#xehanort rolling in his grave so hard he summons kingdom hearts

[revengerevisited]

Maddie rambles about Kingdom Hearts: Dark Road

Let’s just get this outta the way: Xehanort is my least favorite character in Kingdom Hearts. Now there are certainly more boring and underdeveloped characters but as far as evil deeds go, it doesn’t matter how ‘cute’ or ‘relatable’ Nomura tries to make Xehanort. I will never forget that he tore Ven’s heart in half, tortured Vanitas for four years, killed his own best friend, possessed Terra’s body for a decade, possessed Riku’s body as Ansem, unleashed Heartless on the worlds resulting in countless deaths, manipulated Organization XIII for years, and experimented on Kairi as a child and eventually murdered her in front of her best friends. Any attempt to make me sympathize with him just ain’t gonna work.

Also, I’m not taking any of these ‘Character X is secretly Character Y’ theories too seriously until they actually happen. Yes, it can be fun to speculate that Bragi or Odin is secretly Luxu or the Master of Masters, or that Brain is Eraqus’s ancestor, or that Demyx is the MoM, or that Ava or Vor is Kairi’s grandma, or whatever other theories are out there. But until there’s conclusive evidence that’s all they are, speculations and theories.

On that note, I don’t know why Xehanort is having dreams about the KHUX Player’s adventures but I don’t think it’s because Xehanort is the Player’s Nobody or a reincarnation of the Player. Reincarnation has never been a concept present in the KH series, and honestly it just sounds like bad fanfiction. Plus, if Xehanort does turn out to be the Player, then I feel bad for everyone who spent a lot of time creating their own unique character only to have it be replaced by the generic default Player in KHDR’s opening cutscene and then re-replaced by Xehanort of all people. Perhaps Xehanort simply has a unique, unexplained power to see into the past like Namine’s memory manipulation or Terra’s precognition.

Either way, this past-sight just makes it harder and harder for me to believe that Xehanort wanted to learn about the Keyblade War in BBS, since it seems he already knew all he needs to know. Xemnas knows that Luxord, Marluxia, Demyx, and Larxene are from the past, young Xehanort lives in Scala ad Caelum which was built over the ruins of Daybreak Town complete with a huge machine explaining Daybreak Town’s demise, Eraqus talks about the Book of Prophecies like it’s common knowledge, the list goes on. Also, I don’t like the implication that Xehanort chose Ventus as his vessel and later as material for the X-Blade only because he knows him from the Player’s dreams. Then again, if his dreams of the Keyblade War end before the Player meets Ven and Lauriam, then Xehanort wouldn’t know about them and would instead be more familiar with Skuld and Ephemer.

I will say that one thing I do like is Xehanort comparing himself to a starfish laying on the beach, both for the humorous imagery and also just a bit of that islander backstory flavor. Xehanort being the outsider of his friends group and not telling the whole truth of how he ended up in Scala is also an interesting Kairi parallel, although him being found unconscious in the middle of a city is kinda overused. I do like that the surrounding cities around Scala are all uninhabited, since trying to wrap my mind around these huge mountain-sized cities with potentially millions of people in them was a little too much for my brain to handle.

I do however find it quite bizarre that it’s taken some worlds so long to recover from the Keyblade War. Not only that, but apparently people just appear out of thin air once their world is restored. Like, how? It just feels weird and uncomfortable, almost like these people only exist for the protagonist and audience’s amusement rather than being independent living beings in their own right. I dunno, there’s just something deeply unsettling about those implications. It also makes me wonder how long ago the Keyblade War was, if places like Agrabah still aren’t finished only 75-ish years before KH1. The characters refer to it as a legend, so it must’ve happened a long time ago, right? Some fans think it’s only been 100 years since the Keyblade War, but that would be like the equivalent of calling World War 1 a legend.

The worlds all being on different timescales is also extremely headache-inducing, both as analyst and a fanfic writer trying to keep track of the plot. Couple that with time travel and the whole thing just falls apart. Of course, if each world runs at a different time, then perhaps this is why Xehanort looks so much older than Eraqus, or rather why Eraqus looks so relatively young when he’s supposed to be 80-ish years old. And if that’s the case, then do any of the characters’ ages really matter? I’ve already proven that their ages have been retconned before. Also, this renders timecodes such as ‘75 years later’ and ‘one year later’ from Re:Mind and other parts of the series completely meaningless. The timeline is broken.

Anyway, I’m not sure how much Norse Mythology will play into the story, but all the new characters have Norse names with two that stand out the most. The first is Master Odin, named after a Norse god who sacrificed one of his own eyes for knowledge, which is an interesting parallel to the MoM. The second is Baldr, the as of yet unseen seventh student who has a missing sister, because evidently Nomura likes recycling his previous plots before they’ve even finished. In Norse Mythology, Baldr is the god of light whose death kickstarts the events of Ragnarok. How this’ll be relevant in KHDR remains to be seen, but after seeing those four gravestones in the timeskip/flashforward, I can’t imagine this ending well for anyone not named Eraqus or Xehanort. 

Now, as funny as I find it that the new characters have all been killed off this quickly, I’m not entirely convinced that those are Urd, Hermod, Bragi, and Vor’s graves. They could actually be the graves of the missing upperclassmen, if some of them turn up dead. Speaking of the upperclassmen, I would hope that Yen Sid is one of them, but I have a feeling he won’t be allowed to show up simply because of Disney’s stranglehold on its own IP. It’s pretty sad and ironic seeing as this series used to be all about Disney, but I assume that’s why Nomura is straying further and further from the brand.

About the four new student characters, I don’t have any particular attachment to any of them, beyond Vor’s name being hilariously unfortunate. I find it a bit eye-rolling that fans continuously snub Kairi but will instantly latch onto any new characters like Yozora and these four despite barely knowing anything about them. It doesn’t help that, and please correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems that any of the four who you choose to be in your trio will have the exact same dialogue in cutscenes no matter who you pick, meaning that these new characters don’t even get much of a chance to develop their own personalities because all of their dialogue has to be generic and bland enough to fit all four of them.

Young Eraqus is probably the best character so far, simply because he’s the only one with any personality. Granted his supposed cowardice has yet to be seen, but it’s mentioned so often that I assume it’s gonna be an important plot point later. However, I’m finding it hard to relate young Eraqus with his adult counterpart seeing as their personalities are just so different. I’m aware there’s a 65-ish year gap between this Eraqus and older Eraqus, but there better be some major character development to explain this, especially since even standing in front of his presumed classmate’s graves he still seems fairly chipper.

On that note, as humorous as ‘Tardy Fleetfoot’ is, just like with Xehanort, don’t think I’ve forgotten that this guy caused Terra’s insecurity and self-doubt with his overzealous anti-darkness stance, probably heavily influenced Aqua’s black-and-white anti-darkness keyblade-first-ask-questions-later thinking, was also probably the one who told her to lie to Ventus about always living with them, and attempted to straight up kill Ven and Terra. Eraqus’s actions aren’t as bad as Xehanort’s, but they certainly aren’t acceptable in any capacity.

Something odd I noticed is that Eraqus knows what the Heartless are called, and even the difference between Pureblood and Emblem Heartless-- well, part of the difference; I’m assuming he doesn’t know that future Xehanort created them. But anyway, my point is that Aqua doesn’t know what the Heartless are called until Mickey tells her in BBS 0.2. Before that she simply calls them ‘dwellers of darkness’, and even mistakes one for an Unversed. Does this mean Eraqus never taught his students about the Heartless? Why? Perhaps after his classmates died, he decided to shelter his own students from the worlds, hence why their Mark of Mastery was so simple? I’m just guessing at this point. Of course, there’s still no real explanation as for why the Emblem Heartless are here in the past. My best theory is that someone used the Book of Prophecies to summon them... somehow. It really just seems like an excuse to gloss over the corner Nomura wrote himself into with the whole ‘Emblem Heartless were made by Ansem’ thing, but we’ll see.

Honestly this whole series is just one big endless death-spiral of constant retcons and nonsensical plot twists and at this point I’m just exhausted. My view on KH has become one of mild and morbid curiosity, rather than expecting anything truly great. Is that cynical? Yes, but I’ve watched other once-great series (Star Wars, Voltron) worsen over time to the point that they just fizzle out and die, and I’m afraid it’s the same deal with Kingdom Hearts. I don’t think I’ve truly enjoyed a KH game since BBS, and if the series just continues down the path of introducing bland new characters every time Nomura gets bored rather than developing the already established ones, I don’t know how long I can stay interested. The Dark Seeker Saga is over and he really needs to let Xehanort go.

To end this on a positive note, I am tentatively hopeful about Melody of Memory. The gameplay looks cute and fun and the story looks like it will have more development for Kairi and her backstory, which is something I’ve been wanting for a while now. Focusing on the original cast is definitely a step in the right direction, and I hope this series can keep moving forwards rather than backwards.