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kayura-sanada · 2 years

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How Dark Road Destroyed the Last Vestige of Good KH Storytelling, or, alternatively, Why, As a Huge Fan of Birth By Sleep, the Kingdom Hearts Series Should Have Ended With Kingdom Hearts 2

So firstly, I will say that followers of my blog have seen me lose my mind to all of this before, and some of these followers have outright asked me to rant about this, so here I am. The summaries they've sent me (because I have no intention of losing hours of my life to this) were long, and since this is going to be long enough, I will only be referencing what they told me instead of posting it all, because... guys, it's a lot.

Obviously, there are going to be spoilers here. A lot of them.

I honestly don't know where to start, so I'll start where a couple of these summaries started: Xehanort's childhood.

First, I need to admit here that I don't care. Nobody needs to know the backstory of a character who has spent thirteen games torturing teenagers. But here we go.

So Xehanort was a kid being raised on Destiny Islands - information we already had - but he was born in Scala ad Caelum. And his guardian was actually our player character from UX! Guys. This alone is going to be a long rant.

Firstly, again, let dead people stay dead. I don't know about anyone else, but I never expected nor wanted my character to show up in the storyline after UX. There's no need for that.

But! Apparently there is! Because my character, who has already been demoted to 'parental figure' - a position about as useful to the player character as it was to Sora's mother - had memories. And because Xehanort is so sensitive, he dreams those memories.

Guys, this is so much, and it's all bullshit.

Suddenly the greatest contribution our player character can say to have given is helping make Xehanort evil. We are, after all, responsible for the source of information that leads Xehanort to the decisions he makes in the future. Our character exists just to accidentally screw over everyone in the future? Excuse me? May I just delete my damn character, then?

But also, let's dig into this 'sensitive heart' bullshit that Xehanort suddenly has. It's something he and "Baldr" (it's fucking Luxu, and of course Nomura thinks he's clever by naming him after the most well-known god of light in any pantheon, sigh, sorry but God of War is bringing out its second game, you are not going to use Norse mythology better than God of War, Nomura, shove off) apparently have, just like Sora. Only we've seen countless signs of Sora having a sensitive heart. There have been no signs whatsoever of Luxu or Xehanort having the same thing. Not once! Not once! But suddenly Xehanort is such a nice guy it left him vulnerable to falling to darkness.

So really, he didn't fall to darkness because he wanted more power, or because he wanted to find out what happened during the Keyblade War to the point where he was all right killing Ven and Aqua and taking over Terra's body against his consent, oh no! It's not because he willingly made himself a heartless or studied hearts until he created nobodies out of himself and a bunch of innocent people, including children and young teens, oh no! And it certainly wasn't because he manipulated a fifteen-year-old into sending his world to darkness or trying to use said teen's body to kill his friends, oh no! It was because he is just too kind and sensitive to others' hearts.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, I have spoken before on how obvious it is that Nomura likes Xehanort, but never in my life did I think I would see the day when he would take the characteristics that make up his main character and Gary Stu them into his fave. But here we are.

In fact, due to these changes, we ourselves, our own player characters, now exist as angst fodder for Xehanort. We exist for Xehanort's pain.

(And in fact they're talking about a game focusing on our player character, or something? So we really will exist for Xehanort, and our main story will be about how we affect him. Ugh.)

(Also, a prequel of a prequel? Please, someone stop Nomura.)

And it seems Ephemer also existed for Xehanort! Because now Xehanort has a lineage. And that always seems to happen when bad writers want to write stories that span generations, doesn't it? Everyone has to secretly be related to everyone else, because only a handful of people exist in the world, and only those descended from those people could ever be important or make history.

(And this makes me highly uncomfortable, thinking about how Ephemer randomly cameo'd in KH3. Is that now all about Xehanort, too?)

Not to be That Person, but the idea that someone is inherently meant to be an important hero, based on nothing more than their ancestor, only to fall to darkness because they have such a sensitive heart and were made vulnerable to the darkness... didn't Star Wars already do this better? With a character that hasn't been known as absolutely awful for over a decade, by the way.

Just saying.

But sure! Luxu and Xehanort are both just so kind, so sensitive, that they fell to darkness. Because they were such good people. Being that good made their hearts weak to darkness, and that's why they fell. Sure.

(Again, nevermind everything they've done that would explain how they fell, or the goals Xehanort explicitly stated he had over the course of the games that also would explain why he fell. Nope! He did all of that because he was a good guy.)

In fact, of all the things he did, one was to save Ven from Vanitas. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, the thing we feared to be true really happened! Vanitas is an evil being of darkness, and Xehanort saved Ven by splitting them apart. In fact, the only reason he even went to Ven was because of those pesky, pesky dreams our main character accidentally gave him by being so close to his heart. (I just can't; this has never been a thing before despite Kairi's heart having been inside Sora's; Sora never remembered any of Roxas' or Ven's memories, Xion was somehow forgotten entirely despite being close to Axel and Roxas, but sure!!!! Sure!!!!)

So according to Birth By Sleep, Vanitas was a part of Ven's heart, and Xehanort even told him flat-out to use more darkness, then got rid of him because he didn't have enough, abandoning him to die on Destiny Islands, then siccing the very creature of darkness he'd created from Ven's heart back on Ven in order to create the X-Blade, but apparently! Apparently this was all for Ven's sake! He was saving Ven that day! He did it all to save Ven from Vanitas, even though he then sent Vanitas to attack Ven again! It's not a retcon at all! This! This is good storytelling!!!

And yes! This means that Vanitas is a two-dimensional creature of pure evil, because again! All darkness is bad! And all light is good! The best kind of storytelling!

So how is it that we all know how amazing and special Xehanort is? Perhaps it was something so obvious that people knew when Xehanort was born and perhaps there was a prophecy about it!!!

A prophecy. No. Specifically, another fucking prophecy. And it's from the very useful Book of Prophecies, which included a story about a traitor that was absolutely accurate and not a self-fulfilling prophecy (do you get the pun??? DO YOU?!?!?!) clearly created by a hack writer who hadn't thought far enough ahead to choose who was going to be the bad guy! So the answer is 'nobody! Except darkness!'

But yes! Another prophecy! This time about the prophesized child who's going to unite the villages worlds and bring peace! (It's nothing like Naruto don't bother trying to compare.) And it turns out that everyone thought the person who became a villain was actually the prophesized child, but it was actually the main character all along! (Stop comparing; they're nothing alike.)

But in reality! Not only was Xehanort considered the child of prophecy and thus taken from Scala ad Caelum to Destiny Islands to protect him (Sleeping Beauty? What?), but he also acted out in order to fulfill the prophecy and bring peace!!

That's right! I was right in my previous rants; Xehanort opened Kingdom Hearts, destroying countless worlds and torturing and killing countless innocent people, all in order to save everyone!!! He sacrificed himself to open Kingdom Hearts so he could end the existence of Darkness (you know, that thing that exists in everyone's hearts, but is now also a race of thirteen Super Evil Creatures that have no feelings and are evil, this is nothing like KH2 don't compare) and bring peace to the World! Also Eraqus knew all about this, and though he felt like Xehanort's methods were too extreme, he swore to always be there to bring him back just like Axel did with Roxas and Xion but in a less interesting way and thus wasn't murdered but willingly sacrificed himself! Yeah!! That's it! Xehanort didn't actually kill his friend at all, he's such a good guy actually!!!

So it was egregious enough that Eraqus chose to side with Xehanort at the end, thus ignoring everything Xehanort had done not just to him, but to his students he purportedly cares about, but now it turns out he was never really on his students' side at all! He was always on Xehanort's side, despite the huge fights and the blatant distrust and the animosity that seemed obvious in Birth By Sleep; no no!! Eraqus has always watched out for Xehanort (doing a bad job of that in the process, lol) and was apparently okay with being killed? Perhaps even went with it? Who knows, but yeah, solid friendship brotherhood whatever. (Or, as much of fandom sees it, romance. Have fun, guys; definitely not my cup of tea, but have at. Only fandom can fix this fustercluck.)

So really, with this all said and done, Xehanort has never been a bad guy! Ignore everything he did in previous games, because it was all due to his being super sensitive to others' hearts, just like Sora apparently but with absolutely zero foreshadowing, which led to him being vulnerable to outside forces, which is what darkness is, nothing to do with one's inner self or one's own emotions or goals or anything, no, darkness is an evil entity with its own mind, you can't help falling to it (unless you're Terra, fandom's still going to say Terra falling to darkness was all his own fault somehow). And everything he did was actually in sacrifice for the greater good! He's just so misunderstood, you guys. Really you should love and pity him.

I have more to say about this bullshit but I am Tired and this should be enough of a rant to keep you all satisfied for now. This is so bad it's somehow worse than Kishimoto's writing.

Suffice it to say, Xehanort should not be suddenly made to be a good guy who's just misunderstood and has been Trying His Best. Darkness should not be a physical entity that exists as some evil boogeyman to erase all fault or responsibility from people who fall to darkness. Scala ad Caelum shouldn't exist. The reveal of Kingdom Hearst shouldn't have been so underwhelming. It's nothing more than a lead-in to more UX nonsense, ffs. Union X should never have existed. Hell, Birth By Sleep, in bringing such wonderful characters and in-depth, complex ideas about light and darkness, should never exist in the same universe as this bullshit. The storyline was only marginally cohesive through KH2; afterward it became a tangled mess. (Hell, KH2 tangled it quite a bit with Roxas, but at least that storyline reached a conclusion, too, with Roxas' and Namine's existences shown to match between Sora and Kairi.)

If Kingdom Hearts ended with KH2, it would have been remembered as a weird, interesting story with engaging characters and a fun plotline. Nothing deep, but a great experience nonetheless. Instead we have this - a storyline you can't follow logically and characters so twisted and contorted, not just around each other but around their own selves, that you can't straighten them out anymore. It's so bad. I officially gave up on Kingdom Hearts after the third game, but I am truly, honestly telling people that it's better to just step away from it entirely.

I might write my own version of Kingdom Hearts one day, but if I do, it will look nothing like the original, because I demand cohesion in my narratives.

To anyone still following Kingdom Hearts, good luck. You're going to need it.

#kingdom hearts #nomura critical #long post #VERY long post #dark roads critical #spoilers #dark road spoilers #kh dr spoilers #it's so bad #it's SO BAD you guys #a couple of people in this world played dark roads and then chose violence #toward me specifically haha #but thank you guys so much for caring about my insane opinions (or just enjoying my loss of sanity)#enough to let me know what's been happening #honestly it makes me feel good that I got out of the fandom when I did #I clearly dodged SEVERAL bullets

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