The significance of Xehanort meaning "no heart"

[UrbanQuattrus]

Maybe Terra becomes Xehanort, as we have been tossing around, or maybe not. But Xehanort's name is an organization-style anagram of "No Heart". (Or "another", but I don't think that is as important, given the central theme of hearts here.)

So, does this mean that Xehanort had no heart to begin with, even before betraying Ansem and founding the Organization? Probably not, or else where would Xehanort's heartless come from?

Then why is he named for having no heart? Maybe his original heart was taken from him. Maybe his obsession with studying the heart was to obtain a new one for himself.

If that's the case, he would likely have succeeded so that his heartless could come into being and be the antagonist of the first game. Ironic that he had to lose another heart all over again...

But how would he have lost his original heart? Maybe another villain took it from him. Maybe the old man in the BBS trailer is this culprit.

Assuming that Terra is Xehanort, then the trailer shows Terra before his heart was taken. But why would the old man want his heart? Well, just look at him: He's an old, decrepit man, whereas Terra is a prime young specimen of health. Maybe the old man found a way to restore his own youth by taking strong hearts.

This creates another idea: Maybe Xehanort is the old man, not Terra. Remember that Xigbar said that the "strange warriors with blades of keys appeared and battled, and when they were gone, Xehanort appeared"?

Well, maybe Xehanort succeeded in stealing Terra's heart and rejuvenating himself with it, restoring the youthful appearance we recognize him as. Conceivably, then, it wouldn't be until after doing this that he appeared in Radiant Garden and became Ansem's apprentice, and became acquainted with Braig and the others. This would also explain why the Terra encountered in KHIIFM+ claims to have nothing left but his hatred for Xehanort - in this case, without a heart of his own, Terra's words are literally true, he would have NOTHING left.

So why then did Xehanort still become so obsessed with studying the heart? Maybe Xehanort was a parasite, surviving for who knows how long by stealing others' hearts, but when he saw that Ansem was leading a project to study the workings of the heart, he thought it might be his ticket to obtaining himself one permanently, so that he could stop his life of vampirism and live normally. (If that's the case, obviously it didn't pan out as planned, though not for lack of trying.)

 

[Valle]

Good theory. However, since Xehanort can also be an organization-style anagram for "Another", maybe Master Xehanort is another being. A being created from the soul (as it was discussed many times). Actually, that works for both anagrams because he would still have no heart. Maybe being created from the soul would make him smarter and more powerful, much like the difference from Heartless to Nobody.

And maybe he didn't kill Terra, instead he created a "soulless" from him. That would explain why Xehanort has no memories and why he looks human and is intelligent.

Theory over.

 

[kh is ba]

I think that you are right urban that xehanort somehow stole one of the three knights hearts. I could also add on that stealing this heart completed his kingdom hearts. He wanted to become young again so he could have used kingdom hearts to do so and this was too powerful for him and he lost his memory but slowly got his memories back and tried to make another kh without remembering that the first kh he created made him forget everything.

There also could be the fact that when xehanort completed kh it somehow didn't like him commanding it to make him younger and ended up just taking his heart away therefore his heartless and nobody came into existence.

 

[UrbanQuattrus]

Good theory. However, since Xehanort can also be an organization-style anagram for "Another", maybe Master Xehanort is another being. A being created from the soul (as it was discussed many times). Actually, that works for both anagrams because he would still have no heart. Maybe being created from the soul would make him smarter and more powerful, much like the difference from Heartless to Nobody.

And maybe he didn't kill Terra, instead he created a "soulless" from him. That would explain why Xehanort has no memories and why he looks human and is intelligent.

Theory over.

You just gave me an idea to reinforce my theory!

I'll explain: there are three pieces to a person that we know of; the heart, which embodies emotions and has something to do with structuring memory; the body, which acts as the physical form; and the soul, which powers the life force, and presumably powers the mind.

A body by itself is dead. With only a soul, it forms a nobody - a being which does have emotions but is plagued by feelings of incompleteness, as clarified by Nomura. But a soul by itself, we haven't seen yet...

Maybe a soul by itself can't maintain its own existence without stealing hearts, like I suggested. So the idea of Xehanort, as the old man, being just a soul makes sense in that light. He's "another" because he's not a complete person, but he's neither heartless nor nobody, either.

 

[semajultima]

hey im new here. Hmmm whats all ways puzzled me is why Xehanort was able to keep his mind when he became a heartless and why was he wearing a brown cloak? Was there something terrible behind there thats he didnt want Riku and Sora to see? Also his heartless was created because ansem experimented on him =)

 

[Cin]

hey im new here. Hmmm whats all ways puzzled me is why Xehanort was able to keep his mind when he became a heartless and why was he wearing a brown cloak? Was there something terrible behind there thats he didnt want Riku and Sora to see? Also his heartless was created because ansem experimented on him =)

He wore a brown cloak to hide his face and be mysterious. You see, we're not supposed to know Ansem is an evil sadistic heartless bastard until the last few levels of the game. Revealing his identity in the first few minutes would take away all suspense and epicness.

And Xehanort experimented on himself, Ansem tried to stop the experiments. =\

 

[UrbanQuattrus]

He wore a brown cloak to hide his face and be mysterious. You see, we're not supposed to know Ansem is an evil sadistic heartless bastard until the last few levels of the game. Revealing his identity in the first few minutes would take away all suspense and epicness.

And Xehanort experimented on himself, Ansem tried to stop the experiments. =\

Actually, he couldn't maintain much of a physical form by himself, as he explained in his own reports; making himself appear as the brown cloak was a challenge for him. He didn't take on his own true appearance until he appropriated Riku's body to use for that purpose.

To semajultima, you bring up a good point: It could be that a powerful enough heart can also retain its mind as Xehanort's heartless did, but that would seem to violate the traditional rule regarding what happens to strong hearts upon becoming heartless - typically a stronger heart only makes a more monstrous-looking heartless, while they never seem to retain any intelligence; several characters (Pete foremost among them) comment on this directly. It is proven that a strong will can allow a nobody to retain its own mind and form - but if the same can be true for a heartless, then Xehanort's case is at best unique.

Maybe there is something different about Xehanort's heart, either inherently, or maybe he altered his own heart during his experiments, or maybe he altered the process of becoming a heartless for himself.

 

[semajultima]

a similar thing happened to sora a well, he knew he was himself still when he turend into a heartless.

 

[UrbanQuattrus]

Semajultima, I stand corrected, Xehanort is NOT unique.

But it was not just Sora's strong heart that brought him back... it was Kairi's love for him that triggered it.

So who loved Xehanort?

...
...
...

...could it be AQUA, who loved TERRA?

...we're getting somewhere, I think.

 

[semajultima]

my thoughts exactly. Its not there heart that is strong that allows them to regain themselves but someone elses heart.

 

[Audo]

Nomura has said that the fact that Xehanort's name can spell 'No Heart' AND 'Another' is extremely important and relevant...

 

[semajultima]

omg! Ive got it! Sora has Xehanorts heart! And thats why Terra wants to fight him because he really is Xehanort!

 

[sora's skyline]

Personally I think we need to figure out what the Xemnas anagram is. "Names" perhaps? since Xemnas is an anagram for whatever the persons real name was, Xehanort cannot be transformed into Xemnas. Since I assume that Xemnas must be an anagram of Xehanort's real name. I agree to me that also rules out Terra/Aqua/Ven turning into Xehanort. Unless of course Ven's real name somehow is an anagram of Xenmas, which if it is, begs the question, why is he nicknamed Ven? I don't know how much his real name can tell us, but it can't be any more or less useless than attempting to figure out whether the soul of a person can exist separately.

 

[semajultima]

hmm perhaps sora was created not born using xehanort's heart and Ven's Soul and a body was created when they merged.

About Xemnas. Wouldn't recover all of his lost memmories when he became a nobody? That means he would remember everything Xehanort forgot! Oh and i rememeber reading in a report that all that Xehanort could remember was his name, Xehanort.

 

[UrbanQuattrus]

Skyline, "Xemnas" is an anagram of "Ansem", the name that Xehanort appropriated after banishing the real Ansem. However...

Maybe "Ansem" is an anagram of "names"? Maybe there's more to Ansem than we know.

Of course, keep in mind that in the original Japanese version, the name was "Anthem", not "Ansem". So that's probably a dead end, but you do bring up an interesting idea.

 

[semajultima]

i dont think theres is much of a point either but there is defintatley something speical about Xehanort

 

[Orion]

Yeah, I reckon Xehanort is like a remnant of MX

 

[Audo]

omg! Ive got it! Sora has Xehanorts heart! And thats why Terra wants to fight him because he really is Xehanort!

And thats why it was a huge storyline that Riku had Xehanort's Heart(less) in his body... yes... because Sora really had Xehanort's heart....
Ugh. Some people just dont think logically.

 

[*~NeoAdamus~*]

Why does Xehanorts name have to have the anagram X. Couldn't the anagram X be favored simply because the beginning of his name starts with X.

 

[UrbanQuattrus]

It would be too much of a coincidence if Xehanort was "just his name" and the anagrams meant nothing. That's not an element of good storytelling.