're already in a discussion that is mostly talking about a problem that needs to be explained so this is just a nesting problem.

If the Princess of Heart status is temporary, that's also something that should have been explained ages ago and raises more questions than answers. Is there a specific action that makes one a Princess of Heart? Why does everyone talk about them like they are forever one when its more of a current attribute? Why is this 'special' when, well, its temporary and might as well be treated as 'Hey, you just don't have darkness right now but you'll just grow some in a few years'. I feel like we've had dozens of characters who are basically pure of heart and free of darkness, but that a Po H pureness is some how more pure than humanly possible. It gets confusing to think about.

You're missunderstanding me when I'm talking about Xehenort creating the darknesses. Yes, we need 7 v 13 to get the Chi Blade. But, its not like there are 13 MacGuffin jars that need to possess a person to create those darknesses. Xehenort himself is creating the darknesses that he will use to fulfill the 13 such as possessing Aqua, possessing Xigbar, Luxord, Marluxia, Larxine, and Demyx, possibly possessing Vexen's Repliku, and even orchestrating the Time Travel for his younger self AND (somehow) resurrecting both his Nobody AND his Heartless.

The fact that he even has the threat of 'If the heroes don't comply, I'll just use the 7 Princess of Heart instead' suggests that the 7 vs 13 don't have to be a specific 7 and 13, just as long as they have 7 and 13 who fill out the qualifications. Thus my argument is that, if Xehenort could theoretically have ADDITIONAL Darknesses on retainer if he ever needed, why can't the light have the same with additional Princess of Heart?

Otherwise... Sora could just kill one or two of Xehenort's 13 or just EVERYONE protect one or two of the lights with everything they have and Xehenort is defeated. Or postphoned until they have a better means to end the battle. "Woop. I killed one of your darknesses. Guess you have only 11 and will never have 13. Haha. Game over".

But, since that's obviously not the solution for the heroes, this 100% suggests that Xehenort could just create more (via We Have Reserves) so I still don't see why the Light can't operate on the same rules.

By the way, no, you're not seeing things, my eyes have rolled into the back of my skull at this point with how overly complex this cosmology has become.

edited 17th Jun '18 9:51:03 PM by InkDagger

Yeah, so? Apprentice Terranort's reports in KH1 did mention experiments to infuse and cultivate Darkness in a heart of pure light (it's a good thing Aqua's charm whisked Kairi away before he and the other apprentices could get their hands on her), so I don't think it's impossible that what Ansem did resulted in the impurification of the Princesses' hearts.

But we already know hearts can move between different people, as demonstrated by Sora and Kairi, and Terra and Eraqus. I don't think it's too bizarre if something like that could happen.

It's more that the phenomenon of seven pure lights that's eternal, and not necessarily the individuals who are pure at the time. I mean, back before KH2 was released, we were led to believe that Sora's the Keyblade's Chosen One, and that made him special. But we know that's not the case at all now.◊

Yeah? But Xehanort ultimately chose to recruit percisely 13 Seekers because of the balance of 7 lights and 13 darknesses. So I don't see your point.

Yes, but that's not what we are arguing about. It's part of the lore that the X-blade shattered into exactly 7 light fragments and 13 dark fragments, and according to both official KH wikis, the Princesses of Heart only came to be after the Keyblade War, when the X-blade shattered and the light fragments in one way or another formed the 7 pure lights. This has nothing to do with the Guardians. There just needs to be 7 Guardians and 13 Seekers because that's the exact ratio of the balance between Light and Darkness (as evidenced by the number of light and dark X-blade fragments). Adding or subtracting from that would yield different ratios and results.

We're just talking about the natural process of how the pure lights work, and not the conflict between the Seekers and Guardians that Xehanort's orchestrating. So it's not really relevant to our discussion. And seeing as Xehanort's such an infuriatingly cunning schemer, I think he's more than capable of finding a way to make sure there will only be 7 Guardians and 13 Seekers for the ultimate clash to facilitate the re-forging of the X-blade.

...That's Tetsuya Nomura for you.

edited 17th Jun '18 10:30:11 PM by sleeping-in-bloom

Dude, I'm the one who asked these questions in the first place. Please don't start dropping 'That's not what we're discussing' on me. I find it a bit rude.

Yes, we know Kairi and Eriquas' hearts have moved between bodies. But Kairi's Heart was still Kairi's and Eriquas' Heart was still Eriquas'. We're not talking hearts moving bodies, but their purity/perfect lack of darkness. That's a different thing all together.

Sora's Keyblade not being so special later is it's own oddity that I'll excuse for the sake of "We didn't think of that part of the cosmology until later", but its also EXACTLY why I'm asking these questions about the Princess of Heart. If we could take the "Thought it was super special and it still is just there are more of them" route with the Keyblade, why couldn't we do that with the Princess of Heart? Its easier to swallow and retcons nothing except 'Maybe those characters we learned this from weren't entirely accurate'.

You're missing my point. Maybe I'm not explaining right. Ok, Xehenort is trying to create 13 Seekers of Darkness to fight 7 Guardians of Light. He is specifically creating those 13 darknesses to have them fight. I see no reason why he couldn't just created 14, 15, or even 16 Seekers of Darkness and only send 13 of those 16 to the final fight assuming one or two might die or be taken out in some way. A back up plan? The thing that Xehenort is notorious for at this point?

Thus, if Xehenort could concievably create more than he needs and only force 13 of them to fight, why couldn't the Light work under the same principal? There are just more Princessess of Heart and we only need 7 from the total of, idk, 20? Its not like it needs to be specific people since the entire process is vague and more representational.

I don't get what is supposed to be changing someone from a pure light to a... not pure light. Will once of the Po H wake up some day and go...

Heartless appear

Princess: Ha! You can't take my heart. I am pure of light!

tries to use pure light magic and fails

Princess: "What? But- I'm a Princess of Heart? I have light magic to protect myself!"

Heartless stab Princess

That seems... shitty.

There is something that has screwed over Xehanort's plans before. "The Worlds" created a door to Xemnas's Kingdom Hearts so that he could be stopped. If they sensed the Darknesses assembling they might have the authority to switch the lights around.

How is 7 lights vs 13 darknesses "balance"? Is this a Japanese concept?

What I meant with the Disney characters was that they never age, and after their movies remain in some sort of timeless stasis (sometimes not even from the END of their movies, see Beast), where they never age, or, indeed, die.

I mean, have any other Disney characters died that didn't die in their canon movie?

Lady Tremaine and her daughters died horrifically in an explosion of fire. That's the only one I can think off of the top of my head.

I think when Nomura says there's no concept of death in Kingdom Hearts, he means something along the lines of "keyblades are super bad at killing things."

They do? Wow...

@Ink

...But you brought up the Guardians when our discussion is about how the 7 pure lights work. The Guardians really aren't that relevant to the topic at hand. The only connection between the 7 pure lights and the 7 Guardians is simply the 7:13 ratio of the balance between Light and Darkness, which was indicated/determined when the X-blade shattered into 7 light fragments and 13 dark fragments (instead of any other numbers). Sorry if I came off as rude.

I'm just saying, if hearts can be transferred, I don't see why purity of hearts can't be 'transferred' through the impurification of pure hearts and vice versa.

"Thought it was super special and it still is just there are more of them" ...*points at the Keyblade Graveyard and KHUX* You sure about that? Also, I think letting there be more than 7 pure lights would be even weirder, because that would undermine the importance of the 7:13 ratio.

Because all the Seekers have to have a part of his heart in them, and he's already stretching himself thin by dividing it into 13 pieces and putting 12 of them in the other 12 Seekers?

...I'm sorry for phrasing things like this again, but that's not the issue. We are talking about the natural phenomenon of the pure hearts. Only 7 of the 20 pieces of the shattered X-blade are light fragments. That means the natural ratio of balance between Light and Darkness should be 7:13, so there should only ever be 7 natural Princesses of Heart at a time. Whether the Guardians and the Seekers decide to seek more members to tilt the scales is irrelevant.

The Princesses of Hearts have special powers, so it's possible they could sense if they are no longer pure. They'd be confused, but it shouldn't affect their lives in their own Worlds. Also, I think the (first) set of Princesses are prudent enough not to overestimate themselves, so I don't think a scenario like that would happen.

@Redmess

...Just focus on playing the rest of the games. Assuming you didn't read my exchange with Ink in detail, you'll find out when you play KH3D.

edited 18th Jun '18 1:29:55 AM by sleeping-in-bloom

But why is it 7 and 13? And how is that balance?