#(eraqus wanted to save baldr but only the parts of baldr that he liked)

[xehabaldr]

Drinking the hard kind of copium juice mixed with pure wish fullfilment hoping we'll see all the Dark Road kids in Quadratum and everyone will be able to travel between it and the original KH-verse in the end, with extra fun of Xehanort and Eraqus having the memories of their lived out lifes but as if they're remembered through the lens of someone else. It probably doesn't make much sense but I don't care because I want to see them happy damnit.

And I think it'd be very funny. Like the awkward tension of teenager Xehanort hanging around all these people his asshole adult self has traumatised while he technically ranks among the people traumatised. Imagine living out another life knowing how terrible you can end up. Ventus, Terra, and Aqua coping with a teenage version of their master hanging around who'd really like to have a better relationship with them this time. Riku and Baldr being weird darkness-wielding buddies. New kiddos for the rest of the cast to become friends with (I think Vor and Kairi could be great pals, fearing change together : ]).

i've been thinking about dr characters in quadratum for months. years even. they would be perfecttttt for the "i died but now i'm here" situation quadratum has going on. i'm not personally that invested in seeing eraqus again but nomura's art of yx in quadratum has me on that hopium plus I feel like there are a couple really strong other candidates from the khdr cast. vidar in particular I think is a character who might actually have a chance. baldr is like, obviously I have to hope that baldr will be there (but i doubt he actually will be). I would kill to see 3d renders of the dr characters in ANY situation though honestly. i will take a flashback, i will take a lore recap, i will take anything

[lightandfellowship]

An aspect of Hoder's death that I find pretty compelling outside of just the effect her death had on the cast + the events of the game is the fact that her brother and friends seem to just be guessing at what she would have wanted or what she would have done in their shoes. And quite possibly guessing incorrectly. Which highlights one of the many tragic elements of death apart from the death itself: the dead not being able to speak for themselves.

Vidar turns to Kingdom Hearts because it might save Hoder's brother and he thinks that's what she would want. After all, her brother is someone precious to her who she's willing to protect with her life, as she demonstrated in Enchanted Dominion when she sacrificed herself to save him. But saving her brother via Kingdom Hearts means potentially harming the worlds, their residents, and the entire universe in general, and considering Hoder chose to confront a super powerful fairy all by herself to try and save Aurora, a random stranger she had only just met, endangering innocents for personal reasons sounds like the kind of thing she might seriously disapprove of. But it seems like Vidar, Vala, and Vali never considered that possibility, assuming that it was just a given that Hoder would risk the entire world for her brother.

And while Baldr's motivations are kinda complex and can be interpreted in a number of ways, it wouldn't susprise me if part of the reason why he wanted to purge the world and kill the upperclassmen was for the sake of getting revenge on Hoder's behalf. We know he blames the upperclassmen for not saving her, and it was the evil of the world that drew Hoder to the castle and got her killed in the first place. (There's also the element of "Baldr blames himself for her death but he can't handle the guilt so he's going to blame everyone else instead as a coping mechanism.") Once again, someone close to Hoder is risking the lives of countless others for her sake, ostensibly (though I'm sure Baldr is just telling himself that he's doing it for her when really he's mostly doing it for himself, unleashing his grief and wrath upon the world that wronged him.) And it's not just strangers at risk this time, her friends are getting killed one by one, all because her brother thought they deserved it for failing to save her. I don't think it's a stretch to say that Hoder didn't blame her friends at all for what happened to her and had no interest in getting "revenge" on them.

What makes Hoder's situation interesting/unique though is that she technically does get several opportunities to speak for herself after she dies, unlike most characters who die suddenly and prematurely. Once in the Underworld after her spirit gets temporarily brought back to meet with Xehanort and Eraqus, and several times after that when she's hiding in Xehanort's heart. But for most of these scenes she chooses not to speak, and when she does finally reveal herself and speak, it's during a scene where all of her dialog was potentially just a ruse to get closer to Baldr in order to take him out, and thus it's hard to say exactly how genuine her words were. Even when given the rare and precious opportunity to express her true feelings and desires post-death, she remains quiet, or chooses to speak but potentially with ulterior motives. Which actually fits how she acted in life as well. So maybe dying was never the problem, maybe part of her tragedy is that she never would have made her feelings clear even if she were alive. Which I think is a pretty interesting character trait for her, a character who values actions over words, a character who doesn't seem to be too concerned about explaining herself or being understood by others, a character who would rather just take matters into her own hands instead of clarifying her wishes to others who could act on her behalf...and the tragic accidents + miscommunication that occurs because of those secretive, proactive, and independent aspects of her personality.

Anyway, I have to imagine she kinda resents seeing her loved ones do these really terrible things in her name. Especially since she probably thought that her sacrifice was going to be the only one, no blood on her hands except for her own, only for that death to cause ten others. And as I've seen other people speculate, this probably contributed to her choice at the end to intervene. All of this tragedy happened because of her, because of her reckless actions and because of her friends and brother's love for her, and she needed to take responsibility for it.

"Dying was the worst decision I ever made." <- Hoder, probably