But did YX not go on his first time travel trip right after meeting Ansem? I don't recall DDD or KH3 ever implying he waited a few years. Is that stated in DR? I've only just started making my way through the vids now.
[SPOILER] KINGDOM HEARTS Union X DARK ROAD Completion Commemorative Q&A
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Yes, that is the whole thing. The Xehanort that meets Ansem on Destiny Islands should look like Kid Xehanort in DR. He leaves DI immediately after that encounter, as shown in this game's intro.
The Young Xehanort causing mayhem in DDD and so on is not supposed to look like Kid Xehanort, as he is several years older.
Nomura's statement in the Q&A is that we should have seen Kid Xehanort in those brief glimpses in BBS and DDD, but they could not make a new model for him at the time and just threw together a placeholder with existing assets. After designing a proper Kid Xehanort in KH3, they were able to use it in DR and accurately depict what he should look like during these events.
Yes I get that but it still doesn't make sense to me if DR is saying he went on his trip (his time trip, not his Scala trip) a few years after meeting Ansem. DDD implied it happened immediately. Met Ansem, hopped forward into BBS and DDD, returned back to the islands like we see in the post credits of DDD, with his "this world is much too small" line. I would've thought that when Ansem sends him to the outside world, in the DR intro, it's after all that. Because in addition, in BBS and DDD he doesn't even have his own keyblade yet, which would imply the sleeping worlds journey began before he even went to Scala. All of these factors taken together don't seem to fit logically.
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Nothing abour kh is logical
Nothing about KH makes sense anymore. Think of this this way. Everything you thought you knew? Nomura is done with that. He is recontextualizing everything.
We don’t know.Spoiler Show
Sigh, I know, I was trying to be generous here
Recontextualizing, that's a polite way of putting it lol, rather than retconning/ignoring the basic events and tenets of the story you've already established.
I didn’t want to be too extreme (but yeah he’s definitely retconning a lot of stuff xD)Sigh, I know, I was trying to be generous here
Okay, wow. I have SO many thoughts on all of this. Warning: This is gonna be a long post:
1) They lied to us. The devs said multiple times that the final update would be cutscene only, yet there was plenty of gameplay. Glad I decided to play through the update just for the hell of it, cause I always prefer playing a game to the end rather than watching it on youtube if I have a choice. So I'm glad for that, but damn, I don't know why they had to be so blatantly dishonest about the nature of the update.
2) I really like the way they incorporated a lot of the Disney worlds in this game. I wasn't expecting Dark Road of all titles to have the most narrative impact per Disney world of any KH entry, but bravo. The characters actually USED elements of each world, like the mirror and the rose and the lamp to achieve their ultimate goals, and apparently Maleficent was a mass murderer before the main line of games even happens! Also, really like how dark they went with all the body count and stuff.
3) I'm kind of annoyed that Bragi did in fact turn out to be Luxu. This was a fan theory for a while, but it felt so stupid that someone with a name almost identical to Braig would turn out to be another vessel for Luxu. It was way too on-the-nose, so I was sure it was just a coincidence or a red herring. Kind of disappointed it was real. I am starting to believe that Nomura actually does peruse the message boards of sites like this to get ideas for twists, because the running tab of fan theories becoming true is starting to get a little too heavy for comfort. Not to mention, what was the point of it? We learned nothing interesting from Bragi being Luxu at the end. It didn't change anything about the story. It felt just thrown in there because they had to mention Luxu or something.
4) The whole thing with the different time flows in each world is a MASSIVE problem in the narrative. I know it was just used as an excuse for the characters to be able to come across the same Disney characters that Sora does later on, but I'm sorry, this is probably the most nonsensical and problematic plot device that's EVER been introduced in the KH series, and that's saying something! So, you're telling me that the timelines are so different from world to world, that Xehanort as a child can run into Jafar and Maleficent apparently right in the middle of the same plans they're involved in during the main games, and literally 70 years can pass for Xehanort and Eraqus but all these other characters aren't a day older?!?!?!
I'm sorry, but the implications of this are insane!! If the timelines really are that disproportionate, than that means that while days are passing for someone in Agrabah, DECADES are passing for people in Scala or the Destiny Islands or wherever else. That means, while Sora was out galavanting in the Disney worlds in KH1, then Kairi and Riku and other characters should have aged into old people by the time he left! Every trip to a Disney world is basically like the plot of Interstellar at that point! And yes, I know it's a retcon and that I shouldn't take it too seriously, but come on, you KNOW Nomura is going to use this mechanic at some point in the future, so of course it's relevant (they even mention a version of this mechanic in DDD with the different Sleeping Worlds running on different times).
I'm just blown away at this. This isn't just a plothole, this is a gaping plot chasm, and it involves the entire franchise! And we all know there's no way they're going to stick to it, because that would create chronological chaos trying to keep all the different world timelines on the same track. Very bad move on the writers' part, I think. This is going to bite them in the ass. Or else, it'll just make this one game's story uniquely nonsensical.
5) I REALLY don't feel right about that secret ending. It felt like a massive bait and switch. Granted, I wasn't crazy about the idea of Player being reincarnated as Xehanort. I thought that was a cheesy, contrived way of further connecting Xehanort, a character who already has WAY too much centrality in this series, to even more characters and making him artificially even more important. So I didn't like that twist in the first place. But now, to find out that not only was that not true, but that the old man himself was somehow a reincarnation of the Player (and presumably the Player character in Missing-Link), and that all of Xehanort's deeply ingrained childhood dreams and visions were just a result of his proximity to the old man, just makes it feel so much more cheap and meaningless. Like, it's so obvious that the old man's speech at the end is referring to Sora as the child of destiny. Am I supposed to gather from this that Xehanort's entire destiny was supposed to be someone else's? That everything Xehanort did and became was simply the result of a stupid screw-up? That the main thing that propelled him on his journey, the dreams of the friends of some mysterious other life, was just him picking up signals from someone else's heart like some weird emotional TV antenna? I honestly don't know which I dislike worse—Xehanort being the reincarnated Player, or Xehanort just being some kid who's entire existence was the result of a serious of silly accidents and misunderstandings. I would honestly have preferred if they'd just left Xehanort as just a kid who yearned to see the outside world, and whose curiosity led him down a dark path, and leave it at that. This whole attempt to relate him back to some ancient purpose and bloodline and prophecy is just too much.
6) Also, really bummed that Vor didn't turn out to be Kairi's grandmother. I was actually really certain of that. She looks exactly like how a young Kairi's grandmother would look. Kinda surprised they went with the stupid twist (Bragi) and not the one that actually had real merit to it.
1) They lied to us. The devs said multiple times that the final update would be cutscene only, yet there was plenty of gameplay. Glad I decided to play through the update just for the hell of it, cause I always prefer playing a game to the end rather than watching it on youtube if I have a choice. So I'm glad for that, but damn, I don't know why they had to be so blatantly dishonest about the nature of the update.
2) I really like the way they incorporated a lot of the Disney worlds in this game. I wasn't expecting Dark Road of all titles to have the most narrative impact per Disney world of any KH entry, but bravo. The characters actually USED elements of each world, like the mirror and the rose and the lamp to achieve their ultimate goals, and apparently Maleficent was a mass murderer before the main line of games even happens! Also, really like how dark they went with all the body count and stuff.
3) I'm kind of annoyed that Bragi did in fact turn out to be Luxu. This was a fan theory for a while, but it felt so stupid that someone with a name almost identical to Braig would turn out to be another vessel for Luxu. It was way too on-the-nose, so I was sure it was just a coincidence or a red herring. Kind of disappointed it was real. I am starting to believe that Nomura actually does peruse the message boards of sites like this to get ideas for twists, because the running tab of fan theories becoming true is starting to get a little too heavy for comfort. Not to mention, what was the point of it? We learned nothing interesting from Bragi being Luxu at the end. It didn't change anything about the story. It felt just thrown in there because they had to mention Luxu or something.
4) The whole thing with the different time flows in each world is a MASSIVE problem in the narrative. I know it was just used as an excuse for the characters to be able to come across the same Disney characters that Sora does later on, but I'm sorry, this is probably the most nonsensical and problematic plot device that's EVER been introduced in the KH series, and that's saying something! So, you're telling me that the timelines are so different from world to world, that Xehanort as a child can run into Jafar and Maleficent apparently right in the middle of the same plans they're involved in during the main games, and literally 70 years can pass for Xehanort and Eraqus but all these other characters aren't a day older?!?!?!
I'm sorry, but the implications of this are insane!! If the timelines really are that disproportionate, than that means that while days are passing for someone in Agrabah, DECADES are passing for people in Scala or the Destiny Islands or wherever else. That means, while Sora was out galavanting in the Disney worlds in KH1, then Kairi and Riku and other characters should have aged into old people by the time he left! Every trip to a Disney world is basically like the plot of Interstellar at that point! And yes, I know it's a retcon and that I shouldn't take it too seriously, but come on, you KNOW Nomura is going to use this mechanic at some point in the future, so of course it's relevant (they even mention a version of this mechanic in DDD with the different Sleeping Worlds running on different times).
I'm just blown away at this. This isn't just a plothole, this is a gaping plot chasm, and it involves the entire franchise! And we all know there's no way they're going to stick to it, because that would create chronological chaos trying to keep all the different world timelines on the same track. Very bad move on the writers' part, I think. This is going to bite them in the ass. Or else, it'll just make this one game's story uniquely nonsensical.
5) I REALLY don't feel right about that secret ending. It felt like a massive bait and switch. Granted, I wasn't crazy about the idea of Player being reincarnated as Xehanort. I thought that was a cheesy, contrived way of further connecting Xehanort, a character who already has WAY too much centrality in this series, to even more characters and making him artificially even more important. So I didn't like that twist in the first place. But now, to find out that not only was that not true, but that the old man himself was somehow a reincarnation of the Player (and presumably the Player character in Missing-Link), and that all of Xehanort's deeply ingrained childhood dreams and visions were just a result of his proximity to the old man, just makes it feel so much more cheap and meaningless. Like, it's so obvious that the old man's speech at the end is referring to Sora as the child of destiny. Am I supposed to gather from this that Xehanort's entire destiny was supposed to be someone else's? That everything Xehanort did and became was simply the result of a stupid screw-up? That the main thing that propelled him on his journey, the dreams of the friends of some mysterious other life, was just him picking up signals from someone else's heart like some weird emotional TV antenna? I honestly don't know which I dislike worse—Xehanort being the reincarnated Player, or Xehanort just being some kid who's entire existence was the result of a serious of silly accidents and misunderstandings. I would honestly have preferred if they'd just left Xehanort as just a kid who yearned to see the outside world, and whose curiosity led him down a dark path, and leave it at that. This whole attempt to relate him back to some ancient purpose and bloodline and prophecy is just too much.
6) Also, really bummed that Vor didn't turn out to be Kairi's grandmother. I was actually really certain of that. She looks exactly like how a young Kairi's grandmother would look. Kinda surprised they went with the stupid twist (Bragi) and not the one that actually had real merit to it.
I think it's one of the smarter Disney world implementations. The narratives of the Disney world's are designed in such a way that they're all direct prequels to the adventures that Sora, Donald and Goofy and/or Terra, Ventus and Aqua experience. Besides, the Kingdom Hearts characters are aware of the world order so it's not as if they're permanent residents in these Disney world's.
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As usual, with "retcons" I feel the need to point out that growing up I was always taught a retcon was actually changing continuity that already existed; i.e. the stuff you saw on-screen before is no longer valid or "authentic" because it was retconned. These verifiable facts have been established to be wrong by later stuff.
However, everything we've seen in KH actually happened (other than stuff like the YX model thing I guess). You can still go play KH1 and everything that happens on screen is what happened. I do not consider "characters were wrong about things when relating them secondhand" to be a retcon. So we might have newly-created context that changes how we might choose to see KH1, but KH1 itself has not changed.
The usual response to this is "but Nomura didn't plan it, therefore it's a retcon" but whether anything in a work is "intentional" or not is shaky, non-quantifiable territory, especially with improvised longform storytelling, and I don't think it's useful or possible to attempt to nail down. Either way the work itself exists as it does regardless of one's behind-the-scenes speculation.
However, everything we've seen in KH actually happened (other than stuff like the YX model thing I guess). You can still go play KH1 and everything that happens on screen is what happened. I do not consider "characters were wrong about things when relating them secondhand" to be a retcon. So we might have newly-created context that changes how we might choose to see KH1, but KH1 itself has not changed.
The usual response to this is "but Nomura didn't plan it, therefore it's a retcon" but whether anything in a work is "intentional" or not is shaky, non-quantifiable territory, especially with improvised longform storytelling, and I don't think it's useful or possible to attempt to nail down. Either way the work itself exists as it does regardless of one's behind-the-scenes speculation.
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They never once said this. Every single notice since the announcement of the game being taken down last year made it very clear that the game would remain fully playable, and thus would require you to work for the remaining scenes.
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" Q6: Places called Scala ad Caelum appear in both DR and Missing-Link. Is it the same place?
A6: It is the same place. It looks different because it is a different time period: as per the "multi-tiered city" label, the city is structured in tiers, where new districts are built on top of the old ones. "
Hmmm...Baby Xehanort was shown in the misty dark gray Scala, while the city became its white "mountain"-like appearance when he came back as a teen.
Perhaps Scala's time axis flows much faster than Destiny Island's which is why the development seemed to happen fast.
A6: It is the same place. It looks different because it is a different time period: as per the "multi-tiered city" label, the city is structured in tiers, where new districts are built on top of the old ones. "
Hmmm...Baby Xehanort was shown in the misty dark gray Scala, while the city became its white "mountain"-like appearance when he came back as a teen.
Perhaps Scala's time axis flows much faster than Destiny Island's which is why the development seemed to happen fast.
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Oh right, I completely forgot about that.
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Why does everyone think Master Xehanort will be in Quadratum? The memory version of himself in MoM seemed to know where Sora was, but it didn't sound like he even knew how to get there. Also, Ansem SoD threw Kairi nto space trying to find a way to Quadratum, so I really don't think Xehanort will just be in Quadratum... unless it's a Quadratum equivalent to him - which I hope does NOT happen. It would suck if Quadratum is just filled with alternate versions of the main universe characters.
Xehanort in Dark Road wished for 14 lifetimes, 13 to open Kingdom Hearts and purge the world and a 14th to see what lies beyond.
Nomura's art of Xehanort in the OP also shows a tiny bit of Shibuya in the artwork, which eagle eyed fans noticed matched Miyashita Park, which is just off of the Scramble Crossing in Shibuya.
That all combined with Apprentice Nort's search for meaning of the other side of reality hints that Xehanort can still pop up.
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He doesn’t need to know how to get there. The idea is that he got there more or less the same way that Strelitzia did: dying in the main KH universe.
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I honestly don't think that's actually how Strelitzia got there (since many people die in the main KH universe - and even Quadratum!? - and go to the final world instead), it's just thematically a 'world of the dead' for people like her and Sora who end up there after some kind of "death". But this doesn't really contradict anything, so I just wait warmly.
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UGH. So the "real" death we saw of Master Xehanort and Eraqus in KH3 equates to them just being transferred over to Quadratum? Honestly, it will really suck if people that "really die" in the main universe just get placed into Quadratum. Nomura already had so many problems with people not actually dying and coming back (see Axel), that he really need to implement "actual death" in KH. I thought the whole point of KH3 was to emphasize "real death", so that Sora's sacrifice at the end wasn't some dramatic, but otherwise harmless, sacrifice.