I like your idea about their being a sort of race to save Ven from Xehanort. They could make both Sora and Xehanort enter Ven's Heart at the same time, Sora to wake it up, and Xehanort to seed it. Sora could locate Ven first, and Xehanort might find some remnant of Vanitas, and decide to just cut his losses and try and bring him out instead. After a boss battle or two of course.
I'd say the race would rather be as to who controls Ven's body, as in waking up Ven's heart Sora has a head start since it's inside him.
Well, we do not know if Vanitas is really inside Ven's heart, so there might be nothing for Xehanort to bring out.
For sheer speculation in Isa's case, I can imagine the hypothetical: Because he wanted to garner the respect of Xemnas (for his own agenda) and earn second-in-command, Xemnas responded by putting a fraction of his own regrown heart into Isa. Either time-traveling Young Xehanort could have operated this or perhaps Xemnas used a keyblade here. So much ambiguity about these processes leaves one guessing.
Yes, it leaves one guessing, but not only in the case of how it was done but also in how it works. If we go by the premise that Isa/saix had indeed still his own agenda (and he wasn't just putting on a show to mislead Lea) this indicates that despite being Norted Xehanort had initially no control about Isa/Saix despite the yellow eyes and pointy ears as he could clearly still follow his own ambitions.
This leads to the question how long it takes for a Xehanort seed to take over and what the exactly necessary prerequisites are for it to do so.
We don't really know that though. Braig was Xehanorted at the end of BBS, but how long before the Keyblade Graveyard showdown? Even after the matter, if a portion of Xehanort's heart went into Braig, then it wasn't completely whole (unless it had completely healed) when he possessed Terra, and even though Terra's whole heart was in there, along with Eraqus's presumably, in almost no time flat, Xehanort had complete control. Then there's the case of Vanitas, who seems to be Xehanorted at birth. I'm only using all of these examples to illustrate there's not really one specific timeline for his "heart peices" (if they're even used in the process - i.e. Vanitas?) to start their dirty work.
Braig is always a special case anyways because he did all this willingly and on his own accord. Terra never did, Isa is not really known how much was voluntary or not and when taking in Ven as a hypothetical case he would also never go along with it willingly.
Going back to Terra's case, don't forget that Xehanort spent the whole game of BBS to condition Terra's heart so he could take over in the end, just like with Sora in DDD. Going by that, Xehanort needs much more effort to get to control someone who is opposed to him and he needs to go great lengths for it.
Terra had by then completely lost himself in darkness and hate, making Xehanort's job at first rather easy, but the creation of the Lingering Will and Terra's resurfacing later in the battle at Radiant Garden against Aqua shows that Xehanort had in fact no complete control at all.
When Ventus was still his apprentice (and before the Vanitas-fiasco) he also tried the same manipulation course like with Terra and Sora, yet
failed repeatedly
, leading Xehanort to remark that he is too kind-hearted to be of use and finally resort to the drastical method with the Heartless.
Vanitas is a curious case, but maybe can be designated as the easiest one out of all, since he was a newborn heart (ripped from a piece of Ventus), ergo meaning no real sense of self at first, which is also why Xehanort calls him an "empty creature" at first and being pure darkness.
It would be a field day for Xehanort to make a vessel out of that, even better a chance than first-week-Zombie-Roxas in Days.
I agree there is no specific timeline to Xehanort seeds, although there
is the indication that none of them was instantaneous. Xehanort may
have thought it was so with Terra, but the Lingering Will and Terra resisting in Final Episode proved him otherwise.
It does seem like there is some middle ground that needed to be found with their "puppets" - that through all of these trials they were never able to achieve. It could be they wanted to wait to craft Roxas into a vessel with strength of body, will and trust to Xemnas (much like Braig and Isa) before depositing a piece of Xehanort.
Ventus doesn't have his heart back. He's not conscious. How is he going to defend himself? Harboring his heart inside of Sora just leaves him alive. We don't even know how he'll act should he get his heart back. Remember how slow and fragile he was to recoup when he was sent to Land of Departure? Xehanort could take advantage of his crippled state even if he wakes up.
Agreed, but maybe his heart heals back up each time he cuts out a sliver for his Organization, and maybe we can hope for some instability in the case of the heart pieces for Terra and Isa to shake free.
Strength of will would however be totally counterproductive to Xehanort's goals. A strong-willed existence would be better in
resisting his influence than embracing it. One of the reasons Xigbar and Xemnas (and Xaldin, curiuosly) kept preaching to the Org members that they have no feelings was in order to prevent them growing their new heart-buds and by that, a new sense of self, because then Xehanort's seeds would have it very difficult if not impossible to take over.
As said above, taking over people with a strong sense of self like Terra or Sora takes Xehanort much effort, so letting Roxas and some of the others do so was a big oversight on Xemnas' part.
Except of course if we assume that "possessing per heart piece" is only possible when Master Xehanort himself does it. Xehanort's heart however was with Ansem SoD. Maybe Xemnas' "Xehanort-heart" wasn't strong/stable enough to be used to seed all the members, and that's why they went for the plan with the artificial KH.
Exactly, and Aqua, Sora and co. would be stupid to reveal the Chamber of Waking before Ven's heart is ready to be put back. Ven's heart had ten (by now possibly even eleven) years to heal, and going by its actions inside Sora's heart in DDD is seems that its on a good way. With Ven's first heart-injury we had four years between the Prologue and BBS proper as healing time, and yet we do not know how much of these four years it actually took until he was stable again.
Depending on the state of his heart he might actually be able to defend himself pretty well, also considering that he wasn't manipulated or conditioned by Xehanort beforehand like Terra or Sora in DDD.
Xehanort would have been also unsuccessful with Sora if he had not have all that time for his machinations.
Xehanort's heart would have to be truly exceptional if it can heal from multiple splittings that fast, and yet still, the only other case we saw was Ven with Vanitas' creation, and that one was a) forced on a kid (MX is an adult and Keyblade Master), b) Vanitas according to MX took too big of a chunk from Ven's heart (even if it was merely close to a quarter considering the broken awakening) and c) done on an already weakened heart due to prior Heartless attack.
Now let's add that MX does not sent out parts as big as cake pieces but smaller stuff, and it might be reasonable.
That's what I guess might be the solution. The GoL might have to enter the controlled/captured heart of the vessel in question, defeat the Xehanort-piece inside it and then use the "Key to Return Hearts" to return that piece to Xehanort's main heart.
Ven didn't give into the darkness at the Keyblade Graveyard, but he still found use for him to try to forge the X-blade, one of his machinations to which he even admits to acting rashly. His plans have diversified much more since then, and Xemnas is obviously trying to find the Chamber of Waking/perhaps Ventus for a reason. They haven't been able to select prime cuts as far as the 13th vessel goes. First it was Riku, then Roxas, then Sora - Ventus might be looking good to Master Xehanort right about now, however unfit he may have initially seemed.
Yep, but he only found use for Ven in
light purposes, when he was still his apprentice Xehanort tried repeatedly to influence the kid to embrace his darkness and always failed. The incident with the Heartless we saw in the BBS flashback was just the last one when MX lost patience and tried to force Ven to use his darkness. And even that failed too.
Oh, I surely won't deny that Xemnas had a reason to search for Ventus, after all, from Days we learn that Xemnas was almost
obsessed with it and Saix apparently really thought Axel and him might have something to use against Xemnas if they could find the chamber before, at least that's what he implies to Axel once.
What this reason is however was kept ambigious to a T, so anything is possible in this regard.
My point was that Ven was physically stable enough by then to fend off Vanitas. He is not stable enough to do that right now. (And yes, any and all of those possibilities could happen.)
Only it is relevant to what I'm trying to say. I didn't view Ventus's smile as a sign he's getting ready to wake up and kick butt. That smile seemed more like an involuntary action, much like breathing. It takes voluntary effort not to smile with a bunch of warm fuzzy Dream Eaters surrounding you. Try not laughing at your favorite comedian; this is what I mean. It takes way more damanding, physical effort to fight and defend yourself and almost none on the instinctual side of laughing at something that's funny.
We do not know that either. We do not know how stable Ven's heart is right now or how stable it will be when Aqua and Sora finally decide to go to the Chamber of Waking. I also highly doubt that Aqua would just stand idly by and let Xehanort do something like this unopposed, not after she already lost Terra to him.
Ven "getting ready to wake up and kick butt" is completely tied to how the status of his heart is. If it's healed far enough it can defend itself, and only in that case they should actually go and try to wake him up in the physical world.
So you don't think we can save any of the Darknesses? What hope do you have for Terra and Isa then?
The darkness I was referring to could be either Sora or Xehanorts, but his heart is stationed within Sora now rather than himself. His heart which turned into or produced his armor (?) was able to be corrupted/animated by darkness, so why should his now heartless body be less vulnerable?
That's not what I meant with that. Nice that you mention Terra and Isa though, and although I am not sure yet if Isa is really a victim or voluntary in it like Braig, I see these as enough to being needed to be saved. Why do we need to repeat the same stuff now also with Ven? Also considering we already have the possessed victim with Terra, so making Ven another one would also cheapen
Terra's situation.
What I really meant with "meaningless" is that is though that Sora saving Ven's heart twice as well as all of Aqua's efforts to keep him safe would have not accomplished anything because Ventus would be in a much worse state than before.
As evidenced though with both Terra and Sora as well as Riku in KH 1, Xehanort's darkness needs a sufficient amount of a heart's own darkness to take hold and to sustain him, and Ven doesn't have that.
Ven's heart only produced the armor, you can see it floating high above when Sora in the armor lies on the awakening platform, as Ven's heart shines from above.
It was only the armor itself that was animated by the Darkness of that Nightmare.
