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My Theory about the 13 Willful Darknesses.



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EighteenEighty

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Do you guys think 13 Darknesses would become their own separate entities similar to Vanitas? I mean think about it.

In KHUX, Darkness did not require a physical form to exist separate from a heart as we are introduced to an abstract figure responsible for Strelitzia's murder that declares itself pure Darkness.

However, if I am correct that this figure was Vanitas prior to existing in Ventus' heart then it would seem that pure Darkness shares the concept of the replicas in that it is shaped by the heart as Vanitas came to resemble Sora (though I don't see as much resemblance as the characters seem to) due to Sora's sutures in Ventus' heart.

Therefore it stands to reason that if others' Darknessess existed as separate entities because most don't have such complex hearts as Sora and Ventus, they would just be identical to their human selves. Sort of like Anti-Sora.

If they did show up again in the next saga for KH as new villains. They could be:

1. The new Organization 13
-If the members of Organization 13 are just a shadow version of their original selves then the members of the 13 Darknesses will be a dark half/counterpart of the humans they possess. Similar to Vanitas who is a dark/half counterpart of Ventus.

2. The Master's hatred for Darkness.
-If the Darkness finally becomes their own separate entities then his hatred for Darkness will motivate him to become something else. Destroying Darkness without costs even if it means destroying many worlds, similar to what happened to Daybreak Town.

3. A three-sided war between Sora and Friends, 7 Lights, and 13 Darknesses.
-I just had a thought. We always had a concept between 7 vs 13. 7 is affiliated with light while 13 is affiliated with darkness. What if I told you that both Sora and his friends will face both 7 lights and 13 Darknesses in the next saga to stop a Keyblade War that will destroy all worlds.
  • 7 Lights- Master and 6 his apprentices.
  • 13 Darknesses- Vanitas and the other 12 who are about to gain their physical form.
All of this is just speculation of course. I know this is too much if it happens but at the end of the day my theory sounds like a fanfiction that needs a lot of improvement and of course, this is just my headcanon on how the next saga will happen. Who knows maybe this might happen after KHIV.

Do I think the 13 Darknesses will become their own separate entities? Sure, it's possible. Do I think they will reshape themselves like Vanitas? Sure, it's possible. There's not really much else to say.
 

AmaryllisMoth

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I was sort of under the impression that the numbers are going to be flipped this time around: 7 darknesses and 13 lights. I think the original intention of the apprentices was to be vessels for the darkness-- basically making themselves almost unwilling martyrs to defeat the darkness.

As a result I'm assuming our "antagonists" are going to be the darkness possessed apprentices, of which there are more likely to be 7. Not sure who is going to round out the ranks exactly since I don't think the Master intended himself to be a vessel so that's a wildcard.

On the other hand, Sora and Co have a TON of allies at this point. While they were narrowed down to 7 in KH3 it makes far more sense for there to be 13 of them. Assuming Sora gets rescued there's:
Sora, Riku, Kairi, Roxas, Xion, Axel, Mickey, Aqua, Terra, Ven which is already 10. There is also the possibility of Girl X, assuming she gets found-- Strelitzia, if she is saved too. That puts us already at 12 Keyblade wielders who would be on team "light" leaving just one extra spot. But heck, seeing as how the game has been going I wouldn't be surprised if Isa gets a Keyblade and he fills out the roster. Alternatively, Namine.

It will be interesting to see how they handle having so many characters, but they will probably just switch perspectives like in KH3 and have multiple playable heroes at different parts of the story. But because of the already huge cast I think it wouldn't make sense for the darknesses to be completely new characters.
 

EighteenEighty

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I was sort of under the impression that the numbers are going to be flipped this time around: 7 darknesses and 13 lights. I think the original intention of the apprentices was to be vessels for the darkness-- basically making themselves almost unwilling martyrs to defeat the darkness.

As a result I'm assuming our "antagonists" are going to be the darkness possessed apprentices, of which there are more likely to be 7. Not sure who is going to round out the ranks exactly since I don't think the Master intended himself to be a vessel so that's a wildcard.

On the other hand, Sora and Co have a TON of allies at this point. While they were narrowed down to 7 in KH3 it makes far more sense for there to be 13 of them. Assuming Sora gets rescued there's:
Sora, Riku, Kairi, Roxas, Xion, Axel, Mickey, Aqua, Terra, Ven which is already 10. There is also the possibility of Girl X, assuming she gets found-- Strelitzia, if she is saved too. That puts us already at 12 Keyblade wielders who would be on team "light" leaving just one extra spot. But heck, seeing as how the game has been going I wouldn't be surprised if Isa gets a Keyblade and he fills out the roster. Alternatively, Namine.

It will be interesting to see how they handle having so many characters, but they will probably just switch perspectives like in KH3 and have multiple playable heroes at different parts of the story. But because of the already huge cast I think it wouldn't make sense for the darknesses to be completely new characters.
I still think the idea of the 13 Darknesses becoming their own separate entities could still happen one day though. Think about it, you said Sora is going to have many allies in the future but it wouldn't make sense if the Foretellers are the only antagonists that we will face in the next saga. Considering KHIV is just the start of the new arc. The 13 Darknesses might play a role in the next saga considering they have their own plans for the future. But in order to achieve this "plan" of theirs, they need to find a physical form to possess first. Nomura sometimes introduces a lot of old plot points in the previous games so that they can play a role again in the future. For example, the idea of dividing pure light and pure darkness was introduced in BBS when MX extracted the darkness inside Ven's heart. Creating Vanitas. It was introduced again in UX where the Darkness possessed Ventus said, that they have the ability to divide into pure light and pure darkness. Ventus used his light to trap the Darkness that possessed him so that Ventus can reshape the Darkness by giving it physical form and then kill it.

I don't know the idea of flipping the No. 7 and 13 though. The Master made it clear in the UX finale that 7 is a good number that is affiliated with light while 13 is a bad number that is affiliated with darkness. If the 13 Darknesses become their own separate entities of their own in the future as one of the villains in the next saga. Then they are also going to be the villains that Sora and Co., The Master, and his apprentices will face in the future. But how do you think one of the 13 Darknesses would become their own separate entities other than Vanitas?

Well, since Luxu is now revealed to be the traitor and doesn't like the idea of using the Foretellers and Union Leaders as sacrificial lambs. I can already imagine that he will do the heart extraction that Xehanort performed on Ventus. Luxu may attempt to separate the 7 Darknesses along with himself and the Foretellers, but unlike Xehanort, he probably wouldn't rip them out leaving them for dead. Instead, the Foretellers would separate them properly so they would remain alive. The 7 Darknesses will have their own names (the code names of the Foretellers aka the names that were given by the Master) and physical appearances. The good thing about this none of the Foretellers will be sacrificed but the bad thing about this is that the Darkness will invade the world (maybe including Quadratum) once again.

Sadly the MoM doesn't like where this is going because if the 7 Darknesses finally gained a physical form of their own and became their own separate entities it would give them more freedom, they will travel through different worlds and summon/expand their own types of minions through different worlds (similar to Vanitas who can command the Unversed and send them from different worlds in BBS). They will also have the ability to travel to past (similar to Ansem and YX) and their plan is to expand their numbers. I think they might recruit the missing 6 Darknesses in UX and give them a physical form of their own. One of them of course is Vanitas, while the other 5 are unknown.

The 7 Darknesses need to find someone who has the knowledge to time travel into the past so that they can arrive at the same location where the 6 Darknesses were trapped inside the data world from the past timeline of UX. Because I don't really think the 7 Darknesses would just travel into the past automatically considering they don't have a past version of themselves because they lacked a heart and body back then. I can imagine that the 7 Darknesses might make an alliance with Maleficent so that they can travel into the past to rescue the 6 Darknesses since Maleficent did travel into the past where she was trapped inside the data world the same location where the 6 Darknesses were also trapped. Maleficent will time travel into the past along with 7 Darknesses as hearts to arrive in their location, the data world created by the Master. The 7 Darknesses will recruit the missing 6 Darknesses that were trapped inside the data world and travel back again into the future/current timeline along with Maleficent of course. Seriously she needs new allies other than Pete IMO.

If the 6 Darknesses finally gained a physical form of their own along with the 7 Darknesses. The True 13 will finally take over the world and expand their influence to create a world where no light remains. The members will be:

Upper Ranking: (7 Darknesses)
1. MoM + Darkness = Dark half of MoM (leader)
2. Luxu + Darkness = Dark half of Luxu
3. Ira + Darkness = Dark half of Ira
4. Invi + Darkness = Dark half of Invi
5. Aced + Darkness = Dark half of Aced
6. Gula + Darkness = Dark half of Gula
7. Ava + Darkness = Dark half of Ava

Lower Ranking: (6 Darknesses)
8. Ventus + Darkness = Vanitas (Dark half of Ventus)
9. Ephemer+ Darkness = ???
10. Skuld + Darkness = ???
11. Strelitzia/Elrena+ Darkness = ???
12. Lauriam + Darkness = ???
13. Brain + Darkness = ???

But sadly all of this is just my theory.
 
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AmaryllisMoth

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but it wouldn't make sense if the Foretellers are the only antagonists that we will face in the next saga. Considering KHIV is just the start of the new arc. The 13 Darknesses might play a role in the next saga considering they have their own plans for the future. But in order to achieve this "plan" of theirs, they need to find a physical form to possess first

I mean...I didn't mean to imply that the Foretellers would be the ONLY antagonists. And of course the Darkness will play a role.

My assumption is that at least initially, the Foretellers are going to be set up as somewhat sympathetic antagonists similar to the Organization Nobodies. Either against their will or not they become hosts to a number of the Darkness in order for the Darkness to have a physical form. I think this sets up a good dilemma for an antagonist character in a KH game because ultimately the goal could be to possibly save the soul of the person who is being used as a vessel. However, they would be challenging opponents and not very cooperative.

The foretellers being possessed would also introduce an interesting conundrum...even if you save the person who is possessed by the darkness how do you actually DEFEAT the Darkness for good? The Darkness could presumably keep body hopping around. Therefore, it is entirely possible the Foretellers could be antagonists for a while, but eventually perhaps the Darkness would move to someone else until a way is found to actually stop the Darkness itself.

If they ARE going to make some of the Darknesses into unique characters, my guess would be it will not be ALL of them. The one that is unaccounted for from Daybreak Town would be a good one, since that Darkness seems to be sort of doing their own thing like Vanitas. Possibly the 4 ones that are trapped in the data world as well?

Mostly I just really don't want there to be even MORE characters added in to an already character bloated story because that might have the repercussions of causing character development to be fairly shallow or non-existent. I'm fine with them keeping "Darkness" as mostly a hive mind entity just so we don't have to deal with a TON of new characters again. That being said, that doesn't mean them as antagonists has to be boring or limited. Far from it, in fact.

The foretellers being antagonists would be independant of Vanitas, Maleficent, on top of whatever the Darknesses are planning plus I seriously doubt the MoM isn't going to end up being a major antagonist.

I don't know the idea of flipping the No. 7 and 13 though. The Master made it clear in the UX finale that 7 is a good number that is affiliated with light while 13 is a bad number that is affiliated with darkness.
Yeah, that's mostly true. I assume you are talking about this line: "7 is perfect, and lucky, and bright. 13 is discordant, unlucky: a blight." But that doesn't actually say team light or team darkness-- just that 7 is harmonious and 13 is not.

Let's also not forget that there were only 7 dark chess pieces on the board at the end of KH3, not 13.

The main reason I was considering the inversion is because that's how the numbers currently seem to line up. While there are supposed to be 13 Darkness total, there aren't 13 around right now as some are trapped or MIA. Other than the ones in the foretellers, there is the one that is in Ven (Vanitas) who is operating beyond the scope of the "hivemind" as sort of a rogue agent who could be operating on a completely different agenda as a separate antagonist.

Of course they certainly could free all the Darkness at some point and bring all 13 out, but that still doesn't really change the fact that Vanitas seems to be acting pretty independently.

The other reason I was thinking they might swap the numbers this time is because I am not entirely convinced on who is actually supposed to be the "villain" in this situation. Yes, Darkness is certainly not a "good" force objectively-- they are fine with murder, possessing people, causing chaos, etc. However, they are a hive-mind collective that are remnants from some large scale war of sorts in the past with other beings like the MoM. We have very few details about that war at the moment but it is at least established that the MoM is doing whatever it takes to defeat the Darkness for good. In doing so, the MoM has also done some very questionable things. Perhaps you could argue his actions are for the "greater good" but he was still, also, condoning murder, possessing people and causing chaos to further HIS own goal. So honestly at this moment I have very little reason to trust either of them.

And if "defeating" the Darkness is what MoM wants...maybe that isn't actually the right thing to do. What if the Darkness being alive is necessary for the balance of the world and defeating them will cause an overbalance/overabundance of light that consumes everything (similar to "the flood" from FFXIV's Shadowbringers)?

While we have never really gotten the vibe from KH that too much light could be "bad" before, considering that quite a number of characters have had a significant portion of their development learning that darkness isn't ALL bad it almost sort of evens out that this could mean that light isn't ALWAYS good.

Honestly I feel like what would really be an interesting development to further the KH saga into a more nuanced story would be if they actually revealed that defeating the Darkness is actually the WRONG thing to do. One way they could highlight that maybe the Darkness is more than just "ooh spooky bad" is by inverting the numbers to give us a clue that maybe something is not adding up here. If the Darkness is given the "good, lucky, fortunate" number of 7.

It would also be interesting to see our team of heroes having issues working together and things being briefly disharmonious between them for different reasons-- which could be hinted at by there being 13 of them. It wouldn't be fun if there wasn't some sort of conflict between them now and again that needs to be worked through to create drama. Ultimately I am sure they would work through it, but the conflict could open the door for some interesting character interactions and development.

So yeah, while certainly all traditional signs would point to the Darkness being bad, being on team 13, doing stereotypical evil stuff, etc. I think it would be pretty cool if they flipped it, and I think given what they have they certainly could.

13 also almost breaks up fairly evenly into 7's: one team of 7 and one team of 6. What if we end up having 7 Darkness who are "bad" and 6 who end up being "neutral" or solo antagonists like Vanitas?

Honestly at this point yeah, it really is all just speculation since we don't have a lot to work with.

Ultimately though, going back to what you suggested here:
A three-sided war between Sora and Friends, 7 Lights, and 13 Darknesses.

I think I also believe that it is going to be Sora and his friends attempting to stop the Darkness and the MoM from completing their final confrontation, no matter how many number on each team in the end.
 
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EighteenEighty

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I think I also believe that it is going to be Sora and his friends attempting to stop the Darkness and the MoM from completing their final confrontation, no matter how many number on each team in the end.
TBH though, I made this theory because there might be another war between light and darkness in the next saga but Sora and his friends are no longer going to be a part of it. Sora wants to rest since he is growing older and getting mature, I can imagine Sora will say some quotes like:

"Why do light and darkness have to keep fighting, why can't they just get along?"

Creating a world where both light and darkness is going to be a hard thing to do since there are people who want to destroy darkness at any cost (MoM and his apprentices), while there are other people who want to destroy light at all costs (13 Darknesses). I actually don't mind if Sora kills both of them just because he wants world peace tbh XD.

13 also almost breaks up fairly evenly into 7's: one team of 7 and one team of 6. What if we end up having 7 Darkness who are "bad" and 6 who end up being "neutral" or solo antagonists like Vanitas?
This is actually a decent idea tbh. The idea of 6 Darknesses being on the neutral side is actually a cool thing tbh that's why I used the Union Leaders as possible vessels for the 6 Darknesses. The members of the 6 darknesses are obviously the dark/half counterparts of the Union Leaders. The Union Leaders are not actually loyal to the MoM. I can imagine that 6 Darknesses will not be loyal to 7 Darknesses because they don't care about their endgame. They just want to invade the world and do nothing similar to Vanitas. One of the 7 Darknesses will ask a question, what's the point of hiring them in their ranks in the first place?

While the 7 Darknesses who are "bad" and the most deadly and strongest of the 13 Darknesses will be the dark half/counterparts of the Foretellers. The Foretellers are loyal to the MoM since they followed the "role" of what the Master gave them. Their names are actually the names of the Foretellers that were given by the Master. The Leader of the 7 Darknesses or 13 Darknesses, in general, is the MoM's dark half/counterpart.

Now the reason why the 7 Darknesses have to recruit the 6 Darknesses in the first place is that the 7 Darknesses have a goal to achieve and they need their help to achieve it. The 13 Darknesses will declare a war against the Master and his apprentices or maybe even Sora and Co. if he gets caught up in the action. But here's the thing about the 13 Darknesses, they are capable of summoning a horde of Heartless/Unversed to invade many worlds. So I don't think the Master and his apprentices are capable to face them all alone. Maybe they might form an alliance to Sora and his friends to defeat the 13 Darknesses, but there's a difference between Sora and the MoM's motives.

Sora doesn't actually hate darkness in general. True darkness also ruined his life, it destroyed his home and corrupted one of his friends, and even sacrifice himself to become a Heartless (a creature of darkness) to save Kairi in KH1 but it didn't actually corrupt him. He learned that darkness is just as similar as light when he traveled into the RoD along with Riku in KH2 ending. He refers darkness as "the other side" of the road.

The Master on the other hand hates darkness with passion. He revealed that the darkness ruined his life since he saw many of his loved ones die in front of him who lost their hearts to the 13 Darknesses. The 13 Darknesses possessed a physical form back then until they rejected it to defeat light.

So I don't really think an alliance between Sora and the MoM would work considering both have different motives to achieve. If the MoM and his apprentices won't have allies at this point then who will be their ally to join their war against the 13 Darknesses? I think it's Ansem the Wise. Since the MoM possesses a super computer in his room from Daybreak Town and since the plot of Re:Coded might play a relevance in the future about the data having their own hearts. I think the Master will revive the Keyblade Wielders from the Data Daybreak Town and put them into the real world. True datas have a hearts of their own but they need a body/physical form to possess in order to travel into the real world and I think Vexen/Even's replica program might work. The Keyblade wielders from Data Daybreak Town will be brought back to life as replicas under the command of the MoM and his apprentices the Foretellers.

And there will be war between the New 7 Lights along with the Keyblade Wielders from the past as replicas, against the New 13 Darknesses along with the Heartless. And there's a possibility that this war might destroy many worlds. That's why Sora and his friends have to stop it.

All of this is speculation of course. Who knows this might happen after KHIV maybe in KHV or future games. But as for now let's agree to disagree.
 
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