(SPOILERS) Union X: The ark to the future

[Sign]

Actually it may be just be proof that she is darkness. Remember how there was the lost page? To me the fact that darkness has read portions of book but not the “entire” thing makes me believe that darkness must be one of the Foretellers excluding Gula.

I feel like if we're excluding Gula since he has the Lost Page, then we might as well exclude Ava since Luxu told her what was written on it.

 

[sora's skyline]

What if the killer is Gula, who used the same illusion powers Ava used to make himself look like Ventus? Strelitzia was killed in Gula's building after all. He took the book, and choose the likeness of a relatively lesser known wielder to fit in.

I initially liked this idea, but the more i think about it, it has a few major issues.

Where is the real ventus? How/when does he get swapped for the Gula version of Ventus and why did Gula get summoned back to the future with the other foretellers if they are gone, but Gula isn't?

To me this set of scenes all be convinced me that Ava is darkness. They have admitted to reading the book of prophecies. To me, only 7 characters have real knowledge of the book at this point. The Mom, 5 foretellers, and Brain. Stealing Strelitzia's spot/rule book didn't get this person the Book of Prophecies.

In any good criminal case, you need to prove three things to convict a person, Motive, Means and Opportunity.

Let's tackle Opportunity first
1. For 4 of the new leaders, we don't know anything about their whereabouts at the time. The only one we have any idea of is Skuld. She was with Player until right before. We know that Skuld was nearby the house Strelitzia was murdered in at the time of her death.

Means
1. All the characters have the ability to kill her. We are dealing with powerful key blade wielders after all.
2. However, even though everyone has the power to kill her, who knows that killing her would provide them an opportunity to infiltrate the leaders ranks?


Motive
What motives exist for killing/replacing Strelitzia or any leader for that matter? Below I have listed out the ones I can think of, no matter how unlikely.

1. Becoming a union leader will guarantee them access to something/someone that they otherwise would not have. This could be the BoP, this could be the Ark, this could be the foretellers room / clock tower to search for secrets (but one would need to know these things exist, and how would anyone know about these unless told be a foreteller? Perhaps one discovered something upon exploring the tower previously? We know Skuld and Ephemer have been inside...)

2. Strelitzia was threatening someone/something and needed to be stopped. This feels incredibly unlikely, and we have no basis for any indication that this is the case. Perhaps this person read the BoP and determined the actions Strelitzia would take would undoubtedly ruin the chances for future success. The only possible person here would be Brain, if he had killed her and replaced her with another leader, then he wouldn't even open his mouth, let alone show Ephemer, so I think this is out.

3. Along the same lines, her killing could have been 100% random and had nothing to do with anything. Then upon taking her belongings, the killer stumbles across the rule book and decides to take her place. This is obviously incredibly unlikely and ultimately would have no real positive reason (story wise) to happen.

4. To plant another person in her place. Long thought by many (myself included) to have been Ava quickly replacing Strelitzia with another potentially more capable leader. Well what if another fore-teller had done so? Eliminated a leader to identify a replacement? The problem here is, how would they know of Ava's role, and who was chosen? How would they know who to replace them with? If they did do this, how then would they communicate to the replacement leader? If the replacement leader is unaware of Strelitzia's murder, then why would they hide that they were given their role by another foreteller? Why not speak up and say "Gula gave me the role and book?"

5. To change the fate that had been designed. This has been speculated for a long time as well. It's the only motive for the swap, that involves the new leader having no idea it happened. This person then doesn't need to have been given loads of information no one else had (about the ark, the book, how to interact and change the future etc. and a reason for existing as a leader, since it doesn't appear anyone is trying to undermine things and prevent an escape back to reality.

In the end, the motive that makes the most sense to me, is still #5, the intent to change fate without knowing how, which means it would have to be Ava. Yes this cutscene suggests that it wasn't her. But Nomura loves his red herrings, and all this was to pull suspicion off Ava was a statement by brain that says "I don't think the change in Union Leaders was Lady Ava's doing" this could easily end up that Brain was simply wrong.

Looking at the evidence,

Who knew Stelitzia was a union leader? the MoM, Brain (potentially if he already had the BoP at this time, but again as described above, why show the list ever if he had killed her? No one would ever find out), and Ava. She has already shown a desire to change fate by giving the book to Brain. If she wanted to really change fate, then changing the leaders was her best chance. I believe she was questioning things before the conversation with Luxu, as seen in the conversation when Brain was made a leader. After that conversation with Luxu, I believe her whole mind snapped, (with Luxu claiming she was the traitor for making Brain the man with the Book of Prophecies, which would then explain why Luxu called him the virus, even though he isn't the traitor/unexpected leader), and she lost it. She then determined to unravel the MoM's plans, took out the first leader she found, desperate to instill someone other than Strelitzia. My guess is Ven makes the most sense as he was just a random she grabbed off the street, and it would explain why a Meh wielder who isn't nearly as powerful or as successful at gathering Lux is appointed leader. It also explains why Ava would then go on to become Darkness and be so desperate to help Maleficent and the Dandelions escape back to the real world. She was desperate to undo everything she had set in motion and stop the MoM's plan.

the TLDR version of my ideas is this:

Ava is still the bad guy, she did it all to change fate without knowing what would happen, possibly explaining Darkness' statement about having read most of the BoP (reasoning being, I changed things, so I know most of what's coming, but not all)

I also agree with whomever stating that Ven being the killer will irrevocably damage the character in ways that make him unredeemable, and I just can't see Disney allowing that to take place.

 

[towerofpowerxx]

Our boy HMK posted a good video not too long ago:

He doesn't go into everything, like how Darkness speaking to Malificent about her dealings with MX spotlights Vanitus as the only other entity who would have been present at MX's side to witness said exchange (and hence be able to speak of it later), but hey, a video's ten times better than mere words on a page to get a point across.

I was going to wait on this, but screw it *pours celebatory scotch* *raises glass*

To those of us who knew Ventus was the one NOT chosen to be a Union leader, and that Vanitus was in fact Darkness all along, TO US!!!

*Downs drink in one gulp*

Aaaaahhhhh, the taste of victory!

 

[kristi-swat]

My guess is that no one has the real BoP. MoM just wrote copies with stuff he wanted to include for the rest, and the original BoP that foreshadows everything correctly (including Ava’s attempts to change events) is hidden. Maybe locked somewhere xD

 

[yuyayuzu]

Forget about the traitor thing for a while
Skuld is not fond of cold
Ventus does not hate cold. Is it that why in KH3 Vanitas keep casting ice magic?

 

[Darkspawn]

I’m hoping Darkness is the cloaked character from the Union Cross key art and thus none of the five Union Leaders. It’s about time we find out who that is.

 

[Eonstar890]

Another moment that creates more questions is the fact that when the new five very first enter the Foreteller chamber, the BoP is sitting in the desk. Brain immediately goes to pick it up.. but does this mean he had already gone there without the others? We know that Ava directly handed him the book before the Keyblade war so how else would the book have ended up in that room? Why would Brain be going off to the Foreteller chamber alone before meeting the other five? Am I asking way too many questions at this point?? Will Union Cross actually ever reveal an answer to anything???

 

[sora's skyline]

My guess is that no one has the real BoP. MoM just wrote copies with stuff he wanted to include for the rest, and the original BoP that foreshadows everything correctly (including Ava’s attempts to change events) is hidden. Maybe locked somewhere xD

this makes perfect sense to me. He gave them just enough info to get them to act in such a way. But he censored things for them. He's already done it once with the lost page...

 

[sora's skyline]

Another moment that creates more questions is the fact that when the new five very first enter the Foreteller chamber, the BoP is sitting in the desk. Brain immediately goes to pick it up.. but does this mean he had already gone there without the others? We know that Ava directly handed him the book before the Keyblade war so how else would the book have ended up in that room? Why would Brain be going off to the Foreteller chamber alone before meeting the other five? Am I asking way too many questions at this point?? Will Union Cross actually ever reveal an answer to anything???

Always an excellent thing to point out. How/why was the BoP there?

It feels like next month we will get some answers. I'm just curious which comes first, the UX update or Re:Mind. Which direction will things be spoiled for us? UX spoiling remind stuff? Or Remind spoiling the UX stuff?

 

[Eonstar890]

Always an excellent thing to point out. How/why was the BoP there?

It feels like next month we will get some answers. I'm just curious which comes first, the UX update or Re:Mind. Which direction will things be spoiled for us? UX spoiling remind stuff? Or Remind spoiling the UX stuff?

What lead me to bring it up is that it may be possible that while the book was sitting there unattended literally anyone could have gone up to it and read a couple portions without anyone else knowing basically making darknesses new claim even less helpful.. but I still think it’s either a Foreteller or Strelitzias heartless/nobody.

 

[Sora’s Skyline]

What lead me to bring it up is that it may be possible that while the book was sitting there unattended literally anyone could have gone up to it and read a couple portions without anyone else knowing basically making darknesses new claim even less helpful.. but I still think it’s either a Foreteller or Strelitzias heartless/nobody.

I’m very much on the Ava train. But I get your point if the book was just out, maybe anyone read it. But why the heck was a copy of the book just “out” lying around?

 

[DarknessInZero]

I feel like if we're excluding Gula since he has the Lost Page, then we might as well exclude Ava since Luxu told her what was written on it.

that’s a good point and at this point if Ava is indeed darkness then the lost page is irrelevant since she already knows she’s the traitor. Which means she knows everything about the Book which contradicts Darkness saying that they don’t.

 

[Sora’s Skyline]

that’s a good point and at this point if Ava is indeed darkness then the lost page is irrelevant since she already knows she’s the traitor. Which means she knows everything about the Book which contradicts Darkness saying that they don’t.

except for the fact Ava doesnt know that’s the only thing on the lost page (actually do we even know it’s the only thing on the page?)

 

[Sign]

I went back to the scene where the leaders enter the Foretellers' Room for the first time. After giving it some thought, I wonder if the book lying on the desk wasn't intended to be the Book of Prophecies but just used the same asset due to some oversight? Because the fact that Brain shows this book's contents to the other leaders, tears a page out and gives it to them is a huge red flag.

I think the book Brain is shown reading after this scene is probably the actual Book of Prophecies, but the one here in this moment may be just an ordinary research book or something.

 

[Eonstar890]

I went back to the scene where the leaders enter the Foretellers' Room for the first time. After giving it some thought, I wonder if the book lying on the desk wasn't intended to be the Book of Prophecies but just used the same asset due to some oversight?

Even if we were to justify how it got inside the tower before Brain even entered for the first time, how do we explain him showing its contents to the other leaders (which MoM said not to do) and tearing a page out and giving it to them?

The MoM told that to Ava but I don’t believe she passed that message on to Brain meaning he would have no reason to withhold information from the others from within the book. She was after all giving the book to wrong person anyways so I don’t see why she’d give two Xions if anything else the MoM ordered actually happened as planned.

I can’t seem them “accidentally” using the book of prophecies like that. It’s definitely done on purpose. Maybe brain did it to make it appear that Ava didn’t personally give him the book.

 

[Sign]

I can’t seem them “accidentally” using the book of prophecies like that. It’s definitely done on purpose. Maybe brain did it to make it appear that Ava didn’t personally give him the book.

The others don't even know he has the Book at this point so that argument is kinda moot?

 

[Eonstar890]

The others don't even know he has the Book at this point so that argument is kinda moot?

well if Brain showed up at KG with book already in his possession vs just picking it up in the foretellers chamber it would definitely have looked suspicious to the others. They would have wondered how and why he had it. This way they just accept that he got it from the room when they all first arrive there.

 

[Sign]

well if Brain showed up at KG with book already in his possession vs just picking it up in the foretellers chamber it would definitely have looked suspicious to the others. They would have wondered how and why he had it. This way they just accept that he got it from the room when they all first arrive there.

How do you suppose it got there then? He snuck in and planted it?

Ephemer is the only other person who knows Brain has the Book of Prophecies.

 

[Eonstar890]

How do you suppose it got there then? He snuck in and planted it?

Ephemer is the only other person who knows Brain has the Book of Prophecies.

That’s exactly what I’m thinking yep. I just don’t know why he would do it. Ux has so many mysteries I feel like I’m in Wonderland.

 

[Sign]

That’s exactly what I’m thinking yep. I just don’t know why he would do it. Ux has so many mysteries I feel like I’m in Wonderland.

Okay then lol. I can agree to disagree, it's all part of having fun and solving the mystery