Plus, Nomura loves to pull surprise. Imagine the surprise to find Ven-Vanitas as a Seeker of Darkness.
Except that this wouldn't be a surprise but rather just a dull repeating of the finale of Aqua's scenario in BBS.
Everyone makes mistakes and I always concede to mine. It was, in fact, clearly premised that Roxas, Lea, and Xion, as well as the BBS trio, the people those memories pertained to were people who were hurting and waiting for Sora's help.
Yes exactly, although it was not Re: Coded which did this first but the Secret ending of Birth by Sleep, Blank Points.
Re: Coded made the whole thing obvious to the in-universe characters, specifically Mickey who saw Roxas for the very first time and thu got a clue as to where Ventus' heart could be, as stated later in the secret ending of Coded where he talks with Yen Sid.
Both Re: Coded and Blank Points though make it also pretty clear that Roxas and Ventus are two different beings.
Though I've been venturing a thought. What if reviving Ventus is reviving Roxas? Wasn't Roxas spawned from Ventus's heart? Couldn't that be the reason he and Sora could co-exist and Ventus's trauma the source of Roxas's pain albeit unknowingly? We do know that Ventus is the reason he developed the ability to double wield.
Just a thought. Perhaps an absurd one, I don't know.
Yea no, why would that be?
It doesn't make any sense because of two things:
1. Roxas and Ventus are two completely different beings and individuals who have
nothing to do with each other beyond their shared identical appearance.
2. Roxas spawned from
Sora's heart when he stabbed himself with the Dark Keyblade in KH 1, that's why he is
Sora's Nobody. Ventus doesn't have a Nobody at all.
This connection is what allowed him to wield Sora's Keyblade in the first place and what allowed Vexen do draw "memories from the other side of Sora's heart, aka Twilight Town" out in Chain of Memories.
The reason Sora and him could co-exist is because
Kairi used her powers to restore Heartless-Sora to his human form, Ventus had zero to do with it.
Roxas' appearance being Ventus' identical twin however is because he indeed
carried Ventus' sleeping heart within him (as it is Sora's original body Roxas is inhabiting) but it did not influence anything beyond the physical looks.
Ventus is indeed the reason for the dual-wield ability, but as far as we know in a more passive role as when Xion "disappeared" Roxas (and by extension, his newly developed heart) had an emotional breakdown that was so severe he accidentally managed to access Ventus' sleeping heart and unlock Ven's Keyblade, resulting in the "Awakening" of Dual-Wielding.
Xion confuses me entirely, isn't she dead? Then again, I could just once again be lacking some story knowledge or have forgotten it (it's been at least a year since I watched the Days movie).
Not exactly, she's more or less in the same situation as Roxas and Naminé, "Absorbed" into someone else.
As Re: Coded already hints (it is more or less implied since Chain of Memories actually, Re: Coded is just the most blatant about it) and Dream Drop Distance
confirms though is that anything can grow a heart of its own if it forges enough connections with already existing hearts, meaning that yes, Xion
does have her own heart.
The same holds true for Naminé and Roxas, they're themselves, not Kairi, not Sora and not Ventus.
Both Xemnas and Ansem the Wise explain how it works in Dream Drop Distance, have you not yet played/watched the cutscenes of that title?
Changing subjects, I wasn't clear on Yen Sid's claim that because both Ansem and Xenmas, the two halves of Xehanort (his heartless and his nobody) have been defeated, they'll rejoin thus reviving the complete being.
I'm aware that slaying a heartless releases the lost heart it formed from to be returned to their bodies but aren't the nobodies what becomes of the empty bodies? So if the corresponding nobody of a given heart is slayed...?
Speaking of which what happened to Terra's heart when the split occurred? Though admittedly I'm only assuming that Terra has remained Xehenort's vessel for the whole 10 years since both Ansem and Xenmas kept his likeness.
I read it nonetheless as a premise that Terra once again has a chance at being salvageable.
To be frank, the Heartless needs to be "slain" (actually purified) by a Keyblade for the reviving process to work. Using normal weapons or just magic not channeled by a Keyblade to vanquish a Heartless doesn't do the trick, as the Heartless will just reform elsewhere some time later, as explained by Marluxia in Days.
The Nobody does indeed "inhabit" the body of the original being, but slaying the Nobody (again, with a Keyblade) "frees" the body (with the corresponding soul attached) and allows all parts to rejoin to reform the original being.
The whole process was only superficially "explained" by Yen Sid in the Re: Coded secret ending (and the first time it actually appears in in-universe canon), but the whole concept itself was already present and explained more in-depth by Nomura himself in the Director's Secret Report XIII, an extra book delivered with KH 2 Final Mix back in 2005 yet again Japan-only:
Director's Secret Report XIII said:
VIII. When you defeat Heartless, what happens to the hearts they have stolen? Also, when Nobodies and members of Organisation XIII are defeated, do they return to their original forms?
When a Heartless is defeated, essentially, the owner of that heart returns to life somewhere in the Realm with the body that had once disappeared. Some facts about where hearts go were also established in KHII, but those were exceptional circumstances brought about by the Organisation. However, there is the rare case in which a body changes into a Nobody. If that has happened, without the vessel it ought to return to the heart will go into a suspended state.
When a Nobody is defeated, it's a little complicated. If the heart has been released they will return to their original form as mentioned above, but if the heart is still dispossessed by a Heartless, the Nobody will be swallowed by darkness. If their heart, wherever it is in the realm, could be taken back perhaps they could return to their original human form.
In fact, the thingy holds a lot of interesting information and Master Spockanort posted a nice tidy thread about it in 2015 with a more polished translation by Goldpanner, so it might be an interesting read:
Director's Secret Report XIII
What exactly happened with Terra's heart and the current status of all his "parts" is kept a mystery deliberately and teased about in the Ultimania of Dream Drop Distance.
It's one of the riddles slated to be addressed in KH III itself.
Of course Terra can also be saved.
Those calling out "Sora" in Blank Points, the secret ending of BBS, are all slated to be saved and restored,
including Terra and Ansem the Wise.
Saving those people is in fact supposed to be another primary plot point of KH III itself.
I don't believe that Terra will be a guardian though since it was his weakness to the darkness which kinda brought about this entire war since it was what empowered Xehanort and Maleficent.
I'm not saying that he's not redeemable but it would take time. Not to mention he'd be an emotional wreck.
My list is:
Sora
Mickey
Riku
Aqua
Ventus
Roxas
Namine
I suppose Kairi is possible but I still feel it a stretch that she could be both a guardian and a PoH.
But who knows, perhaps it could be Goofy's son, Max, lol.
Seriously, I'd love to see him and PJ, Pete's son make an appearance.
I'd be cautious with such finger pointing as this "entire war" is brought about primarily by Xehanort himself, his crazy ambitions and manipulations.
I'm actually wondering where people get this idea from that Terra needs to "redeem" himself? Like wat?
Terra is not a bad guy, he didn't do any of the awful stuff that happened on his own volition (unlike Riku in KH 1, who
did act like an asshole and performed questionable things
before the Ansem possession) and therefore doesn't need any "redemption arc".
Uhm, if you look at it realistically, wouldn't Aqua also be an emotional "wreck" after all the shit she went through in the Realm of Darkness?
Roxas' and Naminé' existence so far also consisted of more pain and suffering than usual and Ventus literally got his heart
crushed twice.
Sora also experienced quite a traumatic episode during Dream Drop Distance so going by that all the "Guardians" in the list above except Mickey and Riku would/should be emotional wrecks from all the trauma inflicted left and right throughout the series.
