Kingdom Hearts III Spoiler Thread

here I am to provide a brief dissection

with the exception of "I", I am not following the usual rules of capitalisation so as to indicate differences between things that have the same name, with the capitalised version being the version exclusive to kingdom hearts

• hearts are the blood pumping organ, while Hearts are where emotions and Memories are stored, and a Heart is made up of both Darkness and Light
• a person has both memories, the stuff their brains remember, and Memories, the stuff that their Heart remembers. a Memory takes priority as a memory (technically the distinguishment is my fanon but how else do you explain Nobodies not constantly having anterograde amnesia?). Memories cannot be erased, only disconnected (this includes fake Memories).
• Heartless is the darkness of a heart taken form. they have Hearts contained within, which will be released if defeated by a Keyblade, and reform as a Heartless somewhere else if not
• Souls are literally just what lets things live, including puppets
• Nobodies are the original bodies and Souls left behind when a Heart is lost. with the exception of greater Nobodies, they do not have memories of their previous life, but all Nobodies will grow a new Heart over time.

"Only a heart can reach the Final World.

In the Secret Ansem Reports, DiZ says "When the soul leaves the body, its vessel, life gives way to death,"

Chirithy says The Final World is for people whose hearts and bodies perished together, which seems weird if bodies can't go to the Final World normally, but.

Just because they perished together doesn't mean they stay together after perishing.

The soul leaves and you die.

After that the heart and body separate again.

...None of the characters ever seem to leave, like, a corpse, so I don't. Know what.

But anyway, the Heart goes to, potentially, the Final World, we, as we see, it can still think and feel things even without the soul.

Xemnas says "we only need his heart to forge the key, we do not need his soul" so.

Anyway. TLDR souls are useless except as lifeforce.

Next game introduces a soul based enemy just to spite unnoun

___

So Di Z realizes Xehanort is writing reports with his name on it... but keeps the numbering going anyway

'I know I know, Clearly that was before Nomura decided to go all in on the Ansem wasn't Ansem thing'

Edited by FrozenWolf2 on Feb 20th 2019 at 12:15:28 PM

jazz themed enemies

And that's where Princess and the Frog comes in, isn't it?

Xehanort's Soul is the NEW TRUE VILLIAN!!!

He's got friends...

Friends on the other side!

Was the Lich something the Norts made? Seemed like a unique Heartless.

This is the kind of thing I'd like a Kairi-focused game to do, ideally speaking.

• Kairi goes traversing the worlds in search of a missing Sora, effectively reversing their usual dynamic while also keeping Kairi's established bond with Sora in the fore-front
• Riku tags along as a mentor, giving him a role to serve in the game while the devs think up a new arc for Riku to take in the future, while also allowing Kairi and Riku's friendship to get fleshed out (like, for example, getting a resolution on Riku's implied (romantic) rejection that's something other than "I'm probably never gonna see the light of day again please look after the girl we both had a crush on")
• The narrative is rather light on connecting previous events because it's effectively starting a new arc
• Cool Disney worlds to visit which lets Kairi's characterisation expand on things that she normally wouldn't get the chance to
• Maybe Xion can tag along because I imagine it would be extremely sweet for Kairi to realise that Xion's basically how Sora imagines Kairi (but with like 1% visual corruption considering details like the black hair and all)
• Then she gets to either save the world, or at the very least get a conclusive lead on where Sora is that'll directly lead her into Kingdom Hearts 4 :v

I think the "Ansem/Xemnas recompleting into both Terranort and MX" thing could have been avoided by just making Terranort the prime Xehanort.

Like. On paper, I understand why MX was here. It's because he's THE Xehanort. The OG. The version of the guy who started it all (chronologically, I mean). MX is Xehanort at his most Xehanort. You can't conclude the Big Finale (of this part) without having Sora throw down with the original Keyblade Master Xehanort.

But.

Like.

When Sora does throw down with him, it's in Scala ad Caelum. And that's presented as a sort of Battle in the Center of the Mind. Like, we're not in Scala, we're in Xehanort's memory of Scala. And he inceptions the f*ck out of it.

So. Like. There's no reason why he couldn't have just been Terranort, and then when we go inside his mind, we meet his heart's self-image and it's Master Xehanort. And then we fight Master Xehanort to stop him from taking over Kingdom Hearts and also to drive him out of Terra's body, since "Save the BBS Trio" is ostensibly what KHIII is about.

I feel like that would have made a whole lot more sense than MX just sort of having his own body so he can f*ck around and deliver ominous dialogue that any of the Xehanorts could have been delivering instead.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Feb 20th 2019 at 11:36:10 AM

When you're right you're right, and damn are you right.

Because that would mean Terra wouldn't get his reunion with Ven and Aqua till the end...

Nomura has a very Lucas esque writing process

He doesn't see characters he sees scenes as moving parts that need to be slotted into place.

That is why Terranort is suppose to be MX's trump card ... yet doesn't make it to the Nort Court battle

My only concern is that Terra's return comes too late in that version, though I suppose you could get around that by having more scenes with Xehanort, and to be fair, it's not like Terra's in the game much as it is.

That said, I'm uncertain what the Lingering Will's role would be in this scenario (again, small as it is in this game), and I know that not everyone here likes the Guardian scene, but I really liked it, so I wouldn't want to lose it.

Edited by KarkatTheDalek on Feb 20th 2019 at 2:13:46 PM

I mean, the Final Boss theme is already Rage Awakened.

For some fucking reason.

Oh yeah, I saw that tumblr post pointing out that oddity.

I mean, it's a pretty kickass theme, but yeah, weird choice for that fight.

One wonders what changed...

A lot, I think. There are a bunch of little things like that in KHIII that suggest a final product that's changed significantly from the original plan.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Feb 20th 2019 at 12:39:59 PM

There is also Ansem, Xemnas and Young Xehanort's theme in there too isn't there? I'm guessing that Rage Awakened is for the Terra Xehanort portion they want to pay homage to.

Yeah the final boss theme is a medley of Xehanort themes.

Like more of them than the previous Xehanort medley had.

I've never been really to bent out of shape over both Terra-Xehanort and Xehanort returning, I mean the way they got all the vessels in 3D was kidnap the ones they want when they are still unconscious from recompletion and put the Xehanort juice in anyway.

I don't remember what thread I said it in, but it would have been interesting if Terra-Nort showed up for a raid on Radiant Garden or something for... idk. Script Rewrites. And we have a good mid-point climax and Terra-Nort is actually defeated and Sora frees the body of Terra from Xehenort. Xehenort's heart flees and gets into a Replica body or something I guess.

And Terra's back, shockinly for a third act. Instead of Mickey just... suddenly happening to guess what happened which was stupid, Terra himself is able to explain things. And Terra goes with Riku to the ROD to save Aqua as a return to her saving him before. You could hit a lot of emotional beats with Terra and Riku together and Terra being the one to find Anti-Aqua.

maybe sora could have saved him sooner but the guardian shutting terranort up by grabbing him by the mouth needs to stay

Also, having Master Xehanort appear in his prime wouldn't have had issues with The Other Darrin. As mentioned on the WMG page, it would have been a fitting tribute to Chikao and Nimoy, given that soundboarding Xehanort's lines wasn't viable (and frankly doesn't sound good anyway).

Yeah but they did thst before the actors died in ddd.

I 100% agree with you on the final battle re: Terranort, TobiasDrake.

Terra's appearance is all kinds of weird, to me, because the way he looks and acts, it almost suggests that they time-traveled in Terra from just at the end of BBS, rather than it being the Apprentice Xehanort that kicked off the whole Xemnas thing. Which calls into question what happened to that body when Xemnas and Ansem re-formed together.

If they wanted to have the old man in the battle before Scala Ad Caelum, they totally could've had it be his old body taken from the end of BBS, or an experiment with putting a fragment of his heart into a Replica vessel without any other influences. That they had both of them without explaining how, or from when the Terra body was, made it just kinda confusing.

And yes, I am biased a bit, since I spent 7 years thinking that the prime Xehanort was Terranort already.

Edited by Enlong on Feb 20th 2019 at 9:14:28 AM

It was Reset it seems back to what he was when Terra first became a Heartless. It is his body afterall.

I mean if you take it that Guardian and Ansem where destroyed by Diz's machine then you have Terra and Xehanort both reforming because their hearts never became the same Heartless so upon reformation they factory reset.