Kingdom Hearts

Saix: "That's absurd. He won nothing, and IS nothing. He couldn't stand the emptiness of being without a heart. And THAT led to his demise. He was foolish and weak."

Luxord: "...You miss him."

Saix: "Luxord?"

Luxord: "Yes?"

Saix: "When Sora gets here, you're going to be the first to stop him."

Luxord: "Oh."

Xigbar: "Ha! Shoulda' kept your mouth shut."

Saix: "You're after him, Xigbar."

Xigbar: "Crap."

it was Xehanorts idea yeah luxu only got involved when he saw there was finally someone dumb enough to try to start another war although luxu did have to keep trying to put things bsck on track when xehanort messed up or like at the end of ddd when he was pissed at him that he didn't care that sora got away

"Joke's on you, I'll take him first!"

Oh. Right. Xigbar was before Luxord.

Bugger, now I ruined it!

Edit: Alright, I'm doing it again because heaven help me, I try to fix my mistakes, even if it might not work.

Saix: "That's absurd. He won nothing, and IS nothing. He couldn't stand the emptiness of being without a heart. And THAT led to his demise. He was foolish and weak."

Xigbar: "Heh. If I didn't know any better, I'd say that you sound like you- what's the word- miss him."

Saix: "Xigbar?"

Xigbar: "Yeah?"

Saix: "When Sora gets here, you're going to be the first to stop him."

Xigbar: "Ah, crap."

Luxord: "Perhaps silence would have been a wiser course."

Saix: "You're after him, Luxord."

Luxord: "Of course."

Edited by fredhot16 on Mar 21st 2019 at 8:32:50 AM

Xigbar: "I know I'm gonna make it through this, but dying's really gonna suck either way."

I once read a fic years ago with this as the premise for Kairi escaping Axel.

Yes, as others have mentioned, Xehanort's ideas were his own. Luxu's role was to monitor the No-Name's passing from wielder to wielder until a Keyblade Master dedicated to the Darkness arose. After that, he stepped out of the shadows to help shepherd events towards the Keyblade War.

So he wasn't, like, manipulating Xehanort into making the choices that he made. But he was working behind the scenes to keep the ball moving in the Keyblade War's direction. And when Terranort suffered amnesia, Luxu was there to keep him on track.

Luxu wasn't puppeteering Xehanort. But he was using him to open up Kingdom Hearts. And then once he got what he wanted, he abandoned Xehanort to his final fate, grabbed up his black box, and bailed. In his own words, "When this scapegoat arrives and takes my Keyblade in hand, that will be the time to take the stage and finish my role."

So The Man Behind the Man might not be entirely accurate. It may be more accurate to call Luxu a Greater-Scope Villain. He didn't make Xehanort do this, but Xehanort is a patsy whose entire villainous plot ultimately boils down to setting him up to fail and die so that Luxu can get what he wants.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Mar 21st 2019 at 10:24:53 AM

Which is a nice bit of poetic justice. The mastermind was a scapegoat all along.

So, um, it may be a bit late to ask at this point but who is Luxu? And the Master of Masters? And why do we care, both in a doylist and Watsonian viewpoint?

Watch Back Cover. Put simply, they're probably the new antagonists.

Edited by LordVatek on Mar 22nd 2019 at 12:47:34 PM

So, the confrontation between Sephiroth and Cloud has some implications.

"No matter how many times I fall, your darkness keeps calling me back."

This statement is interesting. Before, I was under the impression that Sephiroth was literally Cloud's Darkness made manifest. Here, Sephiroth suggests that he once was a real actual person, but that he survives through the Darkness in Cloud's Heart. Important distinction.

Especially if Tifa's supposed to be the Light counterpart to Sephiroth. If Sephiroth was a real person once upon a time, does that mean she was as well? Did Tifa get Aerith'd in this universe? Is she, like Sephiroth, living on through the Light in Cloud's Heart? Or is she still just a manifestation of Cloud's Light?

Or is she a 100% unrelated person and that bit about her being Cloud's Light was just Nomura being poetic? I don't know. Gah, I want Nomura to explore these versions of the characters more.

With this distinction introduced to their relationship, Cloud and Sephiroth actually parallel Riku and Fake Ansem in a meaningful way. Cloud made an unspecified terrible mistake somewhere in the past and now he's forced to live with Sephiroth inhabiting his Heart, lurking inside of him, embodying his Darkness, and refusing to be defeated forever.

Interestingly, Sephiroth and Tifa have this exchange:

• Sephiroth: He'll never let go of the Darkness.
• Tifa: He doesn't have to. He just needs someone to surround him with Light. The Darkness will be there, Sephiroth, but in a place you can't reach.

With this, Tifa further identifies Sephiroth as an invading presence in Cloud's Heart, not a manifestation of it. He's Cloud's Xehanort, not his Vanitas. She asserts that Cloud having Darkness in his Heart isn't the problem; Sephiroth possessing it is.

And she intends to defeat him by sharing her Light with Cloud, just as Sora did for Ventus. This isn't just a cool Bonus Boss, this is actually a really important thematic conflict because of the way it mirrors the relationships of the original protagonists.

And then, for good measure, Goofy suggests they returned to their world once they disappeared, asserting once and for all that Cloud, Sephiroth, and Tifa are not Radiant Garden natives. That clears up any miscommunication about their point of origin, since the three of them and Zack are clearly from Olympus Coliseum.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Mar 22nd 2019 at 10:51:05 AM

So it looks like in the Kingdom Hearts universe if you're enough of an asshole once you die you can live on by infecting someone who's a bit of an asshole and nudging them to be more of an asshole.

Maybe I'm being juvenile, but I've found discussions of KH cosmology get a lot funnier if you replace "has darkness" with "is an asshole".

I find it funny that Tobias has such an elaborate analysis of the Sephiroth/Cloud subplot, because the only thing I see in it these days is how it just reinforces everything I don't like about how FFVII characters are portrayed these days.

I.e Sephiroth is a huge weirdo who's obsessed with Cloud and only speaks in melodramatic gobbledygook, basically completely impossible to take seriously as a threatening villain. In KH 2 it's even worse because you have no context for what exactly their beef is, which just makes the silly dialogue between even more ridiculous.

This is partly why I don't miss Seph that much despite him being a fun bonus boss.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Mar 22nd 2019 at 12:55:47 PM

No joke, after experiencing in-game those scenes, I would legit like a Kingdom Hearts game featuring Cloud, and his story through Disney Worlds. This is with me only knowing pop culture knowledge about FF 7 Cloud besides one or two things.

With his adventure in World of Light included, perhaps, if it's a Switch exclusive?

I mean, sephiroth never sounded like a threatening or compelling antagonist to me. Even back when I tried to get into FFVII, his complete lack of anything intesreting is one of the things that caused the game to fall off the to-do-list for me. the guy is just past the era where edgelords are cool.

Since I remember you liked the hot takes, the prowling magus and congregation from dark souls 2 are a better antagonist than him.

(Okay I'm definitely scraping below the bottom of the barrel for that one but AH WELL)

Edited by Yumil on Mar 22nd 2019 at 6:01:23 PM

I always imagined Sephiroth was a hardass bishonen solder guy who became unstable due to learning the truth about his past.

I used to think the same until I actually played VII myself. In that game he's actually intimidating and creepy; sure, you can make fun of him still, but I think it's disingenuous to imply that SE hasn't made him increasingly ridiculous and exaggerated in comparison to the original portrayal.

I dunno. The only thing I saw when playing VII was a rambling madman whose potential depths went through the door in the nibelhem flashback and never did anything else for me.

I just can't for the life of me see what's creepy about him in that game. Or at least, anything that tickles my "oh shit that's messed up" button. I'd say too much bloodborne/internet in general desensitivized me but that was way before that time and it still wasn't doing anything for me.

At least his KH self being sorely interested in cloud makes a bit of an Anti-Villain to Sora and the fact it's personnal with cloud actually gives their conflict some weight. The babbling nonsense being trademark KH also don't really strike me as odd.

Ugh, I'm going long again. Sora v. Roxas is another one of those great moments in Kingdom Hearts history.

Sora arrives at The World With Stupid Name, only for his presence here and also what just happened with Axel - Xemnas straight up postulated that this might happen - to rouse Roxas's consciousness from his Heart. Roxas whisks Sora away into the dream-world stained-glass window place in the Realm of Darkness.

I'll be honest, I still don't fully understand what this place is. But I remember it has something to do with the Realm of Sleeping/Dreaming/Being F*cking Unconscious from 3D. It's a place in the Realm of Darkness where I guess your consciousness goes when you sleep, and it's also the avenue through the Realm of Darkness that living and dead Hearts pass through on their way to and from Kingdom Hearts.

it's where Sora's and Ven's Hearts crossed paths when Ven was going from Destiny Islands to Kingdom Hearts and Sora was coming from Kingdom Hearts to Destiny Islands. And then Sora later in life was able to meditate into this space when Ven needed him. It served as the conduit for Ven's Heart to enter Sora even from worlds apart.

The Realm of Darkness doesn't f*cking care what world you're in. It embodies all the space between worlds. It's everywhere. That's why you can Dark Corridor to any point in the multiverse; the Realm of Darkness doesn't give a shit about spatial distances. You can be somewhere or you can be in the Realm of Darkness.

So Axel just died, Sora just came "home" to the Organization's pad, and this rouses Roxas to pull Sora into the dreamspace for a Battle in the Center of the Mind. Now, here's what's interesting.

In the world outside, Roxas comes at Sora swinging Oblivion. Oblivion represents Sora's bond with Riku and, in turn, Roxas's bond with Axel. He's pissed off that Axel is dead and he goes straight at Sora with the Keyblade that embodies that friendship.

Then, once their fight enters the dream space, Roxas breaks out Oathkeeper. The Keyblade for Xion's relationship, the relationship he isn't even capable of remembering. And he comes at him with both. Sora isn't just fighting Roxas, he's fighting the combined fury from the Days crew. Each life that only wanted to love and be loved, and that had to end so that Sora could be here now. This is the last dying gasp of Roxas, Axel, and Xion's friendship.

Roxas is impetuous and angry, demanding to know why Sora gets to exist instead of him. He remains cloaked and hooded throughout all of this, incidentally. Presumably this represents the fact that he's fading into Sora's Heart. He doesn't have a body anymore and his self-image is gone, just like Xion's was near the end of her days.

Sora doesn't answer him. He doesn't have to. Roxas, in the course of the fight, spies the stained glass window of Sora's dreamworld. He sees the friends Sora has, the people who care about him, and he understands. He's still mad, mind you, but he understands. It just clicked with him that Sora has people who love him too. They're equals.

The final blow comes down to a clever bit of swordplay. Roxas disarms Sora, Oathkeeper down into Sora's Keyblade to hold it there, then holds Sora at distance via Oblivion. But Sora summons his Keyblade away from Oathkeeper, startling Roxas, then takes advantage of the momentary surprise to close distance and deliver a decisive strike.

It's interesting, again, the choice of Keyblades. Axel kept Sora at bay while Xion took his Keyblade from him. But Xion didn't do her part. Because it's the metaphysics of Keyblades, but still. Xion released Sora's blade and let him win. It's interesting.

And then Roxas's life flashes before his eyes and he has one last dying conversation with Axel that breaks my heart in a million pieces and GODDAMN YOU KINGDOM HEARTS, TAKE ALL MY TEARS WHY DON'T YOU. T_T

I thought it was oblivion that symbolized roxas's bond with xion, because, you know, he oblivion'd xion. And because that's the keyblade he throws at riku during day 358 and that Riku can, for just a moment, feel Xion's will through it.

I'm not sure any of the two actively represent Axel either, though. Both seem to embody the two sides of his relationship with Xion.

Edited by Yumil on Mar 22nd 2019 at 6:41:36 PM

And the fight with Roxas was as close to hell as Kingdom Hearts could get me.

I can't even begin to recount how many times my sister and I took turns fighting him and getting our butts kicked. It has to be at least 23 times overall before I finally beat Roxas.

Roxas, you were a bastard and for that, I salute you.

You know, that moment kinda amused me a bit because it kinda looked as though it escaped Roxas's recollection that Keyblades can be summoned into your hand.

Edited by fredhot16 on Mar 22nd 2019 at 10:55:57 AM

Is it? I figured Oathkeeper was Xion because for Sora, Oathkeeper is Kairi. I may have mistaken them.

I mean, he does have like a year's worth of experience doing this. Sora's been at it, what, a few months? Minus the coma-year?

Plus. Y'know. Twice as many Keyblades as Sora.

That's it. That moment "Tell me why he picked you!" "I see. That's why." That's when the tears start flowing.

I'm almost sure Nomura has exapended on that aspect in a interviews about the end of days, but I've never really cared about those so i'd had a really hard time directing you to them, but I'm pretty sure they exist.