Someone please clarify this for me

[Audo]

Right, but you can't move forward in time, up to a certain point. You can't travel to the future if it hasn't happened yet. DDD Sora and Riku can't travel any further forward, because that's as far as time as gone. Even Xehanort says the future is beyond his sight, otherwise he could just jump into the future and see what all is going on.

That's... not accurate at all. They easily could have moved further forward in time so long as there was a version of themselves there. MX didn't know what lie in the future because he had planned everything to come together on this very specific day and wasn't going to move past it because he needed all thirteen of himselves there on that day.

DDD!Present time is just one point in time on a never ending line. And "what hasn't happened yet" is entirely a matter of perspective, not of reality.

So, they're fully awake in bodily form, but because it's the Realm of Sleep, everything is in some kind of magical waking sleep-like state? Which means Sora is dreaming even though he's awake, which is where Riku is, who is also awake and in bodily form.

Ultimate suspension of disbelief, I guess.

I'm saying they're not fully awake. I'm saying they're sleeping. Like it's a dream world lol. Don't think too much on it.

 

[Nazo]

That's... not accurate at all. They easily could have moved further forward in time so long as there was a version of themselves there. MX didn't know what lie in the future because he had planned everything to come together on this very specific day and wasn't going to move past it because he needed all thirteen of himselves there on that day.

DDD!Present time is just one point in time on a never ending line. And "what hasn't happened yet" is entirely a matter of perspective, not of reality.

I understand that time is not like a status bar that you have to wait to progress further for, but from the perspective of someone in the present, it seems that way. Besides, doesn't the fact that you have to have a version of you waiting at the destination still make future travel not a possibility, because how are DDD Sora and Riku supposed to know where their future selves will be at? You know where you've been in the past, so you can pick a destination. How are they supposed to travel into the future without having any idea of where they will be? They could travel forward if a future version of themselves came back to allow them forward, but how would they, at the time of DDD, travel forward any further?

I'm saying they're not fully awake. I'm saying they're sleeping. Like it's a dream world lol. Don't think too much on it.

Audo, I have to know everything. I need answers.

 

[BlackOsprey]

So, they're fully awake in bodily form, but because it's the Realm of Sleep, everything is in some kind of magical waking sleep-like state? Which means Sora is dreaming even though he's awake, which is where Riku is, who is also awake and in bodily form.

Ultimate suspension of disbelief, I guess.

*Inception BWAAAAAAA*

Okay, from what I understand, the Dream Worlds are dreams incarnate. They exist because some entity or another is asleep and dreaming, thus giving them shape. An outsider from the RoL like Sora and Riku can enter, and once they're in, I don't think they're necessarily asleep the whole time.

Sora's definitely not awake when Riku's active. I mean, we literally see him fall asleep every time the game switched to Riku. It's Sora's dream that Riku's tromping through, and I don't think dreams can happen when you're awake...

 

[Audo]

Besides, doesn't the fact that you have to have a version of you waiting at the destination still make future travel not a possibility

Clearly not since YMX does it lol. This is why the the time traveler moving forward always has to return to their proper time at some point, because they have to live out the actual time and events that lead to that future self being where they are.
Like imagine it from YMX's perspective, from where he stood the future hadn't happened yet. He was just a kid on an island. But he was able to move forward through time, and he saw his life, saw him becoming a Master, becoming a creepy old geezer and so on. To him none of these events had happened yet but he was able to visit and see them all. But in order for those events TO happen, he eventually had to return back to his time and live them out through the normal flow of time. Riku and Sora could have done the same thing but eventually they'd need to return back to their time and live it out so those events they witnessed would actually happen.

As for the issue of not knowing or whatever, I imagine since someone can only move to a place in time where they exist that it's just instinctual heart stuff. Like it's not really necessary to know exact time and dates it's just when you move forward you will end up at a point in time where you already exist because that's the only way to move forward. YMX after all shows up in the 2.5 ending at a point in time that would have been impossible for Ansem to have told him about when he went back in time.

 

[BlackOsprey]

Clearly not since YMX does it lol. This is why the the time traveler moving forward always has to return to their proper time at some point, because they have to live out the actual time and events that lead to that future self being where they are.
Like imagine it from YMX's perspective, from where he stood the future hadn't happened yet. He was just a kid on an island. But he was able to move forward through time, and he saw his life, saw him becoming a Master, becoming a creepy old geezer and so on. To him none of these events had happened yet but he was able to visit and see them all. But in order for those events TO happen, he eventually had to return back to his time and live them out through the normal flow of time. Riku and Sora could have done the same thing but eventually they'd need to return back to their time and live it out so those events they witnessed would actually happen.

As for the issue of not knowing or whatever, I imagine since someone can only move to a place in time where they exist that it's just instinctual heart stuff. Like it's not really necessary to know exact time and dates it's just when you move forward you will end up at a point in time where you already exist because that's the only way to move forward.

Except as Nazo pointed out, Trollanort had help from his future selves. Hell, he got the ability when Mr. Robe Guy walked up to him one day at the beach. He knew where and how he could travel because his future selves told him where to go. And as far as we know, at the moment, the kid's just following orders from Geezernort without really having any idea about what's going on.

I mean, sure, nothing so far has outright stated "you cannot just blindly leap into the future," but I'd imagine that it would be much more difficult if you don't know the exact place "you" will be without someone telling you where to go. It's kinda like me expecting you to just go to a place that you don't even know about without even telling you to go, or that the place even exists. And so far, we haven't seen any cases where someone was able to leap forward with no knowledge of where their future self is. It's not impossible, but it doesn't seem all too common.

 

[Audo]

And so far, we haven't seen any cases where someone was able to leap forward with no knowledge of where their future self is. It's not impossible, but it doesn't see mall too common.

Well "so far" we have only seen time travel used in one title lol.
But I did point out such a moment -- the 2.5 ending. YMX was able to travel to a point in time that would have been impossible for Ansem (the one who guided him) to have known about before hand when he told YMX to do this stuff. But YMX is there because Braig is there.

I'm not saying Sora and Riku ever would travel forward through time or anything, I mean, it seems pretty useless without a big ridiculous plan like MX, but they could've technically. I mean the alternative is you guys saying that time travel forward is only possible if your future self travels backwards in time to tell you to travel forwards. Which is pretty limiting and circular in logic? (and basically says someone can never travel beyond that closed loop, which we do see YMX do)

 

[BlackOsprey]

Well "so far" we have only seen time travel used in one title lol.
But I did point out such a moment -- the 2.5 ending. YMX was able to travel to a point in time that would have been impossible for Ansem (the one who guided him) to have known about before hand when he told YMX to do this stuff. But YMX is there because Braig is there.

Braig seems to know a thing or two about time travel himself, plus he's already got that heart fragment in him, so...
... I know that sounds like weak speculation, but I find the idea that Trollanort just knew where to go to pick up Isa kind of... unbelievable? Someone would've had to tell him about the place and why he was going there.

I'm not saying Sora and Riku ever would travel forward through time or anything, I mean, it seems pretty useless without a big ridiculous plan like MX, but they could've technically. I mean the alternative is you guys saying that time travel forward is only possible if your future self travels backwards in time to tell you to travel forwards. Which is pretty limiting and circular in logic? (and basically says someone can never travel beyond that closed loop, which we do see YMX do)

*shrugs* I suppose, yes. Or, in the very least, you're going to need at least one encounter with a future self to initially leap forwards. Again, even if blindly leaping forward is possible, it's difficult to travel to a specific place if you don't even know which way to start walking.

 

[Audo]

Braig seems to know a thing or two about time travel himself, plus he's already got that heart fragment in him, so...

That's not... really... relevant?

Someone would've had to tell him about the place and why he was going there.

But it's impossible for any of them to have told him that.

Your guy's basic argument is that to travel forward you need to be told exactly where to go and at what time by someone who lived through those events. Ansem traveled backwards in time and met YMX and told him to travel forwards through time and collect the versions of himself that existed. So far everything matches up. Ansem is telling YMX to go to moments that Ansem himself had lived through and thus knows the details about, yes? Unfortunately, even with the most generous interpretation given, Ansem's knowledge of events only last up until the night DI is taken by the darkness. Sora and YMX both agree to this. ("That would only tell him so much" etc.) Which means, Ansem could only have told him the specifics of events up until that point. Which would say, by your guys' theory that YMX could only travel within that time frame and wouldn't be able to leave it because at that point, there was no one who had lived through those events beyond that moment in time to tell him where to go. Yes?

But that's not the case because we see YMX in the 2.5 ending in a time and place that exists outside of that loop (and in KH3D as well this could be argued, too, with TWTNW). Now it doesn't matter if YMX meets Braig at some point within that stretch and Braig "is knowledgeable about these things" because for that particular Braig, he has never lived those events (the 2.5) so he cannot direct YMX to that event. I also think we are lead to believe that the Ansem and Xemnas YMX pulls from time in the RoS are from KH1/KH2 for the most part as well, and as such, they, too, do not have lived knowledge of events in Present Day KH3D. At the very best you could say that Ansem told YMX that he believed that he, or one of his cohorts would be recompleted in the future, but that's not a lived experience of his and he wouldn't be able to give YMX specifics. And yet, YMX is there. Which suggests that you don't need to know the specifics of future events to travel to them. That it may in fact just be an instinctual heart thing. Because no version of Xehanort that YMX would've crossed paths with would've lived through that specific moment and have been able to tell him about it yet.

Ergo, you do not need a version of yourself from the future to give you exact coordinates to travel to in order to travel forward through time.

*shrugs* I suppose, yes. Or, in the very least, you're going to need at least one encounter with a future self to initially leap forwards. Again, even if blindly leaping forward is possible, it's difficult to travel to somewhere if you don't even know which way to start walking.

This is why it would be an instinctual heart thing. There's plenty of that stuff in the series. (Also the fact that time travel is impossible without a version of yourself there means your options to move forward or backwards are more like a set of dots on a line than just blindly moving anywhere through time and space. I don't think it require great skill to time travel).

 

[Nazo]

*Inception BWAAAAAAA*

Okay, from what I understand, the Dream Worlds are dreams incarnate. They exist because some entity or another is asleep and dreaming, thus giving them shape. An outsider from the RoL like Sora and Riku can enter, and once they're in, I don't think they're necessarily asleep the whole time.

Sora's definitely not awake when Riku's active. I mean, we literally see him fall asleep every time the game switched to Riku. It's Sora's dream that Riku's tromping through, and I don't think dreams can happen when you're awake...

True, the worlds we travel to in DDD are the dreams of the Worlds themselves. They are in sleep and dreaming of the inhabitants, hence the state of perpetual sleep of the world and why the events don't progress forward in time (Nomura stated, when asked what happened to the people of Destiny Islands during KH1, that time stopped for them and they are locked in sleep until the world is released). And yeah, I forgot how each of them is physically asleep while the other is running around. So, they're both running around in the dreams of entire worlds, and Sora is in the actual Realm of Sleep, whereas Riku is inside Sora's dream of a dream. And whenever Sora falls into sleep, Riku travels through Sora's dream of a dream, and whenever Riku stops, Sora continues traveling through the worlds' actual dreams.

Nomura, how do you even keep track of half of this...

 

[VoidGear.]

Nomura, how do you even keep track of half of this...

Simple!
He just doesn't!

 

[Nazo]

Now that we've established that in order to gain the ability to time travel, one has to extract the heart from the body at least once in their lifetime, that gets me thinking. When did that happen to Riku? I remember Sora becoming a Heartless, obviously. But when does Riku's heart ever leave his body?

 

[Audo]

Now that we've established that in order to gain the ability to time travel, one has to extract the heart from the body at least once in their lifetime, that gets me thinking. When did that happen to Riku? I remember Sora becoming a Heartless, obviously. But when does Riku's heart ever leave his body?

When Ansem possesses Riku he eventually kicks his heart out of his body and sends it to the Realm of Darkness. There, Riku fights against the darkness devouring him and becomes an existence of only a heart. When Ansem is defeated, Riku's body rejoins with his heart behind the DtD making Riku complete again.

 

[Nazo]

When Ansem possesses Riku he eventually kicks his heart out of his body and sends it to the Realm of Darkness. There, Riku fights against the darkness devouring him and becomes an existence of only a heart. When Ansem is defeated, Riku's body rejoins with his heart behind the DtD making Riku complete again.

That is something I never realized I didn't know, and now I do. And I've seen that Final Mix cutscene multiple times. I bow to thee, Audo.

 

[Sephiroth0812]

One small difference that so far I haven't yet seen mentioned:

Xehanort traveled through time by himself and using his own power, Sora and Riku didn't, they were sent through time by Yen Sid's magic (who stayed in the present) and didn't travel by their own power.

I will return you to the Destiny Islands just before they were swallowed by the darkness and plunged into sleep.

Might also play into the the whole issue being a little different than Xehanort's since the make up was also slightly different.

 

[redcrown]

When Ansem possesses Riku he eventually kicks his heart out of his body and sends it to the Realm of Darkness. There, Riku fights against the darkness devouring him and becomes an existence of only a heart. When Ansem is defeated, Riku's body rejoins with his heart behind the DtD making Riku complete again.

Didn't Micky mean he fought against Ansem's darkness invading his heart in HB, who then threw his heart to the RoD, and only then became just a heart?

heartheartheart

 

[KeybladeLordSora]

Didn't Micky mean he fought against Ansem's darkness in his heart in HB, who then threw his heart to the RoD, and only then becoming just a heart?

heartheartheartheart

He probably meant both.

heart

 

[Nazo]

One small difference that so far I haven't yet seen mentioned:

Xehanort traveled through time by himself and using his own power, Sora and Riku didn't, they were sent through time by Yen Sid's magic (who stayed in the present) and didn't travel by their own power.

Might also play into the the whole issue being a little different than Xehanort's since the make up was also slightly different.

I was hoping you'd pop in here at some point. Of all the KH lore fanatics I've ever known, you've gotta be the best, Sephy. Thank you for that.



Alright, so let me put all these points in order here for future reference/clarification:


- In order to time travel, one must have released their heart from their body at some stage in their life. One does not have to be heart-only in order to time travel, as long as they have abandoned their bodily form at one point.

- Sora and Riku are both able to travel through time because Sora abandoned his body while releasing Kairi's heart, and Riku was forcibly shoved from his body by Ansem.

- Physically falling asleep has nothing to do with the Realm of Sleep. The RoS is for worlds that have been consumed by darkness. Upon being destroyed by darkness, the world's events essentially freeze, and the world falls asleep and so do all the inhabitants. In DDD, we travel to worlds that were released from said darkness, but never "woke up" fully after being saved. In order to access the RoS, one must be on a world as it falls to darkness, be it in present day and or through time travel. One can also access the RoS at will if one has gained the power to do so, but in order to do that, you have to go through the former method first.

- The Sleeping Worlds are trapped in a locked loop of time, replaying the events the occurred just prior to the world falling to darkness. The worlds themselves are sleeping, and so when one enters a Sleeping World, despite it being an actual physical place, the people and places one finds within are in fact a manifestation of that world's dream. Only once the world awakens will the time loop cease, and the events return to being contingent along present day time, instead of a perpetual dream of the events prior to the world being destroyed.

- When Sora and Riku enter the RoS, Riku senses Ansem and instinctively protects Sora, diving into his dreams and becoming a Dream Eater. Thus, in the events of DDD, Sora is traveling through the actual physical Realm of Sleep, while Riku is traveling through Sora's dreams of the Realm of Sleep. Thus, both Sora and Riku gain the power to access the Sleeping Realm at will at the end of the game, but Riku gains the additional power to awaken hearts because he unlocked the Sleeping Keyholes inside of Sora's dreams.

- The only role that physically falling asleep plays in DDD is switching between Sora and Riku. When one falls asleep, the other wakes up. Otherwise, physical sleep has no bearing on going to the Realm of Sleep, because it's the worlds that are asleep, not the characters themselves (even though entering the RoS automatically puts one into a sleep-like state of being, since you have to enter a dimension stuck in a sleep-induced time loop)

- Xehanort time travels through his own power, but Sora and Riku are sent back in time by Yen Sid. However, since all parties have abandoned their bodies already within their lifetimes, Sora, Riku, and Young Xehanort can all travel through time in bodily form at the time of DDD. This is also why YX is able to gather his 13 selves through time despite all of them being physical people, because abandoning his body once unlocks the ability for all versions of himself, and thus they can all travel through time along with him.

- Sora and Riku do not lose their memories of time traveling because they only go back into the past. If you travel into the future, then your memories of the future are erased upon returning to the present, but remain etched into your heart. Traveling to the past does not erase your memories of time traveling.


Anyone, feel free to correct something in those points if something is incorrect.

 

[Anagram]

You basically got it. Anything else would just be really random information really. Like *feelingboredatm* the time travel used in DDD was the same for all parties but other forms obviously exist as well depending on what form of time manipulation/magic Merlin is known to use and including examples like Timeless Rivers' door. However all still seem to hold the "unable to alter the future" rule from what we can tell. (i.e. in conventional time theories the moment Pete and Sora went to timeless river a new line of time should've happened which didn't, they both came from the same future and returned to the same present with no alterations) (basically meaning Kingdom Hearts follows a Novikov principle of time travel)

The most standout divergence with Timeless River and Merlin is the obvious bypassing of loss of heart. Donald, Goofy and Pete went into Timeless River but have never lost a heart and we dont really know what Merlin does. (in his movies Merlin is shown to be able to go as he pleases but his abilities in KH aren't defined)

You could also probably argue people can go into the realm of sleep as well since as worlds have hearts so do people. This is just a hypothetical however since the physiology of a world and a person are obviously different.
Many casual fans claim the Sleeping Realm was created by the stuck in sleep KH1-era worlds but that is also a lie to avoid. The realm was obviously waiting for those worlds when they got there.

The worlds aren't so much trapped in a loop of time but the loop of a dream. As Yen Sid says the Realm of Sleep has no real flow of time:


Although time obviously flows for beings not of the flow of the dreams. For instance outsiders like Xehanort, Sora and Riku. Beings of outside origin have always been known to have different rules however such as noted by Sora when he was immune to the pirates curse in Port Royal.

Your right but at the same time Riku & Sora was only in the past for as long as Destiny Islands was there before falling into darkness. From there, as noted by Yen Sid, the Realm of Sleep has no real flow of time which further negates any memory loss as they aren't technically in their future, a world's future nor are they interacting with a future variation of themselves like Xehanort.

 

[Audo]

One small difference that so far I haven't yet seen mentioned:

Xehanort traveled through time by himself and using his own power, Sora and Riku didn't, they were sent through time by Yen Sid's magic (who stayed in the present) and didn't travel by their own power.

This reading never sat right with me. The game goes out of its way to establish that Sora/Riku and Xehanort traveled the same way in a few spots. Yen Sid helping just doesn't make sense. Furthermore, this is only supported by a single line of dialogue in the entire game and isn't mentioned anywhere else, making it very suspect. You can also read the line as similar to a higher up giving you a mission i.e. "We're sending you to Paris" but that doesn't mean the person speaking is going to be physically responsible for the actual transport.

Anyway, it always bugged me so I thought it was worth a closer look so with the help of goldpanner we examined the line in the original Japanese. This is the line in Japanese:

"Yen Sid: I want the two of you to return to Destiny Islands, immediately before it was swallowed by darkness and slept."

So, as thought, Yen Sid actually did not have a hand in Sora and Riku's time traveling and they traveled just as Xehanort had.

 

[Anagram]

This seems like nitpicking to me. If we wanted we could go through each games original japanese dialogue and likely get a different story in several places. Especially in areas where translation was iffy.

This also begs the question of how would Sora & Riku know how to even travel like Xehanort did? They aren't master mages, there's nothing in game establishing these two know time manipulation outside the stop spells.

Right here in the game itself Yen Sid says "I will reutrn you".



At 21:51 of the vid.

I dunno man but honestly this just seems like looking for excuses in the original script to nitpick Sephiroth0812's post and discredit his point as a result. (especially if you went to the local translator for it)