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ultraericthered · 3 months

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MASTER NARIX

"Every heart will return to the light, once all darkness is expunged!"

Time to ellaborate on this beautiful bastard! Master Narix is the overarching Big Bad of the third and final trilogy/"chronicle" in the whole KH Divergence Saga, the Hearts In Chaos Chronicle, debuting in KH4 after having been set up by the secret epilogue of KH3, then serving as the chief antagonist in The Missing Links and one of the main antagonists/final bosses in KH5. The founder and leader of the Luminous Vanguard who dissolved the Dandelion Guild and its unions ages ago, Narix and five of his followers chose to enter a state of time stasis once it became clear to them how impossible the task of eliminating all the darkness and Darklings brought into the World by Darxomnious was, so they'd await the day when Luxu fulfilled his mission and the World was cleansed of that evil, at which point the Vanguard would return to construct a new World order.

Narix has long believed that the majority of hearts are naturally weak and susceptible to darkness that begets dark powers that defile the World, and that only the strongest and purest of hearts should set the course for the World and its denizens. Envisioning a reality where darkness no longer exists, light conquers all Worlds, and he reigns supreme as the light’s oppressive guardian, Narix arrogantly looks to use blight to tear down and reconstruct Kingdom Hearts from within its innermost heart, and will eradicate all that would get in his way.

Since the character concept of Master Narix only solidified fairly recently, most of what I can say about him here are some tidbits:

Quite obviously, I designed Narix as a Contrasting Sequel Antagonist to Xehanort by nature. Xehanort was a former Keyblade Master turned darkness supremacist, Narix is a non-Keyblade wielding Master who's become a light supremacist. The quote up there is even a direct parallel/reversal of Xehanort's famous line "Every light must fade, every heart return to DARKNESS!" And it really ought to be stressed how equally dangerous a light supremacist out to erradicate darkness from the World would be, as not only is, in a wise king's truthful words "the World made up of light and darkness, you can't have one without the other 'cause darkness is half of everything" so the removal of darkness would bring only imbalance and instability, but as has been established before, approaching the task of fighting darkness in a violent, hate-filled, stubborn and self-obsessed way only further feeds the darkness and begets more of it, which Narix is actually smart enough to know since he exploits that with the "blight" power and think it a worthy means so long as the ends he aims for can justify them. He's like Master Eraqus’ moral absolutism and ideals of light supremacy taken to the furthest extremes possible.

"Now wait a minute!" I hear some of you asking "You said back in this post about the Star Wars sequel trilogy "Apparently a whole lot of folks just think having this one guy serve as the overarching main antagonist, direct or indirect, for two trilogies and then having a completely different guy from right out of nowhere with no link or connection to the previous guy nor anything from the last six installments step up as the main antagonist for the third and final trilogy is perfectly fine storytelling so long as the second guy comes off sufficiently Big and Bad enough or whatever.", but how is what you're pushing with Narix any different?"

There are three major differences. 1. Yes, KH Divergence reimagines the whole Kingdom Hearts saga for 25 years as a trilogy of trilogies, and yes all of those trilogies are intertwined to connect with each other in some way, but they are not CONNECTED in the same way Nomura likes to do; while they share the same universe, cosmology, history, themes, and basic common elements across them all, each chronicle is still more or less its own complete story than can stand on its own even if you did not experience the other ones, with even the handling of continuity being kept as newcomer-friendly as possible in the way most game series' are. 2. Narix keeps with the running theme of "darkness begets more darkness". Darkness in the hearts of people begat Darxomnious, who begat darkness in Luxu, whose actions led to circumstances that begat darkness in Narix, whose actions led to circumstances that begat darkness in Xehanort, whose actions begat darkness in Vanitss and Maleficent and Braig and Ansem the Wise and many other villains, essentially putting the whole series as it began in motion, and so in the series' present day narrative the arc with Xehanort begets the arc with Darxomnious which begets the arc with Narix. It's cyclical by design. And 3. Xehanort still factors into the last trilogy as the one who created Evanessé. When you get down to it, Xehanort was THE chief antagonist of the first trilogy - the KH Trinity, or the Door To Light Chronicle - and of KH0.1 (BBS) but was just part of the Big Bad Ensemble in the second trilogy (playing second banana to Maleficent and Darxomnious in the second and third games of it), and a posthumous Greater Scope Villain behind one of the antagonists in the final trilogy. So you can't say he ever stopped mattering here.

Narix's name is derived from a double meaning. Like the other Lost Masters names, it's a play on one of the seven deadly sins (Avali = avarice/Greed, Fura = fury/Wrath, Gorgeyo = gorge/Gluttony, Jelus = jealousy/Envy, Ecaed = acedia/Sloth, Luxu = Lust); as Narix's sin is Pride, his name refers to Narcissism. The NAR in his name, with how it's pronounced like that, is also pulled from the word "Lunar", as in the moon, like Kingdom Hearts itself. Additionally, it felt right to put the "X" letter at the end of his name. Xehanort had it as his name's first letter (as did Xemnas), both Darxomnious and Luxu had it somewhere in the center of their names, Narix has it at the very end.

His hair being brown is also a deliberate choice. Sora was a brunette hero whose nemesis was silver haired. Now we have Ephemer as a silver haired hero whose nemesis is brunette. It's poetry, it rhymes! And the weird styling of it where it goes up into double pointed ends is meant to call to mind rabbit ears. Yes, rabbit ears. It's another reference to the whole "lunar" connection: the fabled Moon Rabbit.

Design-wise, Narix is meant to invoke vintage Final Fantasy villains, primarily the evil Emperor Mateus from Final Fantasy II. This would also work coming off of Xehanort, who was either a straight-up Disney Villain (Master Xehanort in KH0.1/BBS), a Disneyfied Final Fantasy Villain (Terra-Xehanort/Ansem), the Disneyfied Final Fantasy Villain so re-Final Fantasified that he becomes fittingly an in-between "neither Disney nor FF villain" KH Villain (Xemnas), or a crappy Shonen villain from a crappy Shonen manga/anime (Master Xehanort in every game since BBS in Nomura's KH Canon).

Speaking of, Narix's motivation should ring familiar. He wants to clean the universal slate so that darkness is no more, the World is pure and bright with the light of Kingdom Hearts always shining over it, and he remains bound to Kingdom Hearts' inner heart in order to forever safeguard that light and reign over all who have hearts in an oppressive way, "to stop the weak from polluting the World with their endless darkness - to dictate their destinies." Yeah, THIS is the sort of antagonist such self-righteous and fascistic motives actually works with as opposed to shoehorning them onto an established immoral researcher who has historically fancied the darkness. Xehanort started out believing he could "tear down a tyranny of light". Narix wishes to instill a tyranny of light. And the way he seeks to do so is truly insane: he wishes to dismantle and reassemble Kingdom Hearts itself from within its inner heart (to clarify, Kingdom Hearts' "outer heart" is what birthed the World. It's "inner heart" is what birthed every other World and keeps it tied to this KH multiverse) so as to eliminate all darkness across the multiverse, all costs be damned. In doing so he ironically creates an evil force called “blight”, light that’s been perverted to the point where it works in tandem with darkness.

Whatever else can be said about him, Narix is definitely a man of strong ideals and convictions. And one prominent ideal of his is his absolute abhoring of Keyblades. The events of Waning Way, learning more about the Keyblade War, and what occured with Luxu all served to make him swear off the weapon, believing such a weapon to not be fit for human hands. He passed this belief down to his followers in the Vanguard as they cracked down on Keyblade Mastery. The reason the Guardian Keybladers in KH0.1 is such a small and secretive order? Yeah, this would be the reason.

(And seeing how out of hand Keyblades got it Nomura's canon, I can honestly kind of sympathize!)

Now, don't confuse Narix for a Frollo or Emperor Belos type of evil, bigoted, hypocritical religious fudamentalist villain who have openly unpleasant personalities that we can all recognize as being evil beneath the superficial charisma - Narix is a very convincingly affable, charming, parental and seemingly noble individual, which makes it all the scarier to see his more pompous, self-obsessed, and even cruel side come out, especially the more he dabbles in blight and darkens his heart and soul. Narix can also be quite humorous and snarky, not in "lol weird and random" way like the Master of Masters, nor even like Xigbar, but in a more "Ardyn Izunia" way.

For Narix's English voice, I had to think of a VA, namely one who's a big name in anime and video games, who was a super veteran in the industry for years now and would be officially middle-aged by the end of the 2010s yet has a voice that retains this youthful quality to it, capable of performing the smoothy, silky, mellifluous voiceover that the character would need. Who could that be none other than the one and only Johnny Yong Bosch. A sampling of how he'd sound:

The nature of Narix's main power, "blight", is quite insidious: the Masters and lower mages of the Vanguard use their staves to steal light from other people's hearts and transfer it into the veins of creatures of darkness, creating this power where the darkness and light intermingling with each other causes one another to go totally out of whack. It effects the new "Demi-Deterged" Heartless so that rather than be attracted to the darkness of people’s hearts with the instict to prey upon those hearts, they seek out darkness and attack it in violent ways that prove dangerous to the hearts they come into contact with and destructive to the very fabric of the World itself.

While the full stories and scenarios for the Hearts In Chaos Chronicle entires are incredibly hazy to me overall right now, one of the things I can see very vividly is the Final Boss stage for KH5. Basically, the final world brings us back to...well, The Final World, right to Kingdom Hearts' doorstep, at which point a fucking enlarged, Demi-Deterged Chernabog starts tearing up the place and becomes the Climax Boss. And then comes the Final Boss, which is, I shit you not, essentially the one famous Kamina line from Gurren Lagann - "the Drill that will pierce the heavens!" An enormous tower-like contraption that is trying to drill its way into Kingdom Hearts to reach the inner heart, and three competing factions for light, darkness, and nothingness are all trying to make it work in their favor. Stage 1 of the fight pits Ephemer and friends against all the strongest "miniboss" tier enemies in the game all at once. Once that's cleared, Stage 2 is against Neodarkness and his powers of darkness. Clearing that gets you to Stage 3 against Evanessé and his powers of Nil. Clearing this advances you to the penultimate stage where of course it's Narix who's the last one standing. The final phase is triggered when the blight at last becomes too much for the unhinged Narix, filling his heart with darkness, becoming darkness itself! Defeating Dark Narix finally brings the whole thing down, freeing Kingdom Hearts and keeping the multiverse still in order. A completely broken Narix still insists on the rightness of his cause and how he could've improved all Worlds, at which point Maleficent enters the scene to zap him with her newly restored dark magic, obliterating his heart and physically transforming him into a basic Darkling who fades to the Dark Realm.

.....Hold on, I feel like I might've heard this story from Disney before.

A character model for Master Narix, and a close-up of his face.

#Disney #Kingdom Hearts #KH Divergence #disney villains #Master Narix #KHIV #the Missing Links #KHV #oc #headcanon #trivia #analysis

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ultraericthered · 3 months

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Kingdom Hearts Divergence, the Hearts In Chaos Chronicle

THE GOOD GUYS

Ephemer - The main protagonist of the saga, debuting as a dual MC next to Sora in KH4 before Sora's Keyblade of Light chooses Ephemer to be its new wielder. Ephemer's background is opposite of Sora's in that he's always known of other worlds, Keyblades, powers of light and darkness from the heart, Kingdom Hearts and all that because he's actually a member of the Dandelion Guild who comes from the distant past, having been thrust forward in time after running afoul of a conspiracy being set in motion by the then-current Guild Masters. Ephemer is a kind-hearted, empathetic and curious youth who wishes to solve the mysteries of the World, such as the Book of Prophecies and what exactly transpired between the Unions of the Dandelion Guild that caused Keyblades and Masters to become scarce. Much hard-hitting and less easygoing than Sora, he can be a bit cocky when he fights but is also known to be hesitant when he is unsure he's up to a big task, particularly true for becoming the next Keyblade Master, but he gradually starts to grow into the role. Ephemer is voiced in the English dub by Michael Johnston.

Skuld - The series' new female lead is quite special, as she's come to the present timeline from a far off future. It's never confirmed outright where she hails from and who her family is, but it is strongly implied that she's the future daughter of Squall Leonhart and Rinoa Heartilly, with similiarities in hair, fashion sense, and even the use of a sort of "Gunblade" as her weapon of choice. Skuld, like Riku, has dabbled in the powers of Darkness and can now uses abilities derived from the twilight in-between. Despite being something self-serious, driven, and something of a loner at first, Skuld cares greatly for her friends and doesn't like seeing others fighting and getting hurt, which is why she tries to carry the burdens all by herself. As she befriends Ephemer and begins to loosen up, we see she is every bit as empathetic as him and willing to take great risks to protect others.

Skuld is voiced in the English dub by Cristina Vee.

Brain - A young man living in the present day's Daybreak Town, Brain (pronounced BRYNE) is a cool, laid-back, and studious person by nature. The first person befriended by Ephemer when he lands in this timeline, Brain becomes protective of the boy like a big brother. He is very clever and tactically gifted, good with analytics, deduction, and making plans to be implemented in times of conflict. Brain was also hesitant about becoming an adventuring, world-saving hero, believing himself incapable of fulfilling the role, but resolves to perform his duties to prevent another war from breaking out. It is later revealed that Master Luxu's heart cast itself into Brain's and melded with it (akin to Ventus with Sora), so the Luminous Vanguard seek to recruit him into the Lost Masters, but Brain fights to assert that his heart is his own and he "makes himself" who he truly is. Much like Organization XIII's Zexion, Brain's weapon of choice is a magic book.

Brain is voiced in the English dub by Max Mittelman.

Huey, Dewey, and Louie Duck - In the year between KH2-KH3 and KH4, Donald's triplet nephews underwent a growth spurt and got even more deeply involved with being entrepreneurs under their great uncle Scrooge's mentorship, finally deciding they were ready to take on adventures of their own across the galaxy. As fate would have it, their first such endeavor leads them to Ephemer, and from them on they are inseparable from him. The Nephews act as a constantly rotating unit. In some worlds Ephemer can switch between which Nephew he wants to have fight along with him, but in select worlds, only one nephew will be available. Their specialty is utilizing magic like their uncle, but through high-tech gear rather than staffs.

The Nephews are voiced in the English dub by Danny Pudi (Huey), Ben Schwartz (Dewey), and Bobbi Moynihan (Louie).

Max Goof - The estranged teenage son of Disney Castle's lead guard, Goofy, Max is a squire still in training whose tastes tend to differ from his doofus dad's, including his belief that the best defense is a good offense, which is why he fights with a very shield-like blade. When Goofy and Donald accompany Sora to look into the rise in blight power and the Demi-Deterged, Max steals away on his own to prove himself, running into Donald's Nephews and Ephemer in the process. As one of Ephemer's constant companions, Max fears being as clumsy as his dad or being seen as needing of constant supervision and help, but eases into becoming a knight on his terms.

Max is voiced in the English dub by Jason Marsden.

Timothy Mouse - A mouse who used to be a big name in show biz but has since fallen to the wayside and become homeless. Timothy accompanies Ephemer and his friends on their journeys. The whole joke with him is that as he is a mouse and he's joined up with ducks and a Goof, Timothy believes himself a potential successor to King Mickey himself only to find himself the new Jiminy Cricket instead.

Timothy is voiced in the English dub by Chris Edgerly, who also voices the role of Cid.

King Mickey - We all know who he is by now, and of course he was going to involve himself somehow. Following KH4, he gets seen much less in the plot, making it a big deal whenever he does pop up.

King Mickey is voiced in the English dub by Brett Iwan.

Figaro - A stray cat from Disney Town who tags along with Max and with the main party, being attracted to Ephemer, Skuld, and Brain's monochrome colors they wear that match Figaro's own fur.

Figaro is voiced in the English dub by Frank Welker.

Chirithy - The Chirithy were the ancient predecessors to Moogles in the World, but only one such Chirithy remains in the present day.

Chirithy is voiced in the English dub by Lara Jill Miller.

The Blue Fairy - The very same Blue Fairy who brought Pinocchio to life, it's her magic that draws Ephemer, Brain, and Skuld together, as she fills Yen Sid's old spot as the primary magic-powered mentor.

The Blue Fairy is voiced in the English dub by Rosalin Landor.

Merlin - Speaking of magic-powered mentor, Merlin is still very much around, still working with the Committee, still in possession of the Winnie The Pooh book, and still offering magic training to any who need it. He becomes particularly close with both Brain and Max.

Merlin is voiced in the English dub by Jeff Bennett.

Scrooge McDuck - Donald's uncle and the great uncle of Huey, Dewey, and Louie who mentored them in the ways of big business. Uncle Scrooge is still around the hub worlds, always doing his thing.

Scrooge McDuck is voiced in the English dub by En Reitel.

Wreck-It Ralph & Pals - First obtained as summonable allies by Sora in KH3, Ralph, Vanellope, Felix, and Sgt. Calhoun are allies in their own world in KH4 and become recurring aid to Ephemer's party.

They are voiced in the English dub by John C. Reily, Sarah Silverman, Jack McBrayer, and Jane Lynch.

Kermit The Frog - No one quite understands what Kermit's deal is, but he was displaced from his home world when it got torn up by blight, so now he seeks application with Leon's Committee in KH4. Later reunited with his Muppet friends in KH5, Kermit continues to help out while also serving as the host for entertainment venues and mini-games. He's generally good-natured, but not good at handling frustration, and has next to no combat capabilities besides dodging.

Kermit The Frog is voiced in the English dub by Matt Vogel.

Elrena, Lauriam, & Strelitizia - The resident "Hayner, Pence, and Olette" of Daybreak Town, this trio is unique in that there are two girls and one guy this time! The three of them were in the very last remnant of the old Dandelion Guild and like a family to one another, but Strelitiza tragically lost her heart in an incident a few years ago, with Lauriam and Elrena losing their hearts to the Heartless when they invaded their world. Now fully restored to life, the trio become loyal allies to Ephemer upon learning his ties to the Dandelion Guild.

Elrena, Lauriam, & Strelitzia are voiced in the English dub by Shanelle Workman-Gray, Keith Ferguson, and Madison Davenport.

THE ENEMIES

The Demi-Detergered - A truly bizarre and unexpected evolution has occurred within many of the Heartless that still roam the worlds. Powers of light, light stolen from the hearts of others, have entered their veins and changed them from within. Rather than be attracted to the darkness of people's hearts with the instict to prey upon those hearts, these Heartless seek out darkness and attack it in ways that prove dangerous to hearts and destructive to the fabric of the World. Called the Demi-Deterged, this brand of Heartless and the "blight" they possess is exploited by the Luminous Vanguard in their quest to purge reality of darkness and re-organize it around eternal light.

Neodarkness - An entity made of pure raw darkness who's become ruler of the Dark Realm, ensuring that all dark beings like Darklings, Heartless, Unversed, and Nightmares return to the World. In his previous existence, Neodarkness was Vanitas, the dark half of Ventus who served Master Xehanort. In accepting his nature, his dark soul was able to evolve into something else. Pure evil as he seems, Neodarkness doesn't always disturb the peace and finds himself frequently acting on the defensive against beseiging blight.

Neodarkness is voiced in the English dub by Haley Joel Osment.

Pete & Duke Mortimer - While Maleficent plays the chief antagonist role in KH4 along with Judge Frollo, she's brought down and sapped of all her dark magical power in the end. Unable to act anymore, she tasks Pete with tending to all her tasks and searching for a way to restore her power to her, and knowing that her chief flunkie is hardly reliable on his own, she inducts a new flunkie into her service: Duke Mortimer Mouse, King Mickey's rival from Disney Town who debuted in KH4. Creating a faux Keyblade for his use, Mortimer also comes in handy for slaying Demi-Deterged as he and Pete travel the worlds.

Pete and Duke Mortimer are voiced in the English dub by Jim Cummings and Maurice Lemarche respectively.

The Luminous Vanguard - A clerical society of white mages made from what used to be different unions for the Dandelion Guild. While their seven masters entering stasis in time made the group unable to function for ages, it has finally reactivated and is out to achieve its leader's vision of a reconstructed Kingdom Hearts whose pure light can spread to not just all worlds, but all Worlds, and burn away all darkness so that all hearts will be forced into obedience to the light. Having eliminated the ability for hearts to unite with Keyblades in frequency ages ago, the Vanguard abhors the very existence of the Keyblade, believing such a weapon to not be fit for human hands.

Master Narix - Founder and leader of the Luminous Vanguard. Narix has long believed that the majority of hearts are naturally weak and susceptible to darkness that begets dark powers that defile the World, and that only the strongest and purest of hearts should set the course for the World and its denizens. Envisioning a reality where darkness no longer exists, light conquers all Worlds, and he reigns supreme as the light's oppressive guardian, Narix arrogantly looks to use blight to tear down and reconstruct Kingdom Hearts from within its innermost heart, and will eradicate all that would get in his way. The road to the deepest darkness is paved with good intentions.

Master Narix is voiced in the English dub by Johnny Yong Bosch.

The Lost Masters - The six Masters who accompanied Narix in forming the Luminous Vanguard were Avali, Fura, Gorgeyo, Jelus, Ecaed, and the now deceased Luxu. Aside from Luxu, the only truly prominent Master is the young Avali, whose pure heart and convictions to doing good by others for the cause of light enabled her to become one of the new Princesses of Heart. More than the others she has doubts about the rightness of the Vanguard's course, but tends to quickly dispell those doubts and show why a pure heart of light can be incredibly dangerous if exploited by the wrong crowd.

In the English dub, Avali is voiced by Jenna Ortega, Fura by Travis Willingham, Gorgeyo by Matthew Mercer, Jelus by Katelyn Gault, and Ecaed by Adam McArthur (and Luxu by Hector Elizondo).

Justice Minister Frollo - Having lost his authority in La Cite des Lumieres, Judge Frollo was beckoned out from his world by the Lost Masters, who annointed him as Minister of Justice to lead the test run faction of the Luminous Vanguard, with the leftover Nightmare energy Frollo had attained granting him the power to control and exploit the Demi-Deterged. Gladly compliant with the Vanguard's mission to purge the World of darkness but holding himself in such esteem that he frequently changes the course of plans without the Lost Masters' imput, Frollo's broad defining of what is sinful sees him seeking the destruction of many Disney villains and Disney good guys alike, as all this grows and enhances his own heart’s darkness yet he remains ignorant or in denial of it due to his sense of self-righteousness.

Frollo is voiced in the English dub by Timothy E. Brummud.

Evanesse' - A very different sort of adversary Ephemer finds himself faced with later in his quest. Created as a Hollow Replica by the late Xehanort, he's inadvertedly found and given life by Ephemer, making him a Xehanort replica whose essence is but a pale copy of what came from Ephemer's heart. Calling himself Evanessé, he seeks to find his own aim and to define his place in the World, but plagued by self doubt that he can live up to his own expectations for existing and by the specter of Xehanort, he comes to resent life and decides he just wants everything around him to disappear into nothingness...

Evanesse' is voiced in the English dub by Dylan Sprouse.

#Disney #Kingdom Hearts #KH Divergence #KHIV #KHV #characters #headcanon #trivia #analysis #what could have been #the missing links

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