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Light and Dark in Kingdom Hearts



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Veritas7340

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In conventional literature, light has represented good and dark has represented evil. However, Kingdom Hearts takes a different approach.

I think that in Kingdom Hearts, darkness represents certain human instincts, such as rage, that could lead to evil. Most of the time, those who choose to wield darkness in KH stand a very strong chance of becoming evil but it's not necessarily inevitable...

Not evil in of itself
, anger can be used for good, righteous anger, when you defend others, laying your life on the line for others. We see this when Terra defends Ventus and when Riku confronts the Organization.

Whereas light represents ascetic denial of instincts. This process could lead to good. In fact, for most users there stands a strong chance of their becoming good, however...

In Kingdom Hearts light is not necessarily good in of itself because Eraqus almost killed Ventus and Terra by following a misguided point of view.

What do you think?

Discuss
 
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Gram

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To quote myself from an earlier thread:

Being greedy does not equate to evil. It's a fast track to it yes but that still doesn't make MX less evil just because he isn't pure darkness or Vanitas evil by default because he is.

Darkness feeds on negativity not evil itself. Shown by even beings of pure light like Cinderella who expressed emotions of sadness and maybe even depression drawing the embodiments of negativity, Unversed, right to her.
And if a being lacking any darkness can show negativity that means a being lacking light should be able to show the opposite.

Point being Vanitas was created from Ventus by MX, trained by MX, all his time was spent either with MX, fighting Ven or Aqua.
Vanitas didn't have a chance to show anything otherwise than the evil he was exposed to by Xehanort.

And look at the list of things done by Vanitas compared to Xehanort. Can you honestly still say Vanitas is more evil than MX simply because of what he is?
No. It's the circumstances of his life that make him how he is in conjunction with darkness' appetite to feed on negativity.

Not that I disagree that MX isn't pure evil although I find it highly impossible any good still remains in him at this point, but my point is that just cause he's not pure dark doesn't equate that he's not pure evil.

This is also shown in the fact that everything is a mix of light and dark with the exception of 9 people, only 7 of which is natural.
The only possible way MX could ever be pure darkness is if he ripped the light out of himself the same way he took the darkness from Ventus because that's the only other way for pure hearted beings to exist in the KH universe.
So no just cause MX isn't pure darkness doesn't mean he is pure or next to pure evil.

Darkness is tied to the negativity but I think we've already seen plenty of reasons, in cases listed as well as with Riku and Eraqus, why it's not as simple as "darkness equals evil" or dictates the level of that evil.
It's far more complex than that.

EDIT:

The best example of what I mean is Terra. He's far from evil but still has a strong affinity for darkness and has since before MX meet him. In fact it was his affinity to darkness that gave MX the idea to target him to start with.
Nothing Terra did in the story was evil and what he was tricked into doing was unknowing on his part so he had no evil intent.
The only time Terra expressed something to feed his darkness was the hatred he developed for Xehanort which finally set his darkness loose but even then Terra didn't lose himself, just made himself open to MX's possession.

The MX and vanitas parts aside, I definitely agree and I think it's fairly easy to see that within the KHverse good, evil, light & dark aren't as simple as we view them here.

Terra is far from evil yet holds strong affinity for the darkness for no explainable reason other than he wishes to be strong. A desire that in of itself is neither negative nor evil.
Riku was able to channel darkness for good after he got some sense knocked back into him.
Eraqus' misguided views almost caused Aqua to attack the evil Stepmother and her daughters.
Eraqus attacked his own students in an irrational way when he'd have been a far better help if he had stayed calm.

I think Master Xehanort describes it best when he tells Terra that "darkness can't be destroyed, only channeled".
He words if as if darkness as an energy to be manipulated rather than an evil sentient force.

Darkness if like fire, both wish to consume and spread but neither are evil themselves just following their nature.
Light is the opposite to darkness' nature but if you have to much light you only blind yourself with it.

It's definitely nowhere near as simple as light=good, dark=evil as in most series. It's all dependent on the person themselves.
Like that famous saying goes "for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."
 

Veritas7340

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Glad to see that great minds think alike, Gram. Say, do you think that Sora/Aqua/Mickey will ever try to use darkness to save their friends from Xehanort like Terra and Riku have? Or do you think that their preconceptions make them incapable/unlikely to do that?
 

Antifa Lockhart

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Glad to see that great minds think alike, Gram. Say, do you think that Sora/Aqua/Mickey will ever try to use darkness to save their friends from Xehanort like Terra and Riku have? Or do you think that their preconceptions make them incapable/unlikely to do that?

Eh. Sora and Mickey have already learned this lesson. Mickey even vows to walk the path in-between with Riku after CoM, though I don't know if they'll wield darkness in Riku's way, they're at least aware that it's not all black and white. Aqua's another case, but she was starting to learn about the danger of thinking in absolutes. The Fairy Godmother tried to warn her.
 

Veritas7340

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Eh. Sora and Mickey have already learned this lesson. Mickey even vows to walk the path in-between with Riku after CoM, though I don't know if they'll wield darkness in Riku's way, they're at least aware that it's not all black and white. Aqua's another case, but she was starting to learn about the danger of thinking in absolutes. The Fairy Godmother tried to warn her.

True, but that doesn't quite answer my question: do you think they will ever use darkness to protect their friends?
 

Ruran

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True, but that doesn't quite answer my question: do you think they will ever use darkness to protect their friends?

I don't think they would ever really need to. Sora and Mickey are aware that darkness is just a part of life, but they prefer to avoid it, and while Aqua's beliefs aren't as iron clad as her master's she still greatly looks down on it. Ironically, that's part of the reason why she's been trapped in the RoD as long as she has; her absolute rejection of it doesn't allow her to see that it's a tool that can be controlled if she has enough will power and can be used to get out.
 

Antifa Lockhart

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"though I don't know if they'll wield darkness in Riku's way, they're at least aware that it's not all black and white."

So. No, probably not.

edit: RURAN. CAN YOU NOT SNEAK UP LIKE THAT.
 

Veritas7340

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"though I don't know if they'll wield darkness in Riku's way, they're at least aware that it's not all black and white."

So. No, probably not.


All right cool. Just wanted to be sure. In honesty, I skimmed your post and only saw contextual info that I already knew
 

Gram

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Even if they considered it I doubt they'd use darkness either because darkness is what has allowed MX to take control of so many bodies. If you notice with the cases of Terra, Riku and Sora Xehanort went to great lengths to ensure they were open to darkness in some way before possessing them.

To use darkness against Xehanort would be a very unwise decision. At least for most of them, Riku developed what YX called a "resistance" to darkness so he's probably the only one safe to use it.
 

Sephiroth0812

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To use darkness against Xehanort would be a very unwise decision. At least for most of them, Riku developed what YX called a "resistance" to darkness so he's probably the only one safe to use it.

And even then, by now even Riku doesn't use it as freely as he once did.
His dark mode seems to be a non-thing by now and his statements towards Ansem SoD in DDD, "consume the Darkness, return it to Light", also indicate that he doesn't want to go buddy-buddy with the Darkness itself, but only use it to further prosperty for the light.

This seems to indicate however, that just like Darkness can consume Light, the reverse is also possible. (Which would be logical if they're just two different states of the same element)
 

Gram

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And even then, by now even Riku doesn't use it as freely as he once did.
His dark mode seems to be a non-thing by now and his statements towards Ansem SoD in DDD, "consume the Darkness, return it to Light", also indicate that he doesn't want to go buddy-buddy with the Darkness itself, but only use it to further prosperty for the light.

This seems to indicate however, that just like Darkness can consume Light, the reverse is also possible. (Which would be logical if they're just two different states of the same element)
Indeed. It's actually a great twist of irony that Xehanort's meddling with Riku over the course of the series would more or less make him immune to his schemes.
I think the reverse is definitely and has always been possible, it's just never been done before since Riku's the only one that's tried to channel the darkness in a more positive manner or even manage to fall so low into it and come back..

If negative emotions and thoughts channel light into darkness and thus create a spiral effect of losing ones humanity then it'd only make sense the inverse also is possible in which one tries to channel darkness positively creating light.
 
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