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davidmann95 · 6 years ago

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A different theory on the Master of Masters’ Identity

The consensus at this point has definitely settled on that the Master of Masters is someone we know - when Back Cover dropped I would’ve guessed he was a whole new figure, but in the wake of what III pulls at the end I’d say it’s reached a point where he’s probably gotta be a familiar face for it to feel like he’s been appropriately set up (though I’d also kind of dig if he was simply a resident of the ‘realistic’ world of Verum Rex who was screwing with the Disney fairytaleland). At this point, the two big theories are that it’s a time-travelling eeeeeeevil future Sora or that Demyx has been pulling a very, very long con, and while I’m not sure if either or both of them started as a joke (I swear I recall ‘evil future Sora’ being an idea tossed around for multiple mysterious figures in the past), they’ve got serious traction now.

I’m sort of ignoring the possibility of Demyx here; consider that a parallel track to what I’m thinking, as opposed to Sora which I’ll discuss a bit directly as a compare-and-contrast with my theory. I actually think it’s not totally unreasonable, but after Luxu, it’d be real, REAL hard to pull that particular trick and not have it feel like it was coming up with diminishing returns. Not impossible, but hard. And for that matter I think it being Sora could also work; if nothing else it’d be interesting to see how that guy of all people gets from THAT point A to THAT point B, which I suppose is the core of the appeal.

But assuming a couple of givens - that it’s someone we know, that the Master of Masters is indeed a very, very bad guy even if he’s doing what he’s doing for what he might consider good reasons, and that he’s either the endgame opponent of the entire franchise or that he’ll play a critical role in said finale - while I’d agree he’s a time-traveler who’s broken bad (in a series so much about growing up, what’s a better final opponent than the threat that you ‘grow up’ in all the worst, most cynical ways?), I don’t think he’s Sora.

I think the Master of Masters is more likely to be Riku.

I’ll list off what I’ve got below in two categories, the first being evidence. I don’t think I’ve got any real indisputable smoking guns here, but to be fair, unless you consider MoM and Demyx both pointing at people to be a clincher neither does anyone else, and I’d at least say there’s enough that if I’m right people won’t really be able to say that it wasn’t appropriately seeded, with one or two points I think really do solidly support Riku in a way that doesn’t quite fit with anyone else that we know of. After that, I’ll go into why I think it’s the more interesting option character-wise/thematically.

Evidence

* Right at the top, regarding the one bit of physical evidence we have: if we’re treating Sora and Riku as the only two serious candidates given only they’d pack the necessary punch, the Master definitely sounds more like an adult version of the latter than the former, at least going by the English voices. For that matter Ray Chase also voices Noctis, clearly the main aesthetic model for Yozora who’s himself repeatedly and explicitly compared in-universe physically to Riku. A stretch, but between Xehanort and Eraqus being Star Wars vs. Star Trek in BBS and then Spider-Man vs. Venom in III, it’s perfectly fair game to declare that Nomura enjoys playing those kinds of meta games with the castings.

* Obviously the Master’s personality doesn’t quite line up with anyone we know, but while his degree of over-the-topness is unique, as is that he speaks like a ‘real’ person instead of a Disney or Final Fantasy character (and given Xigbar, Genie, and Hades all act a lot wittier and more casual than the other characters and the Master’s probably in that 1000+ year old club too, we might be able to assume that’s just a trait it takes awhile to pick up in the universe of Kingdom Hearts), most of his other traits can be traced back to Sora or Riku. He’s playful and encouraging like the former, sarcastic and biting and full of himself like the latter used to be. It’s been acknowledged more than once that the two have been picking up each others’ personality traits, with Riku picking up some of Sora’s exuberance and free-spiritedness (though he noticeably tended towards the expressive, dramatic side all on his own when lost in his own darkness) while it’s hard not to imagine Sora’s gotten some of his snark in his attempts at being more like Riku. But the big Master of Masters personality thing when he’s actually apparently being sincere and serious? That “you ultimately need to do what your heart feels is right”? Sora may be the one to say May Your Heart Be Your Guiding Key after he learned about the phrase, but Riku’s the one who in both II and III argues for the right of allies to seemingly lay down their lives in service of where their hearts guide them.

* Biggie: the Master of Masters has a connection to Dream Eaters, being able to create the Chirithy. Riku’s been one.

* Another biggie: the Master of Masters presumably carries a great deal of light in him, since he’s able to pass among the other inhabitants of Daybreak Town and seems to value it when waxing mournfully about events to come, but given what he goes on to do he surely harbors a great deal of darkness as well. So much so that it would be difficult to not notice, especially in a world where it was an anomaly, unless he was able to hide it where it couldn’t be felt by others. Contained within himself alongside his light, in a way that very pointedly only one character we’ve seen has been able to do.

* Not as big, but still notable: if there are physical differences between the Master and Riku, or if the Master as some have speculated has lived through the generations by possessing others like Luxu, it’s worth noting Riku’s worn another body before himself.

* A stretch post-III where it turns out acquiring new Keyblades isn’t the biggest deal, but it’s worth pointing out that Riku giving Kairi Destiny’s Embrace is still the only time we’ve seen someone directly give someone a Keyblade the way the Master apparently gave them to the Foretellers, rather than potentially bequeathing one in an Inheritance.

* While the Master is manipulative in general, it’s his treatment of Aced that most clearly stands out as him setting the stage for these friends to tear each other apart, and it’s him playing on his students’ desire for power and significance just as Maleficent once played Riku. If it’s Riku under that hood pulling the strings of impressionable youth, he hardly could have had a better example to follow.

* Speaking of the Foretellers, each of their names corresponds with the Latin title of one of the seven deadly sins. The one that doesn’t belong with one of the six and therefore presumably lies with the Master himself would be Superbia - as eagle-eyed players have noticed partially scrawled on the mysterious Black Box - meaning Pride. And if there’s one sin that most clearly defined Riku at his absolute lowest moment, it’s pride.

* The Master of Masters acts in a way that suggests he has some manner of not entirely malevolent intentions, even if he’s perfectly willing to use the worst of means to get there. And again, when at his worst, Riku’s the one who tends towards Going Too Far for Good Reasons.

* It can be reasonably assumed the Master has some sort of massive, cosmic role of significance given all these other mighty Keyblade wielders hold him in unquestioning reverence, and while we don’t know what his power might be, it’s presumably tied in some way to Kingdom Hearts. Riku meanwhile was originally going to be the one to receive the Kingdom Key, a blade that, while it hasn’t been directly acknowledged yet, clearly has a connection to the X-Blade, marking him from jump as a figure of tremendous import above perhaps every other major character until he botched it and Sora wound up with that gig.

* Assuming the Master of Masters wants to get at Kingdom Hearts - and of course he does, what else do the villains ever want in these - and’ll get closer than anyone else because he’s the final villain, it means Riku wasn’t wrong in the first game when he said “It’s up to me. Only the Keyblade master can open the secret door and change the world.”

* The Dark Riku alongside Xigbar in the Keyblade Graveyard is the only apparent instance of pair-the-spares when it comes to the villains in the final battle rather than having any thematic connection...unless it’s actually the (offshoot of a past version of the) Master of Masters and Luxu. In fact, including Ansem since he starts off as part of that fight, that brawl would then be a reprise of you battling the first forms encountered by Sora of the three biggest villains in the entire series.

* Speaking of the Dark Riku, his crack about the Mark of Mastery is notable in this context, especially since it comes out of nowhere and Riku doesn’t seem to know entirely what he means. Was that something deliberate?

* And speaking of Xigbar, I’ve already seen fanfics and whatnot centering around Sora-is-the-Master retconning in that Luxu was actually ‘babysitting’ his master’s past self. Worth noting in that light that he spends almost as much time around Riku as Sora: he meets Sora personally face-to-face at the beginning of II and III, but every other time they run into each other it’s when Riku’s right nearby, whether in an upper level of the Castle chamber in their fight in II or fighting both in III or Riku being in Sora’s dream during their DDD confrontation (mostly stuff that’s clearly just meant in the sense of ‘Riku and Xigbar often show up during important plot stuff, of course they’d end up nearby a few times’, but it’d be easy for the creators to retcon as Luxu keeping an eye on him while misdirecting to make it seem like Sora was his real target). But as opposed to his loud, scenery-chewing confrontations with Sora, he was trailing Riku in the Land of Dragons once upon a time - the first time we ever see him face-to-face - quietly in a way that isn’t usually his style even given his noted skill at recon. And if Riku’s the Master, Riku being the last one to say something to him prior to his ‘death’, declaring him unworthy of the Keyblade when a version of him will go on to entrust him with the Keyblade most important to his plans, gets a major charge.

* As someone’s pointed out since, this, which Nomura joked is the sort of thing only the Master of Masters would do (though A Fragmentary Passage really has so far been the odd man out in the secret movies in how little has played out of it; I guess Sora vanishing must have been knowing foreshadowing in retrospect, but a lot of the rest hasn’t come to fruition. Abandoned plans for the series, or ones yet to materialize?).

* Not actually evidence, but if he was the Master then the end of DDD where he mutters to himself “I’m...a Keyblade master?” is another bit that would take on a delightfully ominous air with the benefit of hindsight.

Thematic reasoning

In terms of character, I feel like this opens up considerably more in a much more organic fashion than the possibility of Sora being the big bad. Not that that wouldn’t obviously offer a great deal, but to do so would involve reshaping or inverting a great deal of the character and thematic arcs we’ve seen thus far, while having it all come down to the final fight for Riku’s soul and by extension the world of light as a whole would by contrast do a lot to bring things full circle.

For starters, in the ‘full circle’ sense, along with Riku being the first major adversary of the series (while Maleficent was pulling the strings, Riku was the one dogging your heels, the rival with a personal stake in the conflict at hand) the most prominent imagery now associated with Xehanort, Luxu, and the Master of Masters began for the players with Riku. The Gazing Eye, the outfit and fighting posture later taken up by Vanitas (a connection that remains tantalizingly unexplored to this day), the dark but unmarked Heart symbol of the X-blade, the very concept that there could be multiple Keyblades; he’s even one of the two we see wearing black cloaks in their first appearance. In the world of the game those are all forces that battered Riku about amidst his fall that had been set in motion before he was even born, but as a story experienced by the players those symbols all trace their origins back to him as the first, most personal antagonist. While he’s redeemed himself about as much as one person possibly could - and I’ll say right here that I think when it comes down to it he’ll grit his teeth and stick to his guns on that rather than becoming whatever the Master is - he is and always will be inextricably linked with the series’ imagery for the forces of darkness in a way no other character can be. Dig down past all the layers of continuity and Norts to the most basic idea of what a Bad Guy is in the world of Kingdom Hearts is, and a possessed Riku in front of Hollow Bastion’s keyhole is what’s waiting at the bottom. Any feasible last boss is already on some level an offshoot of that.

But that’s just why it would be a nice clean fit in terms of visual symbolism. More substantially, the Master of Masters being a potential future version of him immediately answers the question of what to do with the dude character-wise. Yozora makes it very clear he’s still going to be important going forward, but as III also made clear, his existing character arc has been closed. He’s fought his way back into the light, been willing to sacrifice that light in himself and any hope of returning home to help the friend he once betrayed, still found salvation, came to terms with the person he was and wanted to be, and was recognized as having mastered his power and his heart. His story could in every way that matters be done, but obviously it isn’t, which means there must still be something for him to deal with; something more than saving Sora, which while as serious as it gets is still for him old hat.

(Going into Sora for a bit: him being the Master of Masters could no doubt be fascinating, in the self-reflection it would induce in Sora, in the conceptual scale of the threat, in the horror it would induce in those close to him, and in Riku in being put on the other side of the equation of having to save his friend from himself. But even aside from how radical a departure that would be personality-wise, it’s a prospect that doesn’t really address Sora’s existing fears or flaws. He’s filled with doubt, yes, but regarding his perceived lack of strength rather than a simmering moral rot; his darkness when glimpsed in a few of his forms seems to be something feral rather than actively malevolent, and he already has a plot-significant counterpart to explore the darkness in himself in Vanitas. Perhaps a desire for greater strength to protect his friends could be written as leading to him losing his way to the extent necessary to pull such a 180, but that’s already Riku and Terra’s misstep to pull themselves up from. It’s shocking in a way that’s enticing, absolutely, but I think part of why it would be shocking is that without either majorly reframing some basic stuff or retreading well-worn ground, it simply doesn’t fit as well as you want it to.)

But if Riku sees a familiar face under the hood, and looks at the blue eyes that once sat in his sword and in the mirror and realizes that there’s no outside force making him do terrible things to people he loves this time? He’s faced with a threat new to the series: that in the end, redemption might fail. Whether there’s timeline shenanigans that mean this guy lived a different life, if he backslid, if he’s clear-headedly making decisions he believes are for the best, or if he just had a really bad day that knocked him off the wagon; the counterpoint to the idea that there’s a light in the dark - the way III demonstrated in such an effective way in the Keyblade Graveyard with the endings of so many enemies - is that there’s a darkness buried down no matter what that still has a chance of breaking through no matter how mightily you’ve steeled yourself against it. It’s a completely different, far more visceral and meaningful fear than the idea of Sora being the one to break bad: in that case, the idea is captivating because it’s so alien and foreign and bizarre. Here, it’s frightening because Riku knows exactly how it could happen, and he’s grown enough to feel the shame and horror of that possibility when he’s already had to live with the consequences of it once. The Organization spent III trying to poke holes in the basic tenants our heroes live by, and this is the ultimate manifestation of that spiritual challenge - that the growth our heroes have seen might come undone by their own hands. And Riku fighting desperately to prove he can remain the person he’s fought so hard to become, and Sora and Kairi fighting to save him along with themselves and each other, is the final conflict.

It’s not just a prospect that would bring urgency back into Riku’s character, it’s a possibility that would reverberate through the whole cast with a severity that it simply couldn’t with Sora. Obviously Kairi and Mickey would stand with Riku and believe he would manage to turn out alright no matter what (though that loyalty is still complicated given an evil/morally-dubious Riku would likely go after Sora - he may have already if he had something to do with bringing him to the world of Verum Rex), but what about the rest of them? They all believe in Sora and his inherent goodness and owe him their lives, but for most Riku’s simply some guy they know, a friend of a friend. Roxas was a victim of his darkness even when he was trying to do the right thing. Terra’s already likely consumed with guilt and could likely see the prospect of his hand-picked successor once again falling to darkness like he did to simply be another on the list of his own sins. Ven might look at him when in his dark outfit and be reminded of his brother. And while Axel knows friends can come back to you, he’s a pragmatic dude who’s seen just how much they can change in the first place. When the battle lines are being drawn in a war even greater than Xehanort’s, would every last one of them really stand with him when they’ve been told he’ll betray them, as he’s betrayed those closest to him before? A prophecy of Sora going wrong would just be a catalyst to bind our heroes closer together to prevent that. That Riku might turn on them could strike at the fissure that would threaten to blow them apart, or if it doesn’t that’s an even greater display of good faith on their part than it would be with Sora. Hell, even on the antagonistic end, Maleficent as an opponent seeking to usurp the Masters’ ambitions is an immeasurably different conflict if she’s up against a Riku who’s gone down the path she first steered him towards.

At the end of the day, the question is why this would be worth making the story of Kingdom Hearts about when Sora is still supposed to be the main character. I laid out earlier some of why I don’t think Sora as the Master would work, but the real deal is this: not only is the Master of Masters a counterpoint to Sora, the Least Disney character in this universe whereas even when next to Mickey Mouse the spiky kid is distinctly the Most Disney, but more importantly to be the Master of Masters would undo the last of Sora’s original premise. For all that he’s become, he was still born, as Xehanort put it, a dull, ordinary boy, surrounded by Chosen Ones and unique entities of every stripe who joined their ranks and ultimately led them purely on the strength of his decency and determination. Riku was literally a Chosen One courtesy of Terra, blessed with one of the ultimate Keyblades and tearing the sky down by sheer force of his will to be more than what one world could contain, the vessel meant to open the Door To Darkness and the one who conquered his own darkness in a way no one else could, who in the end was selected as Master. He is Maximum Protagonist, in every way a Figure Of Destiny, whereas Sora is so much not that, so profoundly the spammer in the seemingly inevitable works of fate, that the first time he meets the first trilogies’ main villain the guy comments on how unremarkable he seems to be, and the last time they meet Sora’s ultimate rebuttal is against the idea of destiny as a straightforward thing any one person can control. For Sora to actually be the guy writing destiny, to have always really been the most important of them all, is to undo that. For him to fight the ultimate figure of destiny, for that to be the guy who was his counterpoint from the very first scene before your Xehanort’s and Roxas’s and Ven’s and Vanitas’s and Luxu’s - the cool guy and fighter and dreamer and Serious Leader-Type Important One to Sora’s cheery, insecure dork in shoes the wrong size who seemed born to be the sidekick - is to bring that story full circle. And it’s to give him the chance to do the one thing he fought for in I and II that he was never able to do himself: save Riku. Because saving his friends is what Sora’s story, and all of Kingdom Hearts, always has to come down to in the end.

#Kingdom Hearts #Master of Masters #Riku #Sora #Analysis #Opinion

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chacusha · 6 years ago

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KH3 liveblogging 4/4

Major spoiler warning! This took me so long because I was trying to 100% the game.

This thing where you have to gather Sora’s pieces is really trippy but cool.

Got 333 pieces. Yeah 8D

Kairi being what keeps Sora tethered to the world is great.

Okay so like... the reason Riku was talking to himself in that earlier scene (and no one else could see him doing this) is because Riku has been harboring Replica Riku’s heart in his this whole time and is able to summon him whenever he wants because he (unlike Sora) actually has the power of awakening? Or...

I like how half-hearted Luxord and Larxene were about fighting. Lol.

“I was just along for the ride” “With who?” “My secret” UHHH... 👀 My best guess is Marluxia given she knew him in KHUX time but who knows.

I also like how the other baddies just stay back while the dying character talks with Sora and co. before they disappear.

Let 👏 Kairi 👏 fight 👏 dammit!

Scala ad Caelum = Stairway to Heaven. It looks very pretty and I want to explore here more but I have a very harrowing boss battle to fight, apparently. But seriously, the blue sky and whitewashed walls on a hill by the sea is so very very Aesthetic.

Xehanort has a goat theme? It looks so creepy. But like... I wonder if this is connected to the Foretellers (all of them have animal themes)?

Okay so... Xehanort wanted to forge a x-blade so that he could control Kingdom Hearts so that he could use the world’s first light it contained within to return the world back to primordial darkness so that the world could have a do-over? ._. Also, this last-minute villain redemption seems a bit rushed but okay. Like... I still don’t get what the deal is with Eraqus and Xehanort. We’re supposed to buy that they’re childhood friends but (1) they don’t act like it in BBS (Xehanort certainly is a pretty shitty friend during BBS), and (2) Xehanort looks like 20 years older than Eraqus??? Just being real.

Old man Xehanort’s voice isn’t as exaggerated as it used to be. RIP Leonard Nimoy. ;_;

Lots of near-death moments for Sora (also, I get that Donald and Goofy are some of the most connected characters to Sora, but this last revival was so cheesy omg).

Lea’s new outfit looks great. Xion’s and Isa’s, though... yikes.

> Don’t Think Twice is playing. > Everyone is here and having a fun day at the beach. > Sora and Kairi are sitting in that tree by themselves. Aww everyone wanted to give them a moment together. > THEY’RE HOLDING HANDS. > Sora fades away leaving Kairi sitting in the tREE BY HERSEEEEELF. > Me: What THE FUCK.

That emotional whiplash, though. Going from “private moment alone with the one I love” (while a song about making an eternal vow is playing, making you think this is a culmination of their relationship!!) to “everyone is having fun and I’m all alone thinking about Sora” (while a song about making an eternal vow is playing, making this moment the most heartbreaking thing ever)!!! WHY!!! I’m crying. Even if Sora is still alive (HE IS) I CAN’T ACCEPT KAIRI BEING THERE ALONE THINKING ABOUT/WAITING FOR HIM. When will they get their happy ending? When will they get to be together?? My heart is breaking.

Okay so Xigbar was Luxu? Huh. No closure on what Maleficent and Pete were up to in this game at all, then.

Uh... what? Sora and Riku in modern Tokyo / Verum Rex world? Um...

Apparently the internet says that is specifically Shibuya from the The World Ends with You universe, suggesting a potential connection between the world where Sora and Riku are in the secret movie and the dream world in Dream Drop Distance where TWEWY characters last appeared.

... Was that card Luxord gave Sora before he died/recompleted actually useful or...

Running around trying to get all the trophies.

Oh sweet, I got a keyblade for finishing the Remy bistro minigame!! I wasn’t even expecting that!

OMG one for finishing the Classic Kingdom games too!!

Me whenever I use a summon: I don’t know wAHT IM DOING???

(Seriously, though, why are summons so complicated in this game)

And... got all the trophies for this game. Yes!

... What were those golden Herc figures for, though? Oh apparently for an optional piece of equipment.

Reading the secret reports: Who is this mystery girl? Four friends + a key + “May your heart be your guiding key” sounds strongly like Skuld. Xigbar / Luxu took her away? Or is it possible that there is a DIFFERENT group of five friends in the Dandelions: (1) Larxene/Elrena, (2) Marluxia/Lauriam, (3) Luxord’s somebody, (4) Demyx’s somebody, and (5) literally anyone else (possibly a completely new character) i.e. the person in this report. (I assume if Subject X was Larxene, Saix and Axel would have recognized her, so Subject X is not Larxene.) All five were saved from the Keyblade War and knew each other, but then ended up in the present time completely amnesiac?

Interesting Xehanort backstory... The Xehanort/Eraqus ship-teasing in this game is immense.

So it seems like summoning Kingdom Hearts allows you access to the old world pre-original Keyblade War (Age of Fairy Tales). This is why Xehanort wanted to summon Kingdom Hearts. But it looks like Luxu wanted Xehanort to summon Kingdom Hearts so that the Foretellers would be able to brought back from the Age of Fairy Tales into the present and so would the Master of Masters?

Fuck, watching the Lost Masters ending again, and Ava is missing!! Ava + four friends + key + “May your heart be your guiding key” could also mean she is the amnesiac girl. Although I don’t get the feeling the Foretellers would really describe each other as “friends”... so probably not. Also, I am very worried that the Foretellers are described as darknesses (presumably villains?), and there are seven -- the middle five are Unicorn (Ira), a heart symbol which I’m guessing is the MoM, Goat (Luxu), Snake (invi), and Leopard? (Gula). It’s blurry but the leftmost one could be a bear (Aced) and the rightmost could be a fox (Ava). I guess (given their names) this wouldn’t be all that surprising...

#kingdom hearts #kingdom hearts 3 #kingdom hearts 3 spoilers #kh3 spoilers #video game liveblogging #kh3 liveblogging #sokai #kh sokai #xehaqus

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