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What if Brain is Eraqus?



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Alpha Baymax

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I get that saying "Character A is really character C." is something that people are tired of in Kingdom Hearts, but I think there's just too many key points to consider that made me draw to this conclusion. When Brain was initially revealed, I jumped at him being Ienzo because the characters hairstyle initially matched Ienzo, and Ienzo is a bit of a mystery character when it comes to his powers of illusion and mute personality in Birth by Sleep. But once official art of Brain was revealed, that theory was immediately debunked. Then Kirabook proposed that Brain is Luxu, and that the traitor narrative from the previous Fortellers' was still present. This was the theory that I supported the most at the time... until I came to realise that the personality shift from Luxu to Brain is not only drastic, but Luxu was specifically tasked as an observer. Brain does much more than that, and questions Master Ava's decisions to the point where it's like he has't even met her before.

So I propose that Brain, is in fact Eraqus. For discussion's sake, if Brain is indeed Eraqus, then this gives context to so much of Eraqus' decisions...

His obliviousness to Young Xehanort's fascination about The Keyblade War: First off, I want to address the Elephant in the room. In the scene where Xehanort and Eraqus are playing chess, Eraqus tells Xehanort that he's never heard of The Lost Masters. Initially, I was under the assumption that the original Forteller's were the Lost Masters, however, upon further consideration, what if the Dandelion Union Leaders were the Lost Masters? and that the reason as to why they're called The Lost Masters is that their positions as Union Leaders was never recorded in history? After all, Ephemer did not want to do anything that would break the Dandelion's illusion of the Unions. So we end up in a situation where the history of The Keyblade War is factual... to an extent. Xehanort being the intellectual he is, digs deeper into "The Master's favourite story" and comes to the realisation that everything isn't quite adding up.

His attitude towards Ventus: Eraqus and Ventus relationship is the least explored out of all of the Birth by Sleep trio. Eraqus sees Aqua as the ideal Keyblade Master whilst Terra is seen as the troubled pupil who has much to learn. But what about Ventus? Outside of wanting to protect him and have him be welcomed with Aqua and Terra (after Master Xehanort passed him over), we don't really know their bond. Now assuming that Brain is Eraqus, their dynamic changes so drastically that it's not even funny. You ever wondered why Ventus could not be a candidate for being a Keyblade Master? we may have been led to believe that Ventus still needed to do more training before going for the title, but what if it's out of respect? Ventus is a Dandelion Union Leader, having a title from another Dandelion Union Leader isn't necessary, because Eraqus and Ventus are equals.

This can also explain Eraqus isolation with Ventus. Ventus is a character out of time, but then again, so is Eraqus (again, assuming that he is indeed Brain). But Eraqus being the sage like figure that he is in Birth by Sleep would rather not have past transgressions seep into the future. It's why he was welcoming to Master Xehanort attending the Mark of Mastery Exam despite their past clash regarding light and darkness. If somebody was to find out Ventus true purpose, that would be dangerous. Ventus is still fairly impressionable, and having someone else find that out would be problematic to say the least as that would re-define fact and fiction about The Age of Fairy Tales and The Keyblade War.

His demise: So, Eraqus fights with Terra, they both make up only for Eraqus to be striked by Master Xehanort. At face value, that's a villain (that being Master Xehanort) doing a villain thing. But if we were to implement my theory, that act suddenly becomes karma?! let me explain. When we see Strelizia dying away, the figure that was decoded in the shadows seemed to be Lauriam, making Lauriam the killer of Strelitzia (assuming the figure was not a placeholder) giving him the title of The Graceful Assassin. But you have to understand, an Assassin can be interpreted as a synonym for Hitman. And what does a Hitman do? kill on behalf of someone else. And who could that someone else be? Brain of course. out of all the Dandelion Union Leaders, Brain seems to be the one who feels like making himself and his views known. Thus, making the demise of Master Eraqus much more ironic. Also, for a Master who would go as far as to outright kill one of his pupils (Ventus) seems a bit extreme... but if Eraqus has already done something like that before in a past life then that makes his motives much more habitual in nature.

His name: Now we get onto my personal favourite bit of the theory and the part that'll make KHInsider's blood boil. Brain makes perfect sense as a pseudonym name, Blaine on the other hand does not. It was never a translation error. "wtf", you may ponder "get another hobby, Kingdom Hearts theories are not for you anymore". Hear me out. If we're going to understand the crux of the theory, we have to understand the origin of Master Eraqus as a character. Master Eraqus was created as the Kingdom Hearts counterpart to Yen Sid. Just like Yen Sid's name spelt backwards is Di-, Master Eraqus name re-arranged spells Square, the brand that developed Kingdom Hearts. So with that knowledge, we can understand the asthetic function of Eraqus as a character. Speaking of asthetics, Master Eraqus is designed after Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy and one of the founders of the Kingdom Hearts concept.

But what does that have to do with the supposed name? I'm getting to that now, if old Eraqus is designed after a Square veteran, then Brain must be designed after a more younger figure at Square Enix (if we are to presume that Brain is Eraqus). Brain wears all black everything, you know who else wears all black everything at Square Enix? none other than Tetsuya Nomura. Blown your Blaine's out with that, didn't I? Oh, but it gets more interesting if we revert back to my first point. In the discussion between Xehanort and Eraqus, they're playing chess. What if that's symbolism for the Brain of the series (that being Nomura) is playing against Another (the anagram of Xehanort, but a double meaning that also refer's to the audience)?

A lot of my theories, I tend to stay further away the more information we get, but I genuinely think I solved the enigma regarding Brain. After all, Eraqus is supposedly dead, and with Kingdom Hearts being a character driven franchise, what better way to develop a character that's already wiped from current existence than to develop their past persona. It's a clever way of avoiding Kingdom Hearts clout of original characters present in the series.
 
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Audo

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His obliviousness to Young Xehanort's fascination about The Keyblade War: First off, I want to address the Elephant in the room. In the scene where Xehanort and Eraqus are playing chess, Eraqus tells Xehanort that he's never heard of The Lost Masters. Initially, I was under the assumption that the original Forteller's were the Lost Masters, however, upon further consideration, what if the Dandelion Union Leaders were the Lost Masters? and that the reason as to why they're called The Lost Masters is that their positions as Union Leaders was never recorded in history?
Problem with this is that Xehanort explicitly refers to the lost masters as the ones who "started the Keyblade War". This would not apply if he was referring to the Dandelion Leaders.
 

Alpha Baymax

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Problem with this is that Xehanort explicitly refers to the lost masters as the ones who "started the Keyblade War". This would not apply if he was referring to the Dandelion Leaders.

You're right, I forgot to pick up on that detail. But even omitting that section out of the theory, Brain being Eraqus still holds a sense of validity.
 

Audo

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His name: Now we get onto my personal favourite bit of the theory and the part that'll make KHInsider's blood boil. Brain makes perfect sense as a pseudonym name, Blaine on the other hand does not. It was never a translation error. "wtf", you may ponder "get another hobby, Kingdom Hearts theories are not for you anymore". Hear me out. If we're going to understand the crux of the theory, we have to understand the origin of Master Eraqus as a character. Master Eraqus was created as the Kingdom Hearts counterpart to Yen Sid. Just like Yen Sid's name spelt backwards is Di-, Master Eraqus name re-arranged spells Square, the brand that developed Kingdom Hearts. So with that knowledge, we can understand the asthetic function of Eraqus as a character. Speaking of asthetics, Master Eraqus is designed after Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy and one of the founders of the Kingdom Hearts concept.

But what does that have to do with the supposed name? I'm getting to that now, if old Eraqus is designed after a Square veteran, then Brain must be designed after a more younger figure at Square Enix (if we are to presume that Brain is Eraqus). Brain wears all black everything, you know who else wears all black everything at Square Enix? none other than Tetsuya Nomura. Blown your Blaine's out with that, didn't I? Oh, but it gets more interesting if we revert back to my first point. In the discussion between Xehanort and Eraqus, they're playing chess. What if that's symbolism for the Brain of the series (that being Nomura) is playing against Another (the anagram of Xehanort, but a double meaning that also refer's to the audience)?

A lot of my theories, I tend to stay further away the more information we get, but I genuinely think I solved the enigma regarding Brain. After all, Eraqus is supposedly dead, and with Kingdom Hearts being a character driven franchise, what better way to develop a character that's already wiped from current existence than to develop their past persona. It's a clever way of avoiding Kingdom Hearts clout of original characters present in the series.
A big problem I'm seeing is that you've put forth an explanation for the name significance from a meta standpoint, but haven't really provided one at all for the in-universe standpoint. Why would Eraqus use a pseudonym? What would be the point of that? Like the whole Square-anagram, Nomura-standin thing, like, none of that matters to the story itself, and in the story there need to be a reason as to why these two characters, if they are the same, have different names. When Brain reveals himself to be Eraqus, he isn't going to look to the audience and explain that he is a Nomura stand in and Eraqus is a square stand in. There needs to be a narrative reason for it. And currently Brain has no reason to lie about his name.
 
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I have a better theory.

He's not Eraqus at all. We would have a much better idea of who he is if we hadn't spent half a year in Agrabah.
 

Luminary

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I was actually working on this same theory, with differing details, awhile back when constructing my theories on how Luxu is the Master of Eraqus and Xehanort, the Plague of Nightmares, and how Ventus and Lauriam are brought to present day without knowledge of their past.

Here’s my condensed theory combining it all.

In UX, the Spirits who are helping the Dandelions forget the Keyblade War will begin turning into Nightmares. They’ll be out of control, consuming all the Dandelions’ memories. Blaine/Brain, perhaps reading in the BoP that this will occur, manages to escape the Unchained Realm early on. Luxu will find him and take him as an apprentice, giving him a new name, Eraqus, as the MoM did for his own apprentices.

Sometime later, Xehanort becomes an apprentice as well. Luxu being their Master makes sense of why the Keyblade War is his favorite story. Why would a random Master glorify a war like that? It must have some personal meaning to him. And Blaine being Eraqus explains why he knows the Foretellers. At the least, he knew Ava as she recruited him.

Much later in Realm of Light, but only a short time later in the Unchained Realm, Ventus and Lauriam have lost all their memories other than their names, but manage to escape the Unchained Realm and the Nightmares. At this point, Master Xehanort finds Ventus and takes him under his wing. When Eraqus meets Ventus, he feels ashamed that he abandoned him and the others in the Unchained Realm, so he vows to protect him and train him until he learns of Xehanort’s intentions for him.
 

Alpha Baymax

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I have a better theory.

He's not Eraqus at all. We would have a much better idea of who he is if we hadn't spent half a year in Agrabah.

Last week he's Ienzo, this week he's Eraqus and probably next week he's Braig or Pence.

My theory is Brain is Brain.

That's great and all, but it doesn't exactly counter my theory. All these kind of answers do is ignore the theory for the sake of ignoring it. If you don't like the theory, at least attempt to say why.

A big problem I'm seeing is that you've put forth an explanation for the name significance from a meta standpoint, but haven't really provided one at all for the in-universe standpoint. Why would Eraqus use a pseudonym? What would be the point of that? Like the whole Square-anagram, Nomura-standin thing, like, none of that matters to the story itself, and in the story there need to be a reason as to why these two characters, if they are the same, have different names. When Brain reveals himself to be Eraqus, he isn't going to look to the audience and explain that he is a Nomura stand in and Eraqus is a square stand in. There needs to be a narrative reason for it. And currently Brain has no reason to lie about his name.

I'm glad that you mentioned this, it gives me an opportunity to delve into this further.

In the X universe, certain gameplay elements have a in-universe purpose as well as a gameplay purpose. For example, Pets and guilting. What if changing your name is also has an in-universe purpose? a bit crazy to consider at first, but it makes more sense when you realise that the majority of Dandelions outside the Dandelion Union Leaders are nameless. The avatar's friends have no defined name despite being established characters. Maybe Brain's name, and him changing his name to Eraqus is just a means of weaving another gameplay element into a narrative element.

An alternate theory for the name change (and a more simple one at that) of Brain's name change to Eraqus is as simple as not wanting people to find out his real identity. If Brain was to be Eraqus, and like Ventus and Lauriam, was a character out of time, he'd presumably not want anyone to find out about this. So the easiest way to go about that is to have a name change and change up his outfit.

Now regarding the meta connection with Nomura/Sakaguchi and Brain/Eraqus, it's more to do with visual inspiration more than anything else. I'm not saying that Brain is literally Nomura in Kingdom Hearts, moreso, Brain is stylised after Nomura whilst Eraqus is stylised after Sakaguchi because they're both key figures that represent the Square brand. Like how Yen Sid personifies Walt Disney, Master Eraqus personifies Square Enix. Even ignoring the theory altogether, Eraqus being the anagram of Square has no narrative value. It's just there as an Easter Egg.

I was actually working on this same theory, with differing details, awhile back when constructing my theories on how Luxu is the Master of Eraqus and Xehanort, the Plague of Nightmares, and how Ventus and Lauriam are brought to present day without knowledge of their past.

Here’s my condensed theory combining it all.

In UX, the Spirits who are helping the Dandelions forget the Keyblade War will begin turning into Nightmares. They’ll be out of control, consuming all the Dandelions’ memories. Blaine/Brain, perhaps reading in the BoP that this will occur, manages to escape the Unchained Realm early on. Luxu will find him and take him as an apprentice, giving him a new name, Eraqus, as the MoM did for his own apprentices.

Sometime later, Xehanort becomes an apprentice as well. Luxu being their Master makes sense of why the Keyblade War is his favorite story. Why would a random Master glorify a war like that? It must have some personal meaning to him. And Blaine being Eraqus explains why he knows the Foretellers. At the least, he knew Ava as she recruited him.

Much later in Realm of Light, but only a short time later in the Unchained Realm, Ventus and Lauriam have lost all their memories other than their names, but manage to escape the Unchained Realm and the Nightmares. At this point, Master Xehanort finds Ventus and takes him under his wing. When Eraqus meets Ventus, he feels ashamed that he abandoned him and the others in the Unchained Realm, so he vows to protect him and train him until he learns of Xehanort’s intentions for him.

My thoughts exactly Zip. Granted, we both believe in different means of Brain changing his name to Eraqus, but we both have the fundamentally same idea on how brain becomes Eraqus. I like how you implemented Ventus and Lauriam (and Dream Eaters) into the response, I wasn't even thinking that far when it came to posting this theory.
 

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this isn't fully relevant but i would like to make a point to counter the whole "this person is the traitor thing". if we're going off the foreteller belief that the traitor owns the dark chirithy, we know who the traitor is assuming Ux keeps the rest of X's plot points. Other than that there's no proof of a traitor as Master of Master's instigated most of the conflict between his apprentices. Lauriam being the traitor is only based on the fact that he betrayed the organization. His betrayal there doesn't mean he betrayed the dandelions, we haven't even seen enough of his behavior to know if he's loyal to them or not. he's only turned down doing one thing and it was a fetch quest disguised as a scavenger hunt, which some people just hate doing.

Your theory is interesting and you spend a lot of time saying what Blaine being Eraqus would and could imply, but as it stands you have no evidence as to how Blaine could be Eraqus. You have some stuff that makes sense for Eraqus being Blaine, but this has to work both ways. you need some evidence that Blaine could be Eraqus, like similar beliefs or even the same keyblade (and we don't know if Blaine has a Unique key and we haven't seen Eraqus's original, which can work in your favor but is easily voided). Also, a point toward your case would have been that Ven and Lauriam somehow made it to the "present" era, since that gives you more ground to stand on and you could have used it to move Blaine to the "present" as well. But as YOUR argument stands(or doesn't) you have no foundation just conclusions.
 

Luminary

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this isn't fully relevant but i would like to make a point to counter the whole "this person is the traitor thing". if we're going off the foreteller belief that the traitor owns the dark chirithy, we know who the traitor is assuming Ux keeps the rest of X's plot points. Other than that there's no proof of a traitor as Master of Master's instigated most of the conflict between his apprentices. Lauriam being the traitor is only based on the fact that he betrayed the organization. His betrayal there doesn't mean he betrayed the dandelions, we haven't even seen enough of his behavior to know if he's loyal to them or not. he's only turned down doing one thing and it was a fetch quest disguised as a scavenger hunt, which some people just hate doing.

Your theory is interesting and you spend a lot of time saying what Blaine being Eraqus would and could imply, but as it stands you have no evidence as to how Blaine could be Eraqus. You have some stuff that makes sense for Eraqus being Blaine, but this has to work both ways. you need some evidence that Blaine could be Eraqus, like similar beliefs or even the same keyblade (and we don't know if Blaine has a Unique key and we haven't seen Eraqus's original, which can work in your favor but is easily voided). Also, a point toward your case would have been that Ven and Lauriam somehow made it to the "present" era, since that gives you more ground to stand on and you could have used it to move Blaine to the "present" as well. But as YOUR argument stands(or doesn't) you have no foundation just conclusions.

The differences in their character traits could be attributed to decades of experiences maturing and shaping his world view. If something especially traumatic were to happen to his fellow Dandelions, I could see why he’d be so passionate about wanting to ward off darkness if it was his mistake (suggesting using the Spirits and thus spawning Nightmares) that caused their downfall.

Plus, from what we’ve seen of Young Eraqus in the KH3 trailer, he is kind of smug about things which is something I also see in Blaine, especially if UX had voice acting to convey more similarities in their speech patterns.

But Blaine could just be Blaine and I’d be ok with that. But I’d rather him be Eraqus than Ienzo or Braig for the story’s sake.
 

KeybladeMasterJr

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I get that saying "Character A is really character C." is something that people are tired of in Kingdom Hearts, but I think there's just too many key points to consider that made me draw to this conclusion. When Brain was initially revealed, I jumped at him being Ienzo because the characters hairstyle initially matched Ienzo, and Ienzo is a bit of a mystery character when it comes to his powers of illusion and mute personality in Birth by Sleep. But once official art of Brain was revealed, that theory was immediately debunked. Then Kirabook proposed that Brain is Luxu, and that the traitor narrative from the previous Fortellers' was still present. This was the theory that I supported the most at the time... until I came to realise that the personality shift from Luxu to Brain is not only drastic, but Luxu was specifically tasked as an observer. Brain does much more than that, and questions Master Ava's decisions to the point where it's like he has't even met her before.

So I propose that Brain, is in fact Eraqus. For discussion's sake, if Brain is indeed Eraqus, then this gives context to so much of Eraqus' decisions...

His obliviousness to Young Xehanort's fascination about The Keyblade War: First off, I want to address the Elephant in the room. In the scene where Xehanort and Eraqus are playing chess, Eraqus tells Xehanort that he's never heard of The Lost Masters. Initially, I was under the assumption that the original Forteller's were the Lost Masters, however, upon further consideration, what if the Dandelion Union Leaders were the Lost Masters? and that the reason as to why they're called The Lost Masters is that their positions as Union Leaders was never recorded in history? After all, Ephemer did not want to do anything that would break the Dandelion's illusion of the Unions. So we end up in a situation where the history of The Keyblade War is factual... to an extent. Xehanort being the intellectual he is, digs deeper into "The Master's favourite story" and comes to the realisation that everything isn't quite adding up.

His attitude towards Ventus: Eraqus and Ventus relationship is the least explored out of all of the Birth by Sleep trio. Eraqus sees Aqua as the ideal Keyblade Master whilst Terra is seen as the troubled pupil who has much to learn. But what about Ventus? Outside of wanting to protect him and have him be welcomed with Aqua and Terra (after Master Xehanort passed him over), we don't really know their bond. Now assuming that Brain is Eraqus, their dynamic changes so drastically that it's not even funny. You ever wondered why Ventus could not be a candidate for being a Keyblade Master? we may have been led to believe that Ventus still needed to do more training before going for the title, but what if it's out of respect? Ventus is a Dandelion Union Leader, having a title from another Dandelion Union Leader isn't necessary, because Eraqus and Ventus are equals.

This can also explain Eraqus isolation with Ventus. Ventus is a character out of time, but then again, so is Eraqus (again, assuming that he is indeed Brain). But Eraqus being the sage like figure that he is in Birth by Sleep would rather not have past transgressions seep into the future. It's why he was welcoming to Master Xehanort attending the Mark of Mastery Exam despite their past clash regarding light and darkness. If somebody was to find out Ventus true purpose, that would be dangerous. Ventus is still fairly impressionable, and having someone else find that out would be problematic to say the least as that would re-define fact and fiction about The Age of Fairy Tales and The Keyblade War.

His demise: So, Eraqus fights with Terra, they both make up only for Eraqus to be striked by Master Xehanort. At face value, that's a villain (that being Master Xehanort) doing a villain thing. But if we were to implement my theory, that act suddenly becomes karma?! let me explain. When we see Strelizia dying away, the figure that was decoded in the shadows seemed to be Lauriam, making Lauriam the killer of Strelitzia (assuming the figure was not a placeholder) giving him the title of The Graceful Assassin. But you have to understand, an Assassin can be interpreted as a synonym for Hitman. And what does a Hitman do? kill on behalf of someone else. And who could that someone else be? Brain of course. out of all the Dandelion Union Leaders, Brain seems to be the one who feels like making himself and his views known. Thus, making the demise of Master Eraqus much more ironic. Also, for a Master who would go as far as to outright kill one of his pupils (Ventus) seems a bit extreme... but if Eraqus has already done something like that before in a past life then that makes his motives much more habitual in nature.

His name: Now we get onto my personal favourite bit of the theory and the part that'll make KHInsider's blood boil. Brain makes perfect sense as a pseudonym name, Blaine on the other hand does not. It was never a translation error. "wtf", you may ponder "get another hobby, Kingdom Hearts theories are not for you anymore". Hear me out. If we're going to understand the crux of the theory, we have to understand the origin of Master Eraqus as a character. Master Eraqus was created as the Kingdom Hearts counterpart to Yen Sid. Just like Yen Sid's name spelt backwards is Di-, Master Eraqus name re-arranged spells Square, the brand that developed Kingdom Hearts. So with that knowledge, we can understand the asthetic function of Eraqus as a character. Speaking of asthetics, Master Eraqus is designed after Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy and one of the founders of the Kingdom Hearts concept.

But what does that have to do with the supposed name? I'm getting to that now, if old Eraqus is designed after a Square veteran, then Brain must be designed after a more younger figure at Square Enix (if we are to presume that Brain is Eraqus). Brain wears all black everything, you know who else wears all black everything at Square Enix? none other than Tetsuya Nomura. Blown your Blaine's out with that, didn't I? Oh, but it gets more interesting if we revert back to my first point. In the discussion between Xehanort and Eraqus, they're playing chess. What if that's symbolism for the Brain of the series (that being Nomura) is playing against Another (the anagram of Xehanort, but a double meaning that also refer's to the audience)?

A lot of my theories, I tend to stay further away the more information we get, but I genuinely think I solved the enigma regarding Brain. After all, Eraqus is supposedly dead, and with Kingdom Hearts being a character driven franchise, what better way to develop a character that's already wiped from current existence than to develop their past persona. It's a clever way of avoiding Kingdom Hearts clout of original characters present in the series.
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