#KHDR

[dancingfoxrocks]

[ID: Kingdom Hearts' Bragi rests his forearm and elbow on Vor's head, looking way too comfortable leaning on a girl who smiles like she's about to explode. End ID.]

I like this smarmy kid.

Please let them all have sibling vibes!

[starlightwayfinder]

You know, your post saying Ven can’t wrap his head around why people would use the darkness is getting me thinking again about its nature and place in the setting. I hope it doesn’t end up being as evil as the narrative makes it out to be.

This is a super interesting ask, and I think to answer it honestly—I have to disagree a little, but I also do agree? Let me explain my thoughts.

Personally, I do think the narrative works best when “light” and “darkness” are literally interpreted as good and evil, creation and destruction, love and hatred, etc. The thing is, KH is clever and has made a point to specify that *true* light and darkness are a little different from what people might initially assume to be good and evil. 

Of all the games, KHDR looks most deeply into what actually defines darkness. The best example off the top of my head is when they’re comparing the residents of Wonderland. Even though they all seem to harbor a negative emotion of ‘fear’, only the Queen manifests it as darkness in her heart. The difference being that she harms and executes others to maintain her power. We see how she is consumed by ire and lashes out at everyone. Xehanort argues that maybe her darkness is necessary to maintain order… but it’s not a good kind of order to make people live in fear, is it?

Conversely, what defines light? Some ‘light’ sided characters like Eraqus go around seeking to obliterate the darkness out of a hatred for it. (He justifies this by mentally separating darkness from people, but khdr confirmed that hearts and darkness are basically entangled in the modern era.) This sort of behavior doesn’t align with ‘true’ light though, as harming others is still what defines darkness. Of course, there are situations where fighting is required to protect people from harm—but even then, it’s not ideal to have to hurt anyone. When people have been hurt, it can be accepted and transformed into light / something ‘good’, or it can continue to manifest as darkness and become something cyclical that hurts others too.

The best understanding of light in KH is found in actions that stem from a desire to help and heal others. Take Kairi helping Sora come back from being a Heartless, for example. Even though he had fallen to darkness, she revived him with the power of her faith and love. Sora himself says that ‘deep down there’s a light that never goes out’ in every heart, and that ‘Kingdom Hearts is light’. This makes logical sense to me, if life and light are the same, you can’t be alive without light. And if that light never really goes out, neither does a person’s life. Hence why the heart is ‘never really gone’.

A lot of what KH asks comes down to—“what is a perfect world?” In the lore and fairytales of the series, light was a freely given gift from Kingdom Hearts—presumably in the form of hearts. What gave way to darkness was people attempting to selfishly claim that light for themselves and take it from others. This turns the world from order to chaos, and Kingdom Hearts disappears. Until it can truly return, there will still be darkness and suffering in the now-divided worlds. Coexistence and peace would be the ideal world order, but the conflict between light and darkness prevents it. Note that the real conflict between light and darkness is “darkness tries to possess light”, not “they both try to destroy each other”. I don’t think that true light, the kind that has ‘more than meets the eye’, is out to destroy darkness so much as to return it to light.

We don’t know everything about the True Darknesses yet, but Khux implies that they cast away their forms to conquer light, only to realize that their will would be lost without  bodies. This is why they seek to ‘infect’ people’s hearts and stay alive through expansion, claiming more worlds and lights along the way. The Master of Masters claims they are entirely different from people, and yet we see Vanitas gain a heart—which by my logic before, wouldn’t even be alive without possessing at least some light, right? 

So to answer your question, I do think darkness is “evil”, but only in the sense of being an absence or willful rejection of goodness / light. I think there’s a real chance the KH ending will be one of reconciliation and restoration. It would be pretty wonderful to see all of the true darknesses get their own forms and hearts again, especially if that puts an end to the conflict once and for all. Darkness isn’t completely bad to the extent of being irredeemable, but it is completely bad in that—on its own—it only causes an endless cycle of cruelty and pain to be inflicted on people. Just like you can’t fight fire with fire, you can’t fight darkness with darkness; light is the key necessary to make things right again. 

So to explain my headcanon about Ven, we have to get into his mind as a pure-hearted person. He’s selfless and aims to share light rather than possess it for himself (or fight over it with others.) That’s how the ideal world is supposed to work, and it benefits everyone. So he doesn’t see the logic in hurting others to benefit only yourself. That will just make people hate you, right? Where’s the harmony in that?  He values friendship above all else, so that’s why he can’t wrap his mind around people valuing other things (power) more and justifying harming others to gain them. That’s why ‘his friends are his power’. Because if you have the light of friendship, you don’t need to take power from others or use the power of darkness to feel fulfilled.

Thanks for the ask!! I hope this explanation makes sense 😅

[plateauofmemories]

So in khdr is keyblade school located in like, the lower levels of the tower or are those two separate buildings and we just go to the tower when we need Maximum Drama?

[lightandfellowship]

[autumn-may]

a saint

[tharkflark1]

Helgi the Golden Tiger and Sigrun the Icelandic horse <3 Also Helgrun is my fav rarepair of all time fite me

[luxmoogle]

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*Kingdom Hearts Nutcracker AU, part 13! *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Beginning // Previous // to be continued…

[donutfrost]

save the best for last

[redmoondragon-art]

A hot wind blows here

[moss-mel]

My piece for the @shatteredestiny-zine !

I wanted my piece to focus on the many characters' tragic fates...

[kittyjosei]

@ohnoesitsnidia Requested Vala and sigrun, but my pc died and I could only finish vala, next is sigrun!

Is only me or does Riku look a lot like Vala???

.⋆ ✯⛧⋆ . Request more KH characters! .⋆ ✯⛧⋆ .

[mahikoto]

My full illustration for @shatteredestiny-zine

Everyone on the team was soo charming, I had a good time working on this! i actually had a do-over on my piece because I wasn't satisfied with what I had drawn at first, so here's the end result of that!

I'll post other things I did for this zine later on!

some close-up shots HERE (twt link sry)

[starlightwayfinder]

[stunnedswallow]

this is from two years ago and i realized ive never posted it anywhere

[lightandfellowship]

Lyrics from "Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)" by Kate Bush.

Image descriptions in ALT.

[autumn-may]

Sora wait no!!! The cycle!!!!!!!