Editorial ► Where in the timeline does Timeless River exist?

[Sonofjafar]

Kingdom Hearts 2 clearly established that Timeless River was Disney Castle in the past but how far back is it? The Age of Fairy Tales clearly had color versions of Mickey Donald and Goofy running around as shown in Union X but Timeless River was a world in black and white. Are we gonna get any form of explanation for that in kh4? Is Oswald possibly involved? Something is missing here and I need to know what

 

[Chie]

There's a lot we can't actually verify about the Age of Fairytales, so I would say to put it out of your mind on this. We don't know if MDG in X were projections from the BoP or not, and besides, even if the Disney worlds really did exist back then, they were "regenerated" after the Keyblade War.

I doubt they'll give us any years for the lives of these inhabitants (especially since Huey, Dewey and Louie have looked identical for over a decade) but I don't think it's supposed to be important at all.

 

[Sonofjafar]

You can’t just have a point in your universe’s past where everything was in black and white and not explain why it was like that and how it shifted back to color.

 

[Chie]

Why?

As viewers who know what Disney is we obviously know the real reasons for it being black and white, why bother explaining it any more than that?

 

[KudoTsurugi]

if you want, you could say it’s like a pocket dimension with its own rules. Considering we have worlds inside books and computers with Hundred Acre Wood and Space Paranoids/The Grid, I don’t think it’s that big a stretch to call Timeless River a world of its own in that way.

As for the whole black and white look? Just call it an aesthetic. Like Chie said, it’s not a big deal. Just a shorthand way of saying “Hey, we’re in the past with classic old Disney cartoon characters!”

 

[Sonofjafar]

Why?

As viewers who know what Disney is we obviously know the real reasons for it being black and white, why bother explaining it any more than that?

Because this seems like a missed opportunity for some insane lore that Kingdom Hearts Is known for. Plus, I think a lot of people would really like to see some more respect given to the short films of Disney

if you want, you could say it’s like a pocket dimension with its own rules. Considering we have worlds inside books and computers with Hundred Acre Wood and Space Paranoids/The Grid, I don’t think it’s that big a stretch to call Timeless River a world of its own in that way.

As for the whole black and white look? Just call it an aesthetic. Like Chie said, it’s not a big deal. Just a shorthand way of saying “Hey, we’re in the past with classic old Disney cartoon characters!”

I would be willing to live with this if they hadn’t already established that tris is Disney castle in the past specifically.

 

[Chie]

Every single Disney world is an arbitrary representation of a story, I don't see how Disney Castle having previously been in black and white is any different than any other Disney world.

 

[Elysium]

I agree with Chie. If they had to explain it away, they could simply say it was only black and white for SDG because they'd been through a door to the past. (In other words, the present version of the events they see there would've been in color; and likewise, if they went into the past for any world, it would be in black and white.)

It would sort of make sense. If the past is in black and white, it would help a magic user or Keyblade wielder to help differentiate the past from the present as they're traversing them. I know KH isn't this serious, I'm just thinking of it as a concept, lol.

 

[Sonofjafar]

I was originally going to post this part in the unpopular opinions thread but it just occurred to me that it might apply here but Timeless River’s connection to the past conflicts with the rules of time travel that were later established in later games.

 

[Chie]

Not exactly, it's stated that Merlin ignores the rules of time travel.

 

[Sonofjafar]

Not exactly, it's stated that Merlin ignores the rules of time travel.

Well that answers one question but raises so many others

 

[Chie]

I think it all makes sense. Merlin comes from a story in which he can time travel freely, therefore he can time travel freely. Just like how Mickey Mouse comes from a story in which he used to be black and white.

Disney characters are not ontologically important enough to affect the rules that the higher-level characters are playing under, though.

There are many lines explicitly about Disney worlds being stories at this point.

 

[Sonofjafar]

What I’m struggling to understand is how every world can be connected if they all follow their own logic and rules. It’s been established that all worlds were once one big world so it only makes sense for some rules to carry over

 

[Chie]

We can't empirically verify that, is the thing.

We're told that the projection worlds we visit in X are places from far away being projected for our convenience, but 1) why would they have to be versions from the future, and 2) we see other characters teleport, surely the other worlds can't be too far away for us to get to, right...? The only thing we can verify is that these Disney worlds, which are based on real fairy tales and that MoM refers to as "stories", existed in a storybook.

Those Disney worlds then regenerated in the post-X world because the children kept the "worlds - stories" in their hearts. The children... who had only ever experienced them through a storybook, and were set up to do so by the Master.

So, the BoP pulls versions of the Disney worlds from the future, and the Disney worlds exist in the future because the children remembered them from the BoP. This, alone, is a closed loop. So did those worlds exist in the time of X? Impossible to say, and apparently has no bearing on the loop.

 

[Face My Fears]

You can’t just have a point in your universe’s past where everything was in black and white and not explain why it was like that and how it shifted back to color.

Maybe Timeless River/Disney Town/Disney Castle just changes as time goes by in that world? It naturally started black and white, then became coloured somehow. I think Timeless River was the start of time in that world, just times moves differently as explained in Dark Road.

 

[Kaweebo]

What I’m struggling to understand is how every world can be connected if they all follow their own logic and rules. It’s been established that all worlds were once one big world so it only makes sense for some rules to carry over

I like to think that the original World was actually just one planet in the cosmos and that there are other, entirely separate worlds which evolved on their own. Think like: all the classic Disney and Renaissance films may have been connected to Daybreak Town by land, but something like the Caribbean or the world where Tron is from (the real one, not just the digital Grid) were entirely separate.

As far as Timeless River goes, I place it on the timeline after the Keyblade War but very, very early on, like during Missing Link or Dark Road era. I think Mickey, Donald and Goofy are much older than Xehanort, but because of the way their world works, time has immortalized them just like they are to us in the real world.

 

[Sonofjafar]

I like to think that the original World was actually just one planet in the cosmos and that there are other, entirely separate worlds which evolved on their own. Think like: all the classic Disney and Renaissance films may have been connected to Daybreak Town by land, but something like the Caribbean or the world where Tron is from (the real one, not just the digital Grid) were entirely separate.

As far as Timeless River goes, I place it on the timeline after the Keyblade War but very, very early on, like during Missing Link or Dark Road era. I think Mickey, Donald and Goofy are much older than Xehanort, but because of the way their world works, time has immortalized them just like they are to us in the real world.

This is the kind of in world thinking I was looking for when I started this theead

 

[MATGSY]

Time is like a river: ever flowing, always fluid in its nature.