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This is something that has been on my mind for quite a while now but I always forgot to make a thread about it.
Darkness, in Kingdom Hearts, is treated as a power of evil and corruption. The Realm of Light is the place where most of the saga takes place, while the Realm of Darkness is a corrupt warzone full of powerful pureblood Heartless that has direct affect on one's heart, as seen with Aqua's time in there, as well as Riku, Mickey and Ansem the Wise.
However, that isn't the only representation of Darkness we got.
Although it's mainly associated with negativeness and bad things, there have been instances where Darkness wasn't treated as something bad but instead as just the opposite of Light. This is mainly seen through Riku, who conquers the Darkness in his heart and becomes the first-know Keyblade Master of Darkness, learning to use it for good without having his heart consumed by it. But Riku isn't the only exemple of this either.
All Nobodies are capable of using the power of Darkness without showing visible signs of corruption: Besides Saïx and Xigbar who were in league with Xehanort all along, all Nobodies seem to be able to use the Corridors of Darkness freely, even Naminé summoned one to help Sora and Co. escape at the end of KH2. They also showed command over weaker Heartless
Then we go over the second topic I'd like to discuss, being the possibility of being addicted to the power of Light.
The first time we hear this is in Birth by Sleep, when Xehanort refeers to Eraqus as such during his attempts to manipulate Terra.
At first, most of us probably didn't think much of it, knowing Xehanort was the villain from the start. But what if he was actually right, to a certain point? Later in the game, Xehanort tells us that the Keyblade War was fought over Kingdom Hearts, something we'd see in more detail in a upcoming game.
The second time this becomes relevant is during the Era of Fairy Tales that we got to know through Chi and Union Chi. There we see everything that happened leading up to THE Keyblade War: Keyblade Wielders from different unions were fighting over Lux; aka, fighting over Light. Of course, the game presents it as the fight over Lux causing people to fall into Darkness, but it's still worthy of mentioning regardless.
Xehanort and Eraqus were written to be equals, something that is more evident in KH3 when the later returns and admits of his wrongdoings before fading with his long-time friend.
Xehanort wasn't obsessed with only Darkness. He was obsessed with power, with knowledge. He was a Scientist just as he was an Adventurer, and he went through unknow lenghts to reach his goals. We don't know where he got all of his information, what was teached at Scala and what he learned elsewhere, but it's VERY important to note that Xehanort was NOT controlled. He actually seemed to always be in full control of himself and his Darkness, not even once risking being consumed by it. For a long time we thought his Heartless was fruit of an accident, but recent games proved us wrong with all evidence leading to him WILLINGLY releasing his Heart so it could go back in time and then later turn into a Heartless to become one more vessel for his future Organization.
Meanwhile, Eraqus seemed to be a conservative to extreme lenghts; He's the heir to the Land of Departure, and a common theory is that he comes from a long line of Keyblade Wielders thanks to Xehanort calling him a blue blood (or was it pureblood?). He was incredibly overprotective of his apprentices to the point where it became a toxic relationship, with him willing to kill Ventus and even Terra. And he seemed to fear the Darkness, more than anyone else. The regret he shows just before he's killed by Terra and then later on when his heart exits the later's Heart at the end of KH3 is identical to the instances we had of someone being freed from the influence of Darkness before, it just lacks the obvious visual hints (Yellow eyes, darkness fading from the body. etc.).
By now, I'd like to present another thing for everyone to consider. I talked about this recently in another thread about the return of Dual Wielding Sora in KH3 and I might make a thread about this later for further discussion.
Most of the information we have about the world of Kingdom Hearts that is present in the games themselves was obtained through ambiguous sources: EVERYTHING presented in the reports in all games is character-based. Aka, it's knowledge from a specific character point of view, and NOT Nomura and the team itself.
What that means is that the information presented in the KH universe is mostly through their own dubious form of science: most sources of what we know and understand about the Darkness, the Light, the Keyblade, etc.. comes from a combination of experience x experiments. The reports from KH1, for example, are from Terranorth/Ansem SoD/Xehanort's experimentations with the Heart, not Nomura himself stating how it works.
That obviously doesn't mean that it's false or necessarily incorrect, don't get me wrong. Just that it's not the full truth and retcons have happened before and can happen again.
I'm NOT saying Darkness is just misinterpreted and is actually good or anything. Just that there may be more to it than just = evil, and that may be key to the future of the franchise going forward, and I think it could present some interesting discussions.
With all of that out of the way, I'd like to discuss with everyone your thoughts on this matter.
1. Do you believe that it's possible to be addicted and thus corrupted by the Light, or is Eraqus just a very specific case?
2. Do you think it's possible to explore Darkness in a positive way as the counterpart of Light in the future like Riku does, or he's going to be the sole exception of this?
3. Terra was addept to using Darkness by his own, without Xehanort's influence. He was responsible for leading him towards that path, but Terra first used it on his own. Eraqus reproved him as a Master because of that, and although we didn't really see much of Terra before BBS started, he didn't seem to have any actual negative qualities of his own before the journey started, and even then I'd argue that the Darkness he used in the exam came from his wish to protect the others, so it might just been a case of him having a natural affinity to it. What are your thoughts on that? Do you think he might actually explore this in the future now that he's back and in control again, like Riku did?
Darkness, in Kingdom Hearts, is treated as a power of evil and corruption. The Realm of Light is the place where most of the saga takes place, while the Realm of Darkness is a corrupt warzone full of powerful pureblood Heartless that has direct affect on one's heart, as seen with Aqua's time in there, as well as Riku, Mickey and Ansem the Wise.
However, that isn't the only representation of Darkness we got.
Although it's mainly associated with negativeness and bad things, there have been instances where Darkness wasn't treated as something bad but instead as just the opposite of Light. This is mainly seen through Riku, who conquers the Darkness in his heart and becomes the first-know Keyblade Master of Darkness, learning to use it for good without having his heart consumed by it. But Riku isn't the only exemple of this either.
All Nobodies are capable of using the power of Darkness without showing visible signs of corruption: Besides Saïx and Xigbar who were in league with Xehanort all along, all Nobodies seem to be able to use the Corridors of Darkness freely, even Naminé summoned one to help Sora and Co. escape at the end of KH2. They also showed command over weaker Heartless
Then we go over the second topic I'd like to discuss, being the possibility of being addicted to the power of Light.
The first time we hear this is in Birth by Sleep, when Xehanort refeers to Eraqus as such during his attempts to manipulate Terra.
At first, most of us probably didn't think much of it, knowing Xehanort was the villain from the start. But what if he was actually right, to a certain point? Later in the game, Xehanort tells us that the Keyblade War was fought over Kingdom Hearts, something we'd see in more detail in a upcoming game.
The second time this becomes relevant is during the Era of Fairy Tales that we got to know through Chi and Union Chi. There we see everything that happened leading up to THE Keyblade War: Keyblade Wielders from different unions were fighting over Lux; aka, fighting over Light. Of course, the game presents it as the fight over Lux causing people to fall into Darkness, but it's still worthy of mentioning regardless.
Xehanort and Eraqus were written to be equals, something that is more evident in KH3 when the later returns and admits of his wrongdoings before fading with his long-time friend.
Xehanort wasn't obsessed with only Darkness. He was obsessed with power, with knowledge. He was a Scientist just as he was an Adventurer, and he went through unknow lenghts to reach his goals. We don't know where he got all of his information, what was teached at Scala and what he learned elsewhere, but it's VERY important to note that Xehanort was NOT controlled. He actually seemed to always be in full control of himself and his Darkness, not even once risking being consumed by it. For a long time we thought his Heartless was fruit of an accident, but recent games proved us wrong with all evidence leading to him WILLINGLY releasing his Heart so it could go back in time and then later turn into a Heartless to become one more vessel for his future Organization.
Meanwhile, Eraqus seemed to be a conservative to extreme lenghts; He's the heir to the Land of Departure, and a common theory is that he comes from a long line of Keyblade Wielders thanks to Xehanort calling him a blue blood (or was it pureblood?). He was incredibly overprotective of his apprentices to the point where it became a toxic relationship, with him willing to kill Ventus and even Terra. And he seemed to fear the Darkness, more than anyone else. The regret he shows just before he's killed by Terra and then later on when his heart exits the later's Heart at the end of KH3 is identical to the instances we had of someone being freed from the influence of Darkness before, it just lacks the obvious visual hints (Yellow eyes, darkness fading from the body. etc.).
By now, I'd like to present another thing for everyone to consider. I talked about this recently in another thread about the return of Dual Wielding Sora in KH3 and I might make a thread about this later for further discussion.
Most of the information we have about the world of Kingdom Hearts that is present in the games themselves was obtained through ambiguous sources: EVERYTHING presented in the reports in all games is character-based. Aka, it's knowledge from a specific character point of view, and NOT Nomura and the team itself.
What that means is that the information presented in the KH universe is mostly through their own dubious form of science: most sources of what we know and understand about the Darkness, the Light, the Keyblade, etc.. comes from a combination of experience x experiments. The reports from KH1, for example, are from Terranorth/Ansem SoD/Xehanort's experimentations with the Heart, not Nomura himself stating how it works.
That obviously doesn't mean that it's false or necessarily incorrect, don't get me wrong. Just that it's not the full truth and retcons have happened before and can happen again.
I'm NOT saying Darkness is just misinterpreted and is actually good or anything. Just that there may be more to it than just = evil, and that may be key to the future of the franchise going forward, and I think it could present some interesting discussions.
With all of that out of the way, I'd like to discuss with everyone your thoughts on this matter.
1. Do you believe that it's possible to be addicted and thus corrupted by the Light, or is Eraqus just a very specific case?
2. Do you think it's possible to explore Darkness in a positive way as the counterpart of Light in the future like Riku does, or he's going to be the sole exception of this?
3. Terra was addept to using Darkness by his own, without Xehanort's influence. He was responsible for leading him towards that path, but Terra first used it on his own. Eraqus reproved him as a Master because of that, and although we didn't really see much of Terra before BBS started, he didn't seem to have any actual negative qualities of his own before the journey started, and even then I'd argue that the Darkness he used in the exam came from his wish to protect the others, so it might just been a case of him having a natural affinity to it. What are your thoughts on that? Do you think he might actually explore this in the future now that he's back and in control again, like Riku did?
Spoiler