Kingdom Hearts III Pre-Release Spoiler Discussion Thread

[Raz]

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Baymax's commentary during battle is the cutest thing I've ever heard and demonstrates a commitment to detail for the Disney worlds that I am excited for. When he said "Kick" in that dead-pan voice I lost it.

 

[The_Echo]

Uploads of Face My Fears are slowly trickling in on YouTube
Got to hear all of the Japanese version and then the video got removed immediately

 

[furusatoe]

Face My Fears has been uploaded/removed from YouTube for at least a week now. I'm curious to see if Square will release it along with the opening video tomorrow, or if they'll just release the audio.

 

[Twilight Lumiair]

I think it's clear that Aqua really isn't herself, man.

I really hope so, don't get me wrong. Honestly, I'm just trying to be objective here. It's not just her in-battle dialouge that pushed me to say that, she talks about being in misery and pain in the trailers too. Looking at all of that diolouge in addition to the "you're too late" kinda spells out a pretty clear picture. I just don't see many other ways to interpret it without assuming they're not even her words at all, and that, to me, would just make the whole subplot of her falling to darkness a waste of time.

 

[DraceEmpressa]

I wonder what will that leaker post to divert all the attention from this trailer to his leaks again.

 

[notnow123487]

Face My Fears has been uploaded/removed from YouTube for at least a week now. I'm curious to see if Square will release it along with the opening video tomorrow, or if they'll just release the audio.

They already said they’re not releasing the opening before release.

 

[alexis.anagram]

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Just listened to the audio for the Aqua fight. And..... Ugh, I am sooo dissapointed. I wanted to hold out until I was sure, but now I can say that the everything Aqua vowed in 0.2 officially amounts to nothing for me anymore in terms of the plot. It's still one of my favorite scenes in the series, but I am dissapointed it doesn't have any weight anymore.

Yeah, a poster on another forum referred to it as character assassination, and I think that sums it up pretty well in one word. It's worse than that, though, because it's a wasted opportunity to expand the dialogue surrounding what darkness and light are in this universe: we're constantly told that darkness is not evil, but all we ever see is its destructive capacity and people being victimized by it. With KH3, I feel like we should be well past the point of wringing our hands over who is and isn't going to fall to darkness, and characters like Sora should have a much stronger grasp of how darkness is just another state of existence.

Basically the only arguments to justify Aqua's condition are that she gave up and allowed all her malicious intentions to take root in her heart, and/or the big bad darkness forcibly corrupted her after she lost the capacity to fight it back. Neither are consistent with the story we've been told so far.

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I think the goal with KH3 was to end the saga in the same way it began, with much more of a Disney focus and one single hub world. The number of worlds is almost identical too.

But the saga began with Leon, Yuffie, Aerith, Cid and Cloud all participating in the events of the series. That's five FF characters, six if you count Sephiroth in International/FM, and eight or nine if you count the DI kids. So by your own metric KH3 falls short of the mark.

 

[furusatoe]

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Not trying to be argumentative, but how does Aqua falling to the darkness amount to character assassination? I think it's reasonable to believe that even someone as pure and optimistic as Aqua could become despondent after a long-ass time wandering the Dark World. I don't think that reflects negatively on Aqua's character; it's just the sad result of her circumstances.

I do agree, though, that it would be great if they could work in some nuance to this whole light/dark dichotomy, rather than the simplistic "light = good / darkness = bad" trope.

 

[Twilight Lumiair]

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Not trying to be argumentative, but how does Aqua falling to the darkness amount to character assassination? I think it's reasonable to believe that even someone as pure and optimistic as Aqua could become despondent after a long-ass time wandering the Dark World. I don't think that reflects negatively on Aqua's character; it's just the sad result of her circumstances.

I do agree, though, that it would be great if they could work in some nuance to this whole light/dark dichotomy, rather than the simplistic "light = good / darkness = bad" trope.

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It was never that simple. Her reasons don't make any sense. To be as clear as possible:
"You don't know what true loneliness is..."
She says this, despite the fact that she wasn't even alone in RoD. She met Terra, Ven (to a lesser extent), Mickey, and eventually had a permanent companion (even if not the best) in Ansem the Wise. All of these people reassured her and lifted her spirits multiple times in one way or another (and you can see that sticks with her in the end of 0.2).
"No help ever came.."
.... In the end of Birth by Sleep, Terra and Ventus' Keyblades litterally saved Aqua's life when she was on the edge of despair and questioning if it would be ok for her to fade away. When Terranort attacked Aqua and Ventus in Enchanted Dominion, Terra single handedly neutralized Xehanort and nearly prevented Aqua from being flung deeper into the RoD. This was after he came to visit specifically to help her through the darkness (as instructed by Namine). Mickey saves Aqua when she was once again on the verge of giving up hope, ensuring her that she'd "be okay." The two proceeded to fight together against the demon tide and had each other's backs the entire time.
Sooo yeah. She's just... Wrong. No other way I can really see it.
"I've waited, for so long!"
Disregarding the fact that 10 years of her stay in the RoD were both shown and implied to be no where near that long from her perspective (hence why she's surprised when Mickey actually tells her it's been 10 years), in less than a years time (again, from her perspective) she found Ansem the Wise at the Dark Margin, where we see she stayed in the end of DDD until... whatever happened, happened. During their initial meeting, Ansem the Wise tells Aqua that RoL has continued to be saved by Sora in her absence, and that many others, including herself, were waiting to be saved (awaiting their birth by sleep as he puts it). So it's not like she had reason to believe they wouldn't come for her, lest she believe her new companion lied to her (which she clearly didn't, and likely didn't want to either). And this was after she said she didn't mind staying in the RoD a little longer at the end of 0.2, which wasn't anywhere romotely close to another 10 years (I personally don't even think it was one). So my question is, why was a considerably shorter wait that she put herself in, and she said she wouldn't mind being in to herself, so much more agonizing than the 10 years of actually being alone when noone knew of her fate, and she had zero knowledge of the events in the RoL? I just don't see how that makes sense without having to stretch logic.

 

[furusatoe]

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It was never that simple. Her reasons don't make any sense. To be as clear as possible:
"You don't know what true loneliness is..."
She says this, despite the fact that she wasn't even alone in RoD. She met Terra, Ven (to a lesser extent), Mickey, and eventually had a permanent companion (even if not the best) in Ansem the Wise. All of these people reassured her and lifted her spirits multiple times.
"No help ever came.."
.... In the end of Birth by Sleep, Terra and Ventus' Keyblades litterally saved Aqua's life when she was on the edge of despair and questioning if it would be ok for her to fade away. When Terranort attacked Aqua and Ventus' in Enchanted Dominion, Terra single handedly neutralized Xehanort and nearly prevented Aqua from being flung deeper into the RoD. This was after he came to visit, specifically to help her through the darkness (as instructed by Namine). Mickey saves Aqua when she was once again on the verge of giving up hope, ensuring her that she'd "be okay." The two proceeded to fight together against the demon tide and had each other's backs the entire time.
Sooo yeah. She's just... Wrong. No other I can really see it.
"I've waited, for so long!"
Disregarding the fact that 10 years of her stay in the RoD were both shown and implied to be no where near that long from her perspective (hence why she's surprised when Mickey actually tells her it's been 10 years), in less than a years time (again, from her perspective) she found Ansem the Wise at Dark Margin, where we see she stayed in the end of DDD until... whatever happened, happened. During their initial meeting, Ansem the Wise tells Aqua that RoL has continued to be saved by Sora in her absence, and that many others, including herself, were waiting to be saved (awaiting their birth by sleep as he puts it). So it's not like she had reason to believe they wouldn't come for her, lest she believe her new companion lied to her (which she clearly didn't, and likely didn't want to either). And this was after she said she didn't mind staying in the RoD a little longer at the end of 0.2, which wasn't anywhere romotely close to another 10 years (I personally don't even think it was one). So my question is, why was a considerably shorter wait that she put herself in, and she said she wouldn't mind being in to herself, so much more aganizing than the 10 years of actually being alone when noone knew of her fate, and she had zero knowledge of the events in the RoL? I just don't see how that makes sense without having to stretch logic.

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You make some good points; thanks for the clarification. It will be interesting to see what exactly happened between Blank Points and KH3 that led Aqua to this point. I will say, though, that I think you're overestimating the rationality of those who are in despair. People who are severely depressed have a tendency toward hyperbole and catastrophizing (e.g., "No one ever helps me"; "I've never been happy."). I think it's clear that whatever influence Aqua is under, it is limiting her ability to rationally consider her situation.

 

[Darvandark]

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From what I've seen RoD just has a weird standard of time. It speeds up and slows down. .2 gabe me the impression that many of the events of 1 were what got time to start moving so who knows how long it had felt since the events of .2. As far as her dialog about being alone and most of her depression, as stated before she has been on the brink before many times. That will wear you down. Eventually she may have dwelled on many of the low points, internalizing them as her fault (which we have seen her do), feeling she belongs there and so on. Even when she meets Ansem he doesn't do much to lift her spirits and she was still fairly battered. The attempt was made but it always felt bittersweet.
Her "going dark" doesn't make a lot of sense but I'm not going to say it's out of nowhere. Especially for a character that sometimes seems to feel she has a crumbling world on her shoulders.

 

[U.N. Owen]

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I doubt Aqua willingly fell to darkness since she didn't exactly looking willing to accept the darkness in the Final Battle Trailer. Then again, that could just be an attack from Vanitas or Ansem. Then again, I could just be reading too much into Aqua literally falling as darkness overtakes her in that scene.

 

[Twilight Lumiair]

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From what I've seen RoD just has a weird standard of time. It speeds up and slows down. .2 gabe me the impression that many of the events of 1 were what got time to start moving so who knows how long it had felt since the events of .2. As far as her dialog about being alone and most of her depression, as stated before she has been on the brink before many times. That will wear you down. Eventually she may have dwelled on many of the low points, internalizing them as her fault (which we have seen her do), feeling she belongs there and so on. Even when she meets Ansem he doesn't do much to lift her spirits and she was still fairly battered. The attempt was made but it always felt bittersweet.
Her "going dark" doesn't make a lot of sense but I'm not going to say it's out of nowhere. Especially for a character that sometimes seems to feel she has a crumbling world on her shoulders.

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Forgive me for once again reffering to 0.2, but in the ending of that game she resigns herself to an extended stay in the RoD. Her specific logic behind this action being that while she knew the "battle for the RoL" was continuing, she thought it would be best for her to stay in the Realm of Darkness just a little while longer in order for her friends (not her, even though she previously insisted) to close the DtD, and also to assist anyone who might end up there if possible. She also vowed to be the light shining in the darkness, so that when her friends eventually come for her, the path will have an end.

To me, that came across as her passing the torch to her friends while she herself remained in reletively small but important role overall (even if she did want to be back home, which she laments later on). She didn't feel like she needed to be there to protect the RoL, but did believe she'd escape someday (showing she had faith in her friends). You would think someone who does something like that would've learned that they can't solve all the problems of the world on their own and had learned that they need to extend responsibility to those capable. Finally sinking in for her after her many friends continued to come to her aid in her hours of need, that she was strong enough to continue to endure on her own, and to trust that her friends would pick up the peices. Idk, she just seemed to have gotten over the issue of putting too much burden on herself by that point, or at least, that's how I personally translated the scene. I guess in the end it wasn't quite what it appeared to be.. for some kind of reason.

 

[Sephiroth0812]

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Some may find this weird but I honestly can see truth in both stances presented here when it comes to Aqua and her situation.

On one hand, having her succumb to darkness and adding even more suffering on top of all the issues present before makes the whole thing look like kicking someone who's already down even more (this applies to the whole BBS trio to a degree) for some extra drama points instead furthering their own stories and actually give them some basic agency and some experiences of success back.
It also contradicts what has been shown in both Blank Points and the end of 0.2 to a degree so I can see where those who don't like this development come from apart from any possible personal preferences for the character.

On the other hand, there are plausible explanations available as to why this happens without necessarily filing her claims from 0.2 ad absurdum.
There is also to keep in mind that the ending of 0.2 was changed insofar that in its original incarnation Aqua was supposed to break down.
Yet even taking this aside, it isn't uncommon or out of left field to insinuate that her confidence boost was either temporarily or, which I think more likely, actively eroded or smashed.

Basically the only arguments to justify Aqua's condition are that she gave up and allowed all her malicious intentions to take root in her heart, and/or the big bad darkness forcibly corrupted her after she lost the capacity to fight it back. Neither are consistent with the story we've been told so far.

Why "malicious" though? From what I've seen Aqua isn't actually malicious but acting out of despair and pain.
Being forcibly overtaken also isn't really that inconsistent as every single person has limits. Aqua has resisted it all probably longer than anybody else so far and there are factors that could have shattered her newfound resolve shown in 0.2.

It hit me recently but we know she does face Ansem SoD at some point and apparently also doesn't have Master's Keeper anymore.
This of course begs the question as to why she doesn't have it anymore or how she can even possibly stand a chance against Ansem SoD but for the crux of this issue those do not even matter.

It is not the battle against Ansem SoD itself that is the big danger, but him breaking her by simple talking. We see in KH 1, CoM and DDD that Ansem SoD is a capable manipulator and easily able demoralize opponents by verbally attacking their weak points.
It doesn't work with Riku anymore because by now he knows Ansem, but Aqua never met him before and there are dozens of possibilities with which he can get under her skin since her defenses, both physically and mentally, are already pretty exhausted.

Her being trapped in the RoD is also only one of her woes as she continues to worry about Terra and Ven, not to mention that encounter with Terra-Xehanort and the information that a) Terra being now part-Xehanort and b) Xehanort still being after Ven will certainly have affected her.
Ansem just needs to spit out some stuff like i.e. claiming that he (or the Guardian) is all that is left of Terra (bonus points if he shows off Terra's wayfinder) or that thanks to her spilling the beans they already have Ven (even if it is a lie) to deal a possibly heavy blow to her already fragile defenses.
Finish it off with some extra things about why those who she thought would come to save her won't come and you have a plausible reason why her newfound confidence gets crushed again.

Not the most original narrative for sure and not really helping Aqua herself as a character or to move her own arc forward, but a logical explanation that makes sense in-universe.

 

[alexis.anagram]

Spoiler Show

It was never that simple. Her reasons don't make any sense. To be as clear as possible:
"You don't know what true loneliness is..."
She says this, despite the fact that she wasn't even alone in RoD. She met Terra, Ven (to a lesser extent), Mickey, and eventually had a permanent companion (even if not the best) in Ansem the Wise. All of these people reassured her and lifted her spirits multiple times in one way or another (and you can see that sticks with her in the end of 0.2).
"No help ever came.."
.... In the end of Birth by Sleep, Terra and Ventus' Keyblades litterally saved Aqua's life when she was on the edge of despair and questioning if it would be ok for her to fade away. When Terranort attacked Aqua and Ventus in Enchanted Dominion, Terra single handedly neutralized Xehanort and nearly prevented Aqua from being flung deeper into the RoD. This was after he came to visit specifically to help her through the darkness (as instructed by Namine). Mickey saves Aqua when she was once again on the verge of giving up hope, ensuring her that she'd "be okay." The two proceeded to fight together against the demon tide and had each other's backs the entire time.
Sooo yeah. She's just... Wrong. No other I can really see it.
"I've waited, for so long!"
Disregarding the fact that 10 years of her stay in the RoD were both shown and implied to be no where near that long from her perspective (hence why she's surprised when Mickey actually tells her it's been 10 years), in less than a years time (again, from her perspective) she found Ansem the Wise at the Dark Margin, where we see she stayed in the end of DDD until... whatever happened, happened. During their initial meeting, Ansem the Wise tells Aqua that RoL has continued to be saved by Sora in her absence, and that many others, including herself, were waiting to be saved (awaiting their birth by sleep as he puts it). So it's not like she had reason to believe they wouldn't come for her, lest she believe her new companion lied to her (which she clearly didn't, and likely didn't want to either). And this was after she said she didn't mind staying in the RoD a little longer at the end of 0.2, which wasn't anywhere romotely close to another 10 years (I personally don't even think it was one). So my question is, why was a considerably shorter wait that she put herself in, and she said she wouldn't mind being in to herself, so much more agonizing than the 10 years of actually being alone when noone knew of her fate, and she had zero knowledge of the events in the RoL? I just don't see how that makes sense without having to stretch logic.

Spoiler Show

In addition to everything that was stated here, even if we were to accept that there's a reasonable argument underscoring her exaggerated feelings of loneliness and despair (which, again, is a false pretext for examining how the darkness within a person operates), her motivations after the fact remain confusing and inexplicable. If she has control of the darkness, and she is enraged at others for abandoning her, why wouldn't she just leave the RoD using a dark corridor and seek out revenge, the same as AtW did? The writers have gone out of their way to abandon any real sense of emotional logic with her character in order to force her into the role of a damsel in distress against all the odds; she doesn't suffice as an antagonist because she isn't sufficiently driven to harm or interfere with the protagonists, and she doesn't get to be a hero because she's too busy waiting around for 90% of the game (by the looks of it) for Sora to come fix her. It's really obviously just a convenient way of padding out her arc until the writers were ready to get to her, and it rings hollow because of it.

 

[Mizunashi]

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As far as narrative threads go, Aqua's is really bad. It kinda feels like she was randomly assigned to be zapped with a Saturday morning cartoon Evil Ray for drama points. Her entire character arc is just a continual downward slope of bad things happening to her that were, for all intents and purposes, beyond her control.

If she genuinely dies in this game then it may honestly be one of the worst treatments of a character I've ever seen in a game series. I'm hoping there's a silver lining to what has essentially been a decade of her character arc falling through the floor.

 

[Squood!]

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I just want to know why she's called Anti-Aqua.

 

[alexis.anagram]

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As far as narrative threads go, Aqua's is really bad. It kinda feels like she was randomly assigned to be zapped with a Saturday morning cartoon Evil Ray for drama points. Her entire character arc is just a continual downward slope of bad things happening to her that were, for all intents and purposes, beyond her control.

If she genuinely dies in this game then it may honestly be one of the worst treatments of a character I've ever seen in a game series. I'm hoping there's a silver lining to what has essentially been a decade of her character arc falling through the floor.

And it's exactly this sort of sloppy writing and characterization that simply does not suffice in KH3. We can all allow for the fact that some installments were bound to be handled with less care than others (which is not the same as saying they're not due their share of criticism). But KH3 stands as the final testament as to how and why all of these personal stories are meant to converge in a way that fulfills the promise of everything that has come before, and it's nowhere close to doing that.

Let's imagine that we have a pretty clear concept of how Aqua's arc is mapped out in this game and consider what that entails. After we've finished all of the Disney worlds which we now know make up the vast bulk of the game's story, Sora decides it's finally time to go rescue Aqua since I guess that wasn't a real priority or maybe all the protagonists figured what the diddly, she's already lost to darkness how about we leave her alone down there for a few more weeks while we rehash the same Disney world lessons two or three times and then if we've got time after that maybe we'll see what we can do for her. Everybody is now a Mickey, but that's fine. Next up, Sora goes and rescues her, because KH3 is now The Sora Show and if you had any interest in other characters who aren't named Sora, you might as well hang your hopes up right now because Nomura's about to show you exactly the wrong way to go about structuring an ensemble drama so that each plot thread is sure not to be effectively mined and fulfilled. Aqua is rescued, but there's only a couple of hours left in the game, so now what? She gets maybe two cutscenes to reflect on the 10+ RoL years she spent down in the RoD and how that so changed her as a person that she actually became Darkness Incarnate and tried to kill her friends and the people she had placed all of her hopes in for the entirety of her exile, until the last five minutes when some particularly nasty guy conveniently turned up and managed to break her spirit? And then she's going to be right back on the beat with Sora and the gang without hardly even a moment to catch her breath, and that's believable because she is both naturally given to despair and hopelessness and capable of recovering from all that seething hatred she had built up without a second thought. This is at once a very true and realistic depiction of how depressed and suicidal people operate and also a magical fantasy scenario where none of that actually matters in the long run because when duty calls, heroes get to it, with the power of friendship! But hey, if the game/its fans want to argue out of both sides of their mouth, what's wrong with that?

What's wrong with it is that no matter how we approach this plotline, it's value subtracted. We don't get any real insight into Aqua's nature as a person or the RoD's nature as a setting. Whatever we do get is almost certain to be curtailed and contrived, more a means of operating the plot vehicle than developing Aqua and her relationship with the dark/light dichotomy of the KH universe. What makes it worse is that they didn't have to go this route, it was not demanded in any way by the progression of events up to this moment, as 0.2 set up Aqua's arc perfectly: her wavering self-confidence buoyed by the ultimate truth of her resilience and a sense of personal and universal purpose which would carry her through until she found a path out of the darkness. That totally works and there are so many ways they could have integrated her into the larger narrative of KH3 from its earliest chapters in order to affirm the empowering contexts of her journey, and they decided against all of them so that she could remain lost and alone for even longer than she already has.

 

[Grono]

... Anti-Aqua is cool? I'm just going to leave it there?

I wonder if the same people that hated Luke Skywalker making bad decisions later in life are also people that hate the anti-aqua arc.

 

[The_Echo]

I don't really see the issue with Anti-Aqua
Darkness is an element governing negative behaviors, emotions, and the general concept of chaos and destruction
The Realm of Darkness is an entire Realm where darkness reigns uninhibited--stronger than anywhere else with no light to temper it
Entire worlds can be warped beyond recognition, and the laws that used to bind them no longer apply

She's been there for 10 years, but her experienced time could be shorter or longer (even though she physically hasn't aged, it could still feel, to her, to be a significantly longer period)
She's constantly fighting Heartless, and her own darkness being emboldened by the oppressive darkness that surrounds her at all times simply by being there

She gets a boost every now and then, but there are long stretches between those chance meetings where she's struggling with everything by herself.
It's not like she's got a Darkness Meter that reduces to 0 whenever she finds a friend or something, and then she starts the process all over again
It's a constant drain on her mind and body and it really shouldn't be a big deal that it finally overtook her
Fighting with Ansem bare-handed probably doesn't help either