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Spoilers ► How does memory work in this universe



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bigbobcatboy

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So I've recently been replaying some of the older games and just finished watching through the 358/2 Days movie yesterday.
I guess when I originally came across this stuff I just kind of glossed over it or tuned it out but, things start to get pretty funky when Namine and Xion are involved.
Specifically I'm talking about the way that when something happens to a person, it can result in everyone who knows them losing the memory of said person's existence.
I think that this happened to memories of Sora near the beginning of KH2, and to memories of Xion after she disappeared.

Was there any decent explanation for this at any point? I remember in CoM Namine gave a bit of insight into how memories work, saying that they're connected like a "chain" or like "chains"(not sure) and that if something can't be remembered, it doesn't mean it's gone, just disconnected from the chain/chains.
But that doesn't explain why OTHER people will be having their memory altered to not include a certain person because they assimilated into Sora/Roxas like Xion or had Namine mess with their memories like Sora.

The closest thing to an explanation for this included in a game that I know of is in the Days movie when Namine tells Xion that if she returns to Sora, she'll disappear AND everyone will forget about her. Saying: "In exchange for not having your own memory, you're connected through other's memories. So when you disappear, no one will remember you. There won't be any "you" to remember."
Connected through other's memories to what? Didn't Xion form plenty of her own memories? Does that mean when people die in this universe everyone forgets them? Is it just people without hearts?

What is this girl saying to me right now??
Not to mention, don't we learn in KH3 that Xion has a heart? That would reinforce the fact that she has her own memory.
This really has me stuck, I know it's probably mostly only there so it makes sense that there isn't an ounce of Xion to be found in KH2.(Who knows why they did it to memories of Sora in KH2.)
But is there anything that I'm not remembering from some point in the series that makes more sense than Namine having a stroke in Days? Or is it just time to roll with it and move on? At this point I'm theorizing that Namine is actually some kind of whimsical fiend, and is just erasing everyone's memory for fun and lying about it.

TDLR: Xion vanish>people forget her>why? Namine restoring Sora's memories>people forget him for a second>why?
Edit: I've seen everything in the series at least once so don't worry about spoiling me
 
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AR829038

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In CoM, Namine explained that she has power over the memories of Sora AND everyone connected to him, because she is technically Sora's Nobody as well as Kairi's (she was formed from the emancipation of Kairi's heart from Sora's body, whereas Roxas was created from the separation of Sora's heart from his body). Because of this, when she went in to rearrange Sora's memories, it meant that everyone who knew Sora would forget about him as a consequence until the memories could be rearranged in their proper order.
Xion was a replica created to become another Sora by absorbing his memories, and, unintentionally, Roxas'. Since Xion's entire existence was as a vessel for Sora's memories, when she is destroyed, those memories transfer right back to Sora. However, in order for Naminé to complete her work rearranging Sora's memories, she needs to retrieve them from Xion. Without her, the process of his recovery would have taken indefinitely longer, and might never have ended up working. So, to that end, Naminé and Xion together arranged for her and Roxas (who was also needed to complete Sora at the beginning of KH2 because he also held memories and half of what Sora was) to be destroyed and their memories returned to Sora. But only with Xion did this cause everyone to forget her, because whereas Roxas was merely a Nobody, Xion was just a living vessel for Sora's memories. And by erasing Xion's existence, Naminé, as a consequence of her powers, would also be erasing every trace of their existence to everyone who ever knew her.
 

bigbobcatboy

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In CoM, Namine explained that she has power over the memories of Sora AND everyone connected to him, because she is technically Sora's Nobody as well as Kairi's (she was formed from the emancipation of Kairi's heart from Sora's body, whereas Roxas was created from the separation of Sora's heart from his body). Because of this, when she went in to rearrange Sora's memories, it meant that everyone who knew Sora would forget about him as a consequence until the memories could be rearranged in their proper order.
Xion was a replica created to become another Sora by absorbing his memories, and, unintentionally, Roxas'. Since Xion's entire existence was as a vessel for Sora's memories, when she is destroyed, those memories transfer right back to Sora. However, in order for Naminé to complete her work rearranging Sora's memories, she needs to retrieve them from Xion. Without her, the process of his recovery would have taken indefinitely longer, and might never have ended up working. So, to that end, Naminé and Xion together arranged for her and Roxas (who was also needed to complete Sora at the beginning of KH2 because he also held memories and half of what Sora was) to be destroyed and their memories returned to Sora. But only with Xion did this cause everyone to forget her, because whereas Roxas was merely a Nobody, Xion was just a living vessel for Sora's memories. And by erasing Xion's existence, Naminé, as a consequence of her powers, would also be erasing every trace of their existence to everyone who ever knew her.
But Roxas was the one who actually destroyed Xion. Is it because Namine disconnected Sora's memories from Xion's upon their return to Sora and left Xion's disconnected causing an effect of everyone connected to Xion to forget her as a result of Xion being connected to Sora? Because Xion didn't exist in any connected memories in Sora as a result of Namine? I didn't consider that maybe Namine's power wasn't completely focused on what she wanted it to be, though I'm not sure what that would say about other times she's used it.
Though it doesn't quite explain why Roxas began to forget Xion pretty much instantly, before she was even entirely gone, unless Namine can actually work that fast. Also kind of weird that disconnecting memories could have the effect of literally altering existing memories for other people to just exclude her.

If that's the case I can't say I'm fully satisfied but, more satisfied than before for sure. I still want to know if this is better explained anywhere in the series, or if they just expected us to fire up our brain cells for this one.

EDIT: Had a thought: This wouldn't translate to Sora's situation. If I have this right, the crew in Hollow Bastion suddenly forgot about Sora, Donald and Goofy and then suddenly remembered them, forgetting ONLY those 3. If all the memories someone is in have to be disconnected for them to be forgotten by everyone, for the person themselves(Sora for example) to be forgotten, they'd have to have all their memories disconnected, which in Sora's case would include the HB crew among the disconnected. That would cause them to forget each other and themselves for a period of time, which didn't seem to have happened.
I'm over-thinking this and no longer satisfied, rescue me.
 
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Absent

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It is complicated. The way I understood it was that Xion's identity was built around Sora's memory. If she needed to return Sora's memory then that would undo her. However, remember the chain the analogy from CoM? The memories of Xion exist it's just that they're connected to other things as they originally were before they used them to create her. Xion states as such at the end of Days when Roxas loses to Riku:

Roxas, don't be sad. I came from you and Sora. I am you...the same way that I am Sora. You'll forget me, but the memories themselves will never go away. Memories of you and me will always be together...forever, inside him."
 

bigbobcatboy

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It is complicated. The way I understood it was that Xion's identity was built around Sora's memory. If she needed to return Sora's memory then that would undo her.
I still feel like it doesn't make enough sense.
How is it that people can hear her, see her, speak with her and then have those memories altered/erased so that they don't remember her at all as a result of her disappearing.
I mean, I know it's fictional and all, so it won't exactly make sense, but I feel it should be more satisfying than that. Maybe it just isn't and I'm looking for something that isn't there, IDK.
 

EternalDream

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The chains are (usually) a two way thing, take the following for example:

Sora <-----> Kairi
Sora <-----> Leon
Sora <-----> Riku

During CoM, Naminé breaks the chain and inserts herself in Kairi's place, so now the chain looks like

Sora <-----> Naminé
---> Kairi
Sora <-----> Leon
Sora <-----> Riku

So Kairi's "chain" to Sora was cut off, causing both to forget about each other (we never see Kairi during CoM so we can't entirely verify it but the situation with the HB crew confirms a similar scenario)

Then at the end of CoM, Namine needs to fix everything she messed with in SDG's memories, and completely disconnects every chain to another person, except the one to Riku who's helping her out and obviously needs to remember who Sora is, so now it looks like.

Sora <----> Riku
---> Namine
---> Kairi
---> Leon

Alright, so Sora is recovering, and now all she needs to do is reconnect the chains to the proper people and the memories those people shared - so she obviously can't reconnect herself to him since the memories of Castle Oblivion would be part of that chain and mess stuff up.

Problem now is, the moment Namine unchained his memories, Roxas starts absorbing some of them as a result of him being Sora's Nobody, something he failed to do on his creation due to Sora not being a Heartless for long enough.

This is also why he gets a massive headache on entering CO since Sora's CO memories do still exist, but are unchained from him...free for Roxas to unfortunately take in and suffer from.

So now part of Sora's memories went missing in Roxas, who can't make sense of them due to already creating his own memories individually, whoops.

And then Xion is a thing. Xion, or rather No. i, is a replica with no heart and no appearance, a blank slate. 'It' is entirely designed to absorb Sora's memories, be it ones that are unchained from Sora and yet to find their way to Roxas, or ones Roxas already absorbed, intended to absorb all of them to become a functional copy of Sora.

Just think of her not as a single person for a memory to create a chain to. Something like

Roxas <-----> Xion

is not a thing. Instead it's more something like (note the single arrow):

Roxas -----> (Sora's memories of Kairi)

So when those memories return to Sora, there is no 'Xion' to chain to, because she never existed. The truest of Nobodies.

So at this point, while Sora's memories that made up the person known as Xion float back to him, people start forgetting 'her'. In the mean time, Roxas still is running around with a solid amount of them too, so it takes until him returning to Sora for Sora to truly have all his memories pre-CoM back in their rightful place, allowing him to wake up.

So how does Xion's own memories play into this?

Xion's own heart that she develops DOES connect the other way around (note I didn't use a two-way arrow above):

Xion -----> Roxas

which is why as a heart inside Sora, she can appear to him and remembers herself and who she was in that small segment in DDD, and also explains how her return in KH3 sends out all of HER memories to re-connect to the broken chains of her friends, completing it properly this time, as

Roxas <----> Xion

Hope that clears stuff up, it's often cryptic how it all works but it does make sense.
 
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bigbobcatboy

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The chains are (usually) a two way thing, take the following for example:

Sora <-----> Kairi
Sora <-----> Leon
Sora <-----> Riku

During CoM, Naminé breaks the chain and inserts herself in Kairi's place, so now the chain looks like

Sora <-----> Naminé
---> Kairi
Sora <-----> Leon
Sora <-----> Riku

So Kairi's "chain" to Sora was cut off, causing both to forget about each other (we never see Kairi during CoM so we can't entirely verify it but the situation with the HB crew confirms a similar scenario)

Then at the end of CoM, Namine needs to fix everything she messed with in SDG's memories, and completely disconnects every chain to another person, except the one to Riku who's helping her out and obviously needs to remember who Sora is, so now it looks like.

Sora <----> Riku
---> Namine
---> Kairi
---> Leon

Alright, so Sora is recovering, and now all she needs to do is reconnect the chains to the proper people and the memories those people shared - so she obviously can't reconnect herself to him since the memories of Castle Oblivion would be part of that chain and mess stuff up.

Problem now is, the moment Namine unchained his memories, Roxas starts absorbing some of them as a result of him being Sora's Nobody, something he failed to do on his creation due to Sora not being a Heartless for long enough.

This is also why he gets a massive headache on entering CO since Sora's CO memories do still exist, but are unchained from him...free for Roxas to unfortunately take in and suffer from.

So now part of Sora's memories went missing in Roxas, who can't make sense of them due to already creating his own memories individually, whoops.

And then Xion is a thing. Xion, or rather No. i, is a replica with no heart and no appearance, a blank slate. 'It' is entirely designed to absorb Sora's memories, be it ones that are unchained from Sora and yet to find their way to Roxas, or ones Roxas already absorbed, intended to absorb all of them to become a functional copy of Sora.

Just think of her not as a single person for a memory to create a chain to. Something like

Roxas <-----> Xion

is not a thing. Instead it's more something like (note the single arrow):

Roxas -----> (Sora's memories of Kairi)

So when those memories return to Sora, there is no 'Xion' to chain to, because she never existed. The truest of Nobodies.

So at this point, while Sora's memories that made up the person known as Xion float back to him, people start forgetting 'her'. In the mean time, Roxas still is running around with a solid amount of them too, so it takes until him returning to Sora for Sora to truly have all his memories pre-CoM back in their rightful place, allowing him to wake up.

So how does Xion's own memories play into this?

Xion's own heart that she develops DOES connect the other way around (note I didn't use a two-way arrow above):

Xion -----> Roxas

which is why as a heart inside Sora, she can appear to him and remembers herself and who she was in that small segment in DDD, and also explains how her return in KH3 sends out all of HER memories to re-connect to the broken chains of her friends, completing it properly this time, as

Roxas <----> Xion

Hope that clears stuff up, it's often cryptic how it all works but it does make sense.
Thank you for the detailed explanation, I'm starting to see the picture I think.
I gotta say though, this is some bizarre stuff.
I guess in the stroke I mentioned where Namine says "you're connected through other peoples memories" was supposed to be some strange attempt at explaining the thing about the one way connection everyone made to Xion(Sora's memories)?
Makes me wonder how anyone in universe manages to remember random objects that can't be chained to, like plastic cups or shoes. Guess they're just exempt if not heart related.
Also suppose it would mean if a heart is destroyed everyone would forget the person too, if destroying a heart is even a thing.

Though, the thing with the memories of CO is still puzzling. When she couldn't just include the real memories
from CO and exclude the fake ones.
 
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EternalDream

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Though, the thing with the memories of CO is still puzzling. When she couldn't just include the real memories
from CO and exclude the fake ones.

Yeah it's not really explained well, but since memories in this series determine what a character acts and feels like (ie Roxas may have Ventus' heart before growing his own, but he acts nothing like Ven), I can imagine the CO memories might have been deemed too harmful to Sora to keep connected, if Roxas fainting when going anywhere near the place is any indication.
 
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