Thanks for the feedback, guys! Unfortunately my uncle who works at Square Enix is upset about the leak.
Again, I feel like I should apologize, but I wanted to try and maybe give another possibility.
Don't apologizing for having a different opinion!
wow, what a great theory. i havent felt this excited about the future of the series for a while lol.
but uh
is this what the series looks like now?
Looks about right. This diddlying series.
n-nothing. 8D
I think my favorite part is how Aqua is off in the corner just hanging out while everyone else is so heavily intertwined.
Just waiting for the reveal that she’s Namine’s Dream Eater.
Oh I do love a good Grassy theory. It's taken me some time to digest it, and it does look good. Even if it doesn't end up being quite what's going on I feel like this is on the money and at the very least these characters are the successors to those foretellers.
If people are going to take anything away from this, I want it to be the visual cues above all else, really. The rest of it was my attempt at making sense of what I saw, but there’s plenty of valid interpretations I’m sure. Invigoraide’s circular time theory works too.
Or for all we know the current keyblade wielders are simply “spiritual successors” to some degree of the Foretellers and have no tangible connection past that.
Observations/Comparisons tend to be my favorite part about your theories, since they're usually dead-on and hard-to-find; the keyblade and outfit comparisons were really impressive. With that said, I'd like to see where you'd go with the eye. What does it mean for a keyblade to have it? Not just for the foretellers' keyblades, but also Soul Eater, WtD, Vanitas' keyblade, Young Xehanort's keyblade, arguably all of the other SoDs', etc. If anything, I'd imagine it'd represent a foreteller (as in, foresight). Not to mention, what is the meaning of six, and how does it relate to the six followers?
It’s not entirely clear what having an “Eye of Darkness” means at this stage because its symbolism has changed over the course of the series. Originally, i think we can say it was simply a representation of darkness, but that developed into more specifically a connection to Xehanort.
Now I’m saying that at the least the presence of the eye on Xehanort’s keyblade connects him to the Foretellers. But no matter how you look at it symbolically, any one representation won’t be adequate for explaining its presence
everywhere that it’s shown up. Does the eye appearing on the Void Gear mean Vanitas is a Foreteller? Well no. And for starters, it appears on the hilt and teeth rather than the keychain. Getting a consistent pattern down is difficult.
So I looked more narrowly at the hilt-animal and eye-of-darkness keychain combo. I mean, you can certainly always fall back on the darkness symbolism. The eye appears in the presence of darkness. But if that’s the case, you have to wonder how that’s so with the Foretellers. Is it their hearts that are dark or is it that they’re destined to meet a dark fate?
Most of the animals on the hilts have been symbolic of evil at some point or another in Christian literature--The goat as the sinner, the leopard for cruelty, the snake for the Devil, the bear for the persecution of Persia, the fox for deception. Just about the only one that can’t be traditionally seen through a negative lens is the Unicorn, or at least that I’m aware.
So it’s definitely possible that they’re connected to the darkness in that way, but if that’s the case, I’d definitely throw out the idea of Vulpeus’ non-faction. Or at the very least interpret it through a more odious lens.
But yeah, we know Nomura’s use of Christian symbolism in this series is pretty rampant. The significance of six is likely similar to seven or even thirteen. They’re just biblical/pop-culture references. Evil, good, unluckiness, etc.
I've been in this fandom (and have used this very site) for almost ten years, but this thread made me make an account just so I could a) say that this is a fantastic theory and b) add a little.
This really fits into the rumors that BBS was originally going to have elements of what a heart is before a person is alive, an idea that was tossed because it would stir up controversy in the west. (There is a well-sourced tumblr post that I can't seem to locate that outlined the whole thing, and if I can manage to find it, I'll edit this post to include a link.) Anyway, if this reincarnation/hearts returning to Kingdom Hearts thing is true, it shows that the dev team may have had this idea for quite a while.
Always good to get a perennial lurker out of hiding, though I'm one to talk. Welcome to the fray!
And I'm super glad you brought that up because that's exactly where I was headed with this. It was addressed in the Plot Mysteries section of the Birth by Sleep Ultimania.
-- Considering the conversation between Sora and Ventus in the ending of the Last Episode, is this saying that the "just-born heart" that Ventus connects with in the opening is Sora's?
Nomura: Yes. At first we supposed that it could be Sora before he was born, but because of opinions from overseas that "the heart doesn't exist until after birth", we discarded that portrayal.
If they're going for reincarnation, I think it would most closely draw parallels to the Buddhist conception of
rebirth. So basically, the Keyblade War is generating a whole bunch of bad karma, and the aim is to cease the cycle of rebirth caused by it.
But here's the thing--all that darkness ("bad karma") generated in the hearts of those who participate in the Keyblade War--where does it go? Are people continually reborn with that darkness embedded into their hearts? I doubt it, otherwise it would reach a point where the darkness would overflow. So this is where the whole cleansing process comes into play.
We know that lost hearts are generally returned to Kingdom Hearts ("the place where lost hearts gather"), and that means they likely bring the darkness they harbor with them. What happens to that darkness? Picture Kingdom Hearts as a giant washing machine. Might not get all of those
really set-in stains (hence the whole idea of the Keyblade War being "etched" in ones heart even if they can't remember it), but it's going to get most of the grease and grime off of your dirty laundry.
That's not the end of the story, though. You can't just keep cycling bigger and bigger loads through and expect the same results. Remember, darkness cannot be destroyed, it can only be channeled. It has to be collecting
somewhere. There's two angles to this, both of which I've touched on in the past.
- That darkness is what sustains the Realm of Darkness. The RoD is more or less a giant Heartless. Fueled by the hearts returning to KH, the darkness leaks out and keeps Kingdom Hearts ensnared.
- This can be a competing theory or one used in conjunction with the above, but there's also the possibility of the darkness staying within Kingdom Hearts in the form of negative emotion or "hurt."
In other words, yes, I'm tying this to the Unversed in some respect. I talked about this in greater detail
here but I'll sum it up and tailor it to what I've said in this topic.
I know Goldpanner can attest to this better than I can, but the Unversed
were originally the "Unbirth," this was not a romanization error.
Like with Sora's pre-birth state, we have plenty of evidence to suggest that the nature of the Unversed were changed during the development process:
---What of the enemies called "Unbirths"?
Nomura: There is meaning in various ways, adding "un" creates the opposite meaning of "birth" thus the "unbirth". With this, the "unborn" is given real meaning. Unbirths designate the feeling of this game's motif.
This was before the name change, back in 2008. And we see how the "Unbirth" followed the same pattern as the naming of the Heartless and Nobodies. A negative prefix/suffix combined with a term that revolves around the creatures' existence. Heartless come from Hearts, Nobodies are comprised of the remaining shells and Unversed are... connected to verses? Wait, no, that doesn't make sense.
But "Unbirth" does. They're connected to birth. Likely that pre-birth state Sora was supposed to have been in.
So how the hell do negative emotions exist prior to birth?
Well... if you have past lives! They're all that dirt that gets washed out in the pre-life process.
Am I saying then that Kingdom Hearts is filled with a bunch of Unversed? Ehhhh... Maybe...
Goes without saying but, yeah, a lot of the pre-birth concepts were scrapped so it remains to be seen if they'll actually be used this time around. Also hard to say whether or not someone else aside from Vanitas could create Unversed.
Still, lest we forget:
Are the Unversed in this game directly related to the Heartless and Nobodies of the previous KINGDOM HEARTS titles, somehow connected to people's hearts, or are they completely separate entities with similarities to the aforementioned enemies?
A. Tetsuya Nomura, Director
I have some ideas, but that was not portrayed in this title. You might find out in upcoming titles that there could be some connection.
Ultimately, though, the negative emotions could be just that--negative emotions. They don't have to take on a sentient form as "hurt."
Spoiler
