*DARK HIDE DOES NOT HAVE RED EYES! Yes, they glow red, but when it reveals itself later in the fight, you can see that they're indeed yellow. I've just had to address this point a lot in replies so I might as well put this at the top of this pinned comment* A lot of things in the original script never made it into the final draft, so I'll discuss some other points here: Beneath the Lich's robes are dangling chains with pink-red spikes on the end. These exact spikes can be seen surrounding dream portals. When the Lich teleports, it leaves a red afterimage and when he summons lesser Heartless, its eyes glow magenta. These colours are all synonymous with the concept of sleep. He also encapsulates the hearts of the fallen guardians with chains. Even though the Lich's abilities may allow other Heartless to exist in dreams, it still doesn't explain why we fight Shadows and a Darkside in the KH3 intro and also why Heartless appear in Stations of Awakening. You may have also noticed that I use pictures of Nobodies too. This is because I believe the same rule applies to lesser Nobodies such as Dusks when Yen Sid states that Heartless cannot descend into the Sleeping Realm. Xemnas has a heart, which is why he can exist in dreams in DDD as "hearts can dream". Ansem and the Guardian are... strange. There just seems to be a lot of contradictions to Yen Sid's statement. Even though all Heartless have yellow eyes, there are notable exceptions. The biggest of which being Dark Hide from BBSFM; fans literally dubbed this Heartless "Red Eyes" before we got the English localization. However, they only glow red (which is still incredibly rare) but they are still in fact yellow when it reveals itself later in the fight. In my research, I checked each and every Heartless. A few tiny exceptions remain, such as the Defenders in Hollow Bastion having shields with eyes and they glow red when using Fire. Sora's Rage form in KH3 has yellow eyes but they "glow" red. This is the exact same thing with the Demon Tide from 0.2 and KH3. Again, yellow eyes but with a red glow. Not saying that this doesn't mean anything, but it was all a bit too much to put in the final video and it ended up being a 16 minute tangent for one section alone. The Search Ghosts are the Heartless with one eye dangling out of it's socket via a single chain, and when it spots you, its eye glows red. This is VERY rare among Heartless. Not only is it a ghost like the Lich (connection to the Realm of Death) but in KH1 they're also introduced taking orders from the Mayor and Jack Skelington in Halloween Town, and who is Jack? The King of Nightmares.
Gotta love when Nomura's themes and colour motifs go full circle. We know he doesnt plan everything beforehand, but its amazing when his old concepts still apply so many years later. Amazing video man, I see your perfectionism on the editing and I love it, keep it up. Left a reply on your twitter post, though maybe I should write here where I dont have character limits 😅 Can't wait for the next one. Cheers mate!
Perhaps the deal with Ansem and the Guardian are similar to higher nobodies like Xemnas. Unlike every single heartless we have seen which act purely on instinct, Ansem acts with a contious mind. Using terms similar to nobodies, he is a higher heartless whereas the rest are lower. So perhaps the reason heartless can't access the sleeping world is because they just don't have the mental compasity to understand how. Now if that's just nit the case and if Ansem and the Guardian being able to get there simply by their higher intellect. Then atleast it's good to remember that while Ansem is a heartless (and the Guardian being tied to Ansem) he is a special heartless. Unlike how other heartlesses are created, Xehanort's heart was not encompasses and swallowed by darkness which is how a heartless is usually created, but instead he held his form in a way (robe ansem) and traveled back in time. Which he ended up gaining a new body because he possessed Riku. The more I think about this, I'm beginning to think that while Ansem indeed has a heartless emblem, that does not mean he himself is a heartless, but everyone merely thinks he is. Cause the emblem itself was recorded to have been made by Ansem, I do not remember if it was by Ansem SOD or Ansem the Wise. So when he gained his "heartless" form. The Emblem may have appeared due too a mix of his own knowledge of what a heartless is and memory of the emblem. Ansem SoD most likely had no say in what he looked like in his "Heartless" form, and from a question in one of the loading kingstagram screens in KH3, Riku questions if he is part of the reason Ansem looks like he does. So many influences could have dictated Ansem's form: Riku, possibly Riku's own Memories, Ansem's prior state as an unbound heart, his own memories and knowledge of his research earlier in life. Anyways, that was a long rabbit trail, back to the theory at hand. Ansem being in the realm of sleep. Based upon the theory that either Ansem is a higher heartless, or not even a heartless at all. He would have the ability to ender the world of sleep. But if neither are true, perhaps, like how Master Xehabort was a portal to bring his past selves to the future, he himself or possible young xehanort acted as a portal and brought Ansem into the realm of sleep, finding a loop hole in the rule. Now it did cross my mind that perhaps it was because of his tie with riku. However I don't think this may be entirely the case. We know that from Re:Chain, Ansem resided within Riku's heart after he was defeated in KH1, and Riku ultimately bested him at the end of the game. However Riku also states that he can still feel ansem, even if just slightly. This comes to play again in days and kh2 when riku, accepting the darkness within his heart, takes on the form of ansem. Reason why that is is for another theory. Enough getting sidetracked. Because of the explosion of Ansem the Wise's encoder machine, Riku js returned to his original form and as Mackey states at the end of kh2, he is no longer a being of the dark realm. I believe that the ansem that resided in Riku's heart was separated from Riku during that explosion, and that is why Riku took his old form again. So unlike up till this point, the riku in DDD no longer harbors Ansem within his heart, so there would be no connection to draw from and enter the realm of sleep.
I guess the Dark Hide's eyes glow red is because it acts as a guardian blocking Aqua's path to the Realm of Sleep? As for the Rage Form, it only occurs when Sora takes a beating or in the special case of having the light sucked out of him so he might tap into that darkness to rest his heart while his body does all the fighting. That would explain that unlike the other Forms or Formchanges, Rage Form also heals Sora. The Demon Tide on the other hand glows more amberish rather than red in my opinion, so perhaps a diffrent meaning can be construed with red when it is with the heartless. As The Master of Masters said if a Keybearer falls into malice it will reflect on their Chirithy. I found it weird that MOM had to rephrase that, what this could mean is red symbolizes hostility. I mean it would make sense, even in Yozora's case as he literally attacked Sora. As for Dream Eaters only having yellow eyes, Spirits actually change thier eye color depending on the Disposition. Although perhaps you are referring to the default designs. Just throwing my two cents in.
Just going to point out 358/2 days Xion’s armor form is pink/magenta, Based on your theory their are 2 reasons: 1. Sora is asleep and Xion’s power is derived from machines meant to capture memories of both him and the world’s his been too. Hence why the machines are placed in areas where the world’s keyholes were sealed. 2. When Xion is turned into shaved ice cream everyone’s memory of her slowly melts away until nothing is left. Only to be seen again in DDD near the back of the group. Which paraphrasing Naminé “The links are still there in your heart, they just need to be reconnected.” As for how everything is connected. The realm of light and dark I believe should be back to back and both should be connected to the world of sleep. This would leave room for a potential “Daydreaming theory” as Xion and Naminé are awake when accessing their powers of memory. Which as your theory states can only (or at least most cases) be accessed through the realm of sleep which is connected to the realm of darkness. Though of course this leaves the question “Is Castle Oblivion a sleeping world, a world between the light and darkness, or simply a world in darkness?” My opinion is it is a “Daydreaming” world between Light and Darkness, since Sora could get there by foot, and Riku could return from the realm of darkness, but it can be considered “sleeping” because of the security measure put in place in the land of departure.
“You are using the name Terra. That means that you see me, the way you remember me.” Didn’t Yozora also state to Sora that Sora isn’t Sora but using his name?
yozora also said "but this isnt what i really look like " so that means the yozora sora seeing and fighting was from sora's memory interpreting what yozora looks like based on what he saw from the verum rex video game in the toystory world
@@Ucatty2 like in the video aqua sees terra in the realm of darkness but she sees him as his normal form despite being a heartless because of her memory of terra So it would make sense that if sora met yozora in a dream the form yozora would take would be created based on how sora remembers what the person named yozora looks like which is the verum rex yozora So thats why yozora says he doesnt really look like that is because thats how sora's memories interpreted how yozora would look like
@@theseekerofdankness959 The World of the VERSUS EPIC shall return. To be "Unchained" is to have the power of Chaos, the power of the goddess Etro, the goddess of death. Through the power of Chaos, one can visit any world, any timeline, and have the power to control monsters. And the red eyes to see the "light of expiring souls". VERSUS is the endgame of all of KH, Verum Rex, all of it. Everything leads back to VERSUS Noctis, the MoM himself.
So if Sora now is unchained, that explains how he was able to contact Kairi in Melody of Memory. Voices can only reach those who are close to the Unchained Realm. Xehanort was definetly aware of Quadratum and the Foretellers who have seemingly also mastered the unchained state, allowing them to go back and forth between Quadratum and reality as well as appearing in the present when they lived centuries ago.
Yeah, Xehanort totally knew about the other side. Not only the rules surrounding it, but also how to transport people to and from. This might have been taught by MoM when they met. We know that Eraqus said the story of the lost masters was Odin's (their master) favourite story, so perhaps they received the knowledge from him. Most likely passed down throughout time via Brain as Eraqus is his descendant. Luxu must be around somewhere too. (Odin being Luxu is just too obvious for me to believe it lol) YX makes copies of Traverse Town in DDD and also Toy Box in KH3 where he separates people. Braig and YX were conspiring in Re:Coded's secret ending, which is odd because we never see them interact in the series ever again as far as I know. This leads me to believe that MoM gave him knowledge before he time traveled, and Braig (Luxu) gave him EVEN MORE to etch into his heart before he went back in time.
Maybe heartless can't enter dreams, but one can dream of heartless. That is to say the heartless in dreams could simply be fake, or the product of imagination
If that were to be the case, we'd see them in DDD. Nomura going out of his way to make the rule "Heartless cannot enter the Realm of Sleep" would be made redundant if they could just be dreamed up
Heartless can enter dreams, they just don’t naturally spawn there. It’s kinda like how Heartless can’t enter the Realm of Light, unless someone summons them, or if the Keyhole to the world has just been unlocked. We’ve seen heartless in the Station of Awakening in KH1, When Sora was in the Final World in the beginning of KH3, The Lich in KH3, and in DDD whenever we seen Ansem SoD. *Spoilers for Union X if you haven’t been keeping up with the recent updates:* Darkness also confirmed that their goal is to expand to every conceivable reality by infecting people, so narratively it’ll make sense for Heartless to appear in any reality. I wouldn’t be surprised if Darkness finds away to colonize Unreality as well since Sora, MoM, and Riku have all seem to make it there. Maybe that’s what Karma is??
@@SonnyNovus Ansem Seeker of Darkness is a Heartless. Even if this Ansem is a Replica, the Guardian (Terra) is also a Heartless. Hmmm wasn’t he a boss fight in... DDD? Boom. A dream within a dream. Darkness within Darkness awaits you.
@@KevinHenaoComics Homestuck has had some similar dimensional shenanigans to Kingdom Hearts, though awakening one's dream self in Homestuck is probably slightly less shenanigans than in KH, but... the similarities exist: mspaintadventures.fandom.com/wiki/Dream_self#Awakening
Channels like “The Gamers Joint” and “HMK” are great for news and rumors but you along side “The Secret Reports” and “Pajama Let’s Play” are on a different level when it comes to theories and explanations. Keep doing you!
HMK is a joke. People like this are Order of Etro level. These are my kind of people. Those who think in the deep waters. Those who see the whole, final picture, and Nomura's endgame -- the return of the VERSUS EPIC.
It could be that Scala ad Caelum is not itself a memory, but rather that the Scala ad Caelum that we see in 3 is Xehanort's memory of Scala and the Scala that Yen Sid sends Mickey to is the real Scala.
Yo to fix his chain of memories Sora had to sleep And the guardian’s hearts were locked in chains during the Lich trials Naminé boutta be really important in the series
I would say that Namine’s ability only extends to Sora’s memory and those closest to him… however, In KH3RM, Sora learns to trace the connection of the other Guardians of Light’s Hearts because, All Hearts Are Connected. Essentially, no matter the person, they can be linked to everyone exponentially. If Namine can tap into this potential, then Yes, I could absolutely see Namine becoming much more powerful as a Memory Witch. (Nomura withstanding)
So about Yozora. Don't know how much of this actually matters but Noctis' dreams used to be a big plot point in versus and are still canon in the final game. They are like alternate realities. For example during 15 he has a dream about the omen trailer where he went alone on his journey, and later when Luna dies they talk through Noctis' dream, and she even says "a chance to speak with you once more, who would have thought", and then takes a notice of the flowers around them saying he still remembers them. In platinum demo carbuncle straight up says in your dreams you are king.
The projection of Shibuya we see in the Yozora boss fight is strikingly similar to how Scala and Toy Box are desolate and empty. Same thing with the Lich trails as we fight through empty versions of worlds we've already been to. YX made a "copy" of Toy Box where he separated the toys from Andy. He did the same thing in Traverse Town (a sleeping world) where he made two versions of it and separated the TWEWY gang. Pair this with how we access Scala via dream portal and something fishy is definitely going on here. I think the secret ending shows Riku during his dreams as he describes them to Fairy Godmother, being watched from above in a city. Sora wakes up in an empty version of Shibuya, too. Yozora totally connects to others via dreams somehow. It's pretty obvious why with Sora, but as for him connecting to Riku's dreams, that might need to be saved for another video lol
I figured the reason why Quadratum is seemingly empty is because it could be that it was created by the dreams/hopes of the people from the χ-era. Like Ansem says it's a fictional world and lat. fictiō means to shape/to form. And since they're all either dead or asleep in the data (and "data cannot dream" - YX, DDD) there are no citizens anymore. Maybe it was a sort of refuge for them with all the darkness and hate stuff going on, a better place in their minds. Similar to how Traverse Town is a refuge for people who's worlds where lost to darkness but not that the χ people went there after the war but as in how in dreams one is in a "different" world.
@@maryscary That's a really interesting take! MoM also says something similar to Luxu in the control room where he says the hearts of children create worlds or something to that effect.
Red eyes representing sleep is something I've never thought of. Something to add to the Power of Awakening/Sleep dynamic is how Destati is Italian for awaken and Somnus is well , Latin for Sleep. The constant mirroring/parallels between are so layered between Sora and Yozora.
lol It's like what I said in the end: "I think Dream Eaters will play a huge role in the upcoming saga. The nightmare is not over. It never was. My friends -- the nightmares has only just begun."
Here's a detail. "I wondered here by accident(he fell asleep) and went threw many trials." Yozora is a keyblade weilder that has yet to be chosen. And, yes, in Dream Drop Distance. Sora falls into the darkness via the power of awakening. That's why he has the journey with Young Xehanort. He begins to teeter on the edge of death. Which is why the Sora replicas come out. And Roxas sends him back before its too late.
Regarding Timeless River, the main trio did indeed went into the past because it was Merlin himself who opened a door for them to time travel. Now, it may seem like it is breaking what was set up later on regarding time travel... That's because it is. Merlin is just that good of a wizard that even Young Xehanort noted about it.
This honestly seems plausible lol. Antagonists have often noted the power/knowledge of Disney characters like Maleficent, Yen Sid, Merlin etc. With Fairy Godmother taking Riku/Kairi to the Final World, it isn't entirely impossible. Merlin even conjures a place that isn't affected by time so Kairi and Lea can train, so we know he has some sort of control over time. The only strange thing is that a version of the door to the Timeless River appears for Pete too. We see through his eyes how it happened. Regardless, it isn't very well explained.
@@SonnyNovus It is the Power of Imagination combined with wishing. Fairy Godmother both provides Magic for dreams as in sleep dreams (Subconscious fantasy) and goals ( willing of the Heart). Imagination is also used by the TWEWY gang.
This makes way too much sense to not be pure fact, had me engaged every second with the quality editing and great commentary, really loved this video, definitely earned a sub from me!
I think the heartless being in the sleeping worlds in KH3 is more easily explained than you think. And that has to do with the fact that Sora isn't using the power of waking in it's typical fashion. Normally one uses the power to traverse hearts to reach sleeping worlds, while Sora uses it to traverse worlds to reach sleeping hearts. In the first case, the world's themselves are in the realm of sleep and he is traveling to them, hence why heartless cannot appear. However, in the second case, he is traversing the world's hearts to reach people's hearts. The worlds here are not in the realm of sleep, they are in a complete state, and even the hearts of the worlds hold darkness, allowing heartless to appear without issue. The heartless in Scala only appear in Re:Mind, when Sora is once again abusing the power of waking to reach Kairi's heart, traversing through the world of Scala, allowing heartless to appear once more. Although, I still do think Sora has also reached an unchained state at this point as well, which may play into why heartless appear, despite this being Sora traveling to a sleeping world of the past in this case. On a side tangent/theory, I think the wording of the Master of Master's on the creation of nightmares is a very key detail provided based on the latest chapter of Union X. He specifically notes "When a wielder is overcome by Malice", before correcting himself with "tainted by darkness, nightmares are born". I think here he isn't referring to Malice as just an emotion, but I think it also means Malice as a name of one of the 6 willful Darknesses. The willful darknesses seek to infect people with their darkness to control them and retain their will until they can regain their form. I think each of the willful darknesses are responsible for the creation of one of the creatures of darkness, which serve as their specific means to spread their infection of darkness. In a literal sense of what MoM's saying, is that when Malice takes control or spreads his kind of darkness to people, nightmares are created. I also don't think it's a coincidence, that the first instance of a nightmare happens in Unchained timeline, where later Malificent (whose name is derived from malice) escapes with one of the darknesses using her as the vessel to reach the main kh worldline. Furthermore, Maleficent has powers over the dominion of sleep and is capable of putting people to sleep and even controlling them in their sleep as she did with Terra. Vanitas creates unversed, manifestations of negative emotion. Malice creates nightmares, and two unknown darkness's make up the heartless of purebreds and emblems respectively. This would account for 4 out of the six dark creatures. As for the last two, I think dark data/memories may also be another of the way one of the darknesses manifests itself, with the blox of recoded being their main form but also allowing them to take on other forms such as the heartless in COM who are created through memories, and the data heartless, who are the memories Sora has of fighting that were recorded into the journal. As for the last one, I believe it has yet to be introduced, and will probably show up in Quadratum as their heartless counterpart enemy to beat up.
Yeah, Sora's misuse of the Power of Waking might have something to do with all of this. However, as stated in the video, YX says "You nearly buried yourself in the dark of sleep, and now you're at it again?" which is a callback to the events of DDD, but the line implies Sora is going dream by dream again, much to his confusion. The Lich is described as not being like other Heartless, and if the Final World is where sleep and death touch and the Lich ushers hearts from the realm of death into darkness, then it seems like the Lich is just a grand exception, much like Ansem SOD. I've heard of the "Malice" theory quite a lot recently and I think it's something worth looking into for myself. It is very odd how the MoM abruptly corrects himself and rephrases his statement in a way which his students can understand clearly, which means that the MoM is more comfortable referring to it as "Malice" rather than "Darkness". Although the word malice in his statement isn't capitalized, which could mean that it isn't referring to anything/anyone specifically, but that's just playing devil's advocate. But addressing your point about Nightmares; the MoM is specifically describing Nightmare Chirithies, not Nightmares in general. Regular Nightmares have nothing to do with Keyblade wielders, whereas Chirithies are special Nightmares specifically chained to their wielders, which is why one being tainted by darkness would effect them. This is why I think Ventus' Chirithy is in the Final World in KH3. We now know that Vanitas is inside of Ven, which means his heart is tainted by darkness. All it takes is for Vanitas to take over and Ven's Chirithy is a Nightmare, so it could be the final battle in UX and the Dandelions have to put it down which would explain it being in the Final World. Just a thought. Or perhaps Luxu does it for them, which is the origins for Ven's "angry look". Who knows? lol
@@SonnyNovus That last part about Luxu taking down the chirthy, just made me remember Xigbar's line to Xion in days when she appears as ventus to him: "Of all the faces... Why do I look at her and see yours? Do you always have to stare at me like I just drowned your goldfish?"
Riku was a DreamEater and his eyes didn't change... if I wasn't so partial to your theory of Yozoras other blue eye being "the gazing eye" I'd speculate that Yozoras resemblance to Riku and the one Red Eye could be something to do with a possible nightmare/dreameater hybrid, but that's a super loose speculation.
I just want to add this, but I think red eyes signify "Malice", or hate. As you mentioned, Darkness isn't inherently evil, thus Heartless having Yellow eyes. But when Heartless become angry, such as the Demon Tide and Tower bosses, their eyes glow red-orange. Vanitas's Unversed are beings of Malice, and the Nightmares are Dream Eaters converted by Malice. Thus I think Yellow Eyes = Darkness, while Red Eyes = Malice/Hate on top of that I also want to add that the Xehanort portal was explicitly confirmed to just be a Time portal, not a Dream portal. A "portal" in KH is exactly what it sounds like- a link from one point to another. Due to Ansem SoD passing that link to Young Xehanort, Xehanort himself became a portal for his other selves to traverse through, and he existed as that portal for the rest of his life. I don't fully understand the mechanics of it, but the Scala from KH3 really was just in the past, and not a memory or dream. Knowing this, a pink portal doesn't inherently mean that the portal is a dream portal. I think the colors, as of now, are purely for gameplay differentiation, such as the blue challenge portals. The only exception seems to be the World portals that appear in DDD, such as the purple one to TWTNW and Sora's Dark dream. The Scala portal being through Time also makes better sense of how Heartless & Nobodies could exist, but not necessarily why they would be there, assuming they're even real.
Yeah, I've seen that theory floating around that "Darkness" and "Malice" are different things, and I'd like to see where that goes. The fact that MoM says "If a wielder is overcome by malice -- or rather if their heart is tainted by darkness" is an odd way of retreading and correcting yourself
Dream eaters and nightmares are basically nobodies and heartless if the person had a chirithi. Dream eaters are like cocoons for the keyblade weirders from the chiriti, and I think it’s possible that these keyblade weirders that have had chiriti with them could potentially return in the future of KH
Perhaps the reason for the Lights' variety of eye color is because green and blue in the past and in many (old) languages, they are the same color. Anyway, another excellent theory once again. And also it explains the whole weirdness of KH3 and Re:Mind? Like I didn't get how it all worked, but _now,_ now I do.
Yessss, I’m so glad you touched on this! I’ve been increasingly interested in the place of dreams in the narrative, and the concept of being unchained+the fact that YXN and the khux player connected to each other multiple times through dreams have had me scouring for information about this and you’ve given me so much to consider on it! Amazing job!
What I'm still not entirely sure of is the connection part of the unchained state. In union x, when the unchained state is mentioned by Ava, Ephemer seems to be able to connect with people he has a bond with: Skuld and the player. It makes me wonder if you're only able to pinpoint connections to people you had a connection with in the unchained state. It would make sense, having no connection to any realm would be like a limbo where you can't touch anything. However, perhaps you can contact people in any of the realms, regardless of time or place, as long as you have a direct connection to them. I've always had a hypothesis that Sora is the player reborn. I'm not sure if anyone else thought that, as I've never seen it brought up personally. And that's why we're always playing as Sora, because we're essentially him in another form. That would help explain why Ephemer was able to contact Sora specifically, because he had a prior established connection before the player likely fell to darkness, died, and was reborn as Sora. Would also make sense why Sora can weild Starlight's form, and he can weild forth wall breaking keyblades like that 711 keyblade etc, since the player has a connection with that. It just sounds like a Nomura thing he would do lol, even making promotional keyblades as canon. 🤣 I also like to headcanon that Strelitzia was reborn as Kairi, as that would give her romantic closure... she would become a part of the player's life just like she wanted. But all of that is still iffy of course until Union X officially ends. It's just fun stuff I've been thinking lol.
I've always thought of the eye color of KH original characters who have, had, or will have power as a sign of alignment: Blue: *Light* with examples including the pure Kairi, the hero Sora, and at first the intended hero Riku. Green: *Neutral* or *Mixed* with examples including the assassin Axel, present day "Light and Dark" Riku, and the largely cold scientist Vexen. Yellow: *Darkness* with the prime example being the Xehanorts.
Xehanort's natural silver eyes could symbolize neutrality too. Ansem the Wise's natural eye color is amber, which could symbolize someone on the border of darkness. Ephemer and Eraqus' eyes look like they could be a dull blue or silver depending on the lighting...I really can't tell. And Braig and Apprentice Xehanort's eyes are brown, symbolizing how full of shit they are.
@@realJoeMavro Perhaps I should've left Green as just *Mixed.* Just change Vexen from "largely cold" to "ethically dubious". The brown eyes would be categorized as a dulled amber on the color scale. Anyway, new theory for Xehanort's original silver eyes (spacer for those not finished with Union Cross and who aren't up to date on Dark Road): Xehanort is the reincarnation of "Player" (whatever that entails), the closest thing to a true blank slate protagonist in the series since they're meant to represent whichever irl person is playing that account. Sure "Player" has at most a handful of lines across all of X, Unchained X, and Union Cross and they do have to follow the events of the story but who they actually are as a character as they do so is almost entirely left for us the player to self-insert or roleplay. I say "almost" only because of those rare instances when "Player" speaks. To quote part of what Young Xehanort said as he traversed the Corridor of Darkness to leave Destiny Islands: "That was the moment *something began to grow in my Heart.* I'd soon learn that in keeping to this path, this Corridor of Darkness, *no Heart could help but become drenched in Darkness.* Regardless of where these foul emotions were coming from, they gave me comfort. *They helped me realize that my Heart could still feel."* So my theory is that Silver eyes represents having no affiliation since Xehanort had none until Darkness eventually swayed/corrupted him. Before somebody says "But the original Organization members were all Nobodies which are Nothing not Light and/or Darkness and their eyes weren't Silver" I'll point out that not only is Nothing also an affiliation which may or may not share the Silver eye coloration of having no affiliation but also that their Somebodies did have an affiliation and what made the Organization members special was that they retained their original form as Nobodies due to their strong Heart. Every single Organization member whose Somebody we've seen (except Saix because of Xehanort) shares their Somebody's Eye Color so they can't count as a counter example to my theory.
Sorta makes the whole rage form and the fact that it's pretty much the final attack in 3 really interesting. Especially considering the sleeping realm theory. (Feel free to pick at that, it's of a bit dubious point.)
What you call a Nightmare, I call a Taboo Noise. Red eyes? Red Skull O-Pins, Taboo Noise, and Berserk Reapers. Unchained Realm? The various "grounds" of the Underground, in which higher vibe beings can travel between parallel worlds. Sleep and Death being linked? Joshua is a Reaper re-assembling souls from a doomed Shibuya, whose job is to preside over the dead and determine who gets to come back to life, and he just 'happens' to stumble across Sora and Riku in a sleeping world, while remarking that they don't have to abide by the rules of the Reaper's Game? Why would that be necessary, unless they were in a deathlike state? Even the concept of worlds and hearts falling into darkness, somewhat mirrors the concept of 'Inversion', or 'Erasure'. There are a surprising amount of analogues between TWEWY reality-mechanics and KH ones, just at first glance.
Absolutely! Throw in Fabula Nova Crystallis into the mix too with an ancient war of light and darkness, the Gazing Eye being like the Eye of Etro which also sees into the future etc.
I was under the impression that Scala was a sleeping world, made sleeping to imprison something and the land of departure was what at that point remained of the world. As far as what was imprisoned, I figured that it was Venetas (or a being similar to him), but he was able to escape by attaching himself to Ventus and letting himself out, which lead directly to Norts actions. As far as the heartless being in there I think that they were already there, trapped and waiting to be rereleased. But hey, I ain't got much to back myself up here
well, to be fair about yensid being possibly wrong; He said how Nobodies have no hearts and any semblance of emotion is an act. Then Xemnas said "yeah, l lied and he and all of you bought it" so..... he's been wrong before, he can be again.
This is exactly why Yen Sid is one of the most detested characters in the series. He has these long exposition dumps and is built up to be this master who bestows deep wisdom to his pupils, but he is conveniently written to only know enough to a point where it's only convenient to the present plot at hand. As the audience, we rely on Yen Sid to explain story elements and plot mechanics because Xehanort and other antagonists are vague and cryptic. So for him to be wrong and contradicted by basic things a "master" should know is just awful lol
@@SonnyNovus l didn't even know he was detested XD. I just see it as the plot bending to Xehanorts will. I mean, all this stuff is said, remember time travel? You talked about it a bit. Timeless river isn't really a "WORLD", its the past, and changing it can effect the future. But suddenly Xehanort has his dollar store, l can't believe its not quantum physics time travel, where you absolutely CANNOT change what will happen, and plus you need to give up your form. Honestly, l watching YX explain time travel and all the stuff you can't do, while looking at Merlin dancing around with his actual travel to the past and change stuff time travel, which Yensid also didn't talk about while in 3DS. Its like a LOT of 3ds was meant to dismiss a lot of 2, but a lot of two put in ironclad facts.
In the original draft for versus 13. Noctis was supposed to have the power of dreaming. He was supposed to travel to other worlds. This got scrapped. But seams like kh is brining this idea back.
Me watching this a week ago: Hmm this is an interesting take on dream eaters, I would love to know more about them. Me watching this after the Union cross finale: HOLY SH*T DREAM EATERS ARE DEAD PEOPLE!!!!
@@GIRru11technically speaking they are both. The chirithy took their hearts into themselves, and that’s what turned them into the other dream eater forms. So really, they are much the chirithy as they are the key blade wielders.
and adding on to that, because the wielders perish, so do their Chirithies who share the same fate so while they protect their wielder's hearts, they bodies perish and become Dream Eaters :)
Oh man, I literally jumped in my seat when I saw this new upload. I've seen people throwing around the word 'Unchained' for a long time but I never really understood what it meant. I thought it was like an ascended final form of some kind, but it being a realm not chained like the rest makes waaay more sense. Thanks for another great analysis video, man! You fill the void in this current KH news dry season :D
Bro this theory is AMAZING. You've kinda opened my eyes tbh. Everything linking together and coming full circle like this never fails to give me chills in the best possible way. But I do have a couple questions: 1. Rage Form also has red eyes. And is also canon thanks to Xehanort forcing Sora into Rage Form during the final battle. Me and a few other people have taken this as evidence that perhaps the present Vanitas still rests within Sora's heart even after Ven has healed independently and left as, like you said, Unversed also have red eyes and those are tied to emotions (i.e. Rage). But you also said that red eyes tend to have ties with dreams and sleep. So would you say that red eyes of Rage form could mean something in the greater scheme of things tying into sleep and dreams? As you mentioned that Vanitas is heavily implied to be much more ancient than previously believed thanks to Khux. 2. I've always been of the idea that data and dreams/sleep are kinda the same thing, except Sleep is natural and data is artificial. This is why Ansem the Wise can hide data in Sora's heart, because Sleep is clearly connected to Stations of Awakening and also sleep as you said in the video. Plus you can do mostly the same things in both, such as have easy access to the realm of light, darkness, and inbetween, which is why Sora and pals use the data twilight town to access the World that Never Was and Sora and Riku can access this place as well in the realm of sleep in DDD (this can also lead credence somewhat to the reason why Data Sora in Re:Coded was able to grow his own heart, because sleep and data are linked and sleep is linked to hearts.) And as of the newest update to KHUX, Ephemer and pals are stuck in the data world of Daybreak Town. And since sleep and data are the same thing and the Unchained state is linked to dreams, is it possible that present Ephemer used the Unchained state from the data daybreak town to contact Sora and Yozora? Anyway, GREAT video. Def earned a subscribe from me!
Well thank you for the kind words!! I'm glad you enjoyed the video. I don't make these to disprove or discredit, but rather to promote ideas and get the gears moving for people, so I'm glad it had that effect on you. 1. When researching what entities had red eyes, I found a few interesting cases. Dark Hide, for example, the secret episode boss in BBSFM. Even though it's a Pureblood Heartless, it's eyes glow red which is EXTREMELY rare for any other Heartless. It also has chains dangling on its ankles. When defeated, Aqua then finds herself traversing worlds fallen to darkness. Sleeping worlds. A small handful of Heartless have chains, but that's usually due to world motifs such as anchors of a pirate ship and whatnot. The Search Ghosts from Halloween Town were an interesting example; they have a single eye dangling from a chain out of its socket. When they spot you, their eye glows red. When we're introduced to them for the first time, they submissive and only respond to the Mayor and Jack Skelington... who is the King of Nightmares. Again, a lot of this is cool to point out and all but it kinda just ends there and doesn't lead anywhere, so I decided to leave it out. Nomura definitely made it apparent that Rage form and Anti form are two different things; Anti form is darkness (yellow eyes) and Rage form is negative emotions (red glow). However, when looking at Rage form, it appears to me that the eyes are still yellow but they definitely have a red glow. I don't think Vanitas is inside of Sora, but I still don't know what it means other than it being a stylistic choice. If it were related to sleep, they would've straight up given him Nightmare eyes, so I don't think they're related. 2. That's on the right track! However, we know that "dreams hold our memories", so I think data and memories are connected rather than data and dreams. This is all a technicality of course, they're all related, but I think your description is more indicative of data and memories being together.
@@SonnyNovus Thanks for taking the time to respond! 1. Interesting, so would you say that the yellow eyes with a red glow is more symbolic of Sora using his negative emotions to access his darkness as Rage form rather than just using his darkness alone in Anti-form then? Of course, like you said, it could just be a stylistic choice but it's something to think about. 2. Data and memories being together. Hmmm, so would that mean Ansem the Wise stored the data in Sora's heart as a memory or, with how its told to us in KH3, a journal log? Journals/diaries are technically physical forms of memories, which would tie back into Re:Coded as they use the journal of Sora's first adventure (Aka Memories of Sora's first adventure). And they used part of Roxas's data from the digital Twilight town, aka his Memories of the digital Twilight Town, to make up part of Roxas's replica body before his real heart entered it. Actually, yeah! Data and Memories being similar or even the same makes a ton of sense like that!
He is accessing the power of Chaos, the power of the Goddess Etro, and the ability to see the light of expiring souls. The same reason Versus Noctis' eyes glow red when he activates this power. Death and dreams both overlap one another and are considered a hair away, practically a part of the same realm.
I've been trying to make a fanfic universe of the "Kingdom Hearts" saga. And after A LOT of research of the saga's lore, its fanfics, the lore of "Once Upon A Time" and the original Greek mythology...I think I am ready to start writing it.
awesome video! It really reignited my fire to theorize about the KH Lore and how everything we know connects :D more importantly I now have a rather wild thought, about the power of waking and being 'unchained'. Firstly we have to understand what the 'power of waking' really is, it was stated by YX that it is a power used for "traversing hearts to reach worlds, not for traversing worlds to reach hearts". Buy why is it then called 'power of waking' - its a power to free a sleeping heart or rather to awake a sleeping heart. I may misunderstood some things in KH3, but if i recall correctly, our main group got wiped and in order to prevent this from happening, Sora dove into different stages/worlds freeing the chained hearts by the Lich. Now understanding that Sleep & Death each are a side of the same coin, 'waking up a sleeping heart' now has a rather different meaning. 'Power of waking' can now be translated as 'Power of reviving'. Well since it's established what the 'power of waking' really means, lets think about an 'unchained' being. An 'unchained' being doesnt exist in any world or realm. It's a being erased from existence, since it's unbound, freed or released by the laws and chains of each individual realm. Therefore 'unchained' beings can 'pop into existence' and reach out a helping hand to those near their 'unchained' realm. Its like a 5th dimension to our 4D world, we cant see the 5th dimension, but ppl from there can see us. Maybe something like Reality Unreality? So Sora overusing the power of waking results in turning him into an 'unchained' being. Sora who now is lost, founds himself in the city of Quadratum. Mirroring the beginning of KH1, in which a lost Sora founds himself in Traverse Town, a world, in the realm of Between. Maybe Quadratum is the same, but a Realm of Unreality for beings that transcended. Coming back to YXs statement, there definitly has to be a hint to unravel. It kinda feels like a loop to me, ppl traversing hearts to reach different worlds. MX and Luxu literally overtook/traverse different hearts/humans to surive/outlast their lives and time. So we can assume that being 'unchained' means being out of the loop (or tap into the loop and manipulate it).
Coming late to the new video but still so worth it. Its like watching a kh documentary and not a theory at all! I had a lot of things to say too but not gonna lie; my brain recognised the Rayman 3 soundtrack and now it's in nostalgia city. You're choices in music an ambiance keep amazing me just as equally as the theories.
Wouldn’t surprise me if Sora gets consumed by darkness and pulls a Naruto and accepts his shadow and brings it to resemble the light like the dream eater Spirits
Yeah for sure, since Memory and Sleep are connected, it would make sense for Namine to have powers that coincide with both. I think she'll play a big role in the next saga too
I loved this theory and the composition of the video, the music choices and you have a soothing voice! Subscribed! Also would love to see an updated version with what we know now of KHUX!
Another amazing video. Your presentation is unmatched. Also I love your taste in music. I noticed your use of Heavenly Garden. I wish there were more content creators like you making in depth lore videos on my all time favorite game, Final Fantasy XIV.
Love your videos! The CoM part got me thinking- if the heartless inside the world cards are pulled from Sora’s memory then why do new heartless, like those flower ones, appear? Anyways this video has so many good points to think about.
Thanks for the kinds kind words!! I'm glad you enjoy them. Also yeah, there are three heartless that don't appear in KH1, so that's a good point. In this game it is stated that "In the castle, everything Sora's and his friends' encounter will be based on their memories. As they lose memories, they will uncover new ones in the process.". We know that Twilight Town is a world in the game, but that isn't Sora's memories, those are Roxas'. So it could be that some Heartless are from his adventures later in the series rather than Sora's. Still a good point, though.
Doesn't Days happen roughly at the same time as CoM? And if I remember correctly, you encounter the plant enemies (and one as a boss) before Axel and the CoM Nobodies head to Castle Oblivion, which means, since Roxas and Sora are (understandably) connected, could explain how they got there in CoM. Right?
I have said forever Anti Black Coat Nightmare is a Version of Darkness, the Darkness, created by Sora's fear of Xehanort. It's body is shaped like Xehanort, and attacks like him when its feet touch the ground. Dark Chirithy is the Darkness (the character) shaped by the Player's darkness through Guilt and Sin. Also, they both have the same boss theme. I think Mirror Aqua is also a Darkness. It you listen to its quotes, it basically saying Aqua should give up, because no one cares, and Aqua is worthless. (Psychologically Warfare). Then, when Aqua becomes Anti Aqua , she looks like a incomplete Darkling, the things Nightmare Chirithy makes. And Darkness steals Ventus' Memories of Lauriam Sister's murder. They literally pull the memories out of his head. But when the union leaders "see" Darkness they come back. The Light of Sight undoes the veil Darkness created.
I actually had parts in my script referencing this stuff but I ultimately cut them out in the end because it was just 16 minutes comparing and contrasting and going on a tangent. But yes! I don't think they're "Darkness" entities like Vanitas (I have my own theory about that and I want to wait until after UX finishes to work on it lol) but I always thought Anti Black Coat was peculiar. During his fight, he will sometimes attack you with an "X" consisting of red chains. This could either represent the Recusant's Sigil haunting Sora, or it could be the ancient "Chi" symbol taken form. That theme song I think will be a big staple going forward for major Nightmare/Darkling boss fights. The boss Dark Hide from BBSFM, even though a Pureblood Heartless, has eyes that glow red (INCREDIBLY rare among Heartless) and chains attached to its ankles. After we defeat it, we are then brought to worlds fallen to darkness. Sleeping worlds. The mirror Aqua looks into is pretty much completely gold, except there's a red pendant below the frame, and we know red is synonymous with sleep. if Dark Chirithies (Nightmares) corrupt their wielders, then the mirror might've been using Nightmare powers to literally personify Aqua's greatest fears. That area was always strange, because it's all original architecture with nothing to draw back on. There are books everywhere, it looks like a lab of wizardry and alchemy, awfully close to the MoM's room in the clock tower of Daybreak Town.
@@SonnyNovus Darkness is always trying to make more of themselves, like the Virus. I think anything with Anti in its name is Darkness influenced, an Inverse. Mirror Aqua is basically the prototype of Anti Aqua. The Mirror rooms are based on the Evil Queen's alchemist chamber and demon familar's Mirror.
@@Fragmentsinfractals488 It's funny because in the game she's called "Phantom Aqua", and the only other time that term is used is for Phantom Ursula in the beginning of DDD... Which is a prelude to the Sleeping Realm... hmm... Regardless, all this means is that Darkness and Sleep are undeniably connected
I think the only thing Sora truly fears is losing Riku and Kairi, but you're onto something regarding the Anti being connected to Xehanort. It uses what look like dark versions of Young Xehanort's energy blades and the prototype for Ansem's dark claw attack from KH3, so they may have created it or found a way to tame it and infused their own powers into it.
my reccomended blessed me today. watched both your videos and I love it, this is the KH content I was looking for. take my subscription you magnificent khtuber
Amazing video dude! I loved every second of it, amazing editing and narration. Everything made so much sense! A small addition to everything you mentioned about Yen Sid potentially being wrong/not knowing of the unchained realm... the very first example of heartless showing up within the realm of sleep isnt even in KH3... its in DDD! Ansem was along for the ride there the whole time, and showed up multiple times through the adventure, and we often forget that he himself is a heartless, a special one maybe, but a heartless nonetheless!
If you like KH Theories, what if I told you that... 1: Ansem was *right* about the Heart’s “true nature?” ...and... 2: Sora had more *control* over the *Darkness* than you might’ve thought?
What if the heartless can't access dreams, but can access death? It'd explain a few things. They enter Memories when they cannot go through Dreams because they simply took the path of Death. That's also why it can access the Dive into the Heart and Final World. Dive into the Heart seems to be implied to be Sora "crossing over" to death briefly, therefore letting the Heartless peek in, while the Final World is death itself. As for Ansem in DDD, it was stated that he took Riku's body. What if that bypasses the laws that prevent heartless from preventing him from touching Dreams, as the universe sees a heart inside a body and checks it off?
That's where the semantics of sleep and death come in. Dives to the Heart and Stations of Awakening are all confirmed to be dreams, thus within the Realm of Sleep. Chirithy says that occasionally when Sora enters his Station of Awakening, he briefly passes the Final World (Realm of Death) but Chirithy lets it slide. Even though sleep and death are separated by a fine line, the line is still there. I think Ansem might be a "special case" like the Lich. The Lich's sole purpose is to usher hearts from the Realm of Death to the depths of darkness, but still doesn't explain how it can summon lesser heartless like Neoshadows. It also doesn't explain why we fight Shadows and a Darkside in the beginning of the game, where the Lich is nowhere to be seen. If we assume that Ansem is a special case, what about The Guardian? Is it allowed to bypass the laws of sleep because it uses Ansem as a kind of proxy? If Heartless can't be in the Sleeping Realm, I'd assume Nobodies can't either as we never see them in DDD, save for Xemnas. We know Xemnas has a heart, and hearts can dream. This allows him to have access to the Sleeping Realm. Since Ansem is a strong Heartless, possibly the strongest and most sentient Heartless of all, perhaps his willpower alone allows him to bypass the rule.
@@SonnyNovus out of curiosity, do these same factors apply to Roxas' fights against Dusks and Twilight Thorn in *his* Dive into the Heart? Do you think he was still inside the world of Data, or that for a moment he moved to the Realm of Sleep for those dreams?
Just found your channel today due too looking for some tips on spirits and how to optimize them. I had to subscribe, you pointed out so many things that flew over my head. The yellow eyes thing shocked me as I sifted through my own memories to see if you were right. My mind was blown, it was such a simple connection that I failed to make, the fact that I got used to the heartless’ eyes probably played a factor my ignorance. I also kind of noticed a correlation between Heartless and Hollows from Bleach, specifically a correlation to White. That Hollow has yellow eyes and a hole where the heart should be, and turns Ichigo’s eyes yellow when ever he draws power from white. This is mostly a coincidence, but it’s a coincidence that I relish. There are other small similarities between the two series, but too minor to draw any conclusions.
I bet that "Unchained state" is also Nomura's in-universe justification for there being medals you can equip of characters that have nothing to do with the events of KH. He's definitely the kind of guy who would bother to cover that. With Sora being unchained and brushing up against the realm of fiction, does that mean he's free to access a realm where Cloud, Sephiroth, and many others are trophy figures come to life?
3 things: 1.) Using Heavenly Garden from Tekken Tag Tournament 2 when talking about The Final World was pretty fitting with that feeling of intrigue, serenity and mystery. 2.) Nice research and pointing out all the dialogue, visuals, etc. It's really eye opening (awakening?) 3.) This hits different after that KHUX final update. 🤯
i think all that's happened in kh , union x and the DLC in kh3 defo confirms the possibility that the next game in going to be based in the realm of sleep. maybe we might see the return of dark cirithy ( ik i spelt it wrong )
Love this theory overall, you did a fantastic job with editing and explaining it coherently. One thing though is that I'm hesitant to believe anything of what Yen Sid says as he's been wrong about a lot of things throughout the series (Nobodies being unable to feel and passing that prejudice onto Sora etc). I can't really take him seriously in that regard, but that could also be because DDD has fried my brain so much from all the concepts it introduced.
yensi tells sora what sora has to believe in order for him to work as yensid wants. yensid pulls the strings of the heroes and shouldnt even be considered a good guy at this point. yensid is more neutral.
This is going to sound really weird, but I like your use of Silent Hill music in these theory videos. Both Kingdom Hearts and Silent Hill seem to have surprisingly similar themes and the titular town itself and the Darkness, as you describe, both are somewhat similar. The Darkness and Heartless taking on the shapes of things that people find inherently terrifying, and same thing with some Dream Eaters.(Though, it seems to be a matter of perspective with Dream Eaters. Such as one person finding Dinosaurs in a dream to be terrifying, while others find it cool and amazing.) Silent Hill itself creates monsters based around the fears, sins, and doubts of those who enter it. Like James' monsters in Silent Hill 2, and how most of them represent things he regretted, feared, or hated. Hell, the Darkside heartless could be Sora's "Pyramid Head", guiding him to where he's meant to go when he's needed there. Also, the town isn't inherently evil, just as some aspects of Darkness might not be evil. In it's raw form, it just depends on how its used and who uses it. Idk, I think you using the funky spooky music is cool, your videos do far are cool, and I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors. :) Also, did you use some Drakengard 1 music?
Silent Hill is my favourite video game series next to Kingdom Hearts! In a different world (one where Konami's ignorance did't lead to the series' death), I would've been making Silent Hill theories, although a lot of it is beating a dead horse at this point. I thank you for enjoying the video and I hope to see you around for more! My new video should be out sometime next week or so. And no, I don't think I know about Drakengard
@@SonnyNovus Thanks, and I'll absolutely be here for that! Honestly, its kinda hard to find people who take a fairly...realistic(for lack of a better word) approach to looking at the Kingdom Hearts series. It makes looking back at the series truly more fascinating. And I feel that. Honestly, I've been wanting to stream some of the Silent Hill games on my Twitch channel at some point when I have better internet, but I doubt I'd have anything more interesting to say that other people haven't said before. Well, at least Kingdom Hearts is just as interesting, and just as delightfully confusing. :) Also, your videos made me think about...well... Just how much of the games was planned from the beginning. Everything slots together surprisingly well, even with the confusing laws of time travel. I wanted to bring a theory to your attention that I saw a while back regarding the first OrgXIII. It stated that most of the members were chosen due to them having had strong hearts in their past lives that were *capable* to wield a Keyblade, but could not for one reason or another. Hence why their weapons seem to have similar basic properties(some sort of elemental alignment, specializing in magic, attack, or defense more, being able to be summoned or willed away, and each weapon being one more aligned with each individual's personality types.) I don't remember where I read this, but it does make sense. Especially in the case of Axel, Marluxia, and Larxene. One of them couldnt summon his keyblade until after he was recompleted, and the other two couldnt even remember that they had keyblades to begin with, and how they got them.
Amazing Video :) So Excited To Watch Your Videos :) Really Appreciate/Thankful Of Your Videos And I Can See How Much You Put In Making Them To Be Perfection :)
It feels to me like the worlds of Daybreak Town (and Scala Ad Caelum), Radiant Garden and Twilight Town are something like Nobodies. Each time one falls to darkness, the metaphysical heart of that world will slumber, but the physical world emerges without a heart and without people. Initially, it is populated by Heartless, but eventually, they will disappear and be replaced by people with hearts that slowly generate a new heart for that world. However, it is possible to recover worlds lost to darkness, which means that now the world and their doubles will live side by side; similar, but different.
I tend to think that the Lich is but one of many extremely special heartless... It beckons the question if Heartless within the realm of darkness could possibly have evolved even further in order to be able to surpass their own realm and access the realm of sleep... As the Lich is EXTREMELY smart as seen knowing it can target specific keyblade wielders and usher their hearts into the abyss... It seems like one of those heartless that have existed long ago, since ancient times as a being who claimed hearts that were swallowed by Darkness, and became attracted to hearts of light in later years.
I had a random thought after watching the video and looking at the comments. Aqua sees Terra in RoD the way she remembers him. Sora sees Yozora the way he remembers him. This kinda reminds me of Xion, she also has this gimmick of looking different depending on the memories of the viewer, Roxas sees her looking like Kairi due to Sora's memories and Xigbar looks at her like Ventus. Also interesting she's No. i, imaginary, you could say fictional even? :o
@@SonnyNovus Even in KH1, Jack Skellington's Ghostly Scream spell is classified as "dark" and he's one of the purest characters there is. And let's not forget Cloud trying to exploit the power of darkness and using those same powers against Sora in the Hades cup with no apparent ramifications. So from the very beginning, darkness was never inherently evil.
@@realJoeMavro I mean it's clear that being "possessed" or "tainted" by darkness has a negative connotation. Darkness has always been what we fight against, the source of all evil. Maleficent wanting to rule with it, Aqua being corrupted by it etc. Of course from a meta standpoint we know that it's a lot more nuanced as a player, but for the characters within the most primal senses of the themes in the series: Light = good, dark = bad. Realm of darkness sucks and is a dangerous prison, realm of light is the opposite.
8:39 - No original human character, no. However, there _is_ one character that should be mentioned here. One who died, then came back later claiming he was instead just unconscious (sleeping). Goofy. True, he normally doesn't have red eyes. But visit Monstropolis and take another look - his form there reveals the truth. One blue eye, and one red eye. From death to sleep, then from there back to the realm of light. (Mostly tongue-in-cheek, but given the insanity that is this series...)
Literally everything about this video is done perfectly. You've placed video references when talking about them, gave us a good picture detailing your conclusions on where darkness, sleep/death and memories. I'm impressed. Please continue to do these type of videos! You've certainly got a knack for it!!!! 🙏
Mickey isn’t the only character connected to memory, Kairi kinda has a even stronger connection to it, maybe. The entirety of Melody of Memory and Namine’s ( who can manipulate memories that are not her own ) drive down the point of her connection to that specific realm. And i do believe that maybe memory is not much of a ‘realm’ per se, as far as what a realm has been established to be in the series, it’s a chain that binds all realms, a realm to connect them all, one dependent on the existence of all other realms ( instead of realms like the Dark realm that has been suggested to be able to engulf the Light realm ), the ones able to break the chain of memory entering a unchained state, maybe that was Marluxia and Larxene’s plan, and let’s not forget that the two of them where from the time of Keyblade war, the only characters who have acknowledged them being from that specific time frame, which may hint at why they’d want to make Namine help Sora reach a unchained state. And on that note, maybe Yozora could only save Sora by breaking his chain of memories, which in turn makes the ending where Sora defeats Yozora be a ending where Yozora fails to save him, causing him to literally die. ( I hope this doesn’t sound too confusing, i formulated this theory while i was writing it )
*DARK HIDE DOES NOT HAVE RED EYES! Yes, they glow red, but when it reveals itself later in the fight, you can see that they're indeed yellow. I've just had to address this point a lot in replies so I might as well put this at the top of this pinned comment*
A lot of things in the original script never made it into the final draft, so I'll discuss some other points here:
Beneath the Lich's robes are dangling chains with pink-red spikes on the end. These exact spikes can be seen surrounding dream portals. When the Lich teleports, it leaves a red afterimage and when he summons lesser Heartless, its eyes glow magenta. These colours are all synonymous with the concept of sleep. He also encapsulates the hearts of the fallen guardians with chains. Even though the Lich's abilities may allow other Heartless to exist in dreams, it still doesn't explain why we fight Shadows and a Darkside in the KH3 intro and also why Heartless appear in Stations of Awakening.
You may have also noticed that I use pictures of Nobodies too. This is because I believe the same rule applies to lesser Nobodies such as Dusks when Yen Sid states that Heartless cannot descend into the Sleeping Realm. Xemnas has a heart, which is why he can exist in dreams in DDD as "hearts can dream". Ansem and the Guardian are... strange. There just seems to be a lot of contradictions to Yen Sid's statement.
Even though all Heartless have yellow eyes, there are notable exceptions. The biggest of which being Dark Hide from BBSFM; fans literally dubbed this Heartless "Red Eyes" before we got the English localization. However, they only glow red (which is still incredibly rare) but they are still in fact yellow when it reveals itself later in the fight. In my research, I checked each and every Heartless. A few tiny exceptions remain, such as the Defenders in Hollow Bastion having shields with eyes and they glow red when using Fire. Sora's Rage form in KH3 has yellow eyes but they "glow" red. This is the exact same thing with the Demon Tide from 0.2 and KH3. Again, yellow eyes but with a red glow. Not saying that this doesn't mean anything, but it was all a bit too much to put in the final video and it ended up being a 16 minute tangent for one section alone.
The Search Ghosts are the Heartless with one eye dangling out of it's socket via a single chain, and when it spots you, its eye glows red. This is VERY rare among Heartless. Not only is it a ghost like the Lich (connection to the Realm of Death) but in KH1 they're also introduced taking orders from the Mayor and Jack Skelington in Halloween Town, and who is Jack? The King of Nightmares.
Gotta love when Nomura's themes and colour motifs go full circle. We know he doesnt plan everything beforehand, but its amazing when his old concepts still apply so many years later. Amazing video man, I see your perfectionism on the editing and I love it, keep it up. Left a reply on your twitter post, though maybe I should write here where I dont have character limits 😅 Can't wait for the next one. Cheers mate!
Perhaps the deal with Ansem and the Guardian are similar to higher nobodies like Xemnas. Unlike every single heartless we have seen which act purely on instinct, Ansem acts with a contious mind. Using terms similar to nobodies, he is a higher heartless whereas the rest are lower. So perhaps the reason heartless can't access the sleeping world is because they just don't have the mental compasity to understand how.
Now if that's just nit the case and if Ansem and the Guardian being able to get there simply by their higher intellect. Then atleast it's good to remember that while Ansem is a heartless (and the Guardian being tied to Ansem) he is a special heartless. Unlike how other heartlesses are created, Xehanort's heart was not encompasses and swallowed by darkness which is how a heartless is usually created, but instead he held his form in a way (robe ansem) and traveled back in time. Which he ended up gaining a new body because he possessed Riku.
The more I think about this, I'm beginning to think that while Ansem indeed has a heartless emblem, that does not mean he himself is a heartless, but everyone merely thinks he is. Cause the emblem itself was recorded to have been made by Ansem, I do not remember if it was by Ansem SOD or Ansem the Wise. So when he gained his "heartless" form. The Emblem may have appeared due too a mix of his own knowledge of what a heartless is and memory of the emblem.
Ansem SoD most likely had no say in what he looked like in his "Heartless" form, and from a question in one of the loading kingstagram screens in KH3, Riku questions if he is part of the reason Ansem looks like he does. So many influences could have dictated Ansem's form: Riku, possibly Riku's own Memories, Ansem's prior state as an unbound heart, his own memories and knowledge of his research earlier in life.
Anyways, that was a long rabbit trail, back to the theory at hand. Ansem being in the realm of sleep.
Based upon the theory that either Ansem is a higher heartless, or not even a heartless at all. He would have the ability to ender the world of sleep. But if neither are true, perhaps, like how Master Xehabort was a portal to bring his past selves to the future, he himself or possible young xehanort acted as a portal and brought Ansem into the realm of sleep, finding a loop hole in the rule.
Now it did cross my mind that perhaps it was because of his tie with riku. However I don't think this may be entirely the case. We know that from Re:Chain, Ansem resided within Riku's heart after he was defeated in KH1, and Riku ultimately bested him at the end of the game. However Riku also states that he can still feel ansem, even if just slightly. This comes to play again in days and kh2 when riku, accepting the darkness within his heart, takes on the form of ansem. Reason why that is is for another theory. Enough getting sidetracked.
Because of the explosion of Ansem the Wise's encoder machine, Riku js returned to his original form and as Mackey states at the end of kh2, he is no longer a being of the dark realm. I believe that the ansem that resided in Riku's heart was separated from Riku during that explosion, and that is why Riku took his old form again. So unlike up till this point, the riku in DDD no longer harbors Ansem within his heart, so there would be no connection to draw from and enter the realm of sleep.
I guess the Dark Hide's eyes glow red is because it acts as a guardian blocking Aqua's path to the Realm of Sleep?
As for the Rage Form, it only occurs when Sora takes a beating or in the special case of having the light sucked out of him so he might tap into that darkness to rest his heart while his body does all the fighting. That would explain that unlike the other Forms or Formchanges, Rage Form also heals Sora.
The Demon Tide on the other hand glows more amberish rather than red in my opinion, so perhaps a diffrent meaning can be construed with red when it is with the heartless. As The Master of Masters said if a Keybearer falls into malice it will reflect on their Chirithy. I found it weird that MOM had to rephrase that, what this could mean is red symbolizes hostility.
I mean it would make sense, even in Yozora's case as he literally attacked Sora.
As for Dream Eaters only having yellow eyes, Spirits actually change thier eye color depending on the Disposition. Although perhaps you are referring to the default designs.
Just throwing my two cents in.
You put alot together, enjoyed the video!
Just going to point out
358/2 days Xion’s armor form is pink/magenta,
Based on your theory their are 2 reasons:
1. Sora is asleep and Xion’s power is derived from machines meant to capture memories of both him and the world’s his been too. Hence why the machines are placed in areas where the world’s keyholes were sealed.
2. When Xion is turned into shaved ice cream everyone’s memory of her slowly melts away until nothing is left. Only to be seen again in DDD near the back of the group. Which paraphrasing Naminé “The links are still there in your heart, they just need to be reconnected.”
As for how everything is connected.
The realm of light and dark I believe should be back to back and both should be connected to the world of sleep. This would leave room for a potential “Daydreaming theory” as Xion and Naminé are awake when accessing their powers of memory. Which as your theory states can only (or at least most cases) be accessed through the realm of sleep which is connected to the realm of darkness. Though of course this leaves the question “Is Castle Oblivion a sleeping world, a world between the light and darkness, or simply a world in darkness?” My opinion is it is a “Daydreaming” world between Light and Darkness, since Sora could get there by foot, and Riku could return from the realm of darkness, but it can be considered “sleeping” because of the security measure put in place in the land of departure.
"The Nightmare has only just begun." -Everyone who watched the Union Cross ending
I legit laughed out loud at "Xehanort's boyfriend"
Same dude. Caught me off guard.
we know it's true tho
SAME 🤣
A friendship always eventually becomes gay in the eyes of KH fans. That is just absolute in the KH fandom.
His tone did not fit that statement AT ALL 😂😂😂
“Down the chain, enter through memories” chain of memories. My god.
It all makes sense now!
Who said this? I'm blanking
@@ArdynSol12:14
“You are using the name Terra. That means that you see me, the way you remember me.”
Didn’t Yozora also state to Sora that Sora isn’t Sora but using his name?
yozora also said "but this isnt what i really look like " so that means the yozora sora seeing and fighting was from sora's memory interpreting what yozora looks like based on what he saw from the verum rex video game in the toystory world
@@estaveler3288 WHa??? can you explain what you mean?
@@Ucatty2 like in the video aqua sees terra in the realm of darkness but she sees him as his normal form despite being a heartless because of her memory of terra
So it would make sense that if sora met yozora in a dream the form yozora would take would be created based on how sora remembers what the person named yozora looks like which is the verum rex yozora
So thats why yozora says he doesnt really look like that is because thats how sora's memories interpreted how yozora would look like
@@estaveler3288 ohhh, ok. Thank you for explaining. That makes sense, as much sense as anything else in KH. Spaghetti lore
Hm... was there a Sora in final fantasy exvius?
Patiently waiting for Sora's next saga in Kingdom Hearts : Insomnia
Every night of my life since my 15 y/o I've been having this saga.
@@theseekerofdankness959 The World of the VERSUS EPIC shall return. To be "Unchained" is to have the power of Chaos, the power of the goddess Etro, the goddess of death. Through the power of Chaos, one can visit any world, any timeline, and have the power to control monsters. And the red eyes to see the "light of expiring souls". VERSUS is the endgame of all of KH, Verum Rex, all of it. Everything leads back to VERSUS Noctis, the MoM himself.
A video featuring the phrase "Xehanort's Boyfriend" doesn't have the right to be this well made.
We only state facts and sources on this channel :)
So if Sora now is unchained, that explains how he was able to contact Kairi in Melody of Memory. Voices can only reach those who are close to the Unchained Realm. Xehanort was definetly aware of Quadratum and the Foretellers who have seemingly also mastered the unchained state, allowing them to go back and forth between Quadratum and reality as well as appearing in the present when they lived centuries ago.
Yeah, Xehanort totally knew about the other side. Not only the rules surrounding it, but also how to transport people to and from. This might have been taught by MoM when they met. We know that Eraqus said the story of the lost masters was Odin's (their master) favourite story, so perhaps they received the knowledge from him. Most likely passed down throughout time via Brain as Eraqus is his descendant. Luxu must be around somewhere too. (Odin being Luxu is just too obvious for me to believe it lol)
YX makes copies of Traverse Town in DDD and also Toy Box in KH3 where he separates people. Braig and YX were conspiring in Re:Coded's secret ending, which is odd because we never see them interact in the series ever again as far as I know. This leads me to believe that MoM gave him knowledge before he time traveled, and Braig (Luxu) gave him EVEN MORE to etch into his heart before he went back in time.
Nonura also sayed Sora is still connectet
Maybe heartless can't enter dreams, but one can dream of heartless. That is to say the heartless in dreams could simply be fake, or the product of imagination
So Riku just imagined Ansem in the City of the Bells?
If that were to be the case, we'd see them in DDD. Nomura going out of his way to make the rule "Heartless cannot enter the Realm of Sleep" would be made redundant if they could just be dreamed up
What if Heartless could be there all along but the friendly Spirits eat them like they do nightmares to get rid of them??
Heartless can enter dreams, they just don’t naturally spawn there. It’s kinda like how Heartless can’t enter the Realm of Light, unless someone summons them, or if the Keyhole to the world has just been unlocked.
We’ve seen heartless in the Station of Awakening in KH1, When Sora was in the Final World in the beginning of KH3, The Lich in KH3, and in DDD whenever we seen Ansem SoD.
*Spoilers for Union X if you haven’t been keeping up with the recent updates:*
Darkness also confirmed that their goal is to expand to every conceivable reality by infecting people, so narratively it’ll make sense for Heartless to appear in any reality. I wouldn’t be surprised if Darkness finds away to colonize Unreality as well since Sora, MoM, and Riku have all seem to make it there. Maybe that’s what Karma is??
@@SonnyNovus
Ansem Seeker of Darkness is a Heartless.
Even if this Ansem is a Replica, the Guardian (Terra) is also a Heartless.
Hmmm wasn’t he a boss fight in... DDD?
Boom.
A dream within a dream.
Darkness within Darkness awaits you.
Being unchained is starting to sound ominously similar to being awake in Homestuck and that is deeply concerning to me
Well... isn’t using “the power of waking” just shy of becoming “unchained”?
Perhaps they are the same power outright...?
I'm not very familiar with Homestuck, so the meanings lost on me.
What does that mean?
@@KevinHenaoComics Homestuck has had some similar dimensional shenanigans to Kingdom Hearts, though awakening one's dream self in Homestuck is probably slightly less shenanigans than in KH, but... the similarities exist: mspaintadventures.fandom.com/wiki/Dream_self#Awakening
There is also the Ultimate Self. Certain Ultimate Selves are Narrative Aware. I think the Master of Masters and Luxu to certain degree are like that.
The legend does it again. Never noticed the connection between red eyes and sleep, that's pretty wild.
Channels like “The Gamers Joint” and “HMK” are great for news and rumors but you along side “The Secret Reports” and “Pajama Let’s Play” are on a different level when it comes to theories and explanations. Keep doing you!
HMK is a joke. People like this are Order of Etro level. These are my kind of people. Those who think in the deep waters. Those who see the whole, final picture, and Nomura's endgame -- the return of the VERSUS EPIC.
@@SquareInsider Same, I personally cannot stand HMK. Channels like these actually keep me interested
Real lore 🤟
You can't forget damos279 and even Waterkh who dabbled in it for a little bit ^^
I’d also humbly like to add The Heart’s Dissent to this list
It could be that Scala ad Caelum is not itself a memory, but rather that the Scala ad Caelum that we see in 3 is Xehanort's memory of Scala and the Scala that Yen Sid sends Mickey to is the real Scala.
Yo to fix his chain of memories Sora had to sleep
And the guardian’s hearts were locked in chains during the Lich trials
Naminé boutta be really important in the series
I would say that Namine’s ability only extends to Sora’s memory and those closest to him… however, In KH3RM, Sora learns to trace the connection of the other Guardians of Light’s Hearts because, All Hearts Are Connected. Essentially, no matter the person, they can be linked to everyone exponentially.
If Namine can tap into this potential, then Yes, I could absolutely see Namine becoming much more powerful as a Memory Witch. (Nomura withstanding)
So about Yozora. Don't know how much of this actually matters but Noctis' dreams used to be a big plot point in versus and are still canon in the final game. They are like alternate realities. For example during 15 he has a dream about the omen trailer where he went alone on his journey, and later when Luna dies they talk through Noctis' dream, and she even says "a chance to speak with you once more, who would have thought", and then takes a notice of the flowers around them saying he still remembers them. In platinum demo carbuncle straight up says in your dreams you are king.
The projection of Shibuya we see in the Yozora boss fight is strikingly similar to how Scala and Toy Box are desolate and empty. Same thing with the Lich trails as we fight through empty versions of worlds we've already been to.
YX made a "copy" of Toy Box where he separated the toys from Andy. He did the same thing in Traverse Town (a sleeping world) where he made two versions of it and separated the TWEWY gang. Pair this with how we access Scala via dream portal and something fishy is definitely going on here.
I think the secret ending shows Riku during his dreams as he describes them to Fairy Godmother, being watched from above in a city. Sora wakes up in an empty version of Shibuya, too. Yozora totally connects to others via dreams somehow. It's pretty obvious why with Sora, but as for him connecting to Riku's dreams, that might need to be saved for another video lol
I figured the reason why Quadratum is seemingly empty is because it could be that it was created by the dreams/hopes of the people from the χ-era. Like Ansem says it's a fictional world and lat. fictiō means to shape/to form. And since they're all either dead or asleep in the data (and "data cannot dream" - YX, DDD) there are no citizens anymore. Maybe it was a sort of refuge for them with all the darkness and hate stuff going on, a better place in their minds. Similar to how Traverse Town is a refuge for people who's worlds where lost to darkness but not that the χ people went there after the war but as in how in dreams one is in a "different" world.
@@maryscary That's a really interesting take! MoM also says something similar to Luxu in the control room where he says the hearts of children create worlds or something to that effect.
Red eyes representing sleep is something I've never thought of. Something to add to the Power of Awakening/Sleep dynamic is how Destati is Italian for awaken and Somnus is well , Latin for Sleep. The constant mirroring/parallels between are so layered between Sora and Yozora.
Yeah after yesterday's update, Dream Eaters and Nightmares will never be the same
lol It's like what I said in the end: "I think Dream Eaters will play a huge role in the upcoming saga. The nightmare is not over. It never was. My friends -- the nightmares has only just begun."
@@SonnyNovus bro I'm literally still watching ahahahahha I'm in the final 2 minutes
Here's a detail. "I wondered here by accident(he fell asleep) and went threw many trials." Yozora is a keyblade weilder that has yet to be chosen.
And, yes, in Dream Drop Distance. Sora falls into the darkness via the power of awakening. That's why he has the journey with Young Xehanort. He begins to teeter on the edge of death. Which is why the Sora replicas come out. And Roxas sends him back before its too late.
Regarding Timeless River, the main trio did indeed went into the past because it was Merlin himself who opened a door for them to time travel. Now, it may seem like it is breaking what was set up later on regarding time travel... That's because it is. Merlin is just that good of a wizard that even Young Xehanort noted about it.
This honestly seems plausible lol. Antagonists have often noted the power/knowledge of Disney characters like Maleficent, Yen Sid, Merlin etc. With Fairy Godmother taking Riku/Kairi to the Final World, it isn't entirely impossible. Merlin even conjures a place that isn't affected by time so Kairi and Lea can train, so we know he has some sort of control over time.
The only strange thing is that a version of the door to the Timeless River appears for Pete too. We see through his eyes how it happened. Regardless, it isn't very well explained.
@@SonnyNovus It is the Power of Imagination combined with wishing. Fairy Godmother both provides Magic for dreams as in sleep dreams (Subconscious fantasy) and goals ( willing of the Heart). Imagination is also used by the TWEWY gang.
The casual “Him and his boyfriend” Had me on the ground 😂
This makes way too much sense to not be pure fact, had me engaged every second with the quality editing and great commentary, really loved this video, definitely earned a sub from me!
Best nazi
Your production, composition, evidence, explanation, and theory is above and beyond. Keep up the excellent work.
This is some SCARY good production value for a channel with less than a thousand subs! You just earned one from me!
I think the heartless being in the sleeping worlds in KH3 is more easily explained than you think. And that has to do with the fact that Sora isn't using the power of waking in it's typical fashion.
Normally one uses the power to traverse hearts to reach sleeping worlds, while Sora uses it to traverse worlds to reach sleeping hearts. In the first case, the world's themselves are in the realm of sleep and he is traveling to them, hence why heartless cannot appear. However, in the second case, he is traversing the world's hearts to reach people's hearts. The worlds here are not in the realm of sleep, they are in a complete state, and even the hearts of the worlds hold darkness, allowing heartless to appear without issue. The heartless in Scala only appear in Re:Mind, when Sora is once again abusing the power of waking to reach Kairi's heart, traversing through the world of Scala, allowing heartless to appear once more. Although, I still do think Sora has also reached an unchained state at this point as well, which may play into why heartless appear, despite this being Sora traveling to a sleeping world of the past in this case.
On a side tangent/theory, I think the wording of the Master of Master's on the creation of nightmares is a very key detail provided based on the latest chapter of Union X. He specifically notes "When a wielder is overcome by Malice", before correcting himself with "tainted by darkness, nightmares are born". I think here he isn't referring to Malice as just an emotion, but I think it also means Malice as a name of one of the 6 willful Darknesses. The willful darknesses seek to infect people with their darkness to control them and retain their will until they can regain their form. I think each of the willful darknesses are responsible for the creation of one of the creatures of darkness, which serve as their specific means to spread their infection of darkness.
In a literal sense of what MoM's saying, is that when Malice takes control or spreads his kind of darkness to people, nightmares are created. I also don't think it's a coincidence, that the first instance of a nightmare happens in Unchained timeline, where later Malificent (whose name is derived from malice) escapes with one of the darknesses using her as the vessel to reach the main kh worldline. Furthermore, Maleficent has powers over the dominion of sleep and is capable of putting people to sleep and even controlling them in their sleep as she did with Terra.
Vanitas creates unversed, manifestations of negative emotion. Malice creates nightmares, and two unknown darkness's make up the heartless of purebreds and emblems respectively. This would account for 4 out of the six dark creatures. As for the last two, I think dark data/memories may also be another of the way one of the darknesses manifests itself, with the blox of recoded being their main form but also allowing them to take on other forms such as the heartless in COM who are created through memories, and the data heartless, who are the memories Sora has of fighting that were recorded into the journal. As for the last one, I believe it has yet to be introduced, and will probably show up in Quadratum as their heartless counterpart enemy to beat up.
Yeah, Sora's misuse of the Power of Waking might have something to do with all of this. However, as stated in the video, YX says "You nearly buried yourself in the dark of sleep, and now you're at it again?" which is a callback to the events of DDD, but the line implies Sora is going dream by dream again, much to his confusion. The Lich is described as not being like other Heartless, and if the Final World is where sleep and death touch and the Lich ushers hearts from the realm of death into darkness, then it seems like the Lich is just a grand exception, much like Ansem SOD.
I've heard of the "Malice" theory quite a lot recently and I think it's something worth looking into for myself. It is very odd how the MoM abruptly corrects himself and rephrases his statement in a way which his students can understand clearly, which means that the MoM is more comfortable referring to it as "Malice" rather than "Darkness". Although the word malice in his statement isn't capitalized, which could mean that it isn't referring to anything/anyone specifically, but that's just playing devil's advocate.
But addressing your point about Nightmares; the MoM is specifically describing Nightmare Chirithies, not Nightmares in general. Regular Nightmares have nothing to do with Keyblade wielders, whereas Chirithies are special Nightmares specifically chained to their wielders, which is why one being tainted by darkness would effect them. This is why I think Ventus' Chirithy is in the Final World in KH3. We now know that Vanitas is inside of Ven, which means his heart is tainted by darkness. All it takes is for Vanitas to take over and Ven's Chirithy is a Nightmare, so it could be the final battle in UX and the Dandelions have to put it down which would explain it being in the Final World. Just a thought. Or perhaps Luxu does it for them, which is the origins for Ven's "angry look". Who knows? lol
@@SonnyNovus That last part about Luxu taking down the chirthy, just made me remember Xigbar's line to Xion in days when she appears as ventus to him: "Of all the faces... Why do I look at her and see yours? Do you always have to stare at me like I just drowned your goldfish?"
Riku was a DreamEater and his eyes didn't change... if I wasn't so partial to your theory of Yozoras other blue eye being "the gazing eye" I'd speculate that Yozoras resemblance to Riku and the one Red Eye could be something to do with a possible nightmare/dreameater hybrid, but that's a super loose speculation.
I just want to add this, but I think red eyes signify "Malice", or hate. As you mentioned, Darkness isn't inherently evil, thus Heartless having Yellow eyes. But when Heartless become angry, such as the Demon Tide and Tower bosses, their eyes glow red-orange. Vanitas's Unversed are beings of Malice, and the Nightmares are Dream Eaters converted by Malice. Thus I think Yellow Eyes = Darkness, while Red Eyes = Malice/Hate on top of that
I also want to add that the Xehanort portal was explicitly confirmed to just be a Time portal, not a Dream portal. A "portal" in KH is exactly what it sounds like- a link from one point to another. Due to Ansem SoD passing that link to Young Xehanort, Xehanort himself became a portal for his other selves to traverse through, and he existed as that portal for the rest of his life. I don't fully understand the mechanics of it, but the Scala from KH3 really was just in the past, and not a memory or dream.
Knowing this, a pink portal doesn't inherently mean that the portal is a dream portal. I think the colors, as of now, are purely for gameplay differentiation, such as the blue challenge portals. The only exception seems to be the World portals that appear in DDD, such as the purple one to TWTNW and Sora's Dark dream. The Scala portal being through Time also makes better sense of how Heartless & Nobodies could exist, but not necessarily why they would be there, assuming they're even real.
Yeah, I've seen that theory floating around that "Darkness" and "Malice" are different things, and I'd like to see where that goes. The fact that MoM says "If a wielder is overcome by malice -- or rather if their heart is tainted by darkness" is an odd way of retreading and correcting yourself
@@SonnyNovus i agree, kinda seems like malice isn't the primary source, but Darkness. could be a translation thing also
Dream eaters and nightmares are basically nobodies and heartless if the person had a chirithi. Dream eaters are like cocoons for the keyblade weirders from the chiriti, and I think it’s possible that these keyblade weirders that have had chiriti with them could potentially return in the future of KH
Perhaps the reason for the Lights' variety of eye color is because green and blue in the past and in many (old) languages, they are the same color.
Anyway, another excellent theory once again. And also it explains the whole weirdness of KH3 and Re:Mind? Like I didn't get how it all worked, but _now,_ now I do.
Holy hell the editing quality is immaculate!! 😳
Yessss, I’m so glad you touched on this! I’ve been increasingly interested in the place of dreams in the narrative, and the concept of being unchained+the fact that YXN and the khux player connected to each other multiple times through dreams have had me scouring for information about this and you’ve given me so much to consider on it! Amazing job!
What I'm still not entirely sure of is the connection part of the unchained state. In union x, when the unchained state is mentioned by Ava, Ephemer seems to be able to connect with people he has a bond with: Skuld and the player. It makes me wonder if you're only able to pinpoint connections to people you had a connection with in the unchained state. It would make sense, having no connection to any realm would be like a limbo where you can't touch anything. However, perhaps you can contact people in any of the realms, regardless of time or place, as long as you have a direct connection to them. I've always had a hypothesis that Sora is the player reborn. I'm not sure if anyone else thought that, as I've never seen it brought up personally. And that's why we're always playing as Sora, because we're essentially him in another form. That would help explain why Ephemer was able to contact Sora specifically, because he had a prior established connection before the player likely fell to darkness, died, and was reborn as Sora. Would also make sense why Sora can weild Starlight's form, and he can weild forth wall breaking keyblades like that 711 keyblade etc, since the player has a connection with that. It just sounds like a Nomura thing he would do lol, even making promotional keyblades as canon. 🤣 I also like to headcanon that Strelitzia was reborn as Kairi, as that would give her romantic closure... she would become a part of the player's life just like she wanted. But all of that is still iffy of course until Union X officially ends. It's just fun stuff I've been thinking lol.
I've always thought of the eye color of KH original characters who have, had, or will have power as a sign of alignment:
Blue: *Light* with examples including the pure Kairi, the hero Sora, and at first the intended hero Riku.
Green: *Neutral* or *Mixed* with examples including the assassin Axel, present day "Light and Dark" Riku, and the largely cold scientist Vexen.
Yellow: *Darkness* with the prime example being the Xehanorts.
Xehanort's natural silver eyes could symbolize neutrality too. Ansem the Wise's natural eye color is amber, which could symbolize someone on the border of darkness. Ephemer and Eraqus' eyes look like they could be a dull blue or silver depending on the lighting...I really can't tell. And Braig and Apprentice Xehanort's eyes are brown, symbolizing how full of shit they are.
@@realJoeMavro Perhaps I should've left Green as just *Mixed.* Just change Vexen from "largely cold" to "ethically dubious". The brown eyes would be categorized as a dulled amber on the color scale. Anyway, new theory for Xehanort's original silver eyes (spacer for those not finished with Union Cross and who aren't up to date on Dark Road):
Xehanort is the reincarnation of "Player" (whatever that entails), the closest thing to a true blank slate protagonist in the series since they're meant to represent whichever irl person is playing that account. Sure "Player" has at most a handful of lines across all of X, Unchained X, and Union Cross and they do have to follow the events of the story but who they actually are as a character as they do so is almost entirely left for us the player to self-insert or roleplay. I say "almost" only because of those rare instances when "Player" speaks.
To quote part of what Young Xehanort said as he traversed the Corridor of Darkness to leave Destiny Islands: "That was the moment *something began to grow in my Heart.* I'd soon learn that in keeping to this path, this Corridor of Darkness, *no Heart could help but become drenched in Darkness.* Regardless of where these foul emotions were coming from, they gave me comfort. *They helped me realize that my Heart could still feel."*
So my theory is that Silver eyes represents having no affiliation since Xehanort had none until Darkness eventually swayed/corrupted him.
Before somebody says "But the original Organization members were all Nobodies which are Nothing not Light and/or Darkness and their eyes weren't Silver" I'll point out that not only is Nothing also an affiliation which may or may not share the Silver eye coloration of having no affiliation but also that their Somebodies did have an affiliation and what made the Organization members special was that they retained their original form as Nobodies due to their strong Heart. Every single Organization member whose Somebody we've seen (except Saix because of Xehanort) shares their Somebody's Eye Color so they can't count as a counter example to my theory.
Didn't Larxene had green eyes in the original version of CoM?
Good work!
To me the unchained state is what we call astral travel in our world.
The realm of sleep is what we call the astral plane or dreamscape.
Sorta makes the whole rage form and the fact that it's pretty much the final attack in 3 really interesting.
Especially considering the sleeping realm theory.
(Feel free to pick at that, it's of a bit dubious point.)
What you call a Nightmare, I call a Taboo Noise. Red eyes? Red Skull O-Pins, Taboo Noise, and Berserk Reapers. Unchained Realm? The various "grounds" of the Underground, in which higher vibe beings can travel between parallel worlds. Sleep and Death being linked? Joshua is a Reaper re-assembling souls from a doomed Shibuya, whose job is to preside over the dead and determine who gets to come back to life, and he just 'happens' to stumble across Sora and Riku in a sleeping world, while remarking that they don't have to abide by the rules of the Reaper's Game? Why would that be necessary, unless they were in a deathlike state?
Even the concept of worlds and hearts falling into darkness, somewhat mirrors the concept of 'Inversion', or 'Erasure'.
There are a surprising amount of analogues between TWEWY reality-mechanics and KH ones, just at first glance.
Absolutely! Throw in Fabula Nova Crystallis into the mix too with an ancient war of light and darkness, the Gazing Eye being like the Eye of Etro which also sees into the future etc.
Don't mind me
I'm just here laughing like a maniac after the KHUX ending
I was under the impression that Scala was a sleeping world, made sleeping to imprison something and the land of departure was what at that point remained of the world. As far as what was imprisoned, I figured that it was Venetas (or a being similar to him), but he was able to escape by attaching himself to Ventus and letting himself out, which lead directly to Norts actions. As far as the heartless being in there I think that they were already there, trapped and waiting to be rereleased. But hey, I ain't got much to back myself up here
well, to be fair about yensid being possibly wrong; He said how Nobodies have no hearts and any semblance of emotion is an act. Then Xemnas said "yeah, l lied and he and all of you bought it" so..... he's been wrong before, he can be again.
This is exactly why Yen Sid is one of the most detested characters in the series. He has these long exposition dumps and is built up to be this master who bestows deep wisdom to his pupils, but he is conveniently written to only know enough to a point where it's only convenient to the present plot at hand. As the audience, we rely on Yen Sid to explain story elements and plot mechanics because Xehanort and other antagonists are vague and cryptic. So for him to be wrong and contradicted by basic things a "master" should know is just awful lol
@@SonnyNovus l didn't even know he was detested XD. I just see it as the plot bending to Xehanorts will. I mean, all this stuff is said, remember time travel? You talked about it a bit. Timeless river isn't really a "WORLD", its the past, and changing it can effect the future. But suddenly Xehanort has his dollar store, l can't believe its not quantum physics time travel, where you absolutely CANNOT change what will happen, and plus you need to give up your form. Honestly, l watching YX explain time travel and all the stuff you can't do, while looking at Merlin dancing around with his actual travel to the past and change stuff time travel, which Yensid also didn't talk about while in 3DS. Its like a LOT of 3ds was meant to dismiss a lot of 2, but a lot of two put in ironclad facts.
Now I understand why Darkness gives more power than Light and why it can corrupt most people
In the original draft for versus 13. Noctis was supposed to have the power of dreaming. He was supposed to travel to other worlds. This got scrapped. But seams like kh is brining this idea back.
Me watching this a week ago: Hmm this is an interesting take on dream eaters, I would love to know more about them.
Me watching this after the Union cross finale: HOLY SH*T DREAM EATERS ARE DEAD PEOPLE!!!!
Correction, Dream Eaters are the Chirithy, not the Keyblade Wielders. They protect the hearts of their wielders in them tho
@@GIRru11technically speaking they are both. The chirithy took their hearts into themselves, and that’s what turned them into the other dream eater forms. So really, they are much the chirithy as they are the key blade wielders.
and adding on to that, because the wielders perish, so do their Chirithies who share the same fate so while they protect their wielder's hearts, they bodies perish and become Dream Eaters :)
Your sound design is so on point, man. That fall into darkness for Neverland was killer.
scala ad Caelum remained because it was brought back through time travel, the memory was contained in the medium: Xeanhort
This is the first time I'm watching one of your videos and I must say that you have the most soothing voice ever
Oh man, I literally jumped in my seat when I saw this new upload. I've seen people throwing around the word 'Unchained' for a long time but I never really understood what it meant. I thought it was like an ascended final form of some kind, but it being a realm not chained like the rest makes waaay more sense. Thanks for another great analysis video, man! You fill the void in this current KH news dry season :D
I watched this whole video and come away from it feeling more confused and yet educated.
This series. omg.
Bro this theory is AMAZING. You've kinda opened my eyes tbh. Everything linking together and coming full circle like this never fails to give me chills in the best possible way. But I do have a couple questions:
1. Rage Form also has red eyes. And is also canon thanks to Xehanort forcing Sora into Rage Form during the final battle. Me and a few other people have taken this as evidence that perhaps the present Vanitas still rests within Sora's heart even after Ven has healed independently and left as, like you said, Unversed also have red eyes and those are tied to emotions (i.e. Rage). But you also said that red eyes tend to have ties with dreams and sleep. So would you say that red eyes of Rage form could mean something in the greater scheme of things tying into sleep and dreams? As you mentioned that Vanitas is heavily implied to be much more ancient than previously believed thanks to Khux.
2. I've always been of the idea that data and dreams/sleep are kinda the same thing, except Sleep is natural and data is artificial. This is why Ansem the Wise can hide data in Sora's heart, because Sleep is clearly connected to Stations of Awakening and also sleep as you said in the video. Plus you can do mostly the same things in both, such as have easy access to the realm of light, darkness, and inbetween, which is why Sora and pals use the data twilight town to access the World that Never Was and Sora and Riku can access this place as well in the realm of sleep in DDD (this can also lead credence somewhat to the reason why Data Sora in Re:Coded was able to grow his own heart, because sleep and data are linked and sleep is linked to hearts.) And as of the newest update to KHUX, Ephemer and pals are stuck in the data world of Daybreak Town. And since sleep and data are the same thing and the Unchained state is linked to dreams, is it possible that present Ephemer used the Unchained state from the data daybreak town to contact Sora and Yozora?
Anyway, GREAT video. Def earned a subscribe from me!
Well thank you for the kind words!! I'm glad you enjoyed the video. I don't make these to disprove or discredit, but rather to promote ideas and get the gears moving for people, so I'm glad it had that effect on you.
1. When researching what entities had red eyes, I found a few interesting cases. Dark Hide, for example, the secret episode boss in BBSFM. Even though it's a Pureblood Heartless, it's eyes glow red which is EXTREMELY rare for any other Heartless. It also has chains dangling on its ankles. When defeated, Aqua then finds herself traversing worlds fallen to darkness. Sleeping worlds. A small handful of Heartless have chains, but that's usually due to world motifs such as anchors of a pirate ship and whatnot. The Search Ghosts from Halloween Town were an interesting example; they have a single eye dangling from a chain out of its socket. When they spot you, their eye glows red. When we're introduced to them for the first time, they submissive and only respond to the Mayor and Jack Skelington... who is the King of Nightmares. Again, a lot of this is cool to point out and all but it kinda just ends there and doesn't lead anywhere, so I decided to leave it out.
Nomura definitely made it apparent that Rage form and Anti form are two different things; Anti form is darkness (yellow eyes) and Rage form is negative emotions (red glow). However, when looking at Rage form, it appears to me that the eyes are still yellow but they definitely have a red glow. I don't think Vanitas is inside of Sora, but I still don't know what it means other than it being a stylistic choice. If it were related to sleep, they would've straight up given him Nightmare eyes, so I don't think they're related.
2. That's on the right track! However, we know that "dreams hold our memories", so I think data and memories are connected rather than data and dreams. This is all a technicality of course, they're all related, but I think your description is more indicative of data and memories being together.
@@SonnyNovus Thanks for taking the time to respond!
1. Interesting, so would you say that the yellow eyes with a red glow is more symbolic of Sora using his negative emotions to access his darkness as Rage form rather than just using his darkness alone in Anti-form then? Of course, like you said, it could just be a stylistic choice but it's something to think about.
2. Data and memories being together. Hmmm, so would that mean Ansem the Wise stored the data in Sora's heart as a memory or, with how its told to us in KH3, a journal log? Journals/diaries are technically physical forms of memories, which would tie back into Re:Coded as they use the journal of Sora's first adventure (Aka Memories of Sora's first adventure). And they used part of Roxas's data from the digital Twilight town, aka his Memories of the digital Twilight Town, to make up part of Roxas's replica body before his real heart entered it.
Actually, yeah! Data and Memories being similar or even the same makes a ton of sense like that!
Coming back to this two weeks later... so much deeper meanings
So basicly each time sora goes into rage mode he has red eyes so does that mean he just becomes a darkling or a nightmare for a while?
He is accessing the power of Chaos, the power of the Goddess Etro, and the ability to see the light of expiring souls. The same reason Versus Noctis' eyes glow red when he activates this power. Death and dreams both overlap one another and are considered a hair away, practically a part of the same realm.
I love your video editing skill! Can't wait for the next
I've been trying to make a fanfic universe of the "Kingdom Hearts" saga. And after A LOT of research of the saga's lore, its fanfics, the lore of "Once Upon A Time" and the original Greek mythology...I think I am ready to start writing it.
Amazing theory regarding Nightmares, I actually believe the World before the Keyblade War / launching of the Arks was a Sleeping world
Namine's power over memories. I wonder if that will be brought up again.
Oh boy is this fun to rewatch after the revelations of the final chapter in union x
awesome video! It really reignited my fire to theorize about the KH Lore and how everything we know connects :D
more importantly I now have a rather wild thought, about the power of waking and being 'unchained'.
Firstly we have to understand what the 'power of waking' really is, it was stated by YX that it is a power used for "traversing hearts to reach worlds, not for traversing worlds to reach hearts".
Buy why is it then called 'power of waking' - its a power to free a sleeping heart or rather to awake a sleeping heart. I may misunderstood some things in KH3, but if i recall correctly, our main group got wiped and in order to prevent this from happening, Sora dove into different stages/worlds freeing the chained hearts by the Lich.
Now understanding that Sleep & Death each are a side of the same coin, 'waking up a sleeping heart' now has a rather different meaning. 'Power of waking' can now be translated as 'Power of reviving'.
Well since it's established what the 'power of waking' really means, lets think about an 'unchained' being. An 'unchained' being doesnt exist in any world or realm.
It's a being erased from existence, since it's unbound, freed or released by the laws and chains of each individual realm. Therefore 'unchained' beings can 'pop into existence' and reach out a helping hand to those near their 'unchained' realm. Its like a 5th dimension to our 4D world, we cant see the 5th dimension, but ppl from there can see us.
Maybe something like Reality Unreality?
So Sora overusing the power of waking results in turning him into an 'unchained' being.
Sora who now is lost, founds himself in the city of Quadratum. Mirroring the beginning of KH1, in which a lost Sora founds himself in Traverse Town, a world, in the realm of Between.
Maybe Quadratum is the same, but a Realm of Unreality for beings that transcended.
Coming back to YXs statement, there definitly has to be a hint to unravel. It kinda feels like a loop to me, ppl traversing hearts to reach different worlds. MX and Luxu literally overtook/traverse different hearts/humans to surive/outlast their lives and time. So we can assume that being 'unchained' means being out of the loop (or tap into the loop and manipulate it).
Coming late to the new video but still so worth it. Its like watching a kh documentary and not a theory at all! I had a lot of things to say too but not gonna lie; my brain recognised the Rayman 3 soundtrack and now it's in nostalgia city. You're choices in music an ambiance keep amazing me just as equally as the theories.
Wouldn’t surprise me if Sora gets consumed by darkness and pulls a Naruto and accepts his shadow and brings it to resemble the light like the dream eater Spirits
Just like how Riku uses black/purple light that symbolizes his twilight heart 💜
i mean namine has power over “memory” but we see her putting sora to sleep after com. idk if that’s anything but maybe she has a similar sleep power
Yeah for sure, since Memory and Sleep are connected, it would make sense for Namine to have powers that coincide with both. I think she'll play a big role in the next saga too
THANK YOU for adressing the unchained state!!! It's like Nomura Forgot about it and I've been dying to get an answer
you make these videos if they were a documentary and I love it! Your voice is amazing for narrating 😃
I loved this theory and the composition of the video, the music choices and you have a soothing voice! Subscribed! Also would love to see an updated version with what we know now of KHUX!
Yes ive been waiting for you to drop a new video. Best kh content creator
Another amazing video. Your presentation is unmatched. Also I love your taste in music. I noticed your use of Heavenly Garden. I wish there were more content creators like you making in depth lore videos on my all time favorite game, Final Fantasy XIV.
Loving your jazzy theme at the end! Also "a far off dream is just a far off memory I just want to line the pieces up yours and mine"
This era of KH lore and world exploration is my jam and I'm in love with it. Excellent video! Just subbed, too. Looking forward to future videos
“He and his boyfriend“ flowing so naturally
This was an amazing and mind-blowing watch.
The Algorithm must think so too, cause this was recommended to me out of absolutely nowhere.
Love your videos! The CoM part got me thinking- if the heartless inside the world cards are pulled from Sora’s memory then why do new heartless, like those flower ones, appear? Anyways this video has so many good points to think about.
Thanks for the kinds kind words!! I'm glad you enjoy them. Also yeah, there are three heartless that don't appear in KH1, so that's a good point. In this game it is stated that "In the castle, everything Sora's and his friends' encounter will be based on their memories. As they lose memories, they will uncover new ones in the process.". We know that Twilight Town is a world in the game, but that isn't Sora's memories, those are Roxas'. So it could be that some Heartless are from his adventures later in the series rather than Sora's. Still a good point, though.
Doesn't Days happen roughly at the same time as CoM? And if I remember correctly, you encounter the plant enemies (and one as a boss) before Axel and the CoM Nobodies head to Castle Oblivion, which means, since Roxas and Sora are (understandably) connected, could explain how they got there in CoM.
Right?
Another brain-picking theory you’ve created. You’re bloody amazing at this, I have to admit, please keep making these, they’re so bloody perfect!
I have said forever Anti Black Coat Nightmare is a Version of Darkness, the Darkness, created by Sora's fear of Xehanort. It's body is shaped like Xehanort, and attacks like him when its feet touch the ground. Dark Chirithy is the Darkness (the character) shaped by the Player's darkness through Guilt and Sin. Also, they both have the same boss theme.
I think Mirror Aqua is also a Darkness. It you listen to its quotes, it basically saying Aqua should give up, because no one cares, and Aqua is worthless. (Psychologically Warfare). Then, when Aqua becomes Anti Aqua , she looks like a incomplete Darkling, the things Nightmare Chirithy makes.
And Darkness steals Ventus' Memories of Lauriam Sister's murder. They literally pull the memories out of his head. But when the union leaders "see" Darkness they come back. The Light of Sight undoes the veil Darkness created.
I actually had parts in my script referencing this stuff but I ultimately cut them out in the end because it was just 16 minutes comparing and contrasting and going on a tangent. But yes! I don't think they're "Darkness" entities like Vanitas (I have my own theory about that and I want to wait until after UX finishes to work on it lol) but I always thought Anti Black Coat was peculiar.
During his fight, he will sometimes attack you with an "X" consisting of red chains. This could either represent the Recusant's Sigil haunting Sora, or it could be the ancient "Chi" symbol taken form. That theme song I think will be a big staple going forward for major Nightmare/Darkling boss fights. The boss Dark Hide from BBSFM, even though a Pureblood Heartless, has eyes that glow red (INCREDIBLY rare among Heartless) and chains attached to its ankles. After we defeat it, we are then brought to worlds fallen to darkness. Sleeping worlds.
The mirror Aqua looks into is pretty much completely gold, except there's a red pendant below the frame, and we know red is synonymous with sleep. if Dark Chirithies (Nightmares) corrupt their wielders, then the mirror might've been using Nightmare powers to literally personify Aqua's greatest fears. That area was always strange, because it's all original architecture with nothing to draw back on. There are books everywhere, it looks like a lab of wizardry and alchemy, awfully close to the MoM's room in the clock tower of Daybreak Town.
@@SonnyNovus Darkness is always trying to make more of themselves, like the Virus. I think anything with Anti in its name is Darkness influenced, an Inverse. Mirror Aqua is basically the prototype of Anti Aqua.
The Mirror rooms are based on the Evil Queen's alchemist chamber and demon familar's Mirror.
@@Fragmentsinfractals488 It's funny because in the game she's called "Phantom Aqua", and the only other time that term is used is for Phantom Ursula in the beginning of DDD... Which is a prelude to the Sleeping Realm... hmm...
Regardless, all this means is that Darkness and Sleep are undeniably connected
@@SonnyNovus Yes. She is demon from Aqua's dark dream, like Ansem, Seeker of Darkness becomes Riku's darkness and Sephorith is Cloud's darkness.
I think the only thing Sora truly fears is losing Riku and Kairi, but you're onto something regarding the Anti being connected to Xehanort. It uses what look like dark versions of Young Xehanort's energy blades and the prototype for Ansem's dark claw attack from KH3, so they may have created it or found a way to tame it and infused their own powers into it.
holy moly--23 minutes just flew by. What a great series of observations, all presented so clearly
You sound like the Crystal Exarch and it makes smile. I wish I knew how to edit videos as well as you. This is fantastic!
my reccomended blessed me today. watched both your videos and I love it, this is the KH content I was looking for. take my subscription you magnificent khtuber
The way you nonchalantly said “Xehanort’s boyfriend” made me genuinely laugh, and btw awesome essay and mad editing skills, new subscriber!
Amazing video dude! I loved every second of it, amazing editing and narration. Everything made so much sense!
A small addition to everything you mentioned about Yen Sid potentially being wrong/not knowing of the unchained realm... the very first example of heartless showing up within the realm of sleep isnt even in KH3... its in DDD! Ansem was along for the ride there the whole time, and showed up multiple times through the adventure, and we often forget that he himself is a heartless, a special one maybe, but a heartless nonetheless!
If you like KH Theories, what if I told you that...
1: Ansem was *right* about the Heart’s “true nature?”
...and...
2: Sora had more *control* over the *Darkness* than you might’ve thought?
Yeah, Ansem being correct is what I referred to in the video. Chirithy's conception supports it, too.
What if the heartless can't access dreams, but can access death? It'd explain a few things. They enter Memories when they cannot go through Dreams because they simply took the path of Death. That's also why it can access the Dive into the Heart and Final World. Dive into the Heart seems to be implied to be Sora "crossing over" to death briefly, therefore letting the Heartless peek in, while the Final World is death itself.
As for Ansem in DDD, it was stated that he took Riku's body. What if that bypasses the laws that prevent heartless from preventing him from touching Dreams, as the universe sees a heart inside a body and checks it off?
That's where the semantics of sleep and death come in. Dives to the Heart and Stations of Awakening are all confirmed to be dreams, thus within the Realm of Sleep. Chirithy says that occasionally when Sora enters his Station of Awakening, he briefly passes the Final World (Realm of Death) but Chirithy lets it slide. Even though sleep and death are separated by a fine line, the line is still there.
I think Ansem might be a "special case" like the Lich. The Lich's sole purpose is to usher hearts from the Realm of Death to the depths of darkness, but still doesn't explain how it can summon lesser heartless like Neoshadows. It also doesn't explain why we fight Shadows and a Darkside in the beginning of the game, where the Lich is nowhere to be seen. If we assume that Ansem is a special case, what about The Guardian? Is it allowed to bypass the laws of sleep because it uses Ansem as a kind of proxy?
If Heartless can't be in the Sleeping Realm, I'd assume Nobodies can't either as we never see them in DDD, save for Xemnas. We know Xemnas has a heart, and hearts can dream. This allows him to have access to the Sleeping Realm. Since Ansem is a strong Heartless, possibly the strongest and most sentient Heartless of all, perhaps his willpower alone allows him to bypass the rule.
@@SonnyNovus out of curiosity, do these same factors apply to Roxas' fights against Dusks and Twilight Thorn in *his* Dive into the Heart? Do you think he was still inside the world of Data, or that for a moment he moved to the Realm of Sleep for those dreams?
just dropped but i know it's a banger
Just found your channel today due too looking for some tips on spirits and how to optimize them. I had to subscribe, you pointed out so many things that flew over my head. The yellow eyes thing shocked me as I sifted through my own memories to see if you were right. My mind was blown, it was such a simple connection that I failed to make, the fact that I got used to the heartless’ eyes probably played a factor my ignorance.
I also kind of noticed a correlation between Heartless and Hollows from Bleach, specifically a correlation to White.
That Hollow has yellow eyes and a hole where the heart should be, and turns Ichigo’s eyes yellow when ever he draws power from white. This is mostly a coincidence, but it’s a coincidence that I relish. There are other small similarities between the two series, but too minor to draw any conclusions.
I bet that "Unchained state" is also Nomura's in-universe justification for there being medals you can equip of characters that have nothing to do with the events of KH. He's definitely the kind of guy who would bother to cover that.
With Sora being unchained and brushing up against the realm of fiction, does that mean he's free to access a realm where Cloud, Sephiroth, and many others are trophy figures come to life?
Good lord I love how convoluted Kingdom Hearts is
3 things:
1.) Using Heavenly Garden from Tekken Tag Tournament 2 when talking about The Final World was pretty fitting with that feeling of intrigue, serenity and mystery.
2.) Nice research and pointing out all the dialogue, visuals, etc. It's really eye opening (awakening?)
3.) This hits different after that KHUX final update. 🤯
this got recommended to me. I freaking love kingdom hearts. gonna subscribe now
I really appreciate it! The UA-cam algorithm must be doing something right lol
@@SonnyNovus fr fr
i think all that's happened in kh , union x and the DLC in kh3 defo confirms the possibility that the next game in going to be based in the realm of sleep. maybe we might see the return of dark cirithy ( ik i spelt it wrong )
Love this theory overall, you did a fantastic job with editing and explaining it coherently.
One thing though is that I'm hesitant to believe anything of what Yen Sid says as he's been wrong about a lot of things throughout the series (Nobodies being unable to feel and passing that prejudice onto Sora etc). I can't really take him seriously in that regard, but that could also be because DDD has fried my brain so much from all the concepts it introduced.
yensi tells sora what sora has to believe in order for him to work as yensid wants.
yensid pulls the strings of the heroes and shouldnt even be considered a good guy at this point. yensid is more neutral.
2:33 I don't know why but I really like that part lol
Aww man, only two videos? if you can, keep them coming!
This is going to sound really weird, but I like your use of Silent Hill music in these theory videos. Both Kingdom Hearts and Silent Hill seem to have surprisingly similar themes and the titular town itself and the Darkness, as you describe, both are somewhat similar.
The Darkness and Heartless taking on the shapes of things that people find inherently terrifying, and same thing with some Dream Eaters.(Though, it seems to be a matter of perspective with Dream Eaters. Such as one person finding Dinosaurs in a dream to be terrifying, while others find it cool and amazing.) Silent Hill itself creates monsters based around the fears, sins, and doubts of those who enter it. Like James' monsters in Silent Hill 2, and how most of them represent things he regretted, feared, or hated. Hell, the Darkside heartless could be Sora's "Pyramid Head", guiding him to where he's meant to go when he's needed there.
Also, the town isn't inherently evil, just as some aspects of Darkness might not be evil. In it's raw form, it just depends on how its used and who uses it.
Idk, I think you using the funky spooky music is cool, your videos do far are cool, and I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors. :) Also, did you use some Drakengard 1 music?
Silent Hill is my favourite video game series next to Kingdom Hearts! In a different world (one where Konami's ignorance did't lead to the series' death), I would've been making Silent Hill theories, although a lot of it is beating a dead horse at this point.
I thank you for enjoying the video and I hope to see you around for more! My new video should be out sometime next week or so. And no, I don't think I know about Drakengard
@@SonnyNovus Thanks, and I'll absolutely be here for that! Honestly, its kinda hard to find people who take a fairly...realistic(for lack of a better word) approach to looking at the Kingdom Hearts series. It makes looking back at the series truly more fascinating.
And I feel that. Honestly, I've been wanting to stream some of the Silent Hill games on my Twitch channel at some point when I have better internet, but I doubt I'd have anything more interesting to say that other people haven't said before. Well, at least Kingdom Hearts is just as interesting, and just as delightfully confusing. :)
Also, your videos made me think about...well... Just how much of the games was planned from the beginning. Everything slots together surprisingly well, even with the confusing laws of time travel.
I wanted to bring a theory to your attention that I saw a while back regarding the first OrgXIII. It stated that most of the members were chosen due to them having had strong hearts in their past lives that were *capable* to wield a Keyblade, but could not for one reason or another. Hence why their weapons seem to have similar basic properties(some sort of elemental alignment, specializing in magic, attack, or defense more, being able to be summoned or willed away, and each weapon being one more aligned with each individual's personality types.) I don't remember where I read this, but it does make sense. Especially in the case of Axel, Marluxia, and Larxene. One of them couldnt summon his keyblade until after he was recompleted, and the other two couldnt even remember that they had keyblades to begin with, and how they got them.
dream walking Yozara?
clever storywriting
Amazing Video :) So Excited To Watch Your Videos :) Really Appreciate/Thankful Of Your Videos And I Can See How Much You Put In Making Them To Be Perfection :)
It feels to me like the worlds of Daybreak Town (and Scala Ad Caelum), Radiant Garden and Twilight Town are something like Nobodies. Each time one falls to darkness, the metaphysical heart of that world will slumber, but the physical world emerges without a heart and without people.
Initially, it is populated by Heartless, but eventually, they will disappear and be replaced by people with hearts that slowly generate a new heart for that world.
However, it is possible to recover worlds lost to darkness, which means that now the world and their doubles will live side by side; similar, but different.
I love your style and the quality of both theory and editing! Great job!!!
I tend to think that the Lich is but one of many extremely special heartless... It beckons the question if Heartless within the realm of darkness could possibly have evolved even further in order to be able to surpass their own realm and access the realm of sleep... As the Lich is EXTREMELY smart as seen knowing it can target specific keyblade wielders and usher their hearts into the abyss... It seems like one of those heartless that have existed long ago, since ancient times as a being who claimed hearts that were swallowed by Darkness, and became attracted to hearts of light in later years.
I had a random thought after watching the video and looking at the comments.
Aqua sees Terra in RoD the way she remembers him.
Sora sees Yozora the way he remembers him.
This kinda reminds me of Xion, she also has this gimmick of looking different depending on the memories of the viewer, Roxas sees her looking like Kairi due to Sora's memories and Xigbar looks at her like Ventus. Also interesting she's No. i, imaginary, you could say fictional even? :o
Darkness has never been expressively evil since Chain of Memories.
It's not darkness, it's how it's used.
Even in KH2, Mickey and Riku tell Xemnas that the darkness isn't scary, it's what's lurking inside it
@@SonnyNovus
Even in KH1, Jack Skellington's Ghostly Scream spell is classified as "dark" and he's one of the purest characters there is. And let's not forget Cloud trying to exploit the power of darkness and using those same powers against Sora in the Hades cup with no apparent ramifications. So from the very beginning, darkness was never inherently evil.
@@realJoeMavro I mean it's clear that being "possessed" or "tainted" by darkness has a negative connotation. Darkness has always been what we fight against, the source of all evil. Maleficent wanting to rule with it, Aqua being corrupted by it etc.
Of course from a meta standpoint we know that it's a lot more nuanced as a player, but for the characters within the most primal senses of the themes in the series: Light = good, dark = bad. Realm of darkness sucks and is a dangerous prison, realm of light is the opposite.
will be waiting for your videos , you have similar thinking i had but i am more lazy to do so much investigation, so huge thanks for your work
8:39 - No original human character, no. However, there _is_ one character that should be mentioned here. One who died, then came back later claiming he was instead just unconscious (sleeping).
Goofy.
True, he normally doesn't have red eyes. But visit Monstropolis and take another look - his form there reveals the truth. One blue eye, and one red eye. From death to sleep, then from there back to the realm of light.
(Mostly tongue-in-cheek, but given the insanity that is this series...)
LOL! I knew you were gonna say that before I clicked "read more".
That's it, theory is over. Cucked by Goofy yet again.
Literally everything about this video is done perfectly. You've placed video references when talking about them, gave us a good picture detailing your conclusions on where darkness, sleep/death and memories. I'm impressed. Please continue to do these type of videos! You've certainly got a knack for it!!!! 🙏
After Union X finale... YES sleep is going to be very important
Mickey isn’t the only character connected to memory, Kairi kinda has a even stronger connection to it, maybe. The entirety of Melody of Memory and Namine’s ( who can manipulate memories that are not her own ) drive down the point of her connection to that specific realm. And i do believe that maybe memory is not much of a ‘realm’ per se, as far as what a realm has been established to be in the series, it’s a chain that binds all realms, a realm to connect them all, one dependent on the existence of all other realms ( instead of realms like the Dark realm that has been suggested to be able to engulf the Light realm ), the ones able to break the chain of memory entering a unchained state, maybe that was Marluxia and Larxene’s plan, and let’s not forget that the two of them where from the time of Keyblade war, the only characters who have acknowledged them being from that specific time frame, which may hint at why they’d want to make Namine help Sora reach a unchained state. And on that note, maybe Yozora could only save Sora by breaking his chain of memories, which in turn makes the ending where Sora defeats Yozora be a ending where Yozora fails to save him, causing him to literally die.
( I hope this doesn’t sound too confusing, i formulated this theory while i was writing it )