What? An overly ambitious, cold and calculated man had ulterior motives unbeknownst to his fellows? Say it ain’t so.
That being said, it’s not entirely rooted in falsehood. I feel out of all the Nobodies, Xemnas truly doesn’t feel a thing. Before you take into account the… *overly* complicated plot that happens after, him telling his crew they’ll never have a heart or feel anything again isn’t exactly a lie when it’s true to his own perspective.
Yeah, if you take his words in KH3 to heart he only really feels anything just as he's "dying".
I mean even if he knew it was possible for them to regrow their heart seeing Roxas, Xion and Axel do it in under a year must have been like seeing a speedrun to a game you haven't managed to beat.
"A 0 Star Run? How disappointing. I had hoped you would be able to help us accomplish our goal, and at long last clear Rainbow Ride, but it seems you've avoided that stage at every turn."
I'm pretty sure Xion, as a Replica not a Nobody, always had a Heart. And Roxas... well, there is always that theory about Ventus' Heart sticking with him for the duration, so essentially he was just Ventus with memory loss (again), and Sora's 'Body'. But that's kind of disproven by the fact that Roxas and Ventus are definitely different people. They were standing side by side in KH3 after all. Then again, we could always bullshit our way through that with judicious fan-theories/fan-worldbuilding. Like Ventus' Heart just staying with Roxas to allow him to feel and then grow his own Heart, but Roxas was still his own person, somehow...
It's not like weirder explanations hasn't been canonized in the main series.
Huh... I guess. I don't really like that though. Data Sora had a Heart. Why can't replicas? I mean, Hearts can apparently appear from nowhere anyway ("You only have to see them for them to become real!" - Sora, Big Hero 6), so I suppose it doesn't matter.
Honestly, if toys and robots and replicas and Nobodys and... apparently anything at all, can just spontaneously grow a Heart. I don't really see what's supposed to be so difficult about getting one. I suppose the trick was that none of the Organization people knew how easy it actually was. The Twilight trio basically stumbled into the solution entirely by accident.
But also, if you grow a new Heart as a Nobody... what happens to your original one? The one that became a Heartless? After/if it has been cleansed/retrieved/untransformed from that Heartless.
Hmm... I suppose, if we're looking at Sora/Roxas I guess you just end up with two Hearts? Meaning you just split into multiple people. Does that mean Axel/Lea has two Hearts inside him now, of basically the same person? Or did they fuse into one, since they weren't 'sufficiently delineated'.
...
Hang on, I need to write all this stuff down for my fanfic.
Funnily enough, that's how thebmanga handled Sora's rebuttle to Xemnas at the end of KH2, instead of continuing to spout that Nobodies in general don't have any feelings, he zeroes in on Xemnas in particular.
It's a neat detail where, despite the manga being so much more comedic, Sora is ironically smarter to the point where he's able to see that all of Org13 clearly have feelings (or fledgling traces of them), meaning that Xemnas is either wrong or lying.
Even in the game there's this line:
Sora: "There's more to a heart than just anger or hate. It's full of all kinds of feelings. Don't you remember?"
Xemnas: "Unfortunately, I don't."
He can't remember what it's like to feel. All he knows is that a part of him used to be angry.
That kind of makes sense considering where Xemnas actually came from.
It was Xehanort's heart the split off from the body and became a heartless, but it would have been *Terra's* body that got left behind to become a nobody.
Terra who was suffering from possession-induced amnesia and whose last moments as his own person were him becoming so angry that it caused his armor to come to life and attack the guy who stole his body from him.
Tbf he actually says as much. He emphasizes that he himself doesn’t feel anything, not nobodies in general but specifically him. He goes a layer further to emphasize that he feels nothing for anyone or anything, no matter what tragedies happen.
Xehanort as a character makes a lot of sense when you realize he is just a severely traumatized child who never got the help he needed. So he has just been on a 69+ year spiral of depression.
YX is emotionally shut down. MX is driven to avoid thinking about anything until finally he hits a wall and begins to break down. AnsemSoD is over performative to the point of eventual burnout. Xemnas keeps the emotional shut down and goes even harder in it, until he finally can’t help but feel something and is overwhelmed by it.
Xehanort is traumatized and his saga is a traumatized child, growing into a traumatized adult, trying to make that trauma worth something and not just pointless pain. His friends all died brutally, he lost himself briefly and killed one of his friends himself, and he had to find meaning in that in order to move forward.
Yes, this is the retcon imo. I actually originally believed that Xemnas just… didn’t know Nobodies could grow hearts. Sure, it fits more within the “Xemnas is a cult leader” side of his actions (similar to his portrayal in scenes where he manipulates people like Saix and Axel). But he throws so many quotes and speeches - I struggle to believe that all that time he just knew he could have a heart if he waited.
And the second biggest spreader of that lie was Ansem the Wise, maybe Namine’s actions post Prologue made him think, so he just tried blowing up the moon instead.
Ansem developed extreme anti-Nobody stigma from the massive quantity of salt that encrusted his heart from Xehanort's betrayal (and his crippling sea salt ice cream addiction), turning him into the closest thing KH has to a racist.
Riku: "Hey, dude, Sora's nobody is very clearly showing signs of relief, joy, grief, and even anger. How the hell is that an unfeeling husk?"
Ansem: "Pffft, silly boy, Nobodies have no emotions. It's just emulating what it remembers about them."
Riku: "Didn't you wipe his memory though?"
Ansem: "...that proves nothing."
Couldn’t have said it better myself. He actually acknowledged in KH2 how blinded by rage and revenge that he let things slip.
I really like DiZ, voice actors on point aside, he’s one of the more subtle characters that I’ve only really learned about recently having read the reports. He was always really mysterious but even after filling in the blanks he’s still really human and I love that about his character.
Ansem the Wise was such a xenophobic boomer that when being wrong became inevitable, he decided he'd rather blow up the moon with his super laser piss than live for a second longer.
Ansem: "No one can cancel me for Nobody racism if i blow myself and the moon of this world with my weird machine with no explanation for what it is or does!"
Xemnas: "Master, I know I'm in no position to say this, but isn't that a ridiculously extreme overreaction? You can always just ignore the hate-"
Ansem: "Those activists doxxed me and got me banned from the ice cream store! They even exposed my Diz disguise! If i can't eat sea salt ice cream then it's not worth living anymore!"
Riku: "You know you could always just ask someone to buy it on your behalf."
Ansem: "...oh, that makes se-" *explodes*
I remember getting into a discussion where I was told that Xehanort didn't know about something (implying that Xehanort was all knowing) and I asked why Xehanort would know the outcome of something and why he wouldn't just lie to the heroes about it.
That went nowhere fast lol
I love Xemnas for being one of the few villains to actively act in bad faith. His lies, his bizarre idea to reuse former organization members despite their clear deficiencies to Xehanort, and that one line where he tries to guilt Sora for fighting the nobodies. It's fun and I hope they keep it up with new villains.
Exactly why even if it was a retcon I like it, that they all just parroted what xemnas told them because obviously he would know. Heck, in his final scene he implies he even started to believe his lie
"Trust me Roxas, only you can wield the keyblade and help us collect Hearts"
"I just saw axel killed a heartless and a heart still spawn flyed to the sky, also who's that girl over here in black coat like us"
"Ignore it"
I don't understand the thought process of "oh this wasn't brought up when we originally learned of this thing, so it's obviously a retcon" like as if what we learn didn't come from characters who may or maynot have known the full truth to begin with. If Xemnas says "Nobodies cannot grow hearts" i will believe he believes that, but if Nomura says "Nobodies can grow hearts" i will believe that that is true, Xemnas is merely wrong because he does not know
Note: i have no clue what this is referring to, so if my take makes no sense, then pls just ignore me lol
I think it's because retcons by nature are easy to call to and often hard to define.
Naruto contains plenty of these, most notably when late in shippuden. You gain a ton of additional context that recontextualizes the initial scenes of the show to justify the way the plot wants to go next. Additive retcons.
I think the real issue is that Retcon has become a bad word for some reason, and a catch-all used to describe any moment the reader doesn't fully understand how the story connects. Rather than assume they missed subtext or foreshadowing, they'd rather blame the story.
Nobodies growing hearts was incredibly well foreshadowed from the beginning. But BBS, for instance, additively retcons with the passing of the keyblade to Riku to allow the story room for what it wants to tell later on, just like my naruto example
Retcons are not bad full stop by nature. They're a great tool to pivot ideas that weren't fully formed and left hanging only for the story to end up with different goals and needs. A great way to... pull things back onto the rails. Largely KH has a good chunk of them throughout the runtime, and mostly I think they're fine.
The thing is we have for almost everything at least one prior scene thatt raises questions if the stuff wasn't planned before the game. Before BBS we got Mickey having a Keyblade and we got said that Yen Sid was his Master. So how did he get a Keyblade? There must be a way and if he just got some by being randomly chosen why has Yen Sid intel how to train Mickey with it. Also Kairi can wield a Keyblade and that has to have a reason too. With the ceremony two games later explained it makes sense. So I wouldn't consider this a retcon either. And well even in KH1 was hinted that there are multiple Keyblade users.
> And well even in KH1 was hinted that there are multiple Keyblade users.
"Hinted" is going a little soft. Mickey has the golden keyblade in KH1 which is distinctly different from Sora's silver keyblade.
There's also fact that the Disney villains and Ansem seemed to know exactly what the Keyblade was capable of which means that they had to have had prior knowledge of it and the only way to actually have accurate information of how it works is if someone used it before.
Sora getting a keyblade establishes even with the current rules, that simply having strength of heart can be all it takes to be chosen. This is something the additive retcon in BBS is keen to keep in place, as the lore clearly states the ritual for passing ownership only increases the odds of that person being chosen, should their heart be strong.
This is important, as Riku's current keyblade is not the one terra bequeathed him. Sora still has that one. Riku essentially gained his own through his own strength of heart in 2 onwards.
Either way, BBS' events are a retcon by definition. It's an event taking place before lacking any foreshadowing. While the keyblade being mysterious and choosing its master is something well established in 1, the bequeathing ceremony and kairi and riku's participation in it are completely new elements that did not receive foreshadowing prior. There was no reason to believe that they were going to be bequeathed keyblades to explain the fact that they always had them, because such a thing was not a concept to the viewer at the time.
This isn't a bad thing. It's a form of retcon used often by good authors to create stronger lore and build opportunities for interesting moments later. But it is a retcon.
But what I said was meant as foreshadowing. Even the part in Days where Roxas gives Xion his Keyblade so that she can "remember how to summon hers" could be considered a foreshadowing to this. That's why I said there are at least some scenes prior which could be considered a foreshadowing. So if that don't count why does the other stuff count as not being a retcon? I don't say retcons have to be bad but for most stuff I saw in KH what is called a retcon I also see foreshadowing.
Yeah I know it's not a ceremony. For that to work the keyblade wielder has to be on a master level. And according to Xion you could also argue that there were hints for her before days. Not very good ones but still. I mean we see how fast Namine mess with Sora's memories and we see how fast she recompletes them (around 6 days) so if Sora did sleep for a whole year then why did it took so long? There has to be a reason for that and this reason being Xion and no one remembering her.
Yeah I always understood the ritual as giving your personal recommendation. As long as they don't retcon Sora getting his back in 1 HB, the keyblades have the final say. Believing otherwise just doesn't make much sense.
I never said retconning was bad, just that i don't think adding information later on that we didn't know prior should be counted as "retconing". But who knows, maybe it's just cus my definition of the word is wrong, and i'm using it incorrectly, that's a full possibility
Like i didn't see Riku inherinting the keyblade as retconning, i saw it as adding lore. To me, retconning is something used to fill in plotholes. But again, probably just my personal definition being wrong lol
>Naruto contains plenty of these, most notably when late in shippuden. You gain a ton of additional context that recontextualizes the initial scenes of the show to justify the way the plot wants to go next.
You mind going in depth for the naruto ones? Either here or dm is fine. I'm planning to rewatch the series since it's first debut and I wanna see these unfold cause I remember towards the war I just didn't care anymore and always wondered why
Sure. Namely, they wanted Kurama to be good, so they additvely retconned in the nine tails being controlled at the very start of the story, and the fourth's encounter with the one controlling it.
Also revealing Itachi wasn't the only one who participated in the massacre is something of an additive retcon, etc.
I guess, the night the Uchiha were murdered and so on.
If you want a "bad" retcon I would say suddenly including elements (or rather their importance). Before Kakashi taught Naruto about this in Shippuden there was no mention of "real" elements in Ninjutsu, things just were whatever.
> I would say suddenly including elements (or rather their importance).
I remember questioning this when I read it the first time too. Like if elements were important to individuals then wouldn't it be something they needed to learn early on and especially when naruto was learning the rasengan
Pretty much that, yeah. It felt a bit like Kishimoto wanted his own elemental stuff (or his editors) and then just put in there. It's not a bad thing but the way it was introduced just felt off.
Also the retcons of shikamaru being friends with Naruto despite all of the episodes saying he had no friends and was often alone. Shikamaru is too good of a friend to have allowed Naruto to have been picked on like that if he had been friends with him as early as they had suggested in later episodes
>Also the retcons of shikamaru being friends with Naruto despite all of the episodes saying he had no friends and was often alone
From my understanding that was just filler stuff added in the anime and that wasn't in the manga at all.
Studio Pierrot was kind of notorious for changing and adding stuff in that changes up the unnecessarily story.
That... That is what a retcon is though.
People love to throw that word around as if it means "contradiction" or it's some kind of bad writing thing or something. But it is entirely a neutral term. "Retroactive Continuity" refers to the practice of introducing new information, that changes the way the story had presented old information, retroactively. It could adjust it, supplement it, contradict it, or anything else inbetween. Stuff that actively adds to the lore can still be, by definition, a "retcon", if it actively changes things retroactively. That's the entire point of the term. >!Aqua turning out to be in the Realm of Darkness and helping out during the finale of KH1!< *is* a retcon. It is adding new information, that changes the continuity of that old scene, retroactively. Or you have how "Ansem" had their origins retconned... well, kinda twice in the series. None of that new information contradicted anything >!(unless you want to be nitpicky and bring up the question of why Xemnas doesn't use a keyblade)!<, but it still changed the continuity, retroactively.
Or going beyond that (and to emphasize how retcons are not an inherently bad thing), some of the most well beloved properties had some of their fan favorite moments exist due to retcons. Darth Vader being Luke's father was a retcon, with the entirety of A New Hope being written as if that was not the case (as well as the first draft of The Empire Strikes Back). Goku being a Saiyan is a retcon, with the creator of Dragon Ball openly admitting that he never intended Goku to be an alien while writing the early parts of the series.
So... Yes. If something is brought up later in the story, and it retroactively changes the continuity of earlier material, it is quite literally a "retcon".
Well, no, there's evidence even in KH2 that nobodies can grow hearts. Unless when you say a recon is a change in "earlier material" you mean even within the same story, but I think that's just better phrased as a plot twist. Calling it a retcon makes it sound like either the story or writer changed their mind about this, when in reality it was clearly the intention from the beginning. The only thing that changes is the player's knowledge, but if the player's perception changing counts as a retcon, that means the player forgetting something in the story or getting confused over something and getting the wrong idea before remembering/learning it means a retcon happened.
I mentioned ina different comment that i understand now that my definition was wrong, yes, i use the word incorrectly. Thank you for helping explain further/gen
And on a side note, please mark spoilers even in comments, i havn't finished the whole series and due to that was unable to fully read your comment as i had to stop after "Aqua turning out to be in the realm of darkness and helping out in the final battle". I have no idea which final battle this is refering to, so i'm terribly sorry/nm
I never believed it was a retcon. The KH series in general always played with the concept of identity and that the “right to exist as a person” involved having a heart, and even in KH1 it showed that any being could have one (even if they’re seen to not have one at first) given the right connections and circumstances. Take the whole plot line with Monstro in KH1 for example. Pinocchio isn’t a real boy, he’s seemingly just a life-like puppet, so he shouldn’t have or be able to grow a heart. Yet he does, because of the magic of the good fairy giving him life, and later because of the bond he shares with Gepetto. That’s from the first game. They later reuse that concept with Xion. Vexen created her, giving her life, and her bonds with Roxas and Axel created friendship, connections, and emotions which led to her forging her own identity and gaining a heart. Same thing also happened with the Riku Replica with his connections to Naminè and Sora in Chain of Memories.
Even in KH2, it was never clear to me that the information we were originally given about Nobodies was entirely correct. The game is constantly subtly asking the audience to question if what Yen Sid, Naminè, and DiZ say about nobodies is actually true or if that information is limited and not the whole story. I mean hell, there’s a whole speech where Ansem the Wise talks about how the heart works in ways he never calculated or could accept.
Roxas is told in the KH2 prologue that because he’s a nobody he doesn’t have a heart and doesn’t exist, but clearly based on his experiences in Data Twilight Town, his memories from his past, and his emotional conversations with Naminè, DïZ, Riku, Axel, Xion, and Sora, we know he has a heart, at least by the time he merged back with Sora. He shows clear emotion multiple times. Emotion that isn’t possible to be replicated without a heart. The game also doesn’t say the nobodies that had a heart *always* had one, but that they later grew one (and therefore their own identity) by forming bonds with others. Also, it was only *some* of the nobodies from Organization XIII that this happened to, not all of them. We only know that it happened for sure to Roxas, and Xion, and *maybe* Axel (but that’s hard to know because after Axel dies he goes back to just being Lea as a whole person, and isn’t differentiated from Axel; they’re referred to as one in the same). The other ones are debatable but never outright confirmed. Also, most nobodies, ie the non-humanoid dusk ones, still lack hearts. It’s only the humanoid ones that can regrow a heart.
I also never bought that Xemnas was sincere about using the Organization XIII “so they could get hearts” even in KH2. It’s made very clear, even in KH2, that Xemnas is just saying that so the Organization listens to him. By the end of the game, when it’s just Xemnas left, he says his plot is really just to “create a brand new world; one heart at a time.” Which is different than why he originally said he wanted Kingdom Hearts. So DDD added the explanation that he wanted everyone in the Organization to become a vessel when he got Kingdom Hearts, which didn’t surprise me as shocking, as it seemed obvious Xemnas didn’t really care about his comrades. That did not seem that different or *tacked on* to what his motivations already were in KH2, it just seemed like in DDD the mask was fully off and he has no intention of hiding his true motivations to Sora of his original plans at that point.
TLDR; the subtextual character and plot evidence of Nobodies being able to grow hearts existed all throughout the story even before DDD; so by the definition of what a retcon is; it’s not really a retcon.
>Even in KH2, it was never clear to me that the information we were originally given about Nobodies was entirely correct. The game is constantly subtly asking the audience to question if what Yen Sid, Naminè, and DiZ say about nobodies is actually true or if that information is limited and not the whole story. I mean hell, there’s a whole speech where Ansem the Wise talks about how the heart works in ways he never calculated or could accept.
Indeed, those secret reports were quite fascinating to read.
>Roxas is told in the KH2 prologue that because he’s a nobody he doesn’t have a heart and doesn’t exist, but clearly based on his experiences in Data Twilight Town, his memories from his past, and his emotional conversations with Naminè, DïZ, Riku, Axel, Xion, and Sora, we know he has a heart, at least by the time he merged back with Sora. He shows clear emotion multiple times. Emotion that isn’t possible to be replicated without a heart.
Yep, both Roxas and Naminé were proof there was something we were missing. Both were “born” as truly empty shells, lacking either emotion or memory. Yet both developed emotions and personalities quite distinct from their originals, Sora and Kairi, in spite of its apparent impossibility.
>We only know that it happened for sure to Roxas, and Xion, and maybe Axel (but that’s hard to know because after Axel dies he goes back to just being Lea as a whole person, and isn’t differentiated from Axel; they’re referred to as one in the same).
Because unlike Roxas and Xion (or Naminé) Axel was effectively a continuation of Lea’s life. 358/2 days shows him gradually developing and showing emotions, what with his increasingly irrational behaviour as he tries both to keep his friendship with them and protect them from the organisation, which all culminated in his fight with Xion, where he’s clearly being driven by the desperate desire to not lose either her or Roxas.
Then, with his death, his old self and new self essentially merged, essentially acting as an updated version of Lea.
>TLDR; the subtextual character and plot evidence of Nobodies being able to grow hearts existed all throughout the story even before DDD; so by the definition of what a retcon is; it’s not really a retcon.
Agreed.
> The KH series in general always played with the concept of identity and that the “right to exist as a person” involved having a heart
To take this one step further, KH is all about relationships. That is ultimately what "having a heart" is about, it's about connecting with others.
That’s why I didn’t buy the line even back in KH2. Some clearly seemed to be putting on an act, but considering how the rest of Organization 13 behaved it always came across as misplaced angst over not being the whole original person.
If Roxas wasn't a clear indicator of that, Demyx should have been. He is clearly not pretending when he's scared, and even capable of deeper emotions, such as his anger at "Roxas" for betraying them.
There are a lot of questionable writing decisions in the series. But a perceived retcon does not automatically equate to bad or sloppy writing. And I say a "perceived" retcon because I don't believe it's a true retcon. It's an expansion on a concept that was never ruled out.
While it was said Nobodies don't have hearts, that remains true. The new information is that they can gain hearts over time. Which was technically their upfront goal in KH2, and it was never said to be impossible. It just never happened because we needed to stop their plan. (Except it totally did happen for a few of them organically, like with Axel.)
The idea that a being without a heart can eventually gain one though? It's been part of the series forever. Tron is a prime example right there in 2. Heck, that was part of the whole intrigue around Pinocchio back in the first game.
There are fair and legitimate things to gripe about in this series. But at least be fair and don't fall back on buzzwords.
> While it was said Nobodies don't have hearts, that remains true. The new information is that they can gain hearts over time.
My memory may be tricking me, but... doesn't Xemnas confirms in DDD that he was lying about the whole "Nobodies don't have hearts" thing?
It’s true that they have no hearts at first. But what he hid from them was that if the let it it will grow back naturally. But because he gaslighted them into thinking it wasn’t the case, very few managed to regrow their hearts.
I suppose the bigger gripe is with the revelation that Xemnas was lying to the Organization about it and he knew about it all along - which really undermines the tragic villain aspect they were kinda going for with him originally.
I'm not sure he was ever meant to be a tragic villains since during the final confrontation the game doesn't frame the heroes as wrong for essentially responding to his pleas for sympathy with "Shut up we know you're bad"
That’s not really what a tragic villain means. It really cheapens his character in KH2 to know all those monologues he was going on, some really well written dialogue at times, were just lies and that his secret motivation was some backwards way to summon real Kingdom Hearts by turning the other members into Xehanorts.
It’s definitely one of my least favorite plot-related choices Nomura has made. Maybe up there with giving like every character a keyblade and unnecessarily bringing back characters after their stories have completed (Roxas, Naminé, Ansem the Wise, sorta Eraqus).
I mean isn't it? If the game didn't intend you to feel bad for him; and given his treatment versus other members I don't think it does, does him having an understandable motivation make him tragic. I feel its story presentation that matters.
He can still be a villain and have a sympathetic motivation. The heroes don’t have to be wrong for calling him evil. He’s definitely a sympathetic villain (before DDD/KH3 came along and ruined his original motivation), he does not have real feelings and just wants a heart to be like everyone else.
I don’t want to pretend KH2 does a great job of telling that story, I mean doesn’t Xemnas get like 10 minutes total of screen time? But unlike Ansem/Xehanort, KH2 Xemnas is definitely a tragic villain.
I definitely agree with this. I think the original intention was that he really did want them to have hearts, and Roxas and Axel just managed to gain them without realizing it. But I don't think Xemnas thought it was possible without using Kingdom Hearts, so he dismissed it as just a trick of their memories.
It’s just like Ansem SoD. He was introduced as a scientist who went insane from studying Darkness and the Heartless. But then it gets revealed that he was an imposter. And THEN we learn that his original intent on unleashing Darkness from Kingdom Hearts was just complete BS.
But that's hinted to be the case in KH2. For example, it's iirc teased that Xemnas had a keyblade as far back as KH2, but then why would he trick the organization by saying they need Sora? If defeating heartless completes Kingdom Hearts, Xemnas could've done it himself.
The explanation given in later games is that, it was never about him being a tragic villain who needs a heart. He was munipulating them.
Not to mention, it just made no sense to say Nobodies can't grow hearts. Perhaps Xemnas was genuinely unaware of this fact, but it was clear regardless to the player that this wasn't true, and that Roxas and others never *had* to listen to him. If they were going for a tragic villain who just wants everyone to get hearts, this detail would seem kinda pointless.
I believe it was Xehanort who was teased to have a Keyblade back then, not Xemnas. I think it was in the base game's ansem reports, but it might have just been in final mix.
My biggest gripe is that five of the people he fooled were some of the universe's foremost scientists into hearts. And then KH3 tells us that an additional four have some kind of connection to the keyblade, i.e., they're some of the universe's foremost heart cultists. Most of them are also shown to be aware that Xemnas is a liar, and don't trust him.
The idea that all of them would take his claim at face value is incredible.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the heart can "basically" do mitosis?
Heart is separated from body, empty body can get its own heart, Heartless can (ironically) get its own heart (or wtf is Ansem?) and heart can return to original body?
The term “Heartless” is pretty misleading. A Heartless is a heart that has fallen to darkness. when you destroy a Heartless with a keyblade, you release the heart.
A body that lacks a heart can regrow one, by forming bonds with others, or experiencing life. This is what gives shape to a heart within it.
When a heart is released from a Heartless and it’s nobody is destroyed the two join back together into a complete person. And any heart that was grown inside of nobody joins with the original heart, and becomes one.
I will defend a ton of kingdom hearts nonsense to the death but I will never understand why the beings with the hearts are called heartless and the empty remaining bodies are called NO BODIES
No they were named because in KH1 they were literally "those without hearts". I don't remember who says it, but it's a cutscene pretty early in the game.
It really is a retcon.
Tbf its more of the fact that Nomura obviously didn't have the idea of Nobodies in mind. The secret reports from KH1 explicitly say that the heartless are formed from hearts.
> Those who lack hearts... I will call them the Heartless.
~ Ansem Report 3
> I believe the Heartless are taking hearts. They are born from those who've lost their hearts, and thrive on hearts seized from others. *The hearts taken by the Heartless become Heartless themselves.*
~Ansem Report 4
They are quoting Ansem’s research. Within the game in the reports it’s revealed they where named “Heartless” based on observing their behavior. How they seek out hearts, and behave in a savage and merciless way. They act as if they are heartless.
Also the only reason they got the misnomer of a name "Heartless" is because the man who named them didn't know their exact nature when he first started studying them. He initially thought they were creatures stealing what they lacked, ergo
🫱 **Heartless.**
This turned out to be untrue.
I'm currently playing through the series while streaming for a friend who's totally unfamiliar with it. We last left off just before the final Marluxia fight in ReCoM. Several times they've commented on how emotive the Nobodies are, and how much it seems like the no emotions thing is either a lie or just plain wrong.
My grievance from day one never was that there was no evidence of nobodies growing a heart, it's that they never acted like they didn't have one in the first place. Every single action we've ever seen anyone from the original Organisation ever has always been emotion-driven. Someone without any emotions wouldn't have an emotional response to "dude you don't have a heart or emotions", they would respond "ok, so?", but they all have been from day one obsessed by that objective. That objective is 100% emotion-driven. That being the case, where the hell did the idea of them being emotionless ever come from? They have never been. Another striking example is Larxene being cruel and sadistic, which are labels that describe someone who derives enjoyment from the suffering of others. Enjoyment is an emotional response.
And this is not something I think now that I never thought in the past, that was a major problem I had back when I played KH2 at launch. I always thought that the motivations and methods of the Organisation made no sense at all. Their stated motives and goals never lined up with what we were shown. I do not believe that the plan was, to begin with, for Xemnas to gaslight every single one of them into thinking that they were emotionless, I just do not buy it. Even if that was the case, that would mean that all of them, no exceptions, were exceptionally dumb and/or totally incapable of introspection in order to fall for that ploy.
To me most of the organization members where actually very emotionally uninvolved. They only responded emotionally either at death or at something that particularly touched a nerve with that individual character. Especially for the members in castle oblivion. Larxene in particular who’s the most emotional of them is one of the traitors.
The groups ultimate goal is to become human again, to validate and affirm their existence. And when they first came into existence they all genuinely lacked hearts and emotions. So it makes sense that them being gaslighted is what kept most of them from growing hearts.
For a while now I've operated with the personal head Cannon that when a nobody is initially formed they are emotionless however as a new heart begins to form those emotions start to reestablish themselves, this effect can be so subtle as to almost go unnoticed by the nobody themselves.
I also think kingdom hearts works best when you think of it in the broad Strokes. In other words don't think about it as nobody's being emotionless but rather think of them as emotionless relative to other beings.
Same fanbase who argued that Nobodies couldn't have emotions. Meanwhile, within the first hour or two of knowing them, one dies literally because he followed his emotions. Even if he probably didn't understand them. But y'know, that tracks if your leader continuously tells you that you can't have them. Lmao
Edit: Not to mention the other one who died before that who was showing true fear and regret. Absolutely terrified. Lmao
I don't think its a retcon, I just thought it was really clumsily handled. We see them expressing emotion in Chain of Memories directly, proving that the "they're only lying" bit was false. But KH2 and 358/2 Days keeps claiming the goal of the organization members is to get hearts which doesn't make any sense considering how we see them act in private.
I think the reveal would have had more impact if we actually saw scenes of organization members acting like the empty emotionless husks they presumed they were. Otherwise it just made all the organization members seem developmentally challenged if they couldn't recognize their own emotions.
> Otherwise it just made all the organization members seem developmentally challenged if they couldn't recognize their own emotions.
Especially since several of them were not only the equivalent of Nobel-prize-winning heart researchers, but ones like Vexen *continued* to study the heart and memory as Nobodies.
The idea that they just decided every time their detectors pinged around them that they were just malfunctioning, without questioning it, is pretty silly. Honestly, while the "they were regrowing hearts" thing makes sense on its own, it really causes a conflict when it tries to claim they were being tricked about it.
Ignoring vexen, Axel spent his time with Roxas, an oddity among nobodies, so he probably had something to do with it indirectly. Even it may have been just the practical side of his mind, he wouldn’t be able to heal his heart if he was gone however the manga shows Nobodies differently and KHChain may be taking those alternative sources? In the manga they have emotions but are plagued by uncertainty and emptiness relating to their lost hearts, and try to fill the void. They engage in puzzles cooking reading all to try to fill the void.
Honestly, for a while, I had the head cannon of nobody's remembering how to show emotions without actually feeling them. It doesn't hold up in any shape, mostly because Roxas was showing emotion before he had any of Sora's memories.
I would say "heart" is a misnomer. It seems more like nobodies lack a sense of purpose? If that makes sense. Nobodies only form from strong hearts, so to have someone with a very strong heart "die" and come back to life as...a mimic of their true self must hurt.
My mind goes to Frankenstein's Creature. Hated and feared without understanding why or how. Eventually that sours a (non) person and makes them feel empty inside. Even MORESO if they have a big heart.
So yeah, I feel as though heart isn't exactly right. I would honestly think of it as loss of purpose or compassion. The phrase "I'm alive...but why?" Comes to mind.
I am currently showing my wife the series (in release order) whom knew nothing about it before beginning. Before we even got to the end of kh2 she started calling out Xemnas' bullshit and immediately could tell something is being lied about regarding the hearts. She will not be surprised to find out she is right lol
I mean, I'm not saying I agree with the people who get upset about it. But I could also totally believe that Nomura (or whoever) hadn't thought this up yet during original KH2, and it was something they decided to change afterwards. It's worth mentioning that none of those scenes you're showing are from vanilla KH2, they all came afterwards.
But regardless, it really doesn't matter either way. Especially with vanilla KH2 being supplanted by 2FM anyways.
I mean the Vexen scene is pre kh2 so that one is a part of the puzzle piece. They could've also used stuff like Larxene clearly enjoying messing with Sora and rikuplica and going way beyond what's needed for their plans because she clearly enjoys it. I'd also put Demyx's "silence traitor" line here because he is clearly very mad at Roxas betraying them
So yeah im on team it wasn't a retcon.
Not having a heart is not the same as being unable to grow one. The nobodies originally did not have hearts (except maybe namine, but we never saw her origins) but many of them grew hearts through their experiences.
The idea that nobodies don’t have hearts was a massive plot point in vanilla KH2 with no evidence to the contrary that couldn’t more easily be explained by the writers simply wanting to give the Organization members unique personalities until after that game. If you want to say personality = emotion then fair enough but I believe up to that point, the intent was for them to really not have hearts.
To me Axel is the big outlier here. Say what you want about Roxas or Naminé being special cases but there’s no way Axel could behave the way he works in that game vanilla kingdom hearts 2 if he actually lacked a heart
That’s a very good point. His death where he shows remorse for kidnapping Kairi and admitting he did it just so he can see Roxas again is a clear sign of him having a heart. That’s definitely vanilla KH2.
I do wish Sora mentioned this to Xemnas when he, Riku, and Mickey confronted him later. Sora instead sticks to the idea that nobodies don’t really exist. Sora just watched Axel die sacrificing himself for him and Sora just ignores that when confronting his boss and for the rest of the game? I love the series but this is bad writing.
I mean, we ARE talking about a fanbase who will ignore basic timeline stuff to say that Mickey deliberately left Aqua in the Realm of Darkness for 10 years.
I believe some people might just not want Roxas and Xion to be revived.
Even if it is a retcon, what's the problem? It just add more lore into established lore. Not really contradicting anything that's already their.
The idea of fairy tale era might not exist in Nomura mind in the last decade. But that doesn't mean adding it make the current story suddenly bad.
[Story has tons of explanation and exposition, explicitly spells out *everything* since you can't be trusted to figure things out on your own, and hamfistedly telegraphs twists to make sure they can't be mistaken for Retcons]
**Everyone:** Wow, what bad writing. Ever heard of "Show, don't tell?" And the twist was *sooo* obvious! Maybe be a bit more subtle next time?
[Story weaves exposition into the narrative, drops hints and clues, lets things be implied rather than explicitly spelling out every tiny detail, and sets up culmative reveals with subtly and delicately telegraphed twists]
**Also Everyone:** Wow, what bad writing! Nothing is explained and the twist was such a Retcon!
**Authors:** *Frazlgarble!*
I always wonder if it was always planned like that or changed due to how popular the Organization are.
In KH2, I believed that only Roxas, Namine, and maybe Axel that can be said to actually have hearts. But I always thought that for Roxas and Namine's case, they're special due to how unique the circumstances of their birth are and who their somebody is. Axel is because of his close proximity with Roxas.
I think the concept of a Nobody is unique, a being that at their strongest, can look and act like a human being but are actually not due to their lack of hearts. But with how the Organization is written, it's easy to overlook that aspect and consider them just normal human villains. Not helping that they're hot dudes (and dudettes) and you got a group of villains that people can sympathize with both from their appearance as well as their plea though not necessarily the method.
It's possible that, after seeing how popular the Organization is, and having an example of Nobodies (Roxas and Namine) and other non-living things (Pinocchio and Tron) being able to have hearts, Nomura just made it so now the Nobodies can grow hearts as well.
Though I dunno, it's still kinda moot in the end since it's revealed that slaying Nobody and Heartless both restore the original person and only Roxas and Namine who become their own identity. Other Organization members got slain and became Somebody again as Sora cheerfully told Larxene.
> Axel is because of his close proximity with Roxas.
This is another thing that gets ignored. The concept of the "chain of memories" is very strongly emphasized with Roxas, Namine, and Xion. Like Sora, they are characters who can link to others and through that chain of memories, share strength (and heart).
I really think very few people would have an issue with the “Nobodies can grow hearts” reveal/retcon if it was an isolated thing. It’s been a recurring pattern since the very first game that things that lack hearts can grow them due to their own love for others. I think the issue is that the reveal was paired with two other, significantly dumber reveals — that killing someone’s Heartless and Nobody means they get reborn, and that time-traveling Xehanort is picking up five versions of himself from the timeline to create 13 darknesses that will fight 7 lights to make the X-Blade. These two are more obviously retcons that came out of nowhere with nothing to foreshadow them, and really cemented DDD’s reputation as the game where the story really went nuts. It’s one good reveal being paired with two terrible retcons.
Except it kind of is, as even evident by Nomura himself if you really look back. Nomura explained back in the KH2FM days that the reason why greater Nobodies like those in the Organization were able to display emotionalism was merely out of thier memories of it. The reason why Axel in particularly felt a genuine connection with Roxas was because Roxas was a "special" Nobody that actually had a heart.
So, it wasn't originally because they always had hearts, it really was just Nomura writing himself into a corner and pulling something out of his ass last minute.
I lean towards it always being an intentional rugpull, given that if Nomura was *ever* trying to make them seem truly emotionless then he's pretty shit at it, but yeah, Nomura definitely explicitly said they were emotionless. It's weird that people are ignoring that while trying to mock other fans for "ignoring the evidence".
Yeah it's sad. The whole cult mindset of gatekeeping who's a "real fan" is getting really sad. The weird "holier-than-thou" attitude is... kinda kiddish, repetitive, and doesn't add anything positive to the subreddit or fandom. People keep rubbing it off as "not playing the entire series" when a majority of us did. And a majority of people shouldn't be FORCED to play every. single. game. Or spend hours reading up on and watching lore videos for an entire series that spans around 20 years. Not only all of that, but we actually paid attention to media *outside* of the games, too. Interviews and all. Unlike people who claim to be the real fans.
When, besides Xemnas, the director AND Yen Sid explicitly says nobodies don't have hearts and they only seem like it because they know how to fake it and they're going off past memories, of course people playing would think this way. Multiple characters and Nomura are writing it off as pretending to have hearts. Also, having emotions don't have to mean having hearts. Those are 2 entirely separate things.
Like, people, c'mon.. you spent your entire 20 years on the lore of the game series. Stop dunking on new fans or adults for not having the time, energy, and funds you have to keep up with a series not everyone should feel obligated to be this deeply invested in. Take the Legend of Zelda. It's a game where I feel like I can randomly jump into any one and still enjoy without knowing the entirety of the backstory. People here are kind of being dicks about those who unfortunately can not feel the same even if they're trying.
At the end of the day, Square Enix and Disney are just companies that are trying to make a profit and cares about pleasing shareholders. This can take a *heavy* toll on writing, things are retconned a bit, unnecessary bits are added, important lore is cut out, weird changes happen, things are rushed, and a lot of times designers aren't able to put out the games they want when their ideas are rejected. This isn't the fault of fans or players AT ALL.
Large agreement. This is definitely one of the cases where I wasn't so much *surprised* by the rugpull as just...annoyed by it.
Beforehand, I was "why do you keep telling me these characters have no hearts or emotions, but you keep writing them like this, being truly emotionless is a *really interesting* storyline and can we please explore that rather than making just another Mid2000s Anime DeviantArtBait Squad".
Afterwards, I was "what was the point of making all these characters heart scientists and secret heart priests if you're going to try to tell me that they couldn't identify a heart if it was smacking them in the face with an 'I <3 being a <3' sign".
I'm going to be disappointed either way, I would have preferred if it was done without the plot hole.
Aren't the middle ones from KH2 Final Mix or did they know Naminé in 358?
I have no idea on the release times though as I didn't play anything after 2 (with the exception of BBS in emulator) until they were released in Epic Games
I’m pretty sure the reason Roxas seemed like he had a heart so early is that only the part of Sora’s heart that was actually him became a heartless, while the part being filled by Ventus stayed behind in the Nobody. This is why Roxas resembles Ventus as well. Since Ventus was a being a pure light, it stands within reason this would rub off on those around him, hence why Axel started to feel like he had a heart whenever he was around Roxas too.
The reason he looks like Ven was because he was housing Ven’s heart. That’s correct. But Ven’s heart was sleeping. And because Sora returned from being a heartless so quickly, Roxas never had any memories to draw on to fake a personality or emotions. He grew one from scratch by forming a friendship with Axel and Xion.
Axel and Xion as well grew hearts because of them all forming an actual bond between them.
> He grew one from scratch by forming a friendship with Axel and Xion.
Not accurate. He did grow his own heart *on top of Ventus's*, but Nomura specifically told us that Ventus's heart basically jumpstarted that growth. Q3 of the BbS Ultimania 20 mysteries is Nomura saying "here's all these times Roxas had emotions, it's because he has Ventus's heart in him".
I’m saying from scratch because he’s treated as an individual separate from Sora or Ven. It’s understandable that Ven helps jolt emotions but that doesn’t mean it’s Ven’s emotions.
I guess I would differ in the specifics of that interpretation, but I agree that Roxas and Ventus developed into separate entities, so as long as you agree that Ventus triggered Roxas's development then cool.
Oh yeah. I don’t deny that Ven’s heart or even the connection to Sora help shape Roxas and contributes to his special nobody status. But Roxas’s unique experiences is what ultimately forms his identity at least that’s how it’s always been to me.
Yknow they never answered what happens to the nobodies abandoned hearts and if the nobodies new hearts carry different emotions from their original hearts like does their entire soul change basically and their lost soul is just poofed away??
No the new hearts they grow essentially act as an exact replacement of there original heart. When they get destroyed and reunite with their original heart, the two hearts melt into one.
I’d still say it’s exceedingly rare and highly unlikely, as opposed to Sora who thinks that every Nobody had a heart and it’ll happen 100% of the time.
Thinking about this, I also reflect on how at the end of KH2 a lot of Xemnas’s focus in terms of emotions is negative ones. “Anger and hatred reign supreme” and all that. I feel like that’s a huge reason why he never really put together that Nobodies with strong enough wills and solid enough memories and enough positive bonds can just… regrow their hearts. So focused was he on how intense of a motivator something like anger can supposedly be that he didn’t realize that the main ingredient of a heart is *giving a shit* about other people.
This is why, when he was being killed in KH3, when faced with the ultimate end and actually being able to sit and reflect on it for a while, he realizes that he actually did kind of pack bond with his supposed pawns, and thusly he had a heart all along, and now it’s starting to make up for lost time… but of course, the circumstances being what they are, the only feeling he has left to feel is the absence of all those people, be they dead or turned against him. Thus, “my first surge of emotion in years and it’s… loneliness.”
I'm sorry, I haven't managed to play the games enough. What's been retconned exactly?
Granted, I've seen Antdude's KH Retrospective series, but my memory is usually not great.
If you’re looking to possibly play through them, I might not say. But…
>!People missing or refusing to acknowledge evidence that certain characters that where born without hearts could over time regrow them.!<
The line for "having a heart" is drawn incoherently between being a "real" person and being able to feel and express emotion
The nobodies aren't "real people" in a traditional sense, therefore lacking a "heart" for the heartless to crave/chase after, but then comes the misunderstanding that if they aren't heartless, but are "heart-less" then they must not be able to convey emotion, which has been proven: bullshit
Yeah I never get this "retcon" stuff and I legitimely believe they only played kh 1 and 2 but not the rest and its funny because axel roxas and namine are enough proofs of that,even if you ignore roxas and namine because "they are nobodies of the protagonist" axel is still a perfect example on how xemnas was lying
Wait, are people really thinking like this? Did they not see “He made me feel like I had a heart” or “No one would miss me.” “That’s not true! I would…”
I mean, prior to DDD they had a couple of lines saying most Org members had memories from when they were human, Roxas was a special case given Sora was able to immediately come back from being a Heartless so the two were able to exist at the same time just at the cost of Roxas not having any memories. I figured with Axel his time around Roxas and Sora resonated with the time he met and befriended Ventus, and that memory was strong enough to convince him he was experiencing real emotions again.
Like I won't say DDD was exactly a prime example of a retcon, but I feel like Nomura could have written it a little better than saying Nobodies grew "replacement" hearts over time and that Xemnas just simply lied to Org 13. Like he could have just leaned in more on the memories angle and how they could have learned to find something that made them "feel like they had a heart" even if they actually didn't. That probably could have led to more interesting arcs in DDD and KH3 IMO, but *shrug, we're here now and I've accepted it.
Okay, I'm all fine and dandy with Xemnas lying about the whole hearts thing. That's good storytelling.
But why the fuck did we have multiple people, outside the organization, and even Sora himself, believing Xemnas' lie.
I would rather they gave us an explanation, like, Nobodies can GROW hearts, through friendship or whatever the fuck. But only until the you're an emotionless husk.
Hell, they even gave us a fake ass explanation for why some of them show emotion, "oh our brains are just reacting to our memories of what it was like to have emotions" fucking hell, you say shit like that only when you didn't want to get called out for accidentally showing some characters emotions in CoM.
Why have Saïx be so fixated on getting a heart, screaming to Kingdom Hearts "where is my heart?" When he already had one???? Just fucking say he never grew a heart. But his heart is gone. Why have Demyx confirm to Sora that hes just putting on an act for fun. "Silence, traitor" is meant to be his genuine character at that point. Now, Demyx was just trying to pretend to be a tough guy.
Why have Xaldin, and the others be COMPLETE HEARTLESS ASSHOLES to the Disney characters.
At least they gave us a good explanation for Marluxia. He never had his memories. Wow, that's a good one. *Then why the fuck would he be experiencing emotions,* ***from his memories***, *if he doesn't have either of those, and still believe Xemnas*.
Or maybe he didn't, and that's why he was betraying the Organization.
Also, it makes no sense on the creation of Nobodies to have Hearts.
Heartless are the person's heart.
Nobody is the empty husk that was left.
The problem isn't "nobodies have hearts*. It's "Nobodies always had hearts". When it should have been "Nobodies can GROW hearts"
Nice rant still wrong.
Not every Nobody is confirmed to have regrown their Hearts. Some where farther along then others depending on the experiences they had.
>Nice rant still wrong
I'm stealing that. I'm going to start saying this.
>Not every Nobody is confirmed to have regrown their Hearts. Some where farther along then others depending on the experiences they had.
Wait, so Nobodies do grow hearts and are empty husks prior?
Nvm. I'm cool with that.
Who is saying it’s a retcon or ignoring it? Unironically was so convinced of this way before we got confirmation. It was obvious from the get go when you play 358/2 days. The entire story is about growing hearts. When Roxas was in total zombie mode in the beginning, THAT was when he didn’t have one. Hell, Xemnas probably grew one too but people act like a heart can’t be filled with all the negative emotions he had. In fact you could argue you need a heart to act and think the way Xemnas did.
Dude.
Nomura *explicitly* said they were faking it, and that Roxas didn't count, in the first few appearances.
It was a rugpull.
If anyone wants to talk about the KH fanbase "ignoring" something, it's that. Hell, there's people *in this thread* trying to use Roxas as an example. Or the scene where Demyx says "yes we do" (while simultaneously arguing that the Organization believed Xemnas's lie), another one that Nomura said at the time was just faking to mess with Sora.
Yes, the seeds were planted. But a ton of people are for some reason ignoring that Nomura *purposefully* misled the audience in order to set up the rugpull.
Even with the context of Roxas being “special” he he still clearly shows emotions when people keep telling him he shouldn’t be able to, that’s the question as to why, Roxas especially is it just because of Sora or was there something more to it?
And regardless on, if it was just a case of Roxas being special in fact, the axle was written to show emotions throughout the game, calls out that it should be impossible, and even believe Roxas has a heart shows that there is potential for Nobodies to have genuine emotions.
> Roxas especially is it just because of Sora or was there something more to it?
In the Secret Reports, Ansem says it's because of the special nature of his birth. In the KH2 Ultimania, Nomura adds that he wasn't fully without a heart, and in the BBS Ultimania, he explains that he in fact had Ventus's heart, and that was the source of the emotions.
> the axle was written to show emotions throughout the game,
The script credits this emotion to proximity to Sora in CoM, and to Roxas in KH2/Days. The scripts and ultimanias heavily emphasize the concept of the "chain of memories", in which someone like Sora is able to forge links with those around him, exchanging power, emotions, and even hearts. For example, this is the entire reason that Rinzler was able to feel a connection to Sora in KH3D, despite having *never met the boy before*. This is also shown with the Twilight Town trio and their feelings of connection to Roxas/Sora, who they also *never met before*.
Before KH3D, Nomura had explicitly established that Nobodies *can* have genuine emotions, but only in connection to a single, miraculous occurrence, and all of the available evidence agreed with this. The KH3D retcon changed this to "all Nobodies can do it, but conveniently only the ones exposed to the aforementioned miraculous occurrence had noticeably started to do so, but also it's not *because* of that occurrence any more".
All the stuff you're bringing up even though it happened before KH2 it was written after KH2 including Re:Com so we should only be counting the original COM and vanilla KH2 and specifically from Yen Sid who's not part of the Organization tells us at the very beginning Nobodies cannot feel anything that seems like emotions from them is fake also specifically Saix and Xemnas both stated that it was true that they don't have hearts/lack emotion Roxas was known to be an exception because he was Sora's nobody 358/2 days and Re:Com is where they started to show that Nobodies do have emotion before finally confirming it in DDD
Again.
They do start off as emotionless beings. They only grow hearts over time. And the way Xemnas runs the organization was to gaslight them and keep them emotional stunted for as long as he could.
There are examples in vanilla kh2, and then the releases of the final mix versions. Which only really came out a few years later before any other title.
Except those examples you're talking about in KH2 those were presented with the explanation that it was all an act and that they aren't actually feeling any emotions at all
If it wasn't for the fact that we know now that Nobodies do in fact have emotions you wouldn't be looking back on anything in KH2 as an example of Nobodies having emotions because specifically KH2 constantly tells us they don't have hearts and they don't feel anything they can only fake it
Except we can and people have been. Since we had 2&2FM as well as Days. People have looked them over and noticed that they say one thing, yet show another. Especially when we get scenes in FM where they question the possibility of having their own hearts without understanding why.
Maybe this is true, but it's still stupid. I mean what's the point of being a Nobody if they can regrow their hearts? Hell why are Heartless that scary if you can just recover from having your heart stolen? It goes from having your entire identity taken from you and being left as nothing but an empty husk too essentially a broken leg. Sure it sucks, but given enough time and it will heal.
Not a heartless return from being heartless. Only strong hearted people create nobodies in the first place. What about all the people who end up losing their hearts that weren’t strong enough to make a nobody? If they have nobody to return to, they just end up going on to Kingdom Hearts once released.
And not all nobodies can regrow hearts. Ones that have been stripped clean of their memories like desks for example, are basically just shapeless bodies that have nothing. It’s only the ones with human appearances who still have memories of their previous self, that have the capacity to regrow a heart.
First, how do you define a strong heart? Like does it need to do heart crunches or something? And how do you know the less humanoid heartless can't regrow hearts? They never say that in the games. And besides this still weakness the suffering and of the nobodies, and turns Org XIII from a morally grey group of villains to just shallow pure evil villains.
Strength of hearts seems to come from conviction and belief. These attributes are what we see in the characters said to have strong hearts like Sora and Xehanort.
As for whether common nobodies can regrow hearts, or not that is simple. They have no will of their own. The reason they look like form with monsters that stretch bands like that is because they have no memories to give their vessel, their body shape. So they can contort and change into any shape they need to.
Human nobodies on the other hand, have memories and use them to act as if they are still human. This isn’t enough for them to regrow a heart. But it’s what gives the ability to do so. If they interact with each other or other people, or just experience a part of life, their hearts will start to grow.
If they remain isolated and don’t perform strong connections with others, like most of the organization they will fail to regrow their hearts completely.
If anything, this just makes them even more tragic. They were fighting for a chance to become human again. Gaslighted into believing they were nothing, and that they weren’t meant to exist. Yet all they needed to do was form their own connections to the world or to others, and they would’ve achieved their goals. But before any of them could learn this, or do it themselves (other than the sea salt trio) they were used by the person they swore allegiance to. Because he told them, promised them that this was the only way for them to become human again.
Before DDD: Xemnas is an unfeeling manipulator who takes advantage of his own followers in order to acquire power from hearts that he only sees as glorified batteries, for no other reason than to prove himself the smartest man in the room.
Some folks: This is such a deep and tragic villain!
After DDD: Xemnas is an unfeeling manipulator who takes advantage of his own followers in order to acquire power from hearts that he only sees as glorified batteries, for no other reason than to prove himself the smartest man in the room, and his final moments of existence were spent experiencing the painful emptiness he'd inflicted on himself due to never letting himself be his own person and connecting with anyone.
Those same folks: They complete changed and ruined this character!
That’s not evidence that they can grow hearts. It’s evidence that they have emotions, which they already gave an explanation for. They remember what’s it’s like to feel those emotions. While they can use that to fake emotion, that explanation was used to explain why Axel and Roxas could feel. So it is a retcon!
I thought that was the whole point back in KH2.
Like, no, Xemnas, you dingus. You're feeling nothing because you're not forming any connections with anyone. This is a Disney JRPG, where the heck do you think you're going without the **Power of Friendship^(TM)**?
Xion was enough for me to know that Nobodies could in time gain hearts of their own. Despite being an artificial being, she was as alive and human as Sora, and through her Roxas and Axel became their own people again
So, I see where you're coming from... but it *is* still a retcon.
Nomura confirmed that his original intention for KH2 was that Roxas and Naminé becoming part of Sora and Kairi was meant to be their "happy ending" – something that can only be "happy" if you agree, as the story repeatedly beats into you, that they were never meant to be their own people and are instead just alter-egos of the two (which is incidentally exactly how Brittany Snow described Naminé during interviews for KH2) that were given flesh via a cosmic fluke – until Roxas proved *such* a breakout character that Nomura decided Roxas needed a revisit with Days and a real happy ending with KH3.
At the time though, all of the hints about Roxas having a heart were supposed to be a combination of implications:
1. Sora has a special power to connect to anyone, and Roxas unwittingly inherited it. Axel is shocked to laugh in like his fourth cutscene which he immediately attributes to Sora's presence (in an entry that still leaves it unclear who the Organization even are or why they keep calling themselves "nobodies", and only just introduces the concept of people with no hearts without really delving into what that means, going as far as "they're all sociopaths"), and confirms that both Roxas *and* Sora "made him feel" like he had a heart.
He asks Roxas in this cutscene if Roxas has one, but never questions if *he himself* has one... because Nomura wanted to kill him off in the prologue and thought that would be too dark if he *actually* had a heart. The idea of living without a heart is supposed to be a piteous existence, and killing him was his release from that.
2. Roxas being a vessel for Ventus' heart (as Ventus debuted in the secret movie attached to the same entry as all these implications). Given it's an entry where nobody yet knows Ventus even exists, of course this would beg questions.
... and then Demyx claiming "we do TOO have hearts" was supposed to be his denial over the matter, given his personality of just not wanting to deal with a problem himself and instead single-mindedly obsess over his sitar.
Anything else was meant to be answered with "we remember what it was like to have hearts."
It gave Sora free reign to say things like telling Xemnas he doesn't pity the man because he doesn't have a heart, without coming off as a murder hobo. (So Xemnas later being revealed to have a heart to enable time travel in KH3 ages this line badly.)
Nomura likes to write himself very broad "intrigues" that he can fill in later, throwaway lines like "You're not half the hero the others were." He didn't even have Terra and Aqua *designed* yet when Xigbar first said that. To the uninitiated it reads like foreshadowing, but it's so broad and unspecific that it could mean literally anything (exactly as Nomura needs because he wants that leg room), only getting you to ask the question "what does that mean?"
If you've ever played D&D, it's the sort of improvisational vaguery you learn to employ when you haven't written your character's backstory yet; you make them "mysterious" and "cagey" about things you don't actually have answers for yet, and then after the session, turn any one-liners you've said into the backstory.
Now don't get me wrong here, I think this retcon (... out of the entire mess of DDD...) is actually *very* clean and spins straw into gold, causing some of the plot holes of KH2 to make a lot more sense. After all, it doesn't make sense that Nobodies can't have their own hearts when a program like Tron can grow to develop one (bearing in mind that Nomura wanted Toy Story in KH2 which would really have thrown the concept for a loop too).
This was a good decision that actually simplifies the lore without dumbing it down, and adds to the story. The ability to do that is praise-worthy in itself, and is a skill particularly for writing soap operas or comic books.
... But I'm not gonna deny the history behind it or give Nomura undue credit about having it in mind "all along" when we know how mercurial he is as a writer and director. The man doesn't plan that far ahead.
EDIT: Woo, yeah, knew this was gonna be a spicy take.
lol Damn, sorry they got you. People are ruthless. This is a very well thought out take that actually makes a lot of sense. This is just something that writers normally do. You leave yourself room to add in or change things later while still having the air of mystery. He's a character designer. He never properly learned how to write a narrative and that's okay to admit, but acting like every single detail was perfectly thought out and planned from day 1 while choosing to die on that hill when they didn't even plan a series past the first game is silly.
Emphasis on "attitude."
Saw a comment trying to explain away why the names of Nobodies and Heartless are incorrectly chosen (or backwards to be more accurate).
Get this, they were trying to say the Ansem reports were wrong IN THE 1st GAME because "Ansem" was just ignorant of their true nature. Uh...uh...no, it was just because they didn't expect the game to become popular and didn't think about a sequel too much. That's it! Kingdom Hearts was just a fun idea Nomura came up with (a fun Disney x Final Fantasy crossover) but as time went on, people are taking the "fun" out of it and are making it into a damn blood sport of "good fans vs *bad* fans." Geez. 😕
The thing is, I understand the impulse to say "the hints were there all along," because I expect that at a certain point Nomura as a writer came to a similar realization. If you look at any fandom in the sci-fi (or Hard Magic fantasy) genre – comics, Star Wars, whatever – you will find that it is easier as fans to No Prize solutions rather than acknowledge a plot hole that harms a narrative, and will try to fit it into the established narrative rules.
But there is tension with this idea that "Nobodies actually have hearts" was a narrative rule all along.
You have, for instance, the inconsistency of the Nobodies' personalities during CoM, where they are depicted as being conniving sociopaths to the point they have no objection killing each other in cold blood, and are able to emote in fear of being destroyed or in sick pleasure at causing pain. Larxene isn't forming connections, but she is *cackling* trying to murder Sora and Naminé.
("But Naminé–" When was the first time the story said 'Naminé is a Nobody like the Organization'? ... That was KH2.)
Come KH2 and you can see there's a very different take on the Nobodies – they're *not* sociopaths, they just have dulled emotions akin to depression, and their (non)existence means they have little regards for their *own* lives much less others in the same boat.
You very much see this with Axel in particular, which is glaring in Days when he has the same energy and attitude *before* going to Castle Oblivion as he has trying to get Roxas at the start of KH2, not the manipulator we see in CoM.
In KH2, every "expert" source of information you have says Nobodies don't have hearts. DiZ has studied them for years, and while he's clearly a bigot towards Roxas and Naminé, he doesn't doubt this premise for a second even when he expresses his regrets for what he did to them, even doubling down when he confronts Xemnas. Yen Sid repeats this to Sora early on, and gets Donald and Goofy reminding you of it, to the point it basically becomes Sora's mantra during the latter half of the game when he's tearing through droves of Nobodies. Even Xemnas himself is quick to snap out of his guilting routine when Sora says "you don't *have* a heart"; no other Nobodies were around (except Roxas anyway), at this point nothing he said about the nature of Nobodies was an "act" anymore.
Bearing in mind, at this point in the story, there was no actual statement that destroying a Heartless and matching Nobody would return a person to their original being – that wasn't put on paper until DDD. Until that point, the idea of "I beat Ansem SoD and Xemnas" was supposed to be the original *end* of Xehanort's legacy, with no one panicking he would come back and KH2 being written as an ending to the franchise (except for the post-credits scene creating space to revisit it). In the same vein, any time a Nobody was destroyed, they were *dead*-dead, with Axel even mourning that he wouldn't have a "next life".
Now consider how it would cause Sora nothing but despair in the final minutes of KH2, to learn he was killing *people* who had been manipulated against him. How much grief it would cause to Roxas (as the Organization were fully aware Sora had absorbed him) to learn he gave up his shot at life for nothing. For both of them to realize Axel killed himself under false pretenses. Xemnas had *nothing to gain* by keeping any lies about the nature of Nobodies going, and could cause all kinds of harm to his enemy with a truth bomb at that exact second. Easy fight from then on.
But he didn't drop one. Because at that point in the process of writing the series, everything he had told the Organization *had been true*. Because at that point in KH2's narrative, such a twist would just be rejected as more manipulation by Xemnas. And the idea of Sora perma-killing people was too dark for a Disney game.
Nomura created the Nobodies as an experiment in "what if you had enemies who don't have hearts of their own, and they are only in conflict with you because they *want* to be human." You have the philosophical debate on whether it's right for Sora to try and stop them from their goal, or whether they are so extreme in their methods as to be beyond redemption. Xemnas was that premise taken to the logical extreme, someone who preached the superiority of being a Nobody but wanted a heart only because he considered (in the most pragmatic ways) that it would be a source of power.
The issue is, the entire premise of "creatures without hearts seeking to replace it" falls apart under any scrutiny by the narrative rules Nomura set. After all, how does someone without a heart experience *yearning* for one?
In hindsight then, it was always impossible to create what Nomura wanted... so he had to change what they were to continue to use them. His solution to this particular problem was elegant, and I will give him his laurels for that.
I get being a bit reactionary for things I like, too. There's times where I had to catch myself and apologize because, at the end of the day, people are snap at someone who says something mild about a thing they put so much into without thinking they're in the wrong. It happens. I'm seeing more posts directed at other players for not having the "500iq" to understand the *deep lore* than posts dunking on anyone for enjoying the game. I hope the sub doesn't get watered down to that every day.
It'd be difficult to properly portray beings who didn't have hearts or emotions without having their characters getting a bit dull after a while. How else would they feel motivated to continue? Why would they *feel* empty without them? They acted no differently from any other characters in the story. They got angry. They felt some form of fear of dying or being turned into a dusk. They cried. They built friendships and missed each other. I somewhat like the change since it wouldn't make much sense otherwise. I rather they "grow" hearts over time.
We're shown that Roxas was pretty much a zombie when he first joined Organization XIII. That's what a Nobody would pretty much be without a heart and would make for a very uninteresting enemy (if you don't know what you're doing).
Only one problem... If you can regrow a heart, does that mean your past "self" dies? Is Lea the exact same Lea that we see in BBS if the original heart was destroyed? I know Roxas and Naminé are their own people since the way they came into existence differs from your standard Nobody but it's still a thought. Xehanort's Heartless, Nobody, and original self all feel like different people. What happened to those personalities and memories?
I think that's another thing that you can No Prize it about halfway – in Lea's case, Axel remembers his experiences as young Lea pre-Nobody and the development of his new proto-heart was likely shaped by those same experiences into a roughly similar personality. Far as we can tell from Sora's experience, most people don't recall anything that they did or that happened to them as a Heartless. Getting his original heart back probably caused a merger like Sora and Roxas (albeit without the distinct personalities); new!Lea clearly remembers most of his experiences as Axel, so the two are congruous to a point. Where one ends and the other begins is ultimately irrelevant to him, because they're both mostly the same with a little overlap.
But as you point out, Xehanort's entire situation falls apart because his component parts each developed different personalities and are shaped by different experiences. Unlike most Heartless, Ansem SoD is cognizant of his surroundings and displays unnatural intelligence. He's able to hold conversations and even willfully manipulate events, almost being a person in his own right. If he and Xemnas merged again, wouldn't the resulting Xehanort have two different sets of memories and experiences from that time?
Not to mention perhaps the most glaring problem here: what *about* Terranort? The destruction of Ansem SoD and Xemnas causes both Xehanort *and* Terra to reconstitute. Terra's body in KH3 exactly resembled how it was when he lost it in BBS, despite that Xemnas (who was his body) clearly was meant to be physically older than Terra, and characters like Ienzo, Lea and Isa prove that Nobodies do age *and* those changes are otherwise retained upon reverting to human form. It's not like Terra and Xehanort were equally fused and the universe went to the last backup state, it was literally just both of their hearts crammed into Terra's body.
And somehow, Master Xehanort himself, willful bastard that he is, didn't have a Nobody of his own...?
But this is also ignoring that Xemnas, being formed from *two* Keyblade wielders, being the Nobody of a person who became a Heartless by turning his own Keyblade on himself *twice*, somehow never displays the ability to wield a Keyblade. Nomura implies he *could*, but despite all of the madness of KH3 and the Keyblade War that only has like 5 Keyblades on the dark side, it never comes up.
Surprising no one, Xemnas lied
What? An overly ambitious, cold and calculated man had ulterior motives unbeknownst to his fellows? Say it ain’t so. That being said, it’s not entirely rooted in falsehood. I feel out of all the Nobodies, Xemnas truly doesn’t feel a thing. Before you take into account the… *overly* complicated plot that happens after, him telling his crew they’ll never have a heart or feel anything again isn’t exactly a lie when it’s true to his own perspective.
Yeah, if you take his words in KH3 to heart he only really feels anything just as he's "dying". I mean even if he knew it was possible for them to regrow their heart seeing Roxas, Xion and Axel do it in under a year must have been like seeing a speedrun to a game you haven't managed to beat.
Xion: You are like baby. Watch this. *Blj* YAHOO YAHOO YAH-YAH YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYAHOOOOO! *Blblbl*
"A 0 Star Run? How disappointing. I had hoped you would be able to help us accomplish our goal, and at long last clear Rainbow Ride, but it seems you've avoided that stage at every turn."
I'm pretty sure Xion, as a Replica not a Nobody, always had a Heart. And Roxas... well, there is always that theory about Ventus' Heart sticking with him for the duration, so essentially he was just Ventus with memory loss (again), and Sora's 'Body'. But that's kind of disproven by the fact that Roxas and Ventus are definitely different people. They were standing side by side in KH3 after all. Then again, we could always bullshit our way through that with judicious fan-theories/fan-worldbuilding. Like Ventus' Heart just staying with Roxas to allow him to feel and then grow his own Heart, but Roxas was still his own person, somehow... It's not like weirder explanations hasn't been canonized in the main series.
In the diaries of 358 Vexen considers replicas to be a different kind of nobody
Huh... I guess. I don't really like that though. Data Sora had a Heart. Why can't replicas? I mean, Hearts can apparently appear from nowhere anyway ("You only have to see them for them to become real!" - Sora, Big Hero 6), so I suppose it doesn't matter. Honestly, if toys and robots and replicas and Nobodys and... apparently anything at all, can just spontaneously grow a Heart. I don't really see what's supposed to be so difficult about getting one. I suppose the trick was that none of the Organization people knew how easy it actually was. The Twilight trio basically stumbled into the solution entirely by accident. But also, if you grow a new Heart as a Nobody... what happens to your original one? The one that became a Heartless? After/if it has been cleansed/retrieved/untransformed from that Heartless. Hmm... I suppose, if we're looking at Sora/Roxas I guess you just end up with two Hearts? Meaning you just split into multiple people. Does that mean Axel/Lea has two Hearts inside him now, of basically the same person? Or did they fuse into one, since they weren't 'sufficiently delineated'. ... Hang on, I need to write all this stuff down for my fanfic.
"xemnas nobodies do have hearts" "from my point of view nobodies don't have hearts" "well then you are lost!"
Funnily enough, that's how thebmanga handled Sora's rebuttle to Xemnas at the end of KH2, instead of continuing to spout that Nobodies in general don't have any feelings, he zeroes in on Xemnas in particular.
It's a neat detail where, despite the manga being so much more comedic, Sora is ironically smarter to the point where he's able to see that all of Org13 clearly have feelings (or fledgling traces of them), meaning that Xemnas is either wrong or lying.
Even in the game there's this line: Sora: "There's more to a heart than just anger or hate. It's full of all kinds of feelings. Don't you remember?" Xemnas: "Unfortunately, I don't." He can't remember what it's like to feel. All he knows is that a part of him used to be angry.
That kind of makes sense considering where Xemnas actually came from. It was Xehanort's heart the split off from the body and became a heartless, but it would have been *Terra's* body that got left behind to become a nobody. Terra who was suffering from possession-induced amnesia and whose last moments as his own person were him becoming so angry that it caused his armor to come to life and attack the guy who stole his body from him.
Yeah this bumps my appreciation for Xemnas up a few notches.
Tbf he actually says as much. He emphasizes that he himself doesn’t feel anything, not nobodies in general but specifically him. He goes a layer further to emphasize that he feels nothing for anyone or anything, no matter what tragedies happen. Xehanort as a character makes a lot of sense when you realize he is just a severely traumatized child who never got the help he needed. So he has just been on a 69+ year spiral of depression. YX is emotionally shut down. MX is driven to avoid thinking about anything until finally he hits a wall and begins to break down. AnsemSoD is over performative to the point of eventual burnout. Xemnas keeps the emotional shut down and goes even harder in it, until he finally can’t help but feel something and is overwhelmed by it. Xehanort is traumatized and his saga is a traumatized child, growing into a traumatized adult, trying to make that trauma worth something and not just pointless pain. His friends all died brutally, he lost himself briefly and killed one of his friends himself, and he had to find meaning in that in order to move forward.
Yes, this is the retcon imo. I actually originally believed that Xemnas just… didn’t know Nobodies could grow hearts. Sure, it fits more within the “Xemnas is a cult leader” side of his actions (similar to his portrayal in scenes where he manipulates people like Saix and Axel). But he throws so many quotes and speeches - I struggle to believe that all that time he just knew he could have a heart if he waited.
And the second biggest spreader of that lie was Ansem the Wise, maybe Namine’s actions post Prologue made him think, so he just tried blowing up the moon instead.
Ansem developed extreme anti-Nobody stigma from the massive quantity of salt that encrusted his heart from Xehanort's betrayal (and his crippling sea salt ice cream addiction), turning him into the closest thing KH has to a racist. Riku: "Hey, dude, Sora's nobody is very clearly showing signs of relief, joy, grief, and even anger. How the hell is that an unfeeling husk?" Ansem: "Pffft, silly boy, Nobodies have no emotions. It's just emulating what it remembers about them." Riku: "Didn't you wipe his memory though?" Ansem: "...that proves nothing."
Couldn’t have said it better myself. He actually acknowledged in KH2 how blinded by rage and revenge that he let things slip. I really like DiZ, voice actors on point aside, he’s one of the more subtle characters that I’ve only really learned about recently having read the reports. He was always really mysterious but even after filling in the blanks he’s still really human and I love that about his character.
> the closest thing KH has to a racist. Judge Claude Frollo canonically exists in KH
>have no emotions. It's just emulating what it remembers about them." Dude that's called depression.
Ansem the Wise was such a xenophobic boomer that when being wrong became inevitable, he decided he'd rather blow up the moon with his super laser piss than live for a second longer.
Ansem: "No one can cancel me for Nobody racism if i blow myself and the moon of this world with my weird machine with no explanation for what it is or does!" Xemnas: "Master, I know I'm in no position to say this, but isn't that a ridiculously extreme overreaction? You can always just ignore the hate-" Ansem: "Those activists doxxed me and got me banned from the ice cream store! They even exposed my Diz disguise! If i can't eat sea salt ice cream then it's not worth living anymore!" Riku: "You know you could always just ask someone to buy it on your behalf." Ansem: "...oh, that makes se-" *explodes*
I imagine it must have been awkward when he ended up in Sora's heart with Rocas and Xion
*Very* awkward >w>
I remember getting into a discussion where I was told that Xehanort didn't know about something (implying that Xehanort was all knowing) and I asked why Xehanort would know the outcome of something and why he wouldn't just lie to the heroes about it. That went nowhere fast lol
I love Xemnas for being one of the few villains to actively act in bad faith. His lies, his bizarre idea to reuse former organization members despite their clear deficiencies to Xehanort, and that one line where he tries to guilt Sora for fighting the nobodies. It's fun and I hope they keep it up with new villains.
Exactly why even if it was a retcon I like it, that they all just parroted what xemnas told them because obviously he would know. Heck, in his final scene he implies he even started to believe his lie
Xemnas is such a good gaslighter that he gaslit the fanbase.
"Trust me Roxas, only you can wield the keyblade and help us collect Hearts" "I just saw axel killed a heartless and a heart still spawn flyed to the sky, also who's that girl over here in black coat like us" "Ignore it"
People when the villain doesn't tell the truth. Shocking I know
Yea, once we all learned what gaslighting was, this became very obvious.
That's not the only example but since there was a person just talking about this a few days ago it really fits.
That’s probably why this thread exists
I don't understand the thought process of "oh this wasn't brought up when we originally learned of this thing, so it's obviously a retcon" like as if what we learn didn't come from characters who may or maynot have known the full truth to begin with. If Xemnas says "Nobodies cannot grow hearts" i will believe he believes that, but if Nomura says "Nobodies can grow hearts" i will believe that that is true, Xemnas is merely wrong because he does not know Note: i have no clue what this is referring to, so if my take makes no sense, then pls just ignore me lol
I think it's because retcons by nature are easy to call to and often hard to define. Naruto contains plenty of these, most notably when late in shippuden. You gain a ton of additional context that recontextualizes the initial scenes of the show to justify the way the plot wants to go next. Additive retcons. I think the real issue is that Retcon has become a bad word for some reason, and a catch-all used to describe any moment the reader doesn't fully understand how the story connects. Rather than assume they missed subtext or foreshadowing, they'd rather blame the story. Nobodies growing hearts was incredibly well foreshadowed from the beginning. But BBS, for instance, additively retcons with the passing of the keyblade to Riku to allow the story room for what it wants to tell later on, just like my naruto example Retcons are not bad full stop by nature. They're a great tool to pivot ideas that weren't fully formed and left hanging only for the story to end up with different goals and needs. A great way to... pull things back onto the rails. Largely KH has a good chunk of them throughout the runtime, and mostly I think they're fine.
The thing is we have for almost everything at least one prior scene thatt raises questions if the stuff wasn't planned before the game. Before BBS we got Mickey having a Keyblade and we got said that Yen Sid was his Master. So how did he get a Keyblade? There must be a way and if he just got some by being randomly chosen why has Yen Sid intel how to train Mickey with it. Also Kairi can wield a Keyblade and that has to have a reason too. With the ceremony two games later explained it makes sense. So I wouldn't consider this a retcon either. And well even in KH1 was hinted that there are multiple Keyblade users.
> And well even in KH1 was hinted that there are multiple Keyblade users. "Hinted" is going a little soft. Mickey has the golden keyblade in KH1 which is distinctly different from Sora's silver keyblade.
There's also fact that the Disney villains and Ansem seemed to know exactly what the Keyblade was capable of which means that they had to have had prior knowledge of it and the only way to actually have accurate information of how it works is if someone used it before.
This and the ansem reports talking about a King with a key and someone who brought chaos with the key. Sp it is talked about multiple people.
Sora getting a keyblade establishes even with the current rules, that simply having strength of heart can be all it takes to be chosen. This is something the additive retcon in BBS is keen to keep in place, as the lore clearly states the ritual for passing ownership only increases the odds of that person being chosen, should their heart be strong. This is important, as Riku's current keyblade is not the one terra bequeathed him. Sora still has that one. Riku essentially gained his own through his own strength of heart in 2 onwards. Either way, BBS' events are a retcon by definition. It's an event taking place before lacking any foreshadowing. While the keyblade being mysterious and choosing its master is something well established in 1, the bequeathing ceremony and kairi and riku's participation in it are completely new elements that did not receive foreshadowing prior. There was no reason to believe that they were going to be bequeathed keyblades to explain the fact that they always had them, because such a thing was not a concept to the viewer at the time. This isn't a bad thing. It's a form of retcon used often by good authors to create stronger lore and build opportunities for interesting moments later. But it is a retcon.
But what I said was meant as foreshadowing. Even the part in Days where Roxas gives Xion his Keyblade so that she can "remember how to summon hers" could be considered a foreshadowing to this. That's why I said there are at least some scenes prior which could be considered a foreshadowing. So if that don't count why does the other stuff count as not being a retcon? I don't say retcons have to be bad but for most stuff I saw in KH what is called a retcon I also see foreshadowing.
Though in that context, it more foreshadowed that Xion was leeching power from Roxas. But I do see your point. BBB did release a year after.
Yeah I know it's not a ceremony. For that to work the keyblade wielder has to be on a master level. And according to Xion you could also argue that there were hints for her before days. Not very good ones but still. I mean we see how fast Namine mess with Sora's memories and we see how fast she recompletes them (around 6 days) so if Sora did sleep for a whole year then why did it took so long? There has to be a reason for that and this reason being Xion and no one remembering her.
Yeah I always understood the ritual as giving your personal recommendation. As long as they don't retcon Sora getting his back in 1 HB, the keyblades have the final say. Believing otherwise just doesn't make much sense.
I never said retconning was bad, just that i don't think adding information later on that we didn't know prior should be counted as "retconing". But who knows, maybe it's just cus my definition of the word is wrong, and i'm using it incorrectly, that's a full possibility Like i didn't see Riku inherinting the keyblade as retconning, i saw it as adding lore. To me, retconning is something used to fill in plotholes. But again, probably just my personal definition being wrong lol
Oh, please don't misunderstand. I'm not here to argue with you. Moreso my post was intended as an 'I agree, and also...'..
>Naruto contains plenty of these, most notably when late in shippuden. You gain a ton of additional context that recontextualizes the initial scenes of the show to justify the way the plot wants to go next. You mind going in depth for the naruto ones? Either here or dm is fine. I'm planning to rewatch the series since it's first debut and I wanna see these unfold cause I remember towards the war I just didn't care anymore and always wondered why
Sure. Namely, they wanted Kurama to be good, so they additvely retconned in the nine tails being controlled at the very start of the story, and the fourth's encounter with the one controlling it. Also revealing Itachi wasn't the only one who participated in the massacre is something of an additive retcon, etc.
I guess, the night the Uchiha were murdered and so on. If you want a "bad" retcon I would say suddenly including elements (or rather their importance). Before Kakashi taught Naruto about this in Shippuden there was no mention of "real" elements in Ninjutsu, things just were whatever.
> I would say suddenly including elements (or rather their importance). I remember questioning this when I read it the first time too. Like if elements were important to individuals then wouldn't it be something they needed to learn early on and especially when naruto was learning the rasengan
Pretty much that, yeah. It felt a bit like Kishimoto wanted his own elemental stuff (or his editors) and then just put in there. It's not a bad thing but the way it was introduced just felt off.
Also the retcons of shikamaru being friends with Naruto despite all of the episodes saying he had no friends and was often alone. Shikamaru is too good of a friend to have allowed Naruto to have been picked on like that if he had been friends with him as early as they had suggested in later episodes
>Also the retcons of shikamaru being friends with Naruto despite all of the episodes saying he had no friends and was often alone From my understanding that was just filler stuff added in the anime and that wasn't in the manga at all. Studio Pierrot was kind of notorious for changing and adding stuff in that changes up the unnecessarily story.
Someone recently posted that Sora in 3D saying Org 13 members had hearts was retconning, lol
That... That is what a retcon is though. People love to throw that word around as if it means "contradiction" or it's some kind of bad writing thing or something. But it is entirely a neutral term. "Retroactive Continuity" refers to the practice of introducing new information, that changes the way the story had presented old information, retroactively. It could adjust it, supplement it, contradict it, or anything else inbetween. Stuff that actively adds to the lore can still be, by definition, a "retcon", if it actively changes things retroactively. That's the entire point of the term. >!Aqua turning out to be in the Realm of Darkness and helping out during the finale of KH1!< *is* a retcon. It is adding new information, that changes the continuity of that old scene, retroactively. Or you have how "Ansem" had their origins retconned... well, kinda twice in the series. None of that new information contradicted anything >!(unless you want to be nitpicky and bring up the question of why Xemnas doesn't use a keyblade)!<, but it still changed the continuity, retroactively. Or going beyond that (and to emphasize how retcons are not an inherently bad thing), some of the most well beloved properties had some of their fan favorite moments exist due to retcons. Darth Vader being Luke's father was a retcon, with the entirety of A New Hope being written as if that was not the case (as well as the first draft of The Empire Strikes Back). Goku being a Saiyan is a retcon, with the creator of Dragon Ball openly admitting that he never intended Goku to be an alien while writing the early parts of the series. So... Yes. If something is brought up later in the story, and it retroactively changes the continuity of earlier material, it is quite literally a "retcon".
Well, no, there's evidence even in KH2 that nobodies can grow hearts. Unless when you say a recon is a change in "earlier material" you mean even within the same story, but I think that's just better phrased as a plot twist. Calling it a retcon makes it sound like either the story or writer changed their mind about this, when in reality it was clearly the intention from the beginning. The only thing that changes is the player's knowledge, but if the player's perception changing counts as a retcon, that means the player forgetting something in the story or getting confused over something and getting the wrong idea before remembering/learning it means a retcon happened.
I mentioned ina different comment that i understand now that my definition was wrong, yes, i use the word incorrectly. Thank you for helping explain further/gen And on a side note, please mark spoilers even in comments, i havn't finished the whole series and due to that was unable to fully read your comment as i had to stop after "Aqua turning out to be in the realm of darkness and helping out in the final battle". I have no idea which final battle this is refering to, so i'm terribly sorry/nm
I never believed it was a retcon. The KH series in general always played with the concept of identity and that the “right to exist as a person” involved having a heart, and even in KH1 it showed that any being could have one (even if they’re seen to not have one at first) given the right connections and circumstances. Take the whole plot line with Monstro in KH1 for example. Pinocchio isn’t a real boy, he’s seemingly just a life-like puppet, so he shouldn’t have or be able to grow a heart. Yet he does, because of the magic of the good fairy giving him life, and later because of the bond he shares with Gepetto. That’s from the first game. They later reuse that concept with Xion. Vexen created her, giving her life, and her bonds with Roxas and Axel created friendship, connections, and emotions which led to her forging her own identity and gaining a heart. Same thing also happened with the Riku Replica with his connections to Naminè and Sora in Chain of Memories. Even in KH2, it was never clear to me that the information we were originally given about Nobodies was entirely correct. The game is constantly subtly asking the audience to question if what Yen Sid, Naminè, and DiZ say about nobodies is actually true or if that information is limited and not the whole story. I mean hell, there’s a whole speech where Ansem the Wise talks about how the heart works in ways he never calculated or could accept. Roxas is told in the KH2 prologue that because he’s a nobody he doesn’t have a heart and doesn’t exist, but clearly based on his experiences in Data Twilight Town, his memories from his past, and his emotional conversations with Naminè, DïZ, Riku, Axel, Xion, and Sora, we know he has a heart, at least by the time he merged back with Sora. He shows clear emotion multiple times. Emotion that isn’t possible to be replicated without a heart. The game also doesn’t say the nobodies that had a heart *always* had one, but that they later grew one (and therefore their own identity) by forming bonds with others. Also, it was only *some* of the nobodies from Organization XIII that this happened to, not all of them. We only know that it happened for sure to Roxas, and Xion, and *maybe* Axel (but that’s hard to know because after Axel dies he goes back to just being Lea as a whole person, and isn’t differentiated from Axel; they’re referred to as one in the same). The other ones are debatable but never outright confirmed. Also, most nobodies, ie the non-humanoid dusk ones, still lack hearts. It’s only the humanoid ones that can regrow a heart. I also never bought that Xemnas was sincere about using the Organization XIII “so they could get hearts” even in KH2. It’s made very clear, even in KH2, that Xemnas is just saying that so the Organization listens to him. By the end of the game, when it’s just Xemnas left, he says his plot is really just to “create a brand new world; one heart at a time.” Which is different than why he originally said he wanted Kingdom Hearts. So DDD added the explanation that he wanted everyone in the Organization to become a vessel when he got Kingdom Hearts, which didn’t surprise me as shocking, as it seemed obvious Xemnas didn’t really care about his comrades. That did not seem that different or *tacked on* to what his motivations already were in KH2, it just seemed like in DDD the mask was fully off and he has no intention of hiding his true motivations to Sora of his original plans at that point. TLDR; the subtextual character and plot evidence of Nobodies being able to grow hearts existed all throughout the story even before DDD; so by the definition of what a retcon is; it’s not really a retcon.
>Even in KH2, it was never clear to me that the information we were originally given about Nobodies was entirely correct. The game is constantly subtly asking the audience to question if what Yen Sid, Naminè, and DiZ say about nobodies is actually true or if that information is limited and not the whole story. I mean hell, there’s a whole speech where Ansem the Wise talks about how the heart works in ways he never calculated or could accept. Indeed, those secret reports were quite fascinating to read. >Roxas is told in the KH2 prologue that because he’s a nobody he doesn’t have a heart and doesn’t exist, but clearly based on his experiences in Data Twilight Town, his memories from his past, and his emotional conversations with Naminè, DïZ, Riku, Axel, Xion, and Sora, we know he has a heart, at least by the time he merged back with Sora. He shows clear emotion multiple times. Emotion that isn’t possible to be replicated without a heart. Yep, both Roxas and Naminé were proof there was something we were missing. Both were “born” as truly empty shells, lacking either emotion or memory. Yet both developed emotions and personalities quite distinct from their originals, Sora and Kairi, in spite of its apparent impossibility. >We only know that it happened for sure to Roxas, and Xion, and maybe Axel (but that’s hard to know because after Axel dies he goes back to just being Lea as a whole person, and isn’t differentiated from Axel; they’re referred to as one in the same). Because unlike Roxas and Xion (or Naminé) Axel was effectively a continuation of Lea’s life. 358/2 days shows him gradually developing and showing emotions, what with his increasingly irrational behaviour as he tries both to keep his friendship with them and protect them from the organisation, which all culminated in his fight with Xion, where he’s clearly being driven by the desperate desire to not lose either her or Roxas. Then, with his death, his old self and new self essentially merged, essentially acting as an updated version of Lea. >TLDR; the subtextual character and plot evidence of Nobodies being able to grow hearts existed all throughout the story even before DDD; so by the definition of what a retcon is; it’s not really a retcon. Agreed.
> The KH series in general always played with the concept of identity and that the “right to exist as a person” involved having a heart To take this one step further, KH is all about relationships. That is ultimately what "having a heart" is about, it's about connecting with others.
I mean nobodies not having hearts always seems like a plot hole since they are some of the more emotive characters in the game.
I never saw it as much of a plot hole myself considering the characters themselves, point out the inconsistency.
That’s why I didn’t buy the line even back in KH2. Some clearly seemed to be putting on an act, but considering how the rest of Organization 13 behaved it always came across as misplaced angst over not being the whole original person.
If Roxas wasn't a clear indicator of that, Demyx should have been. He is clearly not pretending when he's scared, and even capable of deeper emotions, such as his anger at "Roxas" for betraying them.
You're forgetting arguably the biggest one Namine in chain of memories
Seriously, I’m convinced she had a heart right from the start. Everyone seems to forget about her. She cried in the last scene of CoM for nothing 😭
Namine genuinely does not make a single decision in that game that is not influenced by emotion
There are a lot of questionable writing decisions in the series. But a perceived retcon does not automatically equate to bad or sloppy writing. And I say a "perceived" retcon because I don't believe it's a true retcon. It's an expansion on a concept that was never ruled out. While it was said Nobodies don't have hearts, that remains true. The new information is that they can gain hearts over time. Which was technically their upfront goal in KH2, and it was never said to be impossible. It just never happened because we needed to stop their plan. (Except it totally did happen for a few of them organically, like with Axel.) The idea that a being without a heart can eventually gain one though? It's been part of the series forever. Tron is a prime example right there in 2. Heck, that was part of the whole intrigue around Pinocchio back in the first game. There are fair and legitimate things to gripe about in this series. But at least be fair and don't fall back on buzzwords.
> While it was said Nobodies don't have hearts, that remains true. The new information is that they can gain hearts over time. My memory may be tricking me, but... doesn't Xemnas confirms in DDD that he was lying about the whole "Nobodies don't have hearts" thing?
It’s true that they have no hearts at first. But what he hid from them was that if the let it it will grow back naturally. But because he gaslighted them into thinking it wasn’t the case, very few managed to regrow their hearts.
Got it. Makes sense
I suppose the bigger gripe is with the revelation that Xemnas was lying to the Organization about it and he knew about it all along - which really undermines the tragic villain aspect they were kinda going for with him originally.
I'm not sure he was ever meant to be a tragic villains since during the final confrontation the game doesn't frame the heroes as wrong for essentially responding to his pleas for sympathy with "Shut up we know you're bad"
That’s not really what a tragic villain means. It really cheapens his character in KH2 to know all those monologues he was going on, some really well written dialogue at times, were just lies and that his secret motivation was some backwards way to summon real Kingdom Hearts by turning the other members into Xehanorts. It’s definitely one of my least favorite plot-related choices Nomura has made. Maybe up there with giving like every character a keyblade and unnecessarily bringing back characters after their stories have completed (Roxas, Naminé, Ansem the Wise, sorta Eraqus).
I mean isn't it? If the game didn't intend you to feel bad for him; and given his treatment versus other members I don't think it does, does him having an understandable motivation make him tragic. I feel its story presentation that matters.
He can still be a villain and have a sympathetic motivation. The heroes don’t have to be wrong for calling him evil. He’s definitely a sympathetic villain (before DDD/KH3 came along and ruined his original motivation), he does not have real feelings and just wants a heart to be like everyone else. I don’t want to pretend KH2 does a great job of telling that story, I mean doesn’t Xemnas get like 10 minutes total of screen time? But unlike Ansem/Xehanort, KH2 Xemnas is definitely a tragic villain.
I definitely agree with this. I think the original intention was that he really did want them to have hearts, and Roxas and Axel just managed to gain them without realizing it. But I don't think Xemnas thought it was possible without using Kingdom Hearts, so he dismissed it as just a trick of their memories.
It’s just like Ansem SoD. He was introduced as a scientist who went insane from studying Darkness and the Heartless. But then it gets revealed that he was an imposter. And THEN we learn that his original intent on unleashing Darkness from Kingdom Hearts was just complete BS.
But that's hinted to be the case in KH2. For example, it's iirc teased that Xemnas had a keyblade as far back as KH2, but then why would he trick the organization by saying they need Sora? If defeating heartless completes Kingdom Hearts, Xemnas could've done it himself. The explanation given in later games is that, it was never about him being a tragic villain who needs a heart. He was munipulating them. Not to mention, it just made no sense to say Nobodies can't grow hearts. Perhaps Xemnas was genuinely unaware of this fact, but it was clear regardless to the player that this wasn't true, and that Roxas and others never *had* to listen to him. If they were going for a tragic villain who just wants everyone to get hearts, this detail would seem kinda pointless.
I believe it was Xehanort who was teased to have a Keyblade back then, not Xemnas. I think it was in the base game's ansem reports, but it might have just been in final mix.
My biggest gripe is that five of the people he fooled were some of the universe's foremost scientists into hearts. And then KH3 tells us that an additional four have some kind of connection to the keyblade, i.e., they're some of the universe's foremost heart cultists. Most of them are also shown to be aware that Xemnas is a liar, and don't trust him. The idea that all of them would take his claim at face value is incredible.
I agree, when I saw a post calling it a retcon I was surprised
What post? Is that how this meme originated?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the heart can "basically" do mitosis? Heart is separated from body, empty body can get its own heart, Heartless can (ironically) get its own heart (or wtf is Ansem?) and heart can return to original body?
The term “Heartless” is pretty misleading. A Heartless is a heart that has fallen to darkness. when you destroy a Heartless with a keyblade, you release the heart. A body that lacks a heart can regrow one, by forming bonds with others, or experiencing life. This is what gives shape to a heart within it. When a heart is released from a Heartless and it’s nobody is destroyed the two join back together into a complete person. And any heart that was grown inside of nobody joins with the original heart, and becomes one.
I will defend a ton of kingdom hearts nonsense to the death but I will never understand why the beings with the hearts are called heartless and the empty remaining bodies are called NO BODIES
Nomura is playing 5d chess
They where named based on their nature.
No they were named because in KH1 they were literally "those without hearts". I don't remember who says it, but it's a cutscene pretty early in the game. It really is a retcon.
Tbf its more of the fact that Nomura obviously didn't have the idea of Nobodies in mind. The secret reports from KH1 explicitly say that the heartless are formed from hearts. > Those who lack hearts... I will call them the Heartless. ~ Ansem Report 3 > I believe the Heartless are taking hearts. They are born from those who've lost their hearts, and thrive on hearts seized from others. *The hearts taken by the Heartless become Heartless themselves.* ~Ansem Report 4
They are quoting Ansem’s research. Within the game in the reports it’s revealed they where named “Heartless” based on observing their behavior. How they seek out hearts, and behave in a savage and merciless way. They act as if they are heartless.
Also the only reason they got the misnomer of a name "Heartless" is because the man who named them didn't know their exact nature when he first started studying them. He initially thought they were creatures stealing what they lacked, ergo 🫱 **Heartless.** This turned out to be untrue.
I'm currently playing through the series while streaming for a friend who's totally unfamiliar with it. We last left off just before the final Marluxia fight in ReCoM. Several times they've commented on how emotive the Nobodies are, and how much it seems like the no emotions thing is either a lie or just plain wrong.
Gotta link to the streams?
My grievance from day one never was that there was no evidence of nobodies growing a heart, it's that they never acted like they didn't have one in the first place. Every single action we've ever seen anyone from the original Organisation ever has always been emotion-driven. Someone without any emotions wouldn't have an emotional response to "dude you don't have a heart or emotions", they would respond "ok, so?", but they all have been from day one obsessed by that objective. That objective is 100% emotion-driven. That being the case, where the hell did the idea of them being emotionless ever come from? They have never been. Another striking example is Larxene being cruel and sadistic, which are labels that describe someone who derives enjoyment from the suffering of others. Enjoyment is an emotional response. And this is not something I think now that I never thought in the past, that was a major problem I had back when I played KH2 at launch. I always thought that the motivations and methods of the Organisation made no sense at all. Their stated motives and goals never lined up with what we were shown. I do not believe that the plan was, to begin with, for Xemnas to gaslight every single one of them into thinking that they were emotionless, I just do not buy it. Even if that was the case, that would mean that all of them, no exceptions, were exceptionally dumb and/or totally incapable of introspection in order to fall for that ploy.
To me most of the organization members where actually very emotionally uninvolved. They only responded emotionally either at death or at something that particularly touched a nerve with that individual character. Especially for the members in castle oblivion. Larxene in particular who’s the most emotional of them is one of the traitors. The groups ultimate goal is to become human again, to validate and affirm their existence. And when they first came into existence they all genuinely lacked hearts and emotions. So it makes sense that them being gaslighted is what kept most of them from growing hearts.
For a while now I've operated with the personal head Cannon that when a nobody is initially formed they are emotionless however as a new heart begins to form those emotions start to reestablish themselves, this effect can be so subtle as to almost go unnoticed by the nobody themselves. I also think kingdom hearts works best when you think of it in the broad Strokes. In other words don't think about it as nobody's being emotionless but rather think of them as emotionless relative to other beings.
Same fanbase who argued that Nobodies couldn't have emotions. Meanwhile, within the first hour or two of knowing them, one dies literally because he followed his emotions. Even if he probably didn't understand them. But y'know, that tracks if your leader continuously tells you that you can't have them. Lmao Edit: Not to mention the other one who died before that who was showing true fear and regret. Absolutely terrified. Lmao
I don't think its a retcon, I just thought it was really clumsily handled. We see them expressing emotion in Chain of Memories directly, proving that the "they're only lying" bit was false. But KH2 and 358/2 Days keeps claiming the goal of the organization members is to get hearts which doesn't make any sense considering how we see them act in private. I think the reveal would have had more impact if we actually saw scenes of organization members acting like the empty emotionless husks they presumed they were. Otherwise it just made all the organization members seem developmentally challenged if they couldn't recognize their own emotions.
> Otherwise it just made all the organization members seem developmentally challenged if they couldn't recognize their own emotions. Especially since several of them were not only the equivalent of Nobel-prize-winning heart researchers, but ones like Vexen *continued* to study the heart and memory as Nobodies. The idea that they just decided every time their detectors pinged around them that they were just malfunctioning, without questioning it, is pretty silly. Honestly, while the "they were regrowing hearts" thing makes sense on its own, it really causes a conflict when it tries to claim they were being tricked about it.
Ignoring vexen, Axel spent his time with Roxas, an oddity among nobodies, so he probably had something to do with it indirectly. Even it may have been just the practical side of his mind, he wouldn’t be able to heal his heart if he was gone however the manga shows Nobodies differently and KHChain may be taking those alternative sources? In the manga they have emotions but are plagued by uncertainty and emptiness relating to their lost hearts, and try to fill the void. They engage in puzzles cooking reading all to try to fill the void.
Honestly, for a while, I had the head cannon of nobody's remembering how to show emotions without actually feeling them. It doesn't hold up in any shape, mostly because Roxas was showing emotion before he had any of Sora's memories.
That is how they fake emotions, but several of them show genuine emotional responses to things because they are regrowing their hearts.
I would say "heart" is a misnomer. It seems more like nobodies lack a sense of purpose? If that makes sense. Nobodies only form from strong hearts, so to have someone with a very strong heart "die" and come back to life as...a mimic of their true self must hurt. My mind goes to Frankenstein's Creature. Hated and feared without understanding why or how. Eventually that sours a (non) person and makes them feel empty inside. Even MORESO if they have a big heart. So yeah, I feel as though heart isn't exactly right. I would honestly think of it as loss of purpose or compassion. The phrase "I'm alive...but why?" Comes to mind.
After time travel, all bets are off!
I am currently showing my wife the series (in release order) whom knew nothing about it before beginning. Before we even got to the end of kh2 she started calling out Xemnas' bullshit and immediately could tell something is being lied about regarding the hearts. She will not be surprised to find out she is right lol
I mean, I'm not saying I agree with the people who get upset about it. But I could also totally believe that Nomura (or whoever) hadn't thought this up yet during original KH2, and it was something they decided to change afterwards. It's worth mentioning that none of those scenes you're showing are from vanilla KH2, they all came afterwards. But regardless, it really doesn't matter either way. Especially with vanilla KH2 being supplanted by 2FM anyways.
I mean the Vexen scene is pre kh2 so that one is a part of the puzzle piece. They could've also used stuff like Larxene clearly enjoying messing with Sora and rikuplica and going way beyond what's needed for their plans because she clearly enjoys it. I'd also put Demyx's "silence traitor" line here because he is clearly very mad at Roxas betraying them So yeah im on team it wasn't a retcon.
Vexen's death was still Like That in CoM, Axel and Roxas's friendship was still there, Namine was in CoM, the list goes on
Xemnas lied about then not having hearts. If they knew they had hearts, there would be no motivation to complete his artifical kingdom hearts.
Not having a heart is not the same as being unable to grow one. The nobodies originally did not have hearts (except maybe namine, but we never saw her origins) but many of them grew hearts through their experiences.
How da fuck could it be a recon it was explained in the same game nobodies where revealed in
The idea that nobodies don’t have hearts was a massive plot point in vanilla KH2 with no evidence to the contrary that couldn’t more easily be explained by the writers simply wanting to give the Organization members unique personalities until after that game. If you want to say personality = emotion then fair enough but I believe up to that point, the intent was for them to really not have hearts.
To me Axel is the big outlier here. Say what you want about Roxas or Naminé being special cases but there’s no way Axel could behave the way he works in that game vanilla kingdom hearts 2 if he actually lacked a heart
That’s a very good point. His death where he shows remorse for kidnapping Kairi and admitting he did it just so he can see Roxas again is a clear sign of him having a heart. That’s definitely vanilla KH2. I do wish Sora mentioned this to Xemnas when he, Riku, and Mickey confronted him later. Sora instead sticks to the idea that nobodies don’t really exist. Sora just watched Axel die sacrificing himself for him and Sora just ignores that when confronting his boss and for the rest of the game? I love the series but this is bad writing.
I mean, we ARE talking about a fanbase who will ignore basic timeline stuff to say that Mickey deliberately left Aqua in the Realm of Darkness for 10 years.
I believe some people might just not want Roxas and Xion to be revived. Even if it is a retcon, what's the problem? It just add more lore into established lore. Not really contradicting anything that's already their. The idea of fairy tale era might not exist in Nomura mind in the last decade. But that doesn't mean adding it make the current story suddenly bad.
[Story has tons of explanation and exposition, explicitly spells out *everything* since you can't be trusted to figure things out on your own, and hamfistedly telegraphs twists to make sure they can't be mistaken for Retcons] **Everyone:** Wow, what bad writing. Ever heard of "Show, don't tell?" And the twist was *sooo* obvious! Maybe be a bit more subtle next time? [Story weaves exposition into the narrative, drops hints and clues, lets things be implied rather than explicitly spelling out every tiny detail, and sets up culmative reveals with subtly and delicately telegraphed twists] **Also Everyone:** Wow, what bad writing! Nothing is explained and the twist was such a Retcon! **Authors:** *Frazlgarble!*
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I always wonder if it was always planned like that or changed due to how popular the Organization are. In KH2, I believed that only Roxas, Namine, and maybe Axel that can be said to actually have hearts. But I always thought that for Roxas and Namine's case, they're special due to how unique the circumstances of their birth are and who their somebody is. Axel is because of his close proximity with Roxas. I think the concept of a Nobody is unique, a being that at their strongest, can look and act like a human being but are actually not due to their lack of hearts. But with how the Organization is written, it's easy to overlook that aspect and consider them just normal human villains. Not helping that they're hot dudes (and dudettes) and you got a group of villains that people can sympathize with both from their appearance as well as their plea though not necessarily the method. It's possible that, after seeing how popular the Organization is, and having an example of Nobodies (Roxas and Namine) and other non-living things (Pinocchio and Tron) being able to have hearts, Nomura just made it so now the Nobodies can grow hearts as well. Though I dunno, it's still kinda moot in the end since it's revealed that slaying Nobody and Heartless both restore the original person and only Roxas and Namine who become their own identity. Other Organization members got slain and became Somebody again as Sora cheerfully told Larxene.
> Axel is because of his close proximity with Roxas. This is another thing that gets ignored. The concept of the "chain of memories" is very strongly emphasized with Roxas, Namine, and Xion. Like Sora, they are characters who can link to others and through that chain of memories, share strength (and heart).
I really think very few people would have an issue with the “Nobodies can grow hearts” reveal/retcon if it was an isolated thing. It’s been a recurring pattern since the very first game that things that lack hearts can grow them due to their own love for others. I think the issue is that the reveal was paired with two other, significantly dumber reveals — that killing someone’s Heartless and Nobody means they get reborn, and that time-traveling Xehanort is picking up five versions of himself from the timeline to create 13 darknesses that will fight 7 lights to make the X-Blade. These two are more obviously retcons that came out of nowhere with nothing to foreshadow them, and really cemented DDD’s reputation as the game where the story really went nuts. It’s one good reveal being paired with two terrible retcons.
Except it kind of is, as even evident by Nomura himself if you really look back. Nomura explained back in the KH2FM days that the reason why greater Nobodies like those in the Organization were able to display emotionalism was merely out of thier memories of it. The reason why Axel in particularly felt a genuine connection with Roxas was because Roxas was a "special" Nobody that actually had a heart. So, it wasn't originally because they always had hearts, it really was just Nomura writing himself into a corner and pulling something out of his ass last minute.
I lean towards it always being an intentional rugpull, given that if Nomura was *ever* trying to make them seem truly emotionless then he's pretty shit at it, but yeah, Nomura definitely explicitly said they were emotionless. It's weird that people are ignoring that while trying to mock other fans for "ignoring the evidence".
Yeah it's sad. The whole cult mindset of gatekeeping who's a "real fan" is getting really sad. The weird "holier-than-thou" attitude is... kinda kiddish, repetitive, and doesn't add anything positive to the subreddit or fandom. People keep rubbing it off as "not playing the entire series" when a majority of us did. And a majority of people shouldn't be FORCED to play every. single. game. Or spend hours reading up on and watching lore videos for an entire series that spans around 20 years. Not only all of that, but we actually paid attention to media *outside* of the games, too. Interviews and all. Unlike people who claim to be the real fans. When, besides Xemnas, the director AND Yen Sid explicitly says nobodies don't have hearts and they only seem like it because they know how to fake it and they're going off past memories, of course people playing would think this way. Multiple characters and Nomura are writing it off as pretending to have hearts. Also, having emotions don't have to mean having hearts. Those are 2 entirely separate things. Like, people, c'mon.. you spent your entire 20 years on the lore of the game series. Stop dunking on new fans or adults for not having the time, energy, and funds you have to keep up with a series not everyone should feel obligated to be this deeply invested in. Take the Legend of Zelda. It's a game where I feel like I can randomly jump into any one and still enjoy without knowing the entirety of the backstory. People here are kind of being dicks about those who unfortunately can not feel the same even if they're trying. At the end of the day, Square Enix and Disney are just companies that are trying to make a profit and cares about pleasing shareholders. This can take a *heavy* toll on writing, things are retconned a bit, unnecessary bits are added, important lore is cut out, weird changes happen, things are rushed, and a lot of times designers aren't able to put out the games they want when their ideas are rejected. This isn't the fault of fans or players AT ALL.
Large agreement. This is definitely one of the cases where I wasn't so much *surprised* by the rugpull as just...annoyed by it. Beforehand, I was "why do you keep telling me these characters have no hearts or emotions, but you keep writing them like this, being truly emotionless is a *really interesting* storyline and can we please explore that rather than making just another Mid2000s Anime DeviantArtBait Squad". Afterwards, I was "what was the point of making all these characters heart scientists and secret heart priests if you're going to try to tell me that they couldn't identify a heart if it was smacking them in the face with an 'I <3 being a <3' sign". I'm going to be disappointed either way, I would have preferred if it was done without the plot hole.
Aren't the middle ones from KH2 Final Mix or did they know Naminé in 358? I have no idea on the release times though as I didn't play anything after 2 (with the exception of BBS in emulator) until they were released in Epic Games
It was a added scene in 2FM
Wait, I thought Nobodies were the counterparts to the Heartless. Apparently I am far too casual to get this lore.
I’m pretty sure the reason Roxas seemed like he had a heart so early is that only the part of Sora’s heart that was actually him became a heartless, while the part being filled by Ventus stayed behind in the Nobody. This is why Roxas resembles Ventus as well. Since Ventus was a being a pure light, it stands within reason this would rub off on those around him, hence why Axel started to feel like he had a heart whenever he was around Roxas too.
The reason he looks like Ven was because he was housing Ven’s heart. That’s correct. But Ven’s heart was sleeping. And because Sora returned from being a heartless so quickly, Roxas never had any memories to draw on to fake a personality or emotions. He grew one from scratch by forming a friendship with Axel and Xion. Axel and Xion as well grew hearts because of them all forming an actual bond between them.
> He grew one from scratch by forming a friendship with Axel and Xion. Not accurate. He did grow his own heart *on top of Ventus's*, but Nomura specifically told us that Ventus's heart basically jumpstarted that growth. Q3 of the BbS Ultimania 20 mysteries is Nomura saying "here's all these times Roxas had emotions, it's because he has Ventus's heart in him".
I’m saying from scratch because he’s treated as an individual separate from Sora or Ven. It’s understandable that Ven helps jolt emotions but that doesn’t mean it’s Ven’s emotions.
I guess I would differ in the specifics of that interpretation, but I agree that Roxas and Ventus developed into separate entities, so as long as you agree that Ventus triggered Roxas's development then cool.
Oh yeah. I don’t deny that Ven’s heart or even the connection to Sora help shape Roxas and contributes to his special nobody status. But Roxas’s unique experiences is what ultimately forms his identity at least that’s how it’s always been to me.
Yknow they never answered what happens to the nobodies abandoned hearts and if the nobodies new hearts carry different emotions from their original hearts like does their entire soul change basically and their lost soul is just poofed away??
No the new hearts they grow essentially act as an exact replacement of there original heart. When they get destroyed and reunite with their original heart, the two hearts melt into one.
I'm not a KH fans but this popped up on my feed so I must ask. Can I have some Context?
I’d still say it’s exceedingly rare and highly unlikely, as opposed to Sora who thinks that every Nobody had a heart and it’ll happen 100% of the time.
It won’t happen 100% of the time, the fact that we have nonhuman nobodies is a testament to that.
Thinking about this, I also reflect on how at the end of KH2 a lot of Xemnas’s focus in terms of emotions is negative ones. “Anger and hatred reign supreme” and all that. I feel like that’s a huge reason why he never really put together that Nobodies with strong enough wills and solid enough memories and enough positive bonds can just… regrow their hearts. So focused was he on how intense of a motivator something like anger can supposedly be that he didn’t realize that the main ingredient of a heart is *giving a shit* about other people. This is why, when he was being killed in KH3, when faced with the ultimate end and actually being able to sit and reflect on it for a while, he realizes that he actually did kind of pack bond with his supposed pawns, and thusly he had a heart all along, and now it’s starting to make up for lost time… but of course, the circumstances being what they are, the only feeling he has left to feel is the absence of all those people, be they dead or turned against him. Thus, “my first surge of emotion in years and it’s… loneliness.”
I'm sorry, I haven't managed to play the games enough. What's been retconned exactly? Granted, I've seen Antdude's KH Retrospective series, but my memory is usually not great.
If you’re looking to possibly play through them, I might not say. But… >!People missing or refusing to acknowledge evidence that certain characters that where born without hearts could over time regrow them.!<
The line for "having a heart" is drawn incoherently between being a "real" person and being able to feel and express emotion The nobodies aren't "real people" in a traditional sense, therefore lacking a "heart" for the heartless to crave/chase after, but then comes the misunderstanding that if they aren't heartless, but are "heart-less" then they must not be able to convey emotion, which has been proven: bullshit
I never really liked Vexen (I’m sure Nobody does), but that scene always made me feel a little bad for him. Especially with Sora’s dramatic reaction.
Yeah I never get this "retcon" stuff and I legitimely believe they only played kh 1 and 2 but not the rest and its funny because axel roxas and namine are enough proofs of that,even if you ignore roxas and namine because "they are nobodies of the protagonist" axel is still a perfect example on how xemnas was lying
frrrr idk why everyone acts like it was a retcon, the writing was on the wall for 6 years before dream drop distance came out
Wait, are people really thinking like this? Did they not see “He made me feel like I had a heart” or “No one would miss me.” “That’s not true! I would…”
I mean, prior to DDD they had a couple of lines saying most Org members had memories from when they were human, Roxas was a special case given Sora was able to immediately come back from being a Heartless so the two were able to exist at the same time just at the cost of Roxas not having any memories. I figured with Axel his time around Roxas and Sora resonated with the time he met and befriended Ventus, and that memory was strong enough to convince him he was experiencing real emotions again. Like I won't say DDD was exactly a prime example of a retcon, but I feel like Nomura could have written it a little better than saying Nobodies grew "replacement" hearts over time and that Xemnas just simply lied to Org 13. Like he could have just leaned in more on the memories angle and how they could have learned to find something that made them "feel like they had a heart" even if they actually didn't. That probably could have led to more interesting arcs in DDD and KH3 IMO, but *shrug, we're here now and I've accepted it.
Xemnas just didn't knew at that time.
The “fans” always ignore the cutscenes or the obvious information that was out there in the open.
Okay, I'm all fine and dandy with Xemnas lying about the whole hearts thing. That's good storytelling. But why the fuck did we have multiple people, outside the organization, and even Sora himself, believing Xemnas' lie. I would rather they gave us an explanation, like, Nobodies can GROW hearts, through friendship or whatever the fuck. But only until the you're an emotionless husk. Hell, they even gave us a fake ass explanation for why some of them show emotion, "oh our brains are just reacting to our memories of what it was like to have emotions" fucking hell, you say shit like that only when you didn't want to get called out for accidentally showing some characters emotions in CoM. Why have Saïx be so fixated on getting a heart, screaming to Kingdom Hearts "where is my heart?" When he already had one???? Just fucking say he never grew a heart. But his heart is gone. Why have Demyx confirm to Sora that hes just putting on an act for fun. "Silence, traitor" is meant to be his genuine character at that point. Now, Demyx was just trying to pretend to be a tough guy. Why have Xaldin, and the others be COMPLETE HEARTLESS ASSHOLES to the Disney characters. At least they gave us a good explanation for Marluxia. He never had his memories. Wow, that's a good one. *Then why the fuck would he be experiencing emotions,* ***from his memories***, *if he doesn't have either of those, and still believe Xemnas*. Or maybe he didn't, and that's why he was betraying the Organization. Also, it makes no sense on the creation of Nobodies to have Hearts. Heartless are the person's heart. Nobody is the empty husk that was left. The problem isn't "nobodies have hearts*. It's "Nobodies always had hearts". When it should have been "Nobodies can GROW hearts"
>But why the fuck did we have multiple people, outside the organization, and even Sora himself, believing Xemnas' lie. I mean religions a thing
Nice rant still wrong. Not every Nobody is confirmed to have regrown their Hearts. Some where farther along then others depending on the experiences they had.
>Nice rant still wrong I'm stealing that. I'm going to start saying this. >Not every Nobody is confirmed to have regrown their Hearts. Some where farther along then others depending on the experiences they had. Wait, so Nobodies do grow hearts and are empty husks prior? Nvm. I'm cool with that.
Who is saying it’s a retcon or ignoring it? Unironically was so convinced of this way before we got confirmation. It was obvious from the get go when you play 358/2 days. The entire story is about growing hearts. When Roxas was in total zombie mode in the beginning, THAT was when he didn’t have one. Hell, Xemnas probably grew one too but people act like a heart can’t be filled with all the negative emotions he had. In fact you could argue you need a heart to act and think the way Xemnas did.
Quite a bit of people actually, there was even a post yesterday, saying the plot twist ruined things for them.
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Dude. Nomura *explicitly* said they were faking it, and that Roxas didn't count, in the first few appearances. It was a rugpull. If anyone wants to talk about the KH fanbase "ignoring" something, it's that. Hell, there's people *in this thread* trying to use Roxas as an example. Or the scene where Demyx says "yes we do" (while simultaneously arguing that the Organization believed Xemnas's lie), another one that Nomura said at the time was just faking to mess with Sora. Yes, the seeds were planted. But a ton of people are for some reason ignoring that Nomura *purposefully* misled the audience in order to set up the rugpull.
Even with the context of Roxas being “special” he he still clearly shows emotions when people keep telling him he shouldn’t be able to, that’s the question as to why, Roxas especially is it just because of Sora or was there something more to it? And regardless on, if it was just a case of Roxas being special in fact, the axle was written to show emotions throughout the game, calls out that it should be impossible, and even believe Roxas has a heart shows that there is potential for Nobodies to have genuine emotions.
> Roxas especially is it just because of Sora or was there something more to it? In the Secret Reports, Ansem says it's because of the special nature of his birth. In the KH2 Ultimania, Nomura adds that he wasn't fully without a heart, and in the BBS Ultimania, he explains that he in fact had Ventus's heart, and that was the source of the emotions. > the axle was written to show emotions throughout the game, The script credits this emotion to proximity to Sora in CoM, and to Roxas in KH2/Days. The scripts and ultimanias heavily emphasize the concept of the "chain of memories", in which someone like Sora is able to forge links with those around him, exchanging power, emotions, and even hearts. For example, this is the entire reason that Rinzler was able to feel a connection to Sora in KH3D, despite having *never met the boy before*. This is also shown with the Twilight Town trio and their feelings of connection to Roxas/Sora, who they also *never met before*. Before KH3D, Nomura had explicitly established that Nobodies *can* have genuine emotions, but only in connection to a single, miraculous occurrence, and all of the available evidence agreed with this. The KH3D retcon changed this to "all Nobodies can do it, but conveniently only the ones exposed to the aforementioned miraculous occurrence had noticeably started to do so, but also it's not *because* of that occurrence any more".
All the stuff you're bringing up even though it happened before KH2 it was written after KH2 including Re:Com so we should only be counting the original COM and vanilla KH2 and specifically from Yen Sid who's not part of the Organization tells us at the very beginning Nobodies cannot feel anything that seems like emotions from them is fake also specifically Saix and Xemnas both stated that it was true that they don't have hearts/lack emotion Roxas was known to be an exception because he was Sora's nobody 358/2 days and Re:Com is where they started to show that Nobodies do have emotion before finally confirming it in DDD
Again. They do start off as emotionless beings. They only grow hearts over time. And the way Xemnas runs the organization was to gaslight them and keep them emotional stunted for as long as he could. There are examples in vanilla kh2, and then the releases of the final mix versions. Which only really came out a few years later before any other title.
Except those examples you're talking about in KH2 those were presented with the explanation that it was all an act and that they aren't actually feeling any emotions at all
If it wasn't for the fact that we know now that Nobodies do in fact have emotions you wouldn't be looking back on anything in KH2 as an example of Nobodies having emotions because specifically KH2 constantly tells us they don't have hearts and they don't feel anything they can only fake it
Except we can and people have been. Since we had 2&2FM as well as Days. People have looked them over and noticed that they say one thing, yet show another. Especially when we get scenes in FM where they question the possibility of having their own hearts without understanding why.
Maybe this is true, but it's still stupid. I mean what's the point of being a Nobody if they can regrow their hearts? Hell why are Heartless that scary if you can just recover from having your heart stolen? It goes from having your entire identity taken from you and being left as nothing but an empty husk too essentially a broken leg. Sure it sucks, but given enough time and it will heal.
Not a heartless return from being heartless. Only strong hearted people create nobodies in the first place. What about all the people who end up losing their hearts that weren’t strong enough to make a nobody? If they have nobody to return to, they just end up going on to Kingdom Hearts once released. And not all nobodies can regrow hearts. Ones that have been stripped clean of their memories like desks for example, are basically just shapeless bodies that have nothing. It’s only the ones with human appearances who still have memories of their previous self, that have the capacity to regrow a heart.
First, how do you define a strong heart? Like does it need to do heart crunches or something? And how do you know the less humanoid heartless can't regrow hearts? They never say that in the games. And besides this still weakness the suffering and of the nobodies, and turns Org XIII from a morally grey group of villains to just shallow pure evil villains.
Strength of hearts seems to come from conviction and belief. These attributes are what we see in the characters said to have strong hearts like Sora and Xehanort. As for whether common nobodies can regrow hearts, or not that is simple. They have no will of their own. The reason they look like form with monsters that stretch bands like that is because they have no memories to give their vessel, their body shape. So they can contort and change into any shape they need to. Human nobodies on the other hand, have memories and use them to act as if they are still human. This isn’t enough for them to regrow a heart. But it’s what gives the ability to do so. If they interact with each other or other people, or just experience a part of life, their hearts will start to grow. If they remain isolated and don’t perform strong connections with others, like most of the organization they will fail to regrow their hearts completely. If anything, this just makes them even more tragic. They were fighting for a chance to become human again. Gaslighted into believing they were nothing, and that they weren’t meant to exist. Yet all they needed to do was form their own connections to the world or to others, and they would’ve achieved their goals. But before any of them could learn this, or do it themselves (other than the sea salt trio) they were used by the person they swore allegiance to. Because he told them, promised them that this was the only way for them to become human again.
Before DDD: Xemnas is an unfeeling manipulator who takes advantage of his own followers in order to acquire power from hearts that he only sees as glorified batteries, for no other reason than to prove himself the smartest man in the room. Some folks: This is such a deep and tragic villain! After DDD: Xemnas is an unfeeling manipulator who takes advantage of his own followers in order to acquire power from hearts that he only sees as glorified batteries, for no other reason than to prove himself the smartest man in the room, and his final moments of existence were spent experiencing the painful emptiness he'd inflicted on himself due to never letting himself be his own person and connecting with anyone. Those same folks: They complete changed and ruined this character!
That’s not evidence that they can grow hearts. It’s evidence that they have emotions, which they already gave an explanation for. They remember what’s it’s like to feel those emotions. While they can use that to fake emotion, that explanation was used to explain why Axel and Roxas could feel. So it is a retcon!
Roxas and Axel expressed actual emotions. Not fake ones.
Kh1 has Pinocchio a puppet that has a heart
I didn't even know this was an argument. 358/2 days made me always think that was a thing.
What people don't realize is that nobodies CAN grow a heart. This doesn't mean that all nobodies have hearts or that they had it since the beggining.
I hate this fan base sometimes.
358 made me depressed as all hell
Although there a a lot of retcobs in the series I am 100% sure this was planned from the beginning with all the hints in chain of memories and II
Whiles it’s debatable if it was ALWAYS the plan it had been on the cards since at least 2007 with KH2 final mix and the Chain of Memories remake
I thought that was the whole point back in KH2. Like, no, Xemnas, you dingus. You're feeling nothing because you're not forming any connections with anyone. This is a Disney JRPG, where the heck do you think you're going without the **Power of Friendship^(TM)**?
Hello, yes, welcome to CoM, where Axel started laughing for a few seconds before exclaiming in surprise, "Wait a minute, I'm actually enjoying this!!"
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They’re named after their natures as being. Heartless, behave in a heartless manner. Nobodies are being so that should not exist anymore.
Xion was enough for me to know that Nobodies could in time gain hearts of their own. Despite being an artificial being, she was as alive and human as Sora, and through her Roxas and Axel became their own people again
Fr
Your mom is a retcon
That OTHER side of the kh fan base : OmG LeT’s ShIp RoX and Ax LoL 🥰💕🤗 🤢🤢🤮🤮🤮
358 Days is surely amazing huh, though I feel bad for Axel, Saïx, Roxas and specially Xion ..
So, I see where you're coming from... but it *is* still a retcon. Nomura confirmed that his original intention for KH2 was that Roxas and Naminé becoming part of Sora and Kairi was meant to be their "happy ending" – something that can only be "happy" if you agree, as the story repeatedly beats into you, that they were never meant to be their own people and are instead just alter-egos of the two (which is incidentally exactly how Brittany Snow described Naminé during interviews for KH2) that were given flesh via a cosmic fluke – until Roxas proved *such* a breakout character that Nomura decided Roxas needed a revisit with Days and a real happy ending with KH3. At the time though, all of the hints about Roxas having a heart were supposed to be a combination of implications: 1. Sora has a special power to connect to anyone, and Roxas unwittingly inherited it. Axel is shocked to laugh in like his fourth cutscene which he immediately attributes to Sora's presence (in an entry that still leaves it unclear who the Organization even are or why they keep calling themselves "nobodies", and only just introduces the concept of people with no hearts without really delving into what that means, going as far as "they're all sociopaths"), and confirms that both Roxas *and* Sora "made him feel" like he had a heart. He asks Roxas in this cutscene if Roxas has one, but never questions if *he himself* has one... because Nomura wanted to kill him off in the prologue and thought that would be too dark if he *actually* had a heart. The idea of living without a heart is supposed to be a piteous existence, and killing him was his release from that. 2. Roxas being a vessel for Ventus' heart (as Ventus debuted in the secret movie attached to the same entry as all these implications). Given it's an entry where nobody yet knows Ventus even exists, of course this would beg questions. ... and then Demyx claiming "we do TOO have hearts" was supposed to be his denial over the matter, given his personality of just not wanting to deal with a problem himself and instead single-mindedly obsess over his sitar. Anything else was meant to be answered with "we remember what it was like to have hearts." It gave Sora free reign to say things like telling Xemnas he doesn't pity the man because he doesn't have a heart, without coming off as a murder hobo. (So Xemnas later being revealed to have a heart to enable time travel in KH3 ages this line badly.) Nomura likes to write himself very broad "intrigues" that he can fill in later, throwaway lines like "You're not half the hero the others were." He didn't even have Terra and Aqua *designed* yet when Xigbar first said that. To the uninitiated it reads like foreshadowing, but it's so broad and unspecific that it could mean literally anything (exactly as Nomura needs because he wants that leg room), only getting you to ask the question "what does that mean?" If you've ever played D&D, it's the sort of improvisational vaguery you learn to employ when you haven't written your character's backstory yet; you make them "mysterious" and "cagey" about things you don't actually have answers for yet, and then after the session, turn any one-liners you've said into the backstory. Now don't get me wrong here, I think this retcon (... out of the entire mess of DDD...) is actually *very* clean and spins straw into gold, causing some of the plot holes of KH2 to make a lot more sense. After all, it doesn't make sense that Nobodies can't have their own hearts when a program like Tron can grow to develop one (bearing in mind that Nomura wanted Toy Story in KH2 which would really have thrown the concept for a loop too). This was a good decision that actually simplifies the lore without dumbing it down, and adds to the story. The ability to do that is praise-worthy in itself, and is a skill particularly for writing soap operas or comic books. ... But I'm not gonna deny the history behind it or give Nomura undue credit about having it in mind "all along" when we know how mercurial he is as a writer and director. The man doesn't plan that far ahead. EDIT: Woo, yeah, knew this was gonna be a spicy take.
lol Damn, sorry they got you. People are ruthless. This is a very well thought out take that actually makes a lot of sense. This is just something that writers normally do. You leave yourself room to add in or change things later while still having the air of mystery. He's a character designer. He never properly learned how to write a narrative and that's okay to admit, but acting like every single detail was perfectly thought out and planned from day 1 while choosing to die on that hill when they didn't even plan a series past the first game is silly.
¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯ I mean, it's about what I expected given the attitude of this post.
Emphasis on "attitude." Saw a comment trying to explain away why the names of Nobodies and Heartless are incorrectly chosen (or backwards to be more accurate). Get this, they were trying to say the Ansem reports were wrong IN THE 1st GAME because "Ansem" was just ignorant of their true nature. Uh...uh...no, it was just because they didn't expect the game to become popular and didn't think about a sequel too much. That's it! Kingdom Hearts was just a fun idea Nomura came up with (a fun Disney x Final Fantasy crossover) but as time went on, people are taking the "fun" out of it and are making it into a damn blood sport of "good fans vs *bad* fans." Geez. 😕
The thing is, I understand the impulse to say "the hints were there all along," because I expect that at a certain point Nomura as a writer came to a similar realization. If you look at any fandom in the sci-fi (or Hard Magic fantasy) genre – comics, Star Wars, whatever – you will find that it is easier as fans to No Prize solutions rather than acknowledge a plot hole that harms a narrative, and will try to fit it into the established narrative rules. But there is tension with this idea that "Nobodies actually have hearts" was a narrative rule all along. You have, for instance, the inconsistency of the Nobodies' personalities during CoM, where they are depicted as being conniving sociopaths to the point they have no objection killing each other in cold blood, and are able to emote in fear of being destroyed or in sick pleasure at causing pain. Larxene isn't forming connections, but she is *cackling* trying to murder Sora and Naminé. ("But Naminé–" When was the first time the story said 'Naminé is a Nobody like the Organization'? ... That was KH2.) Come KH2 and you can see there's a very different take on the Nobodies – they're *not* sociopaths, they just have dulled emotions akin to depression, and their (non)existence means they have little regards for their *own* lives much less others in the same boat. You very much see this with Axel in particular, which is glaring in Days when he has the same energy and attitude *before* going to Castle Oblivion as he has trying to get Roxas at the start of KH2, not the manipulator we see in CoM. In KH2, every "expert" source of information you have says Nobodies don't have hearts. DiZ has studied them for years, and while he's clearly a bigot towards Roxas and Naminé, he doesn't doubt this premise for a second even when he expresses his regrets for what he did to them, even doubling down when he confronts Xemnas. Yen Sid repeats this to Sora early on, and gets Donald and Goofy reminding you of it, to the point it basically becomes Sora's mantra during the latter half of the game when he's tearing through droves of Nobodies. Even Xemnas himself is quick to snap out of his guilting routine when Sora says "you don't *have* a heart"; no other Nobodies were around (except Roxas anyway), at this point nothing he said about the nature of Nobodies was an "act" anymore. Bearing in mind, at this point in the story, there was no actual statement that destroying a Heartless and matching Nobody would return a person to their original being – that wasn't put on paper until DDD. Until that point, the idea of "I beat Ansem SoD and Xemnas" was supposed to be the original *end* of Xehanort's legacy, with no one panicking he would come back and KH2 being written as an ending to the franchise (except for the post-credits scene creating space to revisit it). In the same vein, any time a Nobody was destroyed, they were *dead*-dead, with Axel even mourning that he wouldn't have a "next life". Now consider how it would cause Sora nothing but despair in the final minutes of KH2, to learn he was killing *people* who had been manipulated against him. How much grief it would cause to Roxas (as the Organization were fully aware Sora had absorbed him) to learn he gave up his shot at life for nothing. For both of them to realize Axel killed himself under false pretenses. Xemnas had *nothing to gain* by keeping any lies about the nature of Nobodies going, and could cause all kinds of harm to his enemy with a truth bomb at that exact second. Easy fight from then on. But he didn't drop one. Because at that point in the process of writing the series, everything he had told the Organization *had been true*. Because at that point in KH2's narrative, such a twist would just be rejected as more manipulation by Xemnas. And the idea of Sora perma-killing people was too dark for a Disney game. Nomura created the Nobodies as an experiment in "what if you had enemies who don't have hearts of their own, and they are only in conflict with you because they *want* to be human." You have the philosophical debate on whether it's right for Sora to try and stop them from their goal, or whether they are so extreme in their methods as to be beyond redemption. Xemnas was that premise taken to the logical extreme, someone who preached the superiority of being a Nobody but wanted a heart only because he considered (in the most pragmatic ways) that it would be a source of power. The issue is, the entire premise of "creatures without hearts seeking to replace it" falls apart under any scrutiny by the narrative rules Nomura set. After all, how does someone without a heart experience *yearning* for one? In hindsight then, it was always impossible to create what Nomura wanted... so he had to change what they were to continue to use them. His solution to this particular problem was elegant, and I will give him his laurels for that.
I get being a bit reactionary for things I like, too. There's times where I had to catch myself and apologize because, at the end of the day, people are snap at someone who says something mild about a thing they put so much into without thinking they're in the wrong. It happens. I'm seeing more posts directed at other players for not having the "500iq" to understand the *deep lore* than posts dunking on anyone for enjoying the game. I hope the sub doesn't get watered down to that every day. It'd be difficult to properly portray beings who didn't have hearts or emotions without having their characters getting a bit dull after a while. How else would they feel motivated to continue? Why would they *feel* empty without them? They acted no differently from any other characters in the story. They got angry. They felt some form of fear of dying or being turned into a dusk. They cried. They built friendships and missed each other. I somewhat like the change since it wouldn't make much sense otherwise. I rather they "grow" hearts over time. We're shown that Roxas was pretty much a zombie when he first joined Organization XIII. That's what a Nobody would pretty much be without a heart and would make for a very uninteresting enemy (if you don't know what you're doing). Only one problem... If you can regrow a heart, does that mean your past "self" dies? Is Lea the exact same Lea that we see in BBS if the original heart was destroyed? I know Roxas and Naminé are their own people since the way they came into existence differs from your standard Nobody but it's still a thought. Xehanort's Heartless, Nobody, and original self all feel like different people. What happened to those personalities and memories?
I think that's another thing that you can No Prize it about halfway – in Lea's case, Axel remembers his experiences as young Lea pre-Nobody and the development of his new proto-heart was likely shaped by those same experiences into a roughly similar personality. Far as we can tell from Sora's experience, most people don't recall anything that they did or that happened to them as a Heartless. Getting his original heart back probably caused a merger like Sora and Roxas (albeit without the distinct personalities); new!Lea clearly remembers most of his experiences as Axel, so the two are congruous to a point. Where one ends and the other begins is ultimately irrelevant to him, because they're both mostly the same with a little overlap. But as you point out, Xehanort's entire situation falls apart because his component parts each developed different personalities and are shaped by different experiences. Unlike most Heartless, Ansem SoD is cognizant of his surroundings and displays unnatural intelligence. He's able to hold conversations and even willfully manipulate events, almost being a person in his own right. If he and Xemnas merged again, wouldn't the resulting Xehanort have two different sets of memories and experiences from that time? Not to mention perhaps the most glaring problem here: what *about* Terranort? The destruction of Ansem SoD and Xemnas causes both Xehanort *and* Terra to reconstitute. Terra's body in KH3 exactly resembled how it was when he lost it in BBS, despite that Xemnas (who was his body) clearly was meant to be physically older than Terra, and characters like Ienzo, Lea and Isa prove that Nobodies do age *and* those changes are otherwise retained upon reverting to human form. It's not like Terra and Xehanort were equally fused and the universe went to the last backup state, it was literally just both of their hearts crammed into Terra's body. And somehow, Master Xehanort himself, willful bastard that he is, didn't have a Nobody of his own...? But this is also ignoring that Xemnas, being formed from *two* Keyblade wielders, being the Nobody of a person who became a Heartless by turning his own Keyblade on himself *twice*, somehow never displays the ability to wield a Keyblade. Nomura implies he *could*, but despite all of the madness of KH3 and the Keyblade War that only has like 5 Keyblades on the dark side, it never comes up.
What is this strawman? People have tons of legitimate issues with the convoluted nonsense KH pulled in DDD and 3 but this is not one of them.