Your post makes me realize I have to elaborate more clear on this in my treatment. So to tackle this here for the visitor message: Right now I cannot remember if it is mentioned in any explanatory nature that would give MORE insight within the Ultimania Omega. But it would stand in direct contradiction with what is clearly established in the story anyway. Where are you right? Ansem died in KH1 by opening the door and getting eradicated by Kingdom Hearts itself. The Ansem we see in Chain of Memories after DiZ's test at the beginning is Riku's darkness and he does not have a body. BUT the Ansem is THE Ansem that actually died. I do not know if you mentioned his death in KH1 because you thought it was important for me but it actually was not. Ansem fused with Riku's darkness. He follows this basic existential concept that is recurring in Japanese stories that as long as you in some way, shape or form live on somewhere you still are literally alive (even when not having your own body). Sephiroth follows this concept in OtWtaS which was then adapted in KH2 and renamed as "Cloud's darkness" instead of "all memories that have to do with me can regenerate my existential core", Final Fantasy X follows the same lore and stories like Nier also follow that principle. You know, the basic fantasy, sci-fi stuff of "as long as someone does not have his core destroyed or is linked to something or somebody he can return or as long as his soul still even without a body still manages to survive he can return, et cetera" There are many iterations of that, of course. I don't really think you necessarily disagreed with it because Chain of Memories kind of made it obvious. Ansem in CoM in the finale makes it very clear that he is a living entity. (The following dialogue is paraphrased by me as I know Chain of Memories primarily in Japanese and German) *Riku wins the fight and strikes through Ansem* Riku: "You're finished, Ansem!" Ansem: "I doubt that. I am part of your heart's darkness. My shadow lives on. I will return!" There is not really much sense in this dialogue if it is not a living consciousness and it all only amounts to "I am your dark side, Riku. I will try to make you evil, later by returning". Also Mickey in KH2 directly states that Riku parted ways with him because "Xehanort's Heartless" STILL tortured Riku's heart. Then there is the other thing: Riku, the moment he realizes he cannot beat Roxas without Xehanort's power, transforms and summons the Guardian. There is no way the Guardian, an entity that is in direct relation to THE Xehanort's influence would come if nothing of Xehanort would live on within Riku. This is by the way another inconsistency because of reasons I cannot state right now - everything will be told by me later - I don't think Riku should even be able to command the Guardian exactly because of Xehanort's influence (meaning he should be the only one to actually command him which is part of the inconsistencies I do not want to talk about right now) but in this case it at least shows that there is some direct relation to an entity that is living on (even if for no reason it doesn't do a thing as if its killed off, which again, cannot be the case for all the mentioned reasons and "locked away" would be unspectacular and not shown (and weird for the Reunion of Xehanort) as well as "killed" would not have been shown which is the reason why I am so mad that the story of the first Kingdom Hearts villain was treated like a piece of crap and obviously with the thought of "let's do this and that and Riku wins and accepts and that's enough" even though it is a joke for such a major character and explains nothing about what is actually going on).
Also, I have no idea who the guy in the picture is, outside of him looking like a real like Xehanort.
I always felt that Ansem SoD appearing before Riku was simply how Riku perceived the darkness in his heart as opposed to it being literally him, it doesn't feel far fetched that Riku would see his own darkness as the guy who tried to hijack his own body, but I may be mistaken of course. Though I feel if you take most of Riku's run ins with Ansem in CoM and taking his form in KH2 as more a physical repercussion of a metaphorical event, then Ansem's death at the end of KH1 despite his continual appearances sill makes sense. Again, I've not read up on all of Nomura's interviews or the Ultimania concerning him, so I am likely wrong. This was simply how I perceived the inconsistent appearances after KH1.
And why is this guy the main villain? https://www.bilder-upload.eu/bild-03...43435.png.html
You will have a lot to read with me always going back to the time problem and one thing that always bothered me is that they never actually established in the series that Ansem (KH1) was killed. Because he was either killed off-screen which already is an insult to itself for what was established or even better, he is still there, making the Xehanort reunion effectively impossibe. And before you mention KH2 with Riku looking like him and losing form after Ansem the Wise damages the Artificial Kingdom Hearts and him accepting darkness during the Roxas battle and all - believe me, the series points at both, Ansem still being here within Riku's heart (furthermore supported by 3D) as well as him effectively being killed off-screen within Riku's heart. It is SO frustrating.
You're preaching to the choir here about the series inconsistencies with it's own rules. There's a lot of fan wank concerning Ansem through Riku using the keyblade in KH1. I mean technically the keyblade he was using was incomplete but like you said, there is no actual answer, simply speculation that has to deal with inconsistent rules. I simply have reached the point where I feel you can't even bring up the first game anymore, and any rule established in that title can just be chocked up to the early installment weirdness before the writers had a better grasp of the type of story they wanted to tell. I mean replaying it now, the whole Keyblade deals feels like a twisted play on Arthurian Myth with the Kingdom Key being special and mostly one of a kind except for it's Realm of Darkness counterpart, and yet later on this was retcon to Keyblade wielders being KH Jedi and Riku saying he was chosen was because he remembered Terra giving him the Rite of Passage when he was like five or six. It's kind of awkward going back into this game because the feel of the story which is more like a Fairy Tale in contrast to a Shonen Manga feel that CoM and beyond took the series. As for Roxas appearance, I can agree that the way it was established was kind of confusing. It might have initially worked if the writers had given Ventus a different look and instead simply state that Nobodies resemble but don't necessarily look like their original selves as many fans speculated after KH2. I mean Xemnas and Ansem look alike, but there's enough variation between their faces and even the Terra-Xehanort model they used to imply this idea could have been true. I mean isn't Roxas' face basically Sora's? Yet as you mention, it still doesn't really make sense Roxas would look more like Ventus instead. I vaguely remember an interview with Nomura around the time of KH2's release where he once again coyly mentions that Sora and Xehanort's Nobodies are unique because of the circumstances of their creation since both of them purposely extracted their hearts, but that may very likely be due to Nomura laying down the groundwork for Birth by Sleep at that point. The time travel nonsense, ugh, I hate it when stories use time travel because if the rules are not established well right off the bat, then theories and inconsistencies of their use can go everywhere. [chi] or I guess I should say Union X at this point is kind of weird with how time works and I'm still baffled by how Donald and Goofy managed to reach Daybreak Town since it's heavily implied the Keyblade War took place before Mickey's time. Made weirder now that Ventus has shown up and we're meeting Malruxia and Larxene's original selves. I know the game isn't finished yet with it's story, but my own theory is simply that the events of the game are not real but likely simulation someone is running of what they know happened back then. Thus the Foretellers stuff is canon to the series, but your own player interaction and the introduction of characters who are out of time are more palpably able to co-exist with this setting without having to further complicate the timeline or bring in more time traveling shenanigans. Granted I'm not far into the game, so I can be way off base here, but it's my impression of the game at the moment. Overall, it's largely because the series has a hard time keeping it's lore straight that I find dealing with it exhausting, especially because you never know when their going to retcon one part or completely downplay or outright ignore other rules. As I mentioned in Fynn's retrospective thread, I feel like KH runs more on Rule of Cool nowadays, which doesn't have to make sense, but can be really irritating for people who dig the rules and lore of a setting. It will be interesting to read your own thoughts on the franchise, though I may have to wait until I tackle KHIII for myself. I look forward to it though.
The thing was not a headcanon suggestion of mine personally (as you probably understood anyway, maybe you just meant the word "your" as in "what you mentioned"), it was just some crap other people came up with because Riku said it to Ansem in 3D (I know the Ultimania stuff but some people like to use the 3D dialogue after that as answer which is virtually useless to me as long as there is no implication of actual intention to say "btw. guys this is also meant to corelate to the other thing" - and it would still be problematic when it comes to Ansem himself). I would never waste my time with such a thing if there was no official "and because of that" behind it, which it so far is not. As said, I find it already contradictory enough that Ansem can use the Keyblade (or was that what you mean with the suggestion? you can see how exact to every little detail I am, making it even worse for something like Kingdom Hearts then ... gah!) when he is using Riku's body as one possibly, and they surely would, using the excuse well, Riku has a heart, too" would not change the fact that an unworthy heart controls the body and this would seem to be a weird loophole that a Keyblade which deemed you unworthy would be like "well, you are not worthy but the one you control is, so you're fine". But that's good old Kingdom Hearts. And I would even accept that if it were an official thing because it would not be one of the greater inconsistencies. You also mentioned Sora being whole which is another totally sloppily defined topic that has begun in KH2 and is a topic that was sort of tackled in KH with the whole Roxas, Xion thing and Sora directly comparing their lives to Ansem and Xemnas. It is a whole other can of worms and makes a super neurotical, analysing, especially psychologically experienced person like me so frustrated because those sloppy or totally missing or contradictory definitions within the lore that consist of real life and fictional logic and "we do not know when to use what or do not even care or use nothing or no heart but hearts sometimes but actually hearts always" (and that's not even the big deal, I was merely using the heart thing to show that this is such a weird thing - retcons would be okay but even they can lead to inconsistencies and it also shows that they do not really care about anything at all if they change the lore every minute without caring about what makes sense) ... well, the sentence was pretty long so let me just finish it with "that is a problem for me". The worst contender except for their implications about Heartless and Nobodies is the whole time concept which he used relatively neaty in 3D and now it is basically not even said when which concept is meant (and he used all 3 already: Timeless River in KH2 has a Consistency Paradox, Chi introduces "Worldlines" which are obviously supposed to be timelines and Young Xehanort used a Bootstrap Paradox Closed Timeloop with the latter concept being the only one he should have stuck to). A lot of them should not be used for certain situations from a causality perspective, others that "could" maybe be used are bad because they destroy the narration on a "what does it matter as long as the same named character is here" perspective. The real thing is missing establishment when he wants to use what. If you actually happen to read my treatment you will see that I mntion that ad infinitum because it left an unsatisfied taste in my mouth for the last 4 hours. Gladly the fairytale made it great enough for me. The story freak in me and the neurotic scream who also invest passion in a story that is more than just "whatever, just writ something" scream though. I mean, lore-wise it does not even make sense to say Sora and Xehanort have Nobodies that also are Nobodies of Ventus and Terra. If the Nobody is the body fragment then there is no need to adress that he is the Nobody of two people. Xehanort ist a bit different because he literally transformed Terra's body into a Final Fantasy villain by giving him white hair when he was in control of that body but that is exactly what I am talking about: Call those guys only Nobodies from the people that are actively using the body. It was Terra's body originally, so I understand what people mean but that guy was Xehanort with memory loss. And in case of Sora it is even easier because it was Sora's body all along. And here I think they just should not have given Roxas Ventus' looks as it makes no sense that suddenly the Nobody - the body fragment - has his looks determined by the heart of a person whose body has nothing to do with the body it resides in. But as said - that is only to vent a bit with the whacky non-definitions. It is not to actually get answers. If there would be ACTUAL answers, not some pseudo-explanations then I would not need to confuse and hurt myself any turn like a Pokémon.
Yeah, I know Roxas' Keyblades are basically Sora and Ventus. I think I brought up the question because I was reading a translation from the Birth by Sleep Ultimania, and Nomura said something interesting when the question came up. Originally Posted by BbS Ultimania Q&A -- Roxas, the "Sora + Ventus" Nobody, was able to use a Keyblade. In contrast Xemnas, the "Terra + Master Xehanort" Nobody, wasn't able to use a Keyblade. Why is this? Nomura: I'd rather that point remain a mystery. It's possible that he intentionally wasn't using one. It just made me wonder if there was more to it since it sounded like he was being coy. Personally, I think it was likely just a design choice. It's difficult to determine how far ahead the plot of KH was planned, so Xemnas' abilities were probably finalized before the whole Terra-Xehanort plot had been finished so there was never a need to address this inconsistency. Headcanon, your suggestion sounds about right. Not like Sora was an impressive Heartless. Hell, it's possible that Roxas was only able to use the Keyblade because Sora still existed as one being, whereas Terra-Xehanort lost the power because they were split into their two halves as Ansem and Xemnas. If Kairi hadn't restored Sora, perhaps Roxas wouldn't be able to use the Keyblade. This gives me something to mull over.
Roxas' second Keyblade comes from Ventus. About the Xehanort stuff I told you in a Moogle hug. That is one of the many "sloppily and not enough explained so everyone claims to know in head-canon" things. I am not even done with the treatment I will post and have over 10 pages already.
Replaying KH1 now, I can agree they held more of a purpose in the first game, but I honestly felt like they just felt contractually obligated to show up in subsequent titles. Not helping them for me is that my favorite entries in the franchise largely ignore the FF characters. Though replaying the series, I also feel the Disney worlds suffer this too, being very intricate to the first game before the later entries dropped most of the Disney villains for the original characters. The first game did the best with making this feel like FF meets Disney, but starting with CoM, I feel like the franchise went in a very different direction that simply kept both franchises around for the novelty factor while the series became more of it's own thing. Personally, I kind of felt KHII ended the story of most of the FF cast, and while I would love to have seen a few more cameos, I just feel like the FF characters were left behind around KHII. By this point, I'm more interested in seeing what will happen with the Keyblade trio and Xehanort than see what Leon and Cloud are up to, which is why I'm not terribly bothered KHIII didn't bother. We'll see how I feel once I get to the game though. As for the Disney Worlds of KHIII, though I don't know all of them, frankly I don't have as much nostalgia for them like I did for the first three games that stuck to the 90s films. I like Pixar, but I'm not in love with them and most of the 3D Disney flicks of the last decade are okay, but don't hit that nostalgia vibe I got from some of the other world choices. I guess for me, it's the difference from enjoying something from your childhood versus something you enjoyed as an adult. I'm looking forward to Monsters Inc and Tangled, but I honestly never cared for Toy Story, Big Hero 6, and Frozen. I'm honestly more annoyed that my least favorite world from KHII, Pirates of the Caribbean, came back as a setting. Kind of wish they had saved Tron Legacy or Fantasia for this game.
