Kingdom Hearts

Are we sure about that?

Like, maybe Eraqus teaches that.

For all we know, there is legitimately no time in the ROD.

Granted, BBS's Secret Episode had Stop magic and stuff like Time Splicer that still worked.

EDIT: Wait. Critical starts you with a Soldier's Earring on Sora, that might actually be where all the extra damage comes from. Huh.

Edited by unnoun on Apr 24th 2019 at 12:55:43 PM

I am sure there definitely is a book handed down through the ages for Keyblade Masters to read that matches their IQ.

Or as I called it "Metuhphysed 4 Dum Dums" by Master of Masters. A very deep and philosophical book that any first grader can enjoy!

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Apr 24th 2019 at 9:54:39 AM

Aqua enters the Castle of Dreams and reminisces some more amid the ballroom now utterly devoid of life. There are no people in Darkness. Only the Darkness's own forms of life; the Heartless (and, in the Sleep bubble, Dream Eaters).

Y'know, it occurs to me. The fluidity of time in the Realm of Darkness explains a bit about recompletion. Once your body's been abandoned, it fades into Darkness, where it remains perfectly preserved for days, weeks, even years. Master Xehanort hasn't aged a day since he shed his body and let the Darkness take it ten years ago, and the reason he hasn't is because time here only progresses or regresses based on external stimulus.

His body has been here for ten years, perfectly preserved from the passage of time.

I.

I want to make a refrigerator that uses the Realm of Darkness to preserve food instead of cold.

X4

...You have a point there.

But then that would mean he's teaching them wrong...which might not shock me.

His solution to my student is using darkness is MDK the hell out of him.

But maybe I'm being too hard on old Eraqus. I mean, after he was betrayed by Kylo Ren MASTER XEHANORT, he might be sensitive to that shit.

Edited by HandsomeRob on Apr 24th 2019 at 10:54:57 AM

Be fair Kylo Ren was a more obnoxious KH 1 Riku.

That's like, a fundemental truth of the universe.

I don't even need to try to be fair about that. It'd be impossible for me not to be fair.

I mean. For all we know that's what the textbook says to do, but honestly, Eraqus never attacks Terra for using darkness.

"If it were up to me I would name you Master in a heartbeat."

He fights Terra for defying him.

He tries to kill Ventus for being a potential χ-blade.

Huh.

Eraqus makes a lot of mistakes, but mostly out of good intentions.

He really is TLJ Luke before TLJ Luke even existed...which makes sense.

To me that is. I'd expect others to just think it's a dumb idea.

...Now that I think about it, Eraqus teaching his students temporal theory sounds amusing, especially with how Time Travel works in KH.

Now I'm picturing him talking like Tobias, and the laughs won't stop coming.

Mmm, yes. The Realm of Darkness is an awful place where horror and murder lives. But if it can keep the mayo in a sandwich from making the bread soggy and prevent sliced tomatoes from shriveling up and getting wrinkly, I may need to invest in a Black Coat.

In any case, a manifestation of Terra descends the ballroom stairs for Aqua because WE SILENT HILLING THIS SHIT. She assumes that he's here to try and encourage her not to lose heart but that might be overly optimistic of her. Or pessimistic. Could just be that she's in a ballroom and her subconscious wants a dance partner. Who knows?

Whatever the case, Fake Terra gets offended by her mood-killing dourness and ragequits in a flutter of particle effects.

She ponders the question of what happened to the people who once lived here when their world was destroyed. Which we already know the answer to. Some unlucky bastards had their Hearts ripped out and became Emblems while the rest were scooped up by Traverse Town. But don't blame her. She's missed a lot of important context since BBS. In fact, that Shadow attack at the start may have been the first time she's ever even seen a Heartless!

The roaming Emblem murder-swarm wasn't a thing in her day.

Y'know, it's weird how the Secret Episode of BBS directly continues into 0.2 even though they're so radically different.

Like, Aqua's "could it be" at the end of one and start of the other.

We have no idea how much time passes between the Final Episode and the Secret Episode though, so that's a thing.

See, that sounds like how Xehanort would teach about Darkness.

Now I want an alternate universe where he was the teacher of all three BBS key blade wielders.

Hilarity would definitely ensue.

Yen Sid, Eraqus and Xehanort all teaching Mickey, TVA and Vanitas.

I believe the first time she ever fought them was off-screen, but in any case the epilogue for BBS starts off with her practically giving up against a buncha Darksides before Ven and Terra's Keyblades swoosh by and take them out for her. Then you fight a buncha Heartless with her.

Right, those Darksides are at the end of the Final Episode, then the Secret Episode is. After that. At some point.

It'd be a beautiful disaster, the like of which even the original Keyblade War would pale in comparison against.

From here, Aqua heads on into the derelict ruins of what was once Dwarf Woodlands - another world destroyed in Maleficent's quest for the Princesses of Heart. She discovers Snow White's glass coffin which her subconscious mindf*cks an image of Ven into. Appropriate. He can, after all, only be awakened by True Love's Kiss. By which I mean Sora. YAOI SHIPPERS OF THE WORLD THANK YOU FOR THAT INSINUATION, AQUA.

She also weirdly finds a magic mirror that grabs her and pulls her inside of it to what I expected to be Enchanted Dominion, but is some weird chamber instead. There are three more mirrors for her to explore.

Inside what is clearly the Magic Mirror dimension from BBS (and also Silent Hill), she faces a third phantom and this one is herself. Fake Aqua tells her, "Only your heart is hollow enough to be a demon's." Which is super-mean and incredibly judgmental. Aqua is straight up a Mean Girl to herself.

I think she's doing that thing that society teaches women to do where everything bad that happens is her fault even if she had nothing to do with it. Women are expected to be 100% responsible for everything that the men in their vicinity do.

Aqua defeats the other two phantoms and then reflects on the difference between Fake Aqua and the other phantoms. "Terra and Ven didn't have anything to say, but my shadow? She wanted to destroy me." YEAH. 'CAUSE THIS IS SILENT HILL AND EVERYTHING IS A METAPHOR. MAYBE YOU SHOULD THINK ABOUT THAT.

Which, to my surprise, she actually does. She examines what's happening to her and concludes that her own self-doubt is manifesting to tear her down. The Darkness is using her lack of confidence in herself to chip its way into her Heart, wriggling through to seize control of her. As it does.

I've been comparing this place to Silent Hill and the more I see, the more I feel like the comparison is apt. The thing about Silent Hill is that it's a purely hyperbolic space. The laws of physics, time, and even basic causality are entirely fluid, subject to change wildly at the will of a controlling intellect. It takes who you are inside and makes it manifest on the world outside.

The Realm of Darkness seems similarly hyperbolic. As she walks through these destroyed worlds, Aqua is facing the phantoms of her doubts and regrets. Time, space, basic physics, it's all strictly an extension of the observer. She's resisting the Darkness but in this place, she is her own mortal enemy.

The only way to escape from Silent Hill is to overcome the traumas and fears that the space is drawing from your mind and turning against you. To make peace with yourself and attain enlightenment of your identity.

That doesn't seem like an option in the Realm of Darkness, though. Yen Sid said you only escape this place by virtue of another person's assistance. Which means that you're basically just fighting a losing battle. There are two options: be consumed by Darkness or postpone the inevitable. You're rolling a d20 where 20 means you die and 1-19 means you roll again. There is no condition for victory.

This is what Ventus was protecting Sora from when he gave him his armor. It's what, way back when, Riku's mind was protecting him from when it plunged him into the Realm of Sleep after Mickey and Sora sealed the Door to Darkness. Both of these were preserving tactics to buy time, because that's the only hope you have in the Realm of Darkness: buy time until someone saves you.

This is Darkness. The Darkness of the self made manifest in a place where physics have no true meaning. Welcome to Silent Hill.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Apr 24th 2019 at 11:43:30 AM

Good post!

As for the Yen Sid, Eraqus, and Xehanort post, honestly I wouldn't be surprised if Yen Sid taught the other two in the first place. He's old enough for that to check out, and is implied to be powerful enough to have done so.

Then he should get off his ass and beat up Xehanort himself.

Bah, that would get in the way of him sitting in his chair! And that requires effort.

He needs to sit in it all the time. If he gets up from it, it would have wasted all his prior effort.

Edited by fredhot16 on Apr 24th 2019 at 4:34:32 AM

Octogenarians are not famous for their martial arts skills.

Everyone follows the Power Rangers rule. The guys in charge of both sides don’t do shit until the final battle.

Is there even a word for how old he is?

You escape by getting a ROD Keyblade like Kingndom Key D.

It's weird how Yen Sid is supposedly a retired Keyblade Master, yet we never see him wielding a keyblade. I wonder if Disney forbade them to actually let him handle a keyblade to avoid him going too far off-brand or something. It's just strange that him being able, and presumably proficient, at using keyblades is one hundred percent an Informed Attribute.

Bah! He's an Old Master. We all know they kick more ass than anyone. Yen-Sid is just lazy.