WARNING: Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies to Headscratchers pages. All spoilers will be unmarked.
So how the heck did Kairi find her way to the End of the World at the end of the game? Her heart was no longer in Sora, and even so she's clearly not a hallucination as she continues on after they get separated.
Possibly as a Princess of Heart, she had the power to go to wherever Sora was. Or by that point all the worlds had started to crumble and she drifted there out of the void.
The End of the World is made up of fragments of worlds whose hearts the Heartless consumed, including Destiny Islands. The statement is made that defeating Ansem will cause the worlds the Heartless consumed to be restored, including the people on them. We only get to see Kairi teleporting (due to how rare it is for people to survive having their worlds destroyed by the Heartless, and how close Sora was to Destiny Islands' fragment while fighting Ansem), but it's probable that any other survivors were also vacuumed over to it as part of the World Restoration process.
Years after playing and beating the first two Kingdom Hearts games, and reading about the rest, this is something I STILL come back to. Kairi's heart was inside Sora in the first game, and to awaken her, Sora had to release her heart, basically "dying" and becoming a Heartless. Alright, I can get behind that, and can probably assume that the scene in the beginning with Kairi "flying" through Sora when the door opens before the island is lost. So, where did SORA'S heart go? Did it just disappear? Does that mean Sora and Kairi share one heart between them? Does Sora need Kairi's heart to prevent himself from becoming a Heartless?
You have to remember that the Heartless is a misnomer — the Heartless are hearts. Sora's heart is right where he is.
More specifically, Heartless are the darkness within a heart manifesting as a living prison around the rest of the heart. Which also hints to why the Keyblade — able to open any lock — is the only way to release hearts from the grip of the Heartless.
In the Monstro world, there was a moment where Pinocchio told Jiminy that he wasn't gonna make it and his nose grew longer. His nose is supposed to grow longer everytime he lies, but he thought he wasn't gonna make it so... does that really count as lying? Should it have counted?
I interpreted that as Pinocchio being overly dramatic and acting weak when he actually felt fine. Notice how quickly he perks up when his nose calls him out on it.
So...the crown symbol. I get the key motifs, and the hearts, and everything else. But what about the crowns? Is there ANY plot relevance to the crown symbol? If there is, I missed it. It's very prominent, but it's just...there.
Seriously? Come on, it's Kingdom Hearts. Ninenty percent of the characters are Disney, whose most famous trademark/logo is Cinderella's castle. In the game there is the presence of multiple worlds- or kingdoms, which, last time I checked, generally require a monarch. Who wears a crown. Duh.
... or more simply, it's Sora's personal character symbol, starting with the crown necklace he wears. As the series continues, more characters gain their own "emblem" to represent themselves.
I've never played this before, and I asked some friends of mine who did about it, and, I have to ask, do the later games really eschew the Disney elements to the point that they're just Final FantasywithMickey Mouse shoehorned in? That's what they said happened, and it kinda tarnishes the novel idea of a Disney/FF crossover if one overtakes the other.
That is the main reason this troper has avoided the games like the plague.
On a related note, I asked and they said none of the characters from the games before Final Fantasy VII show up. Why?
Your friends are wrong; Setzer shows up in KHII. The reason more pre-VII characters don't show up is that the director (who did the character designs for VII and VIII) isn't as comfortable with including characters that he didn't design, as I understand it.
He didn't design the Disney characters, though. >__>
I meant Final Fantasy characters he didn't design.
I'm not sure what your friend means exactly, but KH incorporates Disney into the mix relatively well. Hell, Mickey doesn't even actually show up in the first game until one of the ending cutscenes, so there's no real shoehorning that I can tell. In fact, aside from a few of the original worlds created for the series, all of the games' worlds (as far as I can tell) are from Disney. FF's influences are more along the lines of gameplay/plot along with some added characters along the way.
The influence of Disney does lessen as time goes on, though. In this game, the Dalmations are a collectible, the Disney Princesses are a major part of the plot, and the Disney villains are actually involved in the Heartless plot. By KH 3, the only Disney villains are either contained to their world or essentially cameos. Heck, of the 7 pieces of light and 13 pieces of dark only Mickey isn't an OC character. Disney seemed like part of the universe in the first game, but now just feels like an obligation.
On the other hand, there were zero Final Fantasy characters in Kingdom Hearts III, until the DLC for it dropped and gave Leon and friends a cameo.
Keyblade. That name is so uninspired. When I first saw a quick preview of Kingdom Hearts in a magazine I thought, "Hey that kid's weapon looks like a key," and it took me literally seconds to come up with the name Keyblade. This is a company that routinely comes up with very cool-sounding names, so it Just Bugs Me that the main weapon name is so boring.
It allows for a Pun in Birth by Sleep, with the X-Blade (that X is the Greek letter Chi, so it's pronounced "Ky-blade", not "Ecks-blade"). Though I'm sure that Square didn't have that in mind when they made the first game, since BBS had probably not even been conceived yet.
It's actually pronounced "Keyblade" still.
By naming the base weapon something simple like Keyblade, it gives them the freedom to be more creative with the Keychain names.
The Base weapon is called "Kingdom Key." All forms are keyblades.
The Kingdom Key has a keychain as much as any other form of the Keyblade, and neither Terra, Ven, nor Aqua start off with a Kingdom Key. There's no reason to think that there's a uniform "base form" of Keyblades as a whole.
It's the base form in game mechanics, and Sora's go-to default.
Weapon type names are generally pretty uninspired. Broadsword? Claymore?
Wait, what? I get broadsword, as it's a broad sword, but claymore? Because it... clays more? It's not a great example of uninspired names.
Claidheamh mòr translates (colloquially and dysphemically) to BFS.
Simple answer, "Keyblade" is the name of the weapon class, like "Gunblade" is for Squall/Lightning or "Sword", "Whip", etc. Proper names are reserved for individual models, which is where you end up with Oathkeeper, Oblivion, and so on.
If meddling isn't allowed, why the hell does Mickey send Donald Duck & Goofy? How the hell doesn't anyone from a world where only humans can talk, question the fact that there are suddenly talking animals?
Most of the worlds they visit already have strange inhabitants that aren't all humans (for example, Wonderland, Olympus Coliseum, Atlantica, Neverland, etc.). Traverse Town is a world where people from different worlds all show up, so there is a possibility that the population of TT has its fair share of anthropomorphic beings in addition to humans. However, for a world like Deep Jungle, I have no clue why the humans there aren't weirded out by Donald and Goofy.
Terk and the other gorillas could talk in Disney's Tarzan movie. Tarzan was just the only one who could understand them.
I think that when Donald and Goofy visit a world full of anthropomorphic animals or other strange inhabitants (or a world full of people from different worlds), the citizens of the world see Donald and Goofy as a talking duck and a talking dog, and accept it, as it's normal for them. However, when they visit more realistic worlds without strange animals, like Port Royale, they are seen by the characters from that world as whatever they would accept as normal. Like, Jack Sparrow might look at Goofy and see just a tall, goofy guy with weird teeth. And to him, Donald might be a midget.
And apparently, Barbossa saw Pete as a ridiculously overweight man.
That doesn't explain why we don't see Donald and Goofy (or Pete) as humans. Sora's not the only one whose appearance changes to adapt to a different environment. In fact, I'm pretty sure Sora would become an anthro of some kind of animal if he were to set foot in the world of Disney's Robin Hood.
I don't think that's true. In Kingdom Hearts II, there's a cutscene segment in Agrabah where we see through the eyes of Jasmine. Goofy and Donald clearly appear normal. Yes, I know they have genies and magic carpets. No, that should not logically lead to bipedal dogs and ducks with severely deformed bodies.
She is a princess of heart, so she may be able to see past any illusion magic they use though.
Being fair though, She was in the first game and was taken to another world. As were the other princesses of Heart.
Soo, what'd happen if they wound up in the Zootopia universe, where (as far as we know, at least) the only anthropomorphized beings are mammals? Sora (and possibly Goofy) would be fine, but what'd happen to Donald? Would he be turned into some sort of mammal (a platypus, perhaps?) or remain as a duck? I know that the creators have stated that anthro nonmammals might exist in that universe, but it doesn't seem like they've done anything with that idea...
It's been mentioned that King Mickey and Scrooge used to always travel between worlds when possible. I assume that most of the people you meet in the worlds met with either of them or some other Disney Kingdom traveller, so they just know something's up when they see 3 odd people (Well, a weird person and his dog and duck) turn up randomly.
Bad writing.
It's more that 'Meddling' means 'interfering with mutually exclusive affairs'- example; Triton berated the crew for 'meddling' with, as far as he knew, family-based dispute. The leeway is more for when the external threats show up [the heartless] that the crew is allowed to intervent.
Maybe normally it isn't allowed. But with worlds being destroyed left and right, and the princesses being kidnapped - it's a little more acceptable. And aren't the Heartless everyone's problem? So it's not like they're travelling to Atlantica to solve an Atlantica-exclusive problem.
Sora's job as the keybearer is to seal the world's keyhole and stop the Heartless from destroying the world. It's a different story if he was using his power to solve mundane problems. Triton assumed that Sora was helping Ariel with her desire to see other worlds - something she would not be able to do if he wasn't there.
And in The Little Mermaid, Triton was shown as an overprotective abuser who needed to see the error of his ways, so he's not meant to be in the right. Since he destroyed the thing that would have revealed the keyhole, it drove Ariel into Ursula's clutches and nearly doomed the world completely. In all events, meddling yields good results, so maybe Donald isn't meant to be taken at face value.
If The Heartless are called "heartless" because they don't have hearts, then why does a heart float off into the aether every time one is slain?
They steal hearts. Luxord in Kingdom Hearts II says "Whenever a Heartless is slain, it releases a CAPTIVE heart". Saïx also says in the same game "Pitiful Heartless, mindlessly collecting hearts". So the hearts that float away aren't the hearts of the Heartless, they're just hearts that that Heartless had collected.
Because that's not why they're called "heartless": The Heartless are the missing hearts of the Nobodies, the bodies and souls of people who lost their hearts to darkness. So, in essence, the Heartless and Nobodies are named the opposite of what they really are.
Heartless have no bodies; Nobodies are heartless.
Blame this all on Gratuitous English. They're called "HEARTLESS" in Japanese, too.
RE: "the Heartless and Nobodies are named the opposite of what they really are", notice how many entries on this page are derived from that. Wasn't it absolutely clear that the Heartless were defined as "beings with no hearts" in the first game? Why change it completely just to complicate the plot and confuse the hell out of everyone?
Remember: The original concept of Heartless, the darkness in hearts of living beings given shape and form by a "natural" process, corresponds to the "pureblood" heartless such as shadows and darkballs, which don't release hearts when defeated. You're talking about the Emblem (Artificial) heartless who DO release a captive heart when destroyed. Those heartless were created by machines that forcefully reproduced the process of a heart being consumed. A Nobody comes to existence when someone's heart is consumed and creates a pureblood heartless. It is assumed that Artificial/Emblem heartless have nothing to do with this process.
I don't think so. Shadow heartless and some other, who are considered "pureblood" DO release hearts, when destroyed. I think, that a heartless is in fact... well... Imagine a berry. The berry itself is the heart and the juice is the darkness inside it. When the berry (heart) gets damaged, the juice (darkness) flows out and covers it. Congratulations, you just turned the berry into a heartless! OK, what I am trying to say, is, that the Heartless ARE materialized darkness and the hearts, they were produced from, are kind of broken, since the darkness completely corrupted them. They can't use them, so they are "heartless".
As far as I know, the name "Heartless" is more of a metaphor than anything. They have hearts, they just can't really use them. Like, if you called a person heartless, you'd be saying they were cruel, but not actually that they literally had no heart. It's the same with the Heartless. A quote by Luxord mentioned earlier says that when a Heartless is destroyed, it releases a captive heart. The captive heart is the Heartless's original heart. Heartless are simply hearts corrupted by darkness and turned into monsters. When Sora or another Keyblade wielder kills a Heartless, the heart is released from the darkness and goes to Kingdom Hearts. So yes, the Heartless have hearts. Nobodies, on the other hand, are the body and mind that were left behind when the Heartless was created. Does this explain it?
...Can someone in the fandom summarize all this for the newbie here? I'm confused...
To Sum Up: In the Kingdom Hearts universe, all living creatures consist of three parts, the physical body, the soul, and the heart (not to be confused with the actual blood-pumping heart). Every heart has within it a small spark of Darkness (supernatural evil) which is what gives that person the capacity to do evil, similar to original sin in Christianity. This spark can be stimulated to grow in a number of ways, including feeling intense negative emotion, using dark magic, having dark magic used on you, and being bitten by a Heartless. When the darkness in a heart grows great enough, the heart detaches from the body and becomes a monster called a Heartless, which is composed of the wrecked heart and a large field of dark energy. The body and soul left behind will then either die or become a different type of monster known as a Nobody. The exact functions of the Heart and Soul are unclear. The heart is known to serve a role in memory and emotion, especially the emotional bonds between individuals. How this interacts with the physical brain's capacity for those functions is unclear. The soul has almost no known defined functions. There are at least two incidents (Xehanort and Sora) where a Heartless displays the full range of Human cognitive functions - what this means is anyone's guess. This is all in my understanding of course.
Xehanort's and Sora's Heartless retained full range of human cognitive functions because both willingly became Heartless. Also, I believe the Ansem Reports in the sequel say that the soul serves the purpose of animating the body and giving it life, while the heart is the spiritual center of the person. Someone's soul leaving their body kills them, but somebody's heart leaving them allows them to stay alive... but not quite human.
Actually the reason for that control is that they both had 2 hearts inside them when they became Heartless. The heart that was released was the one that belonged to the body, Terra and Sora's hearts in these cases. The Hearts that remained became the Nobodies Xemnas and Roxas, but as they were foreign hearts, they had no memories. Also of note is that all human Nobodies had their hearts taken via keyblade as has been releaved in recent trailers for the upcoming KH game.
That's not quite true. I believe the Secret Ansem reports made it clear that those who sacrifice their heart willingly will become a sentient heartless. Axel and Larxene also theorised during CoM that the reason was to do with the strength of their hearts. Besides, Xehanort is clearly the one behind both Ansem and Xemnas in each game. Terra's location is still unknown.
I always thought that since the Heartless were hearts, the released hearts were them.
Heartless come when a heart is consumed by darkness. They ARE hearts turned into black holes. Hearts can't have hearts.
Hearts can't have hearts makes as mush sense as one could hope for, but still, why are the nobodies called nobodies when they are the body that is left after a 'somebody' losses there heart?
Non-Indicative Name covers that statement. As for why such would be their given name, I would blame Nomuya's unpredictable mind for coming up with that idea.
Wait, I think I got it! Heartless are the creatures that have no hearts and only become solid when they capture a heart and Nobodies are the creatures that have no body and only become solid when someone losses there body.
No, I'm pretty sure that switching Heartless' and Nobodies' names around would be dumb.
You guys aren't looking at this from the right perspective. It's not "no body" it's "nobody". No individual, no self. Beings with no emotion or personality are defined and named as those who have no identity. You could just as easily call them no-ones or nones, but that would be dumb.
I think I can provide the explanations behind their namings in two sentences.
You're Heartless!
There's Nobody in the room.
Adding to the madcap. The term "Heartless" was given for the creature's mentality. They act like animals, there's no emotion in a Heartless, just raw instinct. Steal hearts, and self defense. That's it. That's why Xehanort called them Heartless, they acted as if they had no hearts, no feelings, like various animals. Think of them as only having the Reptile Brain. Base survival instincts. I hope that helps. Nobodies again relate to the mentioned above, as no individual.
This discussion got out of hand real fast. The short version is, Heartless aren't "living organisms with hearts", they're constructs made of the darkness that burst out of someone's heart, acting as a living cage around the remainder of said heart. They were also named before Nomura came up with the concept of Nobodies, who were given an ironic name in-story.
In Kingdom Hearts 1, in Agrabah, Aladdin could just wish the Heartless away and make everything go back to normal, but he uses the wish to free Genie. But why didn't he just hand the lamp to Sora, let him wish them away, plus wish for two more things he wanted (that boat to get finished, for example), then just take it back and set Genie free? It can be explained away in the movie by him not really having anyone to trust with it, but Sora had just easily proved himself a trustworthy ally.
Same reason Aladdin doesn't hand the lamp over to Jasmine or the Sultan at the end of the movie: it's the principle of the thing. Aladdin's made such a big deal about how Genie has become his best friend and he shouldn't be forced to grant any more wishes, he's finally on his last wish, and suddenly Genie has to dole out three (or six, or nine) more wishes before he can be freed — kind of a dick move on Aladdin's part. It may not be the most practical thing to do, but it's certainly the right thing.
In-Game Reason: It actually wouldn't do much good. Genie's power does have its limits, so we have no idea if he could actually destroy all of the Heartless. Eventually, more of them would probably just appear anyway. Not to mention the fact that the Disney villains are still out there and know about Heartless and other worlds, and getting to the sentient ones like "Ansem" might fall under the no-killing rule. (He may not be human, be he's just as smart as one, and Jafar couldn't kill Iago in the second movie.) There are also issues of where Riku and Kairi are, not to mention the fact that even if Sora doesn't know about them at the time, Organization XIII is still out there, and nobody's safe. Also, it may be a violation of the no meddling with other worlds rule.
Out of Game Reason: From a story standpoint, it would be a really bad idea for any Disney characters not created by Walt himself to be monumentally important to the plot, because it would make everything even more complicated than it already is. All of the Disney characters without direct ties to the Mickey Mouse franchise are there to serve as minor characters in the universe, and guest-stars in their individual levels. Summons are fine, since they're just a gameplay element, and the only effect we see them having on the story is certain characters being familiar with Sora despite never going to their worlds (like Simba and Mushu). It would be like Tarzan becoming a permanent companion throughout the worlds. Having Genie magically fix everything wouldn't just be a boring way to end the story, but it would ruin the effect of limiting the involvement of the Disney movie characters in the plot, which works very well to establish the game as its own entity and not some random cash-grab with a bunch of popular cartoon characters in it.
Also begs the question why Jafar didn't use Genie to wish for control over Kingdom Hearts.
Maybe Jafar didn't know about Kingdom Hearts. Hell, maybe Maleficent didn't even know. Their mission was to round up the princesses to open this door to the darkness - but maybe that's all they knew. And if it's like how it is was in the film, Jafar made a rash wish and didn't think it through. He wished for the power of the genie and forgot that genies are bound to serve a master.
In the movie, the very first rule the Genie gave for his wishes is that he can't kill anybody. Presumably, destroying or erasing all Heartless from existence would constitute a break of this rule. (Technically, Jafar ordering the Genie to "crush" Sora and Aladdin might also break this rule, but Jafar's phrasing allows a broader interpretation where Genie just has to fight them personally rather than use his full power.)
Why wasn't Ariel, from The Little Mermaid a Princess of Heart? You'd think Disney would want said princesses to be all six of the "Disney Princesses". And why was she replaced by Alice of all people?
Because she'd need to be kept in a really big fish bowl at Hollow Bastion.
Plus, prior contact with Humans would mess up the dynamic of her own story. Remember, she never knew Sora was a human.
Don't forget, Square would have had to get rid of a party member by having Ariel get taken. Plus, how would she be captured? Donald's magic was the only reason they could breathe in Atlantica.
... Ariel is able to surface or laze about the beach and breathe just fine in the movie. Mermaids can breathe air or water, the bigger issue is their mobility on land.
There's actually a very good reason why Ariel couldn't be used, regardless of whether or not she makes more sense from the perspective of marketing — Princesses of Heart have no darkness in their hearts. Ariel made a Deal with the Devil. Those two things, generally speaking, don't go together.
That, plus "disobeying" her father by going to the surface world may or may not have played a part in it.
As for why Alice is a Princess of Heart, it works with having Wonderland as one of the first few game worlds. The heroes are alerted to the disappearance of young girls early in the quest, instead of not finding out until they get all the way to Agrabah.
But Alice was never a princess, she became a queen.
A Princess of Heart doesn't actually have to be a 'princess' to qualify. Technically, Belle isn't a princess in KH1 because in the film she became a princess only once she married the Beast/Prince Adam at the end.
Cinderella wasn't a princess either, only becoming one when once she married Prince Charming.
Alice definitely wasn't a princess in Wonderland. Kairi's a little more ambiguous, but later entries strongly imply that she was just a regular citizen of Radiant Garden, and that Ansem's castle had visiting hours.
Going back to the initial question, it would be a hard way to work her movie's plot into that of the game. She has to make her deal with Ursula to become human. You then have to defeat Ursula somehow but Ariel still be captured. And I think Atlantica is technically an optional world. You can skip either that or Halloween Town and go to Never Land straight away. No cutscenes in Atlantica are related to the main plot either.
And really Ariel never really feels like a princess in the same way the others do. She's in the Disney Princess line but like Mulan she doesn't really fit in with their personalities. Ariel is the most ostensibly flawed of the princesses and there's none of that "I see the good in everyone" aspect to her character - Snow White, Cinderella and Aurora are all The Ingenue, Alice is merely an innocently curious child (and Kairi is quite similar), and Belle and Jasmine both are kind-hearted enough to fall for their respective men for their inner beauty rather than superficial stuff (the Beast's appearance and Aladdin's poverty). So they might have felt weird including her as this paragon of virtue and kindness, when she's more like Esmerelda and Mulan in terms of personality.
What does 4chan have to do with Gaston? And in any case I ask why Gaston hasn't appeared yet because he was the villain in one of the most famous Disney movies.
Because he was replaced by Xaldin as the antagonist in the Beast's story, and there's really no other role for him.
And, compared to villains like Maleficent, Jafar, and Hades, he probably wouldn't make for a very good Boss Battle.
Nobody make a better boss battle than Gaston
Hey, they managed to make Pete work.
And Clayton, who has basically the same skill set as Gaston.
But he has a Gun
To be completely fair, Clayton was only a good boss because of the Stealth Sneak. Other than that, all he can do is shoot you and heal a bit of health. He could be a nameless pirate in Port Royal, basically. Then the Stealth Sneak became a semi-normal enemy anyway. What continuously amazes me is that they made CAPTAIN HOOK work.
Dude, Captain Hook was easy to work... he's a swordsman...
Besides which, no one hits like Gaston, matches wits like Gaston, and in a spitting match, nobody spits like Gaston!
Wasn't Gaston lifting things like benches and tables? And didn't he manage to trade blows with The Beast? And besides, I figure a 6 ft tall guy who can carry a wooden bench with one hand would be a better boss fight than a obese cat with a peg leg.
Lazy programmers. Destructible objects are a real bitch. Besides, that would be the only cool thing about his fight. Clayton had a modern rifle, but barring an anachronism by Maleficent handing it off to Gaston, he'll be stuck with a musket.
Most significantly, adding Gaston to the Beast/Belle storyline would bring in the personal dynamics that defined Gaston in the film — that is, the fact that it's clearly implied that Belle's relationship is what drove him to action against the Beast. This plot had already been explored enough times, so emphasizing the primary plot of the film (the one centered around the rose) kept the writing down to a level balanced with other worlds.
It's already been alluded to that Nomura wanted to avoid similar worlds. Tarzan replaced The Jungle Book, since two jungle-based worlds might have been dull. As Gaston and Clayton are basically built off the same template, it would make sense that Clayton's inclusion made Gaston superfluous.
They should have ditched Tarzan and used both Jungle Book and Gaston. Nobody can truly replace Gaston.
What was the voice that Sora heard at the end of Kingdom Hearts one? (The one that was reassuring him that he has the "mightiest weapon of all")
Near as I can tell, that's supposed to be Sora himself.
I always figured it was the Light. The Darkness has that volcano-dwelling Satan figure as a potential head-honcho (too bad "Ansem" completely overshadows him), so why WOULDN'T the Light have its own headman? Especially as, apparently, Darkness = unthinking monsterhood, and Light = individual sentience and identity.
The Satan figure was another import from Disney: Chernabog.
Some say, it's the keyblade itself, since it has chosen him as worthy enough to carry it.
It's confirmed to be Mickey in the Ultimania for KH1.
It's Mickey Mouse? It sounds nothing like Mickey! What the hell, Disney.
Ahem... 'sounds'? The 'voice' manifests as text on a screen. You Fail Logic Forever.
I think he means that the dialogue used sounds nothing like Mickey would say.
Without playing any other game other than the 1st, I would understand why Mickey COULD be the voice, but after Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, I truly belive it's Ventus. Mickey at this point in the game does NOT know that Sora is the Keyblade wielder. (Besides, we all agree that the manner of speaking the voice has does not match to Mickey's)
Mickey- "Aww, we don't hate it. It's just kinda... Scary."
Fridge Brilliance: Mickey isn't talking to Sora personally, but rather to the Keyblade wielder whose name he does not know, but who he knows must be out there. This plays into the theory that the Kingdom Keys are the two halves of the X-blade.
In Deep Jungle, Sora gets shown a slide of a castle and remarks that it looks familiar to him, even though he's never been outside of Destiny Islands before. Two games later and we haven't seen a structure remotely like it yet. Was it a stray plot hook that just got forgotten?
It was Kairi's heart recognizing the basic shapes of her original home, Hollow Bastion. Not an exact match, no, but they are both castles.
If you closely compare the castle in the slide with Hollow Bastion, they're actually an exact match. The big archway in the center bottom and the pillars on the outside are the same (albiet the left half made of pipes and machinery), and the highest tower in the center is present yet warped. That's why it resonates so strongly when the camera pans up when you finally reach HB, it's the same place but utterly warped and destroyed. It bugs me that most people don't realize that, mostly due to the sequels retconning the design in favor of Radiant Garden.
Why is the Keyblade able to cut through buildings in normal gameplay, yet unable to cut through a measly Shadow in less than three strikes? Personally, my friends and I decided that it was Schrodinger's sword — It exists as both an impossibly sharp blade and a giant key at the same time, and it's state can only be defined when it is in the action of cutting something. Or ineffectually bludgeoning something, as the case often is.
You mean the Rule of Cool isn't enough explanation?
Here's a better one; the Heartless regularly become more powerful than their previous incarnations were. By the time Sora has reached Hollow Bastion in the first game, he could, statistically, kill one of the Shadows from Destiny Islands in one hit, yet the Shadows in Hollow Bastion actually take more hits than the ones on Destiny Islands did. Presumably, by the time you hit The World That Never Was, Shadows have become sturdier than your average twenty story high-rise.
The Heartless get stronger the closer they are to darkness. That is why, when the Keyhole in Hollow Bastion was opened, all the Heartless in all the worlds became so much stronger from the darkness that was pouring out of it, and why the strongest ones appear only in the "Heartless worlds." Also why Darkside can only fight Sora when a world is nearly consumed by the darkness. As to the building-cutting thing, I always assumed that they were highly unstable structures. I mean, they DO only contain a weak-looking latticework of what appears to be darkness and nothing.
As a slight continuation of the previous troper's observation on the inside of the buildings, remember the location of this battle was the World That Never Was... which in of itself is likely a giant Nobody for entire worlds. If that's true, and I do admit it's possible I'm wrong, then why shouldn't the Keyblade act like a Ginsu knife on the structures? The Heartless and Nobodies are at least self-aware, and possibly their "health" is simply how much damage they can willfully ignore before needing to dissipate and reform a body. Again, just tossing out ideas, but if that also is true, a structure that can't actually think would be the equivalent of pretty tissue paper to the Keyblade.
The Heartless are made out of titanium, or diamonds, or something similar.
What I want to know is how does Sora manage to appear on the other side of the buildings he cuts through... BEFORE they fall apart? He's not just cutting them, he's passing right through them.
Going with the above theory that the buildings are actually Nobody buildings, it makes perfect sense! They're Nobody buildings, they don't really exist. Remember in Twilight Town, when Hayner and Pence (I think it was them anyways) went right through Axel when they tried to attack them? And the fact that in gameplay the Keyblade passes through enemies while still doing damage? It's the same principle! Sora and his Keyblade are passing right through the nonexistent buildings, but the Keyblade is also damaging them and slicing them apart!
My interpretation is that most of The World That Never Was is a manifestation of Xemnas's powers, as he's explicitly shown to be able to manifest all kinds of things at will as part of his power set. It's the power of the Keyblade to tear through his artifices, whether that be his swordplay or that replica of the Chrysler building he just chucked at you.
If Riku was actually chosen to get the Keyblade, that went to Sora, why did Sora have an "Awakening-dream"? Could it be, that they were both chosen to get one from the beginning, but Riku didn't get his, cause of this whole Must-trust-darkness thing, that happened to him? In that case, they would both have had this dream. Or did Riku lose his right on the Keyblade, when he was six and saw the keyhole? Man, I'm pretty, pretty confused.
This is easy. Riku and Sora were both intended to get a Keyblade, and Riku probably did have an Awakening dream. Sora never discussed his dream with Riku, just Kairi, so we can't really know. Riku didn't get his Keyblade because he embraced the Darkness instead.
Interesting... I always saw the Awakening Dream, at least in the case of Sora, as his heart/subconscious's way of preparing him for the Heartless invasion. Notice how the subject of the Keyblade never ACTUALLY comes up in his dream? Unlike in Roxas's, the blade doesn't even appear for him: He just fights with whichever Dream Weapon that he chose.
Who's to say he didn't have one; after all, there was that thing with the door in the flashback in Monstro — perhaps his came around the time Kairi showed up...
Riku actually does get a Keyblade: Soul Eater (that bat-wing-sword thing he uses) turns out to be the proto-form of Way to Dawn, the Keyblade he uses in the latter segments of Kingdom Hearts II.
Check out the KingdomHearts for theories on Destiny and Dreams.
I believe it was stated in the ultimania that that was Mickey readying him for what was coming, and that Sora was never actually meant to receive one on his own, rather the theory is that he pulled Riku's keyblade from his heart in a moment of pure darkness.
The possible answer to that question lies in the question, "How many wielders HAVE had Dive to the Heart dreams prior to summoning a Keyblade?" The only one we're aware of is Sora; the only other wielders we see at a Station are Roxas (who already has a Keyblade at that point and is following his connection to Sora), and Ventus (who doesn't face any trials on his, rather using it as a final stage to fight Vanitas). Coincidentally, as far as we're aware, it's implied Sora is one of the only wielders who didn't undergo a "Bequeathing" ceremony to inherit a Keyblade, and took one instead. It's possible the Dive to the Heart is a trial to prove one's worthiness to wield a Keyblade if they weren't just given one by a master, and that Riku didn't have to take the test himself.
The game relies on power trio tropes, with heavy emphasis on theme symbolism, sometimes doubled. For example, we have Sora/Donald/Goofy (Fighter/Wizard/Shield and also Red/Blue/Green, a colour combination which repeats a lot). Hayner/Pence/Olette; Selphie/Tidus/Wakka; the Trinity Marks, Xemnas's final battles... The list is extensive. With the Destiny Islands trio of Sora/Kairi/Riku we have the theme naming of sky/sea/land, the knight/princess/sidekick and also the optimist/realist/pessimist, MacGuffin/AntiHero... But the major theme of the games are Light/Dark/Twilight. If Kairi is Light (Princess of Heart) and Riku is Twilight (reference CoM), then doesn't that make Sora Dark?
Well, I have thought about this too and, YES, Sora actually IS dark. I mean, he's the only one of the three, who actually became a Heartless, and he still has the ability to become one, when his body is disabled (Anti Form). Darkness is not always bad. As Riku said "We're just afraid, of what's inside...". But if you search long enough in the darkness, you MAY find a hidden treasure! Riku did (after a few disastrous attempts) find some cool, black-magic spells inside and maybe Sora will one day learn to control Anti Form, maybe even how to give other Heartless their minds back! ...OK, this last sentence kinda belongs into the WMG.
Bear in mind that Mickey is also Dark. The Light appears to serve as a guiding light and defender of the good that already exists (Minnie and Kairi) and the Dark is the person who forges new light. Mickey especially has a rather impressive Heel–Face Turn record, guiding both DiZ and Riku towards redemption. With that, either DiZ or Riku could serve as Mickey's Twilight, both use Darkness to achieve their aims and both are noted antiheroes.
Uh, so then is there a point to the Twilight, or was that just an excuse to give Riku a Keyblade?
I guess, if this vein of thought is accurate, that Twilight is a person who embraces both light and darkness, darkness is a kind of narrow-minded fighter, and light is a pacifist who relies solely on their glowing powers to see them through. Alternatively, though, Riku could be dark, Sora twilight, and Kairi light, although they may see themselves as something else. Heh, brings me back to the Genesis/Sephiroth/Angeal/??? — Hero/Prisoner/Wanderer question raised by Crisis Core. It's true: Kingdom Hearts is the new Final Fantasy VII.
Y'know, one fanfic writer actually went through with that D/T/L thing here.
"From light, the only way to go is into darkness. From darkness, the twilight becomes the dawn..." (probably not a KH quote, but it still fits) And the above troper's theory is what I always believed, that Kairi is the "embodiment of light, never gets consumed by darkness" personification, Riku is unstable and can go either way depending on his company and which way he's (metaphorically) facing, sort of symbolic of the typical human, and Sora is the one who is required to get his hands dirty chopping up thousands of darkness-coated hearts in order to save the world (remember, Dark Is Not Evil).
"If the world is Light and Darkness, let's be the Darkness." "Yeah." Or something to that effect.
I believe you might be wrong. In my playing of the games, I have figured that Kairi is light, Riku is Darkness, and Sora is Twilight. It makes sense when you think about the fact that Sora has the ability to use light (his normal overdrive forms, carry the heart of a princess in the first game) and the darkness (anti-form, surviving as a humanoid heartless, etc). To be honest, it makes more sense.
Or you're just overthinking it so it can fit into your particular pet theory.
Does that make me more incorrect then the previous theory? Or, for that matter, more correct? I was just stating an option and my opinion. Take it or leave it.
If Kairi is the "light" and Riku is the "Dark" does that make Sora the "Twilight"?
No.
Maybe.
It's complicated. There are compelling arguments for either conclusion.
You all appear to be forgetting that day has four points: Day, Twilight, Night, and Dawn. Sora's dawn, the point where darkness shifts to light.
There are actually two different twilights during a day: Dawn, where darkness shifts to light, and Dusk, where light shifts to darkness.
In my theory, I believe the concept from the troper above. Kairi is of course Light, Riku is Dusk and Sora is Dawn. Reason? Sora cannot be Dark because of the Keyblade and Ventus. Because of what happened before Bb S, he became a person of pure light while Venitas became the personification of his darkness. Riku is Dusk because he was chosen by Terra to succeed in using the Keyblade but derailed from this path of Light into the Darkness. Who is Dark, I cannot tell you because I don't know myself.
Xehanort is dark. He originally hailed from Destiny Islands.
Going along with this theory, wouldn't it make more sense for Sora to be the Dusk, and Riku to be the Dawn? Riku's weapon is "Way to the Dawn" after all. And Riku is the one who begins the series in the dark, but chooses light at the end. Sora may eventually accept the dark. Man, I would love it if Sora gains a final Keyblade form called "Way to the Dusk," or something to do with Dusk.
Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days lists Roxas's element as "Light". Given that he's Sora's Nobody, it's probably safe to assume Sora is Light as well. Besides, his Keyblade (the Kingdom Key, or Kingdom Chain in Japanese) is the Keyblade of the Realm of Light, just like Mickey's Kingdom Key D (or Kingdom Chain D) is the Keyblade of the Realm of Darkness. Most of Sora's attacks/abilities in Kingdom Hearts II are light-based, while Riku's are dark-based. Also, in the first game, when Riku reaches his hand out to Sora when surrounded by darkness, Sora attempts to take it, but a flash of light comes from his body, which repels him — this points to Sora being Light and Riku being Dark. It's possible that, if Riku had gotten the Keyblade instead of Sora like he was meant to, the Keyblade he received would have been the Kingdom Key D, not the Kingdom Key, cementing Riku's position as a warrior of the Realm of Darkness. My theory is that Sora is Light, Riku is Dark, and Mickey is Twilight. Kairi is also Light, being a Princess of Heart and all.
... y'all realize "Twilight" isn't meant to be some kind of "balance" between Light and Dark, right? Twilight is associated with the power of Nobodies — the absence of both — and the metaphor Di Z uses when he refers to the "twilight road to nightfall" is to ask if Riku intends to teeter on the edge of darkness and oblivion like the Nobodies do. ("The road to dawn" Riku refers to is a counterpoint, that he already considers himself a warrior who came from the darkness, again in service to the interests of the light.)
Further, the triptych of "Light/Darkness/Twilight" works for Creatures of the Realm of Light (complete people), Creatures of the Realm of Darkness (Pureblood Heartless), and Creatures of Neither (Nobodies, who were never supposed to exist and are not "native" to any reality). It doesn't apply to the triad of Sora/Kairi/Riku though — namely because all 3 are, as base humans, inherently creatures of Light. However, there is a sliding scale of how much darkness each one has in their hearts and how effective they are at using it: Kairi is pure Light, Riku is the most Dark but still bearing light, and Sora is Between the two of them.
Even though you might just say that this plot hole is simply because Square didn't come up with this element of the plot yet, it is still a question why Sora never encountered any Nobodies in Kingdom Hearts 1. If a Nobody is created every time a Heartless is, and Sora sees tons of Heartless, where are all the Nobodies? It is a mystery why no member of Organization 13 ever tries to shut down Sora's Disney-villain killing spree.
Easy, KH2 showed the goal of Organization 13, which is to have Sora kill as many heartless as possible, to create an artificial Kingdom Hearts so they can get their hearts back. They don't WANT to stop Sora from what he's doing.
He did, Sora just wasn't aware that Xemnas was one. He was just a mysterious man in a cloak to him.
By my knowledge, Nobodies aren't created every time a heartless appears, and it's only when someone with a powerful 'soul' succumbs to dakness. Additionally, most of the heartless encountered are artificial, created without the whole process of taking a heart
The other element to consider is the nature of the Nobodies' involvement in KH2. In Days and flashbacks in 2, it's clear that Organization were already working towards their goals prior to and during the events of KH1, but were a covert operation biding their time. Their intervention at the start of KH2 was initially to recapture Roxas and clean up loose end to their plans, and when that failed, it was clear that Riku, Namine, Mickey and DiZ's efforts to restore Sora and undermine the Organization were about to blow the lid on their whole operation. Combine that with Ansem no longer whipping up the Heartless into a frenzy on all worlds, and add a dash of "we need someone with a Keyblade to slaughter Heartless to make our artificial Kingdom Hearts". It was only then that it was in their better interests to go public, and "make this journey memorable."
Perhaps it doesn't fully violate the rule but shouldn't Jafar not have been able to make genie attack Sora for the first part of the boss fight as genie might have killed Sora by accident in the process?
One could construe it that the Genie will simply weaken Sora to the point where he can't fight back, and then Jafar would walk over and step on his neck. That's what I'd do anyway. The game censors the trachea-stomping.
The "genies can't kill" or any other genie rules that were used with the Aladdin universe genies in the movies or cartoon isn't established for the Kingdom Hearts version at any point before or since this fight, so it's probably not an issue. In fact, the "no killing" rule is outright defied both during to this fight against Genie and any fights against Genie Jafar after it as he actively tries to kill Sora and can succeed.
also I know its so its beatable but why didn't Iago just fly so high up he couldn't be hit by Sora?
The Lamp is a large brass vessel, probably weighing around a half-kilo, being held aloft by a scrawny makaw of probably a hundred grams or so. Iago probably couldn't lift it any higher if he wanted to, unless perhaps if he was backed up by an African or European swallow with a bit of creeper, persay.
Jafar's wish for the Genie was to "Crush them." Jafar never explicitly wished for Genie to kill anyone, and the Genie's rules don't say he can't be asked to fight on his master's behalf as long as he doesn't use his powers to kill, which is semi-evidenced by Genie not really trying to defeat them (he swings wide to say he put the requested effort in, but many of his attacks are easily avoided). Presumably the "no wishing for killing" rule is supposed to prevent Genies from carrying out Death Note-style instant assassinations from across the globe, like heart attacks, aneurysms or exploding heads; the very fact that Sora has a fighting chance is probably enough to weasel past the rule.
So, the Trickmaster, the heartless that Sora and Co. Fight in wonderland is supposedly medium sized, right? So why didn't Sora and Co. simply drink the growing water to resize?
Gameplay and Story Segregation. But in-universe perhaps in the heat of the battle, they didn't think of it. They get attacked and their instinct is to defend themselves. And who's to say that if they drank it and grew bigger that the Trickmaster couldn't get ahold of it and do the same?
Gameplay and Story Integration: Right as the Cheshire Cat points up at the looming Trickmaster on the ceiling, the bottles fade away. Cheshire, eternal Troll that he is, baited them into a smaller form and removed that option before the fight could begin.
Is it just me, or do they seem to have a fondness for Neverland? It gets worked in a lot, and has probably the most music mixes.
No. If they did, they'd show the real Neverland, not just random outcroppings copypasted from Wind Waker and the Jolly Roger.
Why did "Ansem" need to possess Riku at all? He shouldn't have needed to do it to "regain a physical presence" as the game claims. Other heartless are perfectly able to interact with the world despite no longer having bodies, why would Ansem have needed one?.
If that's the case, then it's one of the most backfiring cases of For the Evulz ever.
Well, if you ignore the fact that Riku had to struggle with Ansem taking over his heart in CoM, then his appearance and voice in Days and II, then I would suppose so.
I consider it a case of backfiring because Riku ultimately destroyed "Ansem" in the end and even just minutes after Riku was possessed Riku was fighting back against him and making things difficult for him, and afterwards Ansem was pretty much sealed away entirely and then his power was used against his other half. Sure, Ansem had no way of knowing this would happen but he still would have been better off if he never possessed Riku to begin with.
KHI Ansem needed Riku because while he was a heartless, he didn't have a physical body and thus couldn't interact, he's not exactly your typical heartless.
Good point. But it wasn't because of his being humanoid, it was because he was abusing Time Travel too much.
What in god's name is a heart, anyways? If souls exist separately, then what purpose does a heart serve? Did Nomura just want an allusion to be easier to Title Drop?
The body is the vessel for the heart and mind, the soul is what animates the body (think life energy) and the heart is what makes emotions possible, as well as being a sort of container for the light and darkness within a person.
So that would mean that the soul is essentially an allusion to the mind in Kingdom Hearts, then, while the heart is essentially the soul in all but name.
No, the soul is merely something that makes it possible for the body to function, it has no other purpose. To put it simply, without the soul the body would be dead, but without the heart the body can possibly still be alive, as evidenced by the Nobodies. The mind is another separate 4th thing, but unlike the heart, body, and soul, they don't really go into much detail on how the mind works, probably because it's pretty much a non presence in the KH universe as of yet, the only being purely of the mind at this point is Terra's Lingering Will. And yes, the Heart is pretty much the soul as we in the real world describe the soul, if we're referring to emotions and the capacity for light and darkness, good and evil, but in the KH universe the Heart and Soul are entirely different things.
Well, I made the comparison of KH's souls and the mind because they both make the body function. In all honestly, you could say people in KH don't have brains because Japanese culture doesn't allude to them.
In terms of KH, think of yourself as a talking plush. The plush itself is, of course, your body; the voice box is your heart; the batteries are your soul. The voice box gives you personality, but it can only work with batteries. Yes, our hearts are what make us us and are extremely important, but they cannot function without the soul to keep them and our bodies alive.
Another possibility is simply something to do with language. In Japanese, the word kokoro can mean heart or emotion, hence why the two might be tied together in a game partially produced by the Japanese based company Square.
In the first game, Phil says that a "bunch of weirdos" signed up for the Coliseum games. How did a bunch of Heartless just waltz right in and sign up, without causing any heart-stealing disasters, especially one being a freaking Behemoth?!
Hades likely gave the Heartless strict orders to follow. Heartless do whatever they're being commanded to, remember. So long as that person is strong enough to lead them.
Not only that, but if Phil is letting anyone with an unofficial ticket enter the games, then why even bother stopping Sora from entering in the first place? And if Sora and the Heartless are randomly showing up with tickets Phil never approved, why does he never suspect that maybe Hades might be responsible? He has to know that Hades borders on Trickster God in this series.
Maybe he didn't let Sora enter because of his age? He's still very obviously a kid, and Phil isn't about to let a child enter a tournament full of monsters. But when he produced a ticket, it made him think that Sora was serious and not just a bratty kid wanting to play act.
Or maybe since Hades gave the ticket, it was enchanted so that Phil couldn't refuse Sora entry if he read it?
A minor nitpick, but with the scene where Sora meets Riku in Traverse town doesn't make any sense. The first problem is Donald outright refusing to allow Riku to go with them for no reason ever given before or since then for it, but the second problem is Sora's reaction after Riku subsequently vanishes: he's is completely nonchalant about it. Sora doesn't even get the slightest bit pissed off at Donald for driving Riku off, reacting with an "oh well" when I'd at least expect him to chew Donald out for driving his best friend off if not give the guy a light smack for it. What's worse, in Riku's mind this only serves to confirm the suspicions that Maleficent has been trying to plant in his head.
Donald's reason for not taking Riku is that there would have been no purpose for him going. Sora's the Keybearer, so he has to seal Keyholes in other worlds, whereas Donald and Goofy have to both help him and try to find where Mickey went. As for Sora's nonchalant reaction to Riku's leaving: he just has full confidence that Riku can handle himself. He's always considered Riku to be a worthy rival, and the fact he's already proven to be able to destroy Heartless shows he could presumably stay in Traverse Town relatively safely. Taking Riku, to him, would probably just be putting his friend in danger considering they're facing both Heartless and the Disney villains who control them.
When they first meet, Sora asks if going with Donald and Goofy will give him a chance to find Riku and Kairi; Donald emphatically agrees, but tells Goofy "Who knows? But we need him to come with us to help us find the king." At the time of Riku's appearance in Traverse Time, Donald doesn't care about Sora, his friends or his problems, and is just using him. It's not until Hollow Bastion that he realizes he screwed up.
So, my best friend and I are currently replaying the first game, and I'm just now realizing how little sense Sora losing his heart and 'magically' returning to himself when Kairi hugs him makes. Wouldn't he have to have his heart return to Roxas to become himself again? Do we chalk it up to being before Nobodies were a concept? Or am I missing something explained in some of the other games? (I've only played 1, 2, 358/2 Days, and some of DDD.)
It was her heart of pure light that changed him back, due to her being a Princess of Heart.
He was technically still a heartless at that point, just one who was effectively made of light rather than darkness. Since he willingly gave up his heart, he was able to remain sentient, and Kairi's light gave him his original form. Basically, Sora was a heartless until Roxas returned his body and soul a year later.
Honestly, something tells me that not even Normura himself really knows the answer to that. The answer posted above does make enough sense though, especially when you consider than Ansem SOD is also a sentient Heartless. If this never ends up being confirmed though, the only other explanation is that Kairi's light granted Sora a new body and soul out of thin air. Which... doesn't make sense, I know.
A hint to this may lie in the fact that Riku, despite losing his body to Ansem, is suddenly corporeal again after being banished to the Realm of Darkness. An argument can be made that Ansem's destruction returned the physical body to Riku (roll with it), but there is a gap there where Riku explicitly lost his body and still is running around. Perhaps a strong enough inner light allows a free heart to project its original form, and Kairi's influence removed the Heartless shell and strengthened Sora's heart's ability to do so.
So, why are Huey, Dewey, and Louie in Traverse Town? What world where they in that got destroyed? Why didn't they live with Donald in Disney Castle? Why didn't he come and get them? He could have easily dropped them off at Disney Castle and return to the mission.
Their world, Disney Castle, didn't get destroyed. They just wanted to follow in their Unca Scrooge's footsteps about selling expensive stuff to people in other worlds. They at least picked a world where the inhabitants were aware there were other worlds due to it being essentially a giant interstellar refugee camp.
Why do Hikari translated into Simple and Clean? The lyrics are complete opposite. Are they just trying to make it into pop song for the western audience?
Hikari and Simple and Clean are indeed two entirely different songs set to the same piece of music. Each was written with their respective audience in mind. Utada Hikaru is a trained and experienced songwriter in both languages, and thus knows that a song written for one language will never sound as good when translated into another.
So with the larger context of Kingdom Hearts 3 in mind, what the bloody hell was Ansem even doing in Kingdom Hearts 1? Because that door at the end of the game is clearly not Kingdom Hearts, it's the Door to the Dark World. Initially I thought Kingdom Hearts was beyond the door in the dark world, but it turns out nah, Kingdom Hearts is a giant heart in the sky that can launch meteors while also being this other realm called Stairway to Heaven in Latin or something and the world of darkness is entirely unrelated. Now there's no problem with Ansem simply being wrong...only he has absolutely no reason to be so colossally mistaken on the basic principals of what it is he's looking for. Xehanort knew from the start what Kingdom Hearts is (and Ansem supposedly has his memories back) and Xemnas, Ansem's counterpart who should know at least as much as he does, knows that Kingdom Hearts is at least a giant heart in the sky even if he's not going after the X-Blade. This incarnation of Ansem is also the same one that went back in time to contact Young Xehanort and organise the grand master plan for Kingdom Hearts 3, so he absolutely should know what Kingdom Hearts is, yet for some reason he's completely fundamentally mistaken on the manner, a mistake that ends up getting him killed. And why does the door to darkness kill him anyway? Sora just says Kingdom Hearts is light...even though the other side of that door is clearly a dark world. That's a headscratcher taking even the first game in isolation.
I was thinking about this the other day while playing Re:Mind, and the way I understand it is this. Ansem the Seeker of Darkness knew that Kingdom Hearts was: 1. A collection of hearts, 2. That has phenomenal power. And rather than trying to find the true Kingdom Hearts, he tried to make a copy, just like Xemnas did, in hopes that it would give him the power of Darkness. When the first game was writen, Nomura hadn't decided yet that the heart-shaped moon on the cover of the game was Kingdom Hearts (I remember reading this on an interview), so Kingdom Hearts didn't have the iconic form we associate with it today. Ansem took a bunch of hearts of worlds and fashioned them together into... something. I used to think that his Kingdom Hearts was the door itself, but Kh Wiki claims this is not the case. He placed his fake Kingdom Hearts in the Realm of Darkness, because he thought that Darkness was the heart's true essence. Well, I say he "placed" it here, but it's more that he just made sure all the hearts gathered there; he had no access to the Realm of Darkness. In order to reach the Realm of Darkness, he had to open the Door to Darkness, which required seven pure hearts of light for reasons that haven't been explained in depth. And when he opened it, he didn't expect to find out that light was abundant in the hearts of the worlds, which ended up killing him. Once the light had passed, all that was left was darkness, which threatened to flood the Realm of Light; Sora and Mickey closed the door, separating the two Realms, and the hearts of the worlds, now masterless, returned to their places, restoring the worlds. Thus, in the first game, technically speaking, you "see" the fake Kingdom Hearts on the other side of the door, but it's either invisible or it doesn't look like anything out of the ordinary. Now. Everything in the previous paragraph? I think that's what Nomura wrote for the first game. It is sort of explained in the first game, only in a very obtuse and unclear manner that would go over most kids' (and most adults' tbh) heads. But it was still relatively simple, once you got down to it; everything made sense. Ansem was a mad scientist obsessed with power who built a fake Kingdom Hearts that killed him; pretty simple stuff. The problem is that with the knowledge from later games things get a bit messy, because it's difficult to determine whether Ansem Seeker of Darkness was completely deluded, or whether he knew that the thing he had created was an imperfect copy and it was all some ruse to put Xehanort's plan into place, and how exactly Xehanort and his knowledge feature into the plot of the first game isn't exactly clear; the video-summary of the first game included in the menu of Kingdom Hearts 2 briefly alludes to Ansem So K needing the seven princesses to open the Door to Darkness, but it's not very well explained. And then you have stuff like how So K had to fashion an entire multilayered evil plan that took him 10 YEARS just to do what characters in later games do with a snap of their fingers (get to the Realm of Darkness). What I do know is that it's stablished in DDD that when a character is finished time traveling and returns to their time they forget that they time traveled so as to not mess up the timeline, so at least that plot point is taken care of. But still, you can clearly see that the first game's story has some trouble fitting seamlessly into the larger universe of the franchise, which can lead to confusion.
So... why is there only 1 wish left for Genie to grant Aladdin after defeating Jafar? The first wish was to get rid of the Heartless, and the second wish was to help Jasmine... which Genie never actually did because Jafar stole the lamp from Aladdin before he could actually do it. There should be 2 left.
Perhaps making the wish still counted, even if it wasn't fulfilled.
Exactly why and how did Jiminy even get to Disney Castle in the first place? Others games establish that when someone loses their world they end up in Traverse Town, like Pinocchio, so shouldn't Jiminy have ended up in Traverse Town as well?
Maybe Jiminy's world was among the first to be destroyed, and he first ended up in Traverse Town but hitched a ride that brought him to Disney Castle?
Goofy is heavily implied to have taught Sora Dodge Roll. Why can't he Dodge Roll?
I got the impression that abilities are able to be given directly to someone like an item. When Sora receives Dodge Roll, Donald prompts Goofy by telling him to "give him that other thing." This seems to suggest that Goofy handed Sora the ability as though it were somehow a tangible thing that could be passed to another person, rather than physically teaching him to be able to perform the roll. Furthermore, Sora then says abilities are useful and that they should "keep an eye out for them," which seems to further suggest that abilities are somehow just laying around and able to be picked up. Also, when Cloud gives Sora the Sonic Blade ability, the cutscene shows him physically dropping something into Sora's hand. It doesn't make a lot of sense, especially since most abilities are gained by leveling up rather than being found, but that was how I interpreted it.
When you defeat Jafar's human form in Agrabah and go to Jasmine, Aladdin says that you should save her later and focus on fighting Genie!Jafar instead. But can't Aladdin just save Jasmine himself and leave fighting Genie!Jafar to Sora and co.? Gameplay wise, I understand why this wasn't the case; it would remove your ability to use Aladdin in the boss battle against Genie!Jafar. But why doesn't he think about this in the plot? Not only would he have finally saved Jasmine like he wanted to since the Pot Scorpion battle, but it would've prevented Maleficent from getting her hands on her, therefore preventing her from opening the final keyhole. This seemed like a really dumb move on Aladdin's part.
There could be any number of reasons. Perhaps Aladdin thought Jafar would chase after them if he took Jasmine and ran. Perhaps Aladdin didn’t want to leave his friends to fight an empowered Jafar on their own, since he really isn’t the type to leave his friends in a pinch.
The big twist of the original Alice in Wonderland (and hell, the original Alice's Adventures in Wonderland) is that Wonderland exists entirely within a dream Alice has. In Kingdom Hearts, she is somehow taken from her own dream by Maleficent. How does Wonderland continue to even exist in her absence?
Since the worlds are essentially alternate universes with the movies, this must take place in where Alice did end up in a real wonderland. The real question is what original world did she belong to? The Clock Tower extension of Never Land?
A bit of a blunt one: where is Christopher Robin during all of the events in the 100 Acre Wood? We see that Sora apparently takes his place, being the one that opens the book and all. Was the book separated from Christopher Robin's world, in which he becomes the human of the story?
Has Merlin ever entered the story while the book was in his possession?
Birth by Sleep has shown that in Kingdom Hearts, you can't breathe in space. If that's the case, how was Monstro able to survive in space without his head exploding?
I'm not even sure how BBS proved that. They wear the armor to prevent themselves from being corrupted by the darkness in space. In BBS, Xehanort refuses to wear the armor, believing that it he should welcome the darkness rather than reject it, while Mickey gets knocked unconscious and is suspended in space without armor until Aqua finds him. It's fair to say you can breath in space.
No, it's not that they can breathe in space, it's that Mickey has the magic of his Star Shard protecting him, even when he is unconscious. No character in Birth by Sleep or any Kingdom Hearts game is shown to be able to move around to other worlds without a ship, corridors of darkness, or Keyblade armor protecting them. Monstro might have a way for air to circulate through his body, especially given how insanely complex and weird the inside of the whale is.
Air is never brought up, it's just the corrupting influence of darkness, this isn't space as we think of it, it's The Realms Between, We don't know for sure if Monstro could be corrupted, or even if he has a heart.
Although we are told that he tore through dimensions to get to Hollow Bastion, it's safe to conclude that Beast managed to utilize the corridors of darkness himself.
Let's not forget Kingdom Hearts II's ending, where Kairi threw a message in a bottle from the sea in Destiny Islands managed to reach Sora and Riku at the Dark Meridian, ALSO connected to water. And the factor that the King's message also arrived in a bottle at sea and the theory above on how the Space between Worlds and the Ocean were basically the same thing (from a different perspective). From this take, to Sora and co they're riding on a Gummi Ship through Space when a huge space Whale pops up to eat them. But to Monstro, he came across the equivalent to a submarine vessel which he then proceeded to eat.
Olympus (Coliseum) suggests that the film Hercules has already happened in both I and II. Notably, the Titans are already out and free, Megara isn't working for Hades, Hercules is already cited as being a true hero, Hercules defeats the Hydra while avoiding cutting its head off this time, and he directly brings up his recollection of the end of the film's events where he saved Megara. Despite that, III shows that the events of the movie have yet to happen. What events could have possibly happened in Olympus, then? Additionally, if Hades has so thoroughly exhausted his bag of tricks that by the most important day of his 18-year-plan he can't come up with anything other than a fire in Thebes to delay Hercules' interruption, why wouldn't he accept any potential help from Maleficent or Pete?
Unfortunate Implications that the only female Guest-Star Party Member becomes a Damsel in Distress. After all Jasmine was a pretty feisty Action Girl in her universe, but she gets turned into a damsel just to serve the story.
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