Wow! I... actually never thought of the KH world that way, even though in hindsight it makes so much sense! Kingdom Hearts being the embodiment of the connections and feelings we have with stories, how those themes reflect on characters like Xion and how that lets her be her own person and, eventually, grow a heart. How this makes Sora and Riku's connection even MORE significant and even more proof that they will be endgame! Wow! I'm actually just speechless! I love it!!! 💖 I can already see that if we get textual confirmation of this in the future, a lot of people are going to take the wrong interpretation of it and just say that the narrative is telling them that what happened in KH was "Just fiction" and "It didnt matter because it was not happening in reality" or something like that, because a lot of people that play the games just take the story in a very surface level way. When, in reality, it's the complete opposite. The world of KH is real! Our connection to it, the people that live there, the stories that it tells, they are all real! Why? Because we care about them, because we love them! They are full of meaning for us and the characters that live in them. That's why they are worth preserving them and protecting them. And, as someone who loves stories and storytelling, that is honesty a beautiful message! 💕 I do wonder though, how does this tie into explaining how Yozora and Verem Rex are a videogame within the KH world? Is it some kind of leak between the two realities? It surely gives me a lot to think about! :0 Thank you so so much for your videos and analysis!! I really love them a lot!! 💗
Thank you so much. I’m glad you’re enjoying my videos. To answer your last question, about how this ties into Yozora and Verum Rex being a video game within the KH world, I don’t know if leak is the best way to describe it but I pretty much agree in principle. The way I see it, based on some of the essays I read on tumblr that inspired this video, is that Verum Rex being a game in Sora’s universe represents how fiction serves as a window between universes: that the KH games are our window into Sora’s world, and Verum Rex is his world’s window in Yozora’s. Because in some stories where characters travel outside of their universe, the narrative will have their universe exist as a work of fiction in Universe B, while Universe B exists as a work of fiction in _their_ universe: tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MutuallyFictional
You know, In Dream Drop Distance, Riku "becomes One" with Sora, and becomes a Dream Eater. Dream Eaters are bond to their Wielders, so Riku's Fate is Sora's Fate. The Child of Destiny.
I find you. Far more interesting to listen to versus others because your at least touching on real concepts in story and not jut retelling facts we've heard or voice lines and trying to spin it. I want so bad for more people who make this content to talk deeper about it caue I feel like alots happened after kh3 end. Union cross ending and dark road. Has given alot of lore.
This theory is especially interesting if you consider that FF Versus 13 is a world that was conceptualized but ultimately cancelled and never came into being for fans to love.
I really like your thesis on stories in general and Kingdom Hearts in specific. Telling stories is what I think we as humans are evolved to do. It is our living purpose. Great video!
Riku: King of Webs, King of the Liminal, King of Light, King of Dreams. Hypnos. That which all things inevitably pass under. Sora: King of Passings, King of Storms, King of Idealism, King of Determination. Thanatos. That which all things inevitably pass through.
Funny, the Master of Master implies that he Imagined the Worlds he and Darkness fight in, (Games boards and books) and that Unreality is one he didn't do that with. "A world their voice cannot reach".
I just realized That by the Master of Masters leaving evidence of his script all over the place. (The X signal on Betrayers, pulling Worlds from the Future, the name Destiny Islands, the Foreteller's name, Sora and Riku's name), he is breathing Life into them by remembering them into the Way he wants them to be. He is Dreaming them into way he Sees Them. Using Kingdom Hearts to Birth Them. Placing characters in our head to play a Game. And Darkness , Darkness challenges them to make them fun to play. Darkness makes them forget themselves, and become "different". Darkness bring them back to the Unmanifest. Where things could be anything, but right now, is Nothing. The Light is fighting to be something, instead of Everything and Nothing. Darkness reflects the Light so you will notice the difference.
BACK WITH ANOTHER BANGER, HOWLER!! This is one of the biggest reasons I'll always love Kingdom Hearts. You broke down the philosophy of it n perfectly and really brought it home thematically~ so good
It's intriguing that the element of intefering in a world's timeline is the exact same concept as how dangerous time travel can be, how dangerous multiversal travel can be, and also how dangerous interfering with a planet before it's time can be.
This series is really just about letting no one know peace. I normally don't like too much meta commentary because I find it cynical/too existential, but KH approaches it with a lot of light-heartedness that makes it easier to swallow. So, even though I'm inwardly cringing at the unreality v reality, I'm still very excited for the coming installments.
Wow, this is such a hard topic but you cover and explain it in such a beautiful way! I am surprised Re: Coded doesn't come up more in this episode though. You touched on it a bit but Data Sora's goodbye to the Disney gang is perfect for your closing thoughts
*screaming* KINGDOM HEARTS IS US aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa 👏👏👏👏👏 Howler, thank you so much for articulating all this in a video. You always find so many connections and callbacks to back up your analysis and it makes SO MUCH SENSE. I'm so excited for the series going forward to explore these concepts more. I'm curious what your take is on the yellow Kingdom Hearts vs the blue Kingdom Hearts. Which is the real one, the real "us" and what is the other one?
Glad you enjoyed the video! I hadn't thought about it before, but after i saw your question, I think I've realized the significance of the blue vs yellow Kingdom Hearts moons. So far the blue KH moon only appears in scenes that take place before KH1, like in BBS, or during the Keyblade War flashback at the start of 0.2. Meanwhile, the yellow kh moon only appears in the present-day games (KH1>KH3). Like the underclassmen said in Dark Road, a world's environment is created first, then its inhabitants. Since KH the heart moon is our/the devs' bond with KH the game series, and everything from the prequel titles was orchestrated both in-universe and IRL for the sole purpose of creating the circumstances for the present day narrative, everything before KH1 effectively takes place in that "before the story starts" stage that we saw Agrabah in at the start of Dark Road. So it's not really a question of which one is real, but rather that the color of the KH moon reflects whether the story this universe exists to tell has properly begun or not. These are just my preliminary thoughts for now. I'll reply again later if I can think of anything else.
@@The_Violet_Howler I think I get it. The Blue Kingdom Hearts is the Unmanifest Shadow of our Heart that "God" mirrored. So It is there, just not Actualized. But everyone wants it to be there. Kind of like The Master of Masters want Sora and Riku to be there.
With Kingdom Hearts i'm feeling a battle between existentialism and nihilism some times! Not too dissimilar of the new movie Everything Everywhere All at once
Another banger of a video!! This analysis is very interesting I had some thoughts that Quadratum was fictional to the KH universe and vice verse, and that both universes made eachother. Now that i think about that thought, it makes sense since how you depict something in media (if it's popular and has been depicted like that for long enough) can affect the mass' perspective or opinion on something, for better or for worse. Fiction affects the real world, the real world affects fiction. At some point, i feel like the border between KH and Quadratum could blur, as a result of a desire to be in a fictional world because the one you're currently in is just... Bad. Many people have terrible lives and can only indulge in fiction to cope, so this could be a possibility? It seems impossible, but the last time I thought that something was impossible was when I thought Xehanort could be in Quadratum :') Oh wait, i just thought of something. The whole...... Wanting to be in fiction thing kinda parallels with Luz from The Owl House. She couldn't make friends and indulged in fiction to cope, but she actually ended up in the demon realm (which you could call the equivalent of a fictional world in TOH) because of her Azura book being stolen by Owlbert. She had fun (and she treated everything in the demon realm as fiction for some time as well), until it wasn't actually fun anymore. The demon realm was *still* the real world after all, not fiction. (Makes me think of s1:ep2 of TOH where Luz wanted to be some person from a prophecy destined to be great but she actually got fooled. Eda also told her to make her *own* story, make your own purpose... That's mildly interesting). Some people think being in a fictional world would be better, but would it really? Quadratum is considered fiction in the eyes of everyone from the KH universe. Quadratum is *our* world, we know it's shit in here! Makes me think that maybe Sora at some point thinks it could be better in Quadratum, but the same thing that happened to Luz happens to him. (Also can you tell that I want an Owl House world in KH4? :')) I'm not sure where I'm going with this but I'm going somewhere.. I think those were all my thoughts :DDDDDDDDDEISKWOWk
wanted to write a comment earlier but was too tired for inspiration Once again, really cool content! The meta subtext in KH really gives the series it's soul in my opinion, it's why nostalgia is such an important theme and is explored in such an emotional way. Pretty sure I'm not the only person who considered their houses or plushies as alive when they were kids, or who looked at themselves in the mirror and thought "what if this was an alternate version of me who had a very different life, but everytime we look at each other is one moment where we're in synch?", it's kind of funny that KH takes similar ideas and rolls with it. I think it also speaks to the "childish" mindset of Kingdom Hearts, even unmoving things can have a heart if we feel like it has one, I find this to be a beautiful mindset. I'm very excited for the next episode in november! (also I like the new background, it's really cute!)
I definitely agree with you there about the “childish” mindset of Kingdom Hearts. It’s part of what I was alluding to when I said at the end that there were more layers to the series’ message about the importance of fiction when considering that the Disney worlds are mostly based on kids movies. And it’s definitely something I’m going to be going into more detail on in the future as part of an episode on what Kingdom Hearts has to say about the importance of a person’s inner child.
Absolutely phenomenal, probably your best video left, your videos having given me such a deeper understanding and appreciation of Kingdom Hearts and it’s concepts and themes
ohhhh, I love the updated background! & I knew you'd get to this kind of topic, but this soon? Oh boy lol I love this take on this topic cuz especially when the SRT & 2nd half of the KHUX story came out, people were scrambling to come up with different ways it could come to play in the series overall. Not that nobody have these thoughts for the series before since it literally starts with Sora going "is everything for real? or not?", & now that the line's come back into play among the rest of what's been going on, I feel like something around this is going to be talked about less subtly soon. Or at least before the series ends. Great work on yet another vid! Def going to enjoy rewatching this 1 many times as well!
I'm glad you enjoyed it. And originally I was going to cover this topic later on, but most of the other scripts I wrote for this season ended up referencing and expanding on it, so I figured it would be better to cover it first.
The main two things that come to my mind for the first part of the video are: The Velveteen Rabbit, which has the titular character become a real rabbit when its owner's love brings it to life. And One Piece's Going Merry. Particularly at the end of the Enies Lobby Arc.
OH MY GOD- I loved that story when I was younger, I completely forgot about it jeez you just awoke some buried memories about that uh... thanks I guess lol
On the topic of the MoM, he explicitly says to Luxu in the control room (at least in the English version, idk if he also says it in jp) that “you can’t erase what lives on in the hearts of children-worlds and their stories, and most of all, light. Of course, you can’t erase the darkness either”. And during one of the chess matches in Dark Road, Eraqus and Xehanort discuss the concept of legacy an how you find others to carry yours on after you’re gone. In other words, making connections with people so they tell stories about you and keep your memory alive and your existence relevant and talked about, even if only through word of mouth. Not to mention Lauriam telling Player and Ephemer to keep Strelitzia in their hearts in UX and the entire concept of waypoints in general, though I suppose that’s more a general connection thing. Sora and Ven even talk about how if their friends “think of [them] now and then” their hearts will live on through their friends’ memories. I love how this franchise is creating a dialogue between the player and the narrative, the latter inviting the former to create theories such as this and will continue to keep inspiring people even after the series is over (which it will inevitably be at some point, seeing as Nomura has an ending in mind) and still providing an excellent lens through which we can examine the way we, as consumers and fans, interact with not just Kingdom Hearts, but narratives and stories as a whole. The way KH uses preexisting narratives (the Disney worlds) as vehicles to allow this kind of conversation by presenting microcosmic elements such as a specific trope in relation to the original characters taking part in an overarching story in which they are but a small part (especially in BBS but that makes sense, we have three different people’s stories to get through in that game) is really well thought out on Nomura’s side (see him not wanting kh3 to be made unless Toy Story was a included) and I cannot wait to see what it has to offer in terms of future worlds and what they might represent and how they’ll connect to the overarching narrative planned.
I remember when I first saw the quadradum stuff I came out with a theory about why it took so many elemenst from versus 13, I don't fully remember it but the baseline was that Versus 13 was a "Fantasy based on reality" like the marketing said, and Kingdom hearts was a "Reality based on fantasy" or "A different reality based on the fantasies of our reality", and due to the concept of versus XIII basically it created a new reality based on reality(Kingdom heart's reality to be exact), explaining why the shibuya we see in Re:Mind has so many stores based on KH elements like dream eaters. Nowdays I don't feel as confident in this theory but I still think nomura was planing something like this while he worked on versus 13, some people say verum rex is just him reusing the concept of versus but I think that even if we had gotten versus 13 the way nomura envisioned he would still use verum rex and not versus. As a side note, I love how nomura basically confirmed that the meaning of versus was a combination of the words verum and falsus, the true and the false, the reality and the fantasy... I wish we could see what kind of story he had in mind... actually that sound a bit like the line from that new atlus game where they go "what if our reality was their utopia", but I doubt it would have gone that route lol
The example about The Sandman is appropriate. In Dc comic, there is the Hand of Light (The Presence) and the Hand of Great Darkness. The Description of Their Existence is in the Beginning was Darkness, the Nothing. The Light was imperceptible, but it grew, and the infinitude shuddered. The Darkness screamed in equal parts pain and relief. Eventually, the Darkness awoke, and threatened to Destroy everything, but the Hand of Light merely shook Hands with it, making a contract with each other. They still Fight but the conflict is more regulated. Sounds like the Master and Darkness's "truce" These two come from The Source. The Source is an Eternal, Infinite Power from the Void that takes the name called the Source/ the Presence . Sounds like a Kingdom Hearts. And the Great Darkness is where that "comes from". It lines up. And of course, The Monitors who Create and Eat Stories.
I can't believe I didn't watch this sooner. My jaw is on the god damn floor. Your analysis is so good and changes my brain chemistry so hard that it could easily replace my anti depressants if I got a weekly dose of it
The meta that my favorite worlds never got in KH because they're not popular enough is pretty radical ngl even if sad. :' ) Also it's intriguing that Sora literally got disconnected from his friends and everything he knew when the heartless attacked and darkness took over. Sora survived because of Kairi's heart and Riku's bequeathing, but outside of that I don't think Sora would have survived the transition otherwise in order to properly find the others. Sora was so ordinary, bro just wanted his special connections back. Especially his Riku.
I don't think it's that a world only exists in the KH universe bc it's popular. Just bc a world hasn't appeared in KH yet doesn't mean it won't in the future. It just means that it wasn't needed for the overall story yet.
@@The_Violet_Howler I agree. Realizing more and more that the worlds are chosen specifically. And it's possible that while Disney has input, Nomura ultimately has not only the final say, but also decides how they interweave with the grander narrative.
Mmh delicious, hearts born of trauma darkness. Perfect for Kingdom Hearts. Honestly, genuinely curious if Sora joining Riku at the end in ascension will end up with Sora and Riku (in all their growth) to be able to purify the more unversed parts of the darkness in hearts so that they're less likely to end up obsessing in one side or another. Alongside this, now I'm curious if Kairi, after remembering everything, is going to be a villain of light instead of a villain of darkness, on MoM's side rather than Darkness' side, due to her fear of her own experiences and a lack of trust in people with Darkness in their hearts - AKA Riku and Sora.
11:25 Anyone else feel this is similar to Dream Zanarkand? AKA the (lost) city of the dead. The intro of KH1 is very similar to the intro of FF X. Being transported from fiction to reality. Nomura is a clever boi, if also somewhat crazy. All in a good way 18:20 Good points. Look at this list: Futurama, LotR, Duck Tales, Star Wars, Pokemon... People still remember them because of their quality (to varying degrees), because they reached so many
The comparison to Dream Zanarkand is something I hadn't considered before, but that actually does line up pretty well with one of the topics I plan to cover next season.
I said it before and I'll say it again. Riku will find Sora working at McDonalds so he can make money to pay rent. All the while Strelitzia is paying rent with the money she's making from Idol work.
Now I'm wondering if riku is the avatar of the foretellers book in the same way data riku is the avatar of jiminys journal. And like in final fantasy 10 the collective dreams of the dead can give rise to a person, jeckt and tidus. All the dead dandelions are dreaming small variations of the same story so they have been preserved. So then sora would be them dreaming about themselves as people who can change narratives. But that would make sora like baymax, a doll with multiple chip slots, and he keeps having visage problems because he could look like any dandelion. And the org exists because they were famous, but nobody that knew them survived to guide thier hearts back to life. Ugh and then riku looking like ansem in 2 is to trick the dreamers into giving him the juice he would need to beat roxas, a fellow dandelion. So then if sora is waiting for riku to make the first move (ala don't think twice) we would be waiting a long time because initiating a gay romance would be a big change of the disney party line. So Sora needs to make a move first? God we're going to be waiting for the heat death of the universe.
Funny thing about the Morpheus/Riku parallel Dream's second incarnation does have white hair though Riku has more silvery hair it's still a neat coincidence.
Riku is a Dream Eater and did live Sora's Dream for awhile. It is also suggests by a certain cover art in One that Riku is a Fallen Archangel revived by Sora's love. (the Black Wing)
The chain links of worlds always exist within the chaos and emptiness. Junk data is always left behind between each multiversal reset - in game and in real life. This also includes chain links that are mere liquid that could someday be given a physical, solid form - anchored into reality. That is, outside of the natural multiverse that already exists, bound and connected and solidified in current reality. Nothing ever goes away forever, just gets a bit disconnected. That also goes for information on a harddrive, and even in brains, and even in electromagnetism. Even if the information becomes unreadable, it doesn't stop existing and can still be retrieved if you know how to retrieve it. The same goes for existences in our reality.
It’s 5 am I’ve been binging your vids but I have THOUGHTS and realizations so I’ll put them in bullet points but they’re unrelated to each other! I would write individual comments for each one to boost the algorithm but….gotta be honest man, I’m kinda exhausted xD 1) Deep jungle fell to darkness truly😢 since it was basically forgotten forever and the characters no longer remember them it means they truly died which is meta and probably overthinking but it made me sad thinking about it 2) Super excited about a Coco world in kh4! All about still being alive in some way as long as people remember you. It was already a possibility since it was a big pixar movie but I’m even more sure now that it’s coming because of the thematic relevance. Same with inside out hopefully! 3) I was going to make a joke about Sora and Riku getting isekai’d which yeah it’s like yeah lol but then I had a realization and maybe it’s just my tired brain but idk maybe it holds some water. In this coming of age story I think we’re solidly in adolescence. We passed the childhood innocence and even went through some edgy tweens/chuunibyou and now we’re primed for the teenage angst. Not only do I think that because Quadratum/Real World is much less whimsical than the Disney worlds but also that it may reference stories that appeal more to adolescence more than childhood. Which brings me back to my dumb joke about isekai because YES it is such a popular genre of escapism for teenagers and young adults but in this case we have a reverse transmigration where the characters from the magical world come to the “regular” boring one. I’ve seen memes of people saying that Sora should get a part time job in kh4 and I would ACTUALLY love that unironically lol. Might also help to let Sora explore his inner darkness by earning minimum wage in a customer service job (and I’m only half joking). 4) I almost legit cried because I don’t want KH to die!! It made me sad in a way that watching Toy Story always makes me sad thinking about the toys I’ve left behind 😢there are some fandoms I’ve just truly left behind throughout the years, not even because the authors are Actually Evil (iykyk) or the stories were bad. I’ve just simply lost interest and grown past them. It’s true that maybe today someone new is learning about kingdom hearts! So maybe even if I forget about it there will always be people carrying the banner and keeping it alive. But also, I’m never forgetting kingdom hearts, I’m almost certain of it. I got a matching kh tattoo with one of my high school best friends. She got “one sky” and I got “one destiny” because even if I grow apart from kingdom hearts or I stop talking to her, we’ll still be under the same stars, that’s why I love kairi’s letter so much 5) Axel’s “got it memorized” is even more thematically relevant and probably meta 6) Riku being the avatar of kingdom hearts is even further proof that Riku is Nomura’s blorbo and all who say he’s going to die don’t realize that if he TRULY DIES without chance of coming back then that’s when the story will end, because Sora’s story will end too because as we’ve seen at the end of kh2 they’re content being in hell as long as they’re together and when Sora’s story ends kh will end #SorikuEndgameActually 7) I do think that Yozora’s appearance not being what we’re shown is a vs xiii reference but I don’t think his “true” self will look like noctis. I don’t know what it will be but I think it would be hilarious if he looks like any regular dude lol. 8) Not a particular of this video but of everyone of these, just wow. Eternal kudos. Your analysis is so good! And I’ve already followed soriku ultimaría and steam for years and I love that at least this side of fandom (the soriku’s at least from what I know but I don’t know if that’s the case for the rest of the kh fandom) we build off of each other’s theories and ideas to complement our own! It’s like scientific discoveries! Like (someone) said (newton?) we walk on the shoulders of giants (or something). You are so articulate so in an individual level I need to tell you how great your work is and how unique the connections you’ve made are! They make so much sense!! It also excites me what this will mean for future theories and developments and greatness (I’m fresh off the Riku is gay 6 hour video so I’m just very excited about this flavor of kh analysis) 9) Talking about making sense! I did like dark road but I absolutely despised what it established of how time in the Disney worlds worked. It just, confused the heck out of me and I thought it directly contradicted the passing of time in kh2. I’m still not sure how it doesn’t contradict it but at least you’ve shown me how it makes sense and how it’s not just a lazy afterthought to keep reusing the same Disney worlds. 10) I’m having the thought that in the kh universe there can be no balance between light and darkness, I know that in other videos you’ve said that love is what can solve it and I do believe that to be the case! However, taking a more meta stance that this video presents, and considering that xehanort said that only by wiping the current universe could it be truly balanced as the world is returned to a blank slate, I think the conclusion has to be that light and darkness have to be in constant opposition and that IS the “balance”. Something like entropy (in the sense of chaos in a system). But if that’s the case maybe too much struggle between light and dark can basically cause the heat death of the universe? Maybe that’s what happened with the keyboards war and all that. But my original point was going to be about how in a meta sense there needs to be a light/dark conflict for the universe to exist because when a conflict stops, well, then the story is resolved and there will be no need for more kingdom hearts. But then yeah the story WILL be resolved and it WILL end and that will be a good thing because kh will reach the culmination of everything it has set up to do. I don’t know how that will look like and theorizing about the ending of kh is for moot when we still know so little about the lost masters arc but I couldn’t help but this analysis was perfect food for my brain worms! Maybe unreality will introduce this or something other 11) Kh’s next arc’s set up explicitly being about death makes me think of the people who have for years complained about kh being too afraid of killing of characters and how death means nothing when they’re going to be revived two games down the line. I think this is incorrect for two reasons. 1) Iirc Nomura wasn’t going to bring back the ogxiii members that were killed off but the staff and fans loved them so much that he brought them back. 2) True death in stories means that the character’s growth is halted. Yeah killing them off before they realize their potential is part of the tragedy but kh is not that kind of story I think, at least not how it currently is, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. And if you kill them just to cut down on characters well, you can do that same thing by just have them do their own thing and not acknowledge them. For example, I think Aeleus and Dilan have outlived their usefulness and now they’re silent guards but do they need to be anything else? Do they need to die? I think further down the line kh will touch on grief, and so far what they’ve done in that front is fantastic. Talking to the stars on the final world was chilling, square enix knows how to handle death and grief masterfully. Yet again, that’s not what kh is for, at least now as it is rn. I also think after xehaqus died they’re now in quadratum because of that Nomura illustration 😅 but idk if the upperclassmen and their classmates are because Nomura did say that he didnt have a use for them anymore. But who knows! Maybe if we go with the sandman example (I’m not really familiar with it but from what you’ve said I can gather the concept?) but basically, aren’t reality and unreality in kh two sides of a coin? Can’t it be that Real people create stories that create the kh worlds and when kh people die their souls/hearts reincarnate as real people who can then create stories that will create kh worlds and so on and so forth. An idea to explore, but if thats the case I wonder, how does strelitzia remember of who she was when she lived in the kh world? Memories never truly being forgotten or maybe this line of thought is bogus and her and Sora (and maybe mom?) are the only cases of kh people crossing over upon death/erasure/supernatural banishment Ok that’s all! I only had like three thoughts but more came while I was writing this comment. Love everything you’re doing and this video in particular might just be my favorite! Along with the Kairi one and heroine’s journey, and the ships one, and the prince one. They’re all just so good and your opinions are completely based. I’m tired of kh theories only looking at the future while ignoring what’s come before and they say Nomura is making shit up as he goes and are still disputing time travel when my guy, that ship sailed literally a decade ago, keep up with the new stuff or you’ll be even more lost than you already are. Anyways thank you for giving so much thought and love to my favorite video games series ❤️ I still have a couple videos to watch but when I finish those I’ll be here for the ones that come in the future
Thank you so much for your comment. I love seeing my videos inspire so many thoughts about the series, and I wanted to respond to as many of your points as I could. 1) The great thing about the whole “connections make something real” theme is that even if Deep Jungle never appears in the series again, the fact that _we_, the audience, still care about that world and its characters allows it to continue existing within the universe. 2) Coco and Inside Out are easily among the top 5 movies on my “most likely to be in KH4” list precisely _because_ of how relevant they are to the themes the game will likely be tackling. 3) lol yeah, KH4 is basically a reverse of the usual isekai genre, and I’ve had similar thoughts about how the world associated with death is shown as a regular, mundane world, cut off from the bright and whimsical Disney worlds that tend to be seen as geared toward younger kids than preteens or teenagers. And like I said at 22:54, It’s definitely going to be something I talk about in a future video, because I have _a lot_ to say about that subject. 4) Yeah, that’s the beauty of the whole “it’s real because we connect with it” message: even when the story ends, our connections with it will keep the characters and their universe alive. 5) You know, I never thought of Axel’s catchphrase that way before. Holy shit that just blew my mind. 6) Exactly! If Riku died permanently, the story would end. Because without Sora and Riku’s bond, whether it becomes romantic (as I believe it likely will) or stays platonic, then Kingdom Hearts stops being Kingdom Hearts and becomes a completely different story. 7) I don’t think his true self will look like Noctis either. Given a few details I’ve noticed over the last few years, I’m personally a fan of the theory that he actually looks more like Sora (I’ve even seen the suggestion that Sora’s KH4 design _is_ Yozora’s true appearance, and that Sora is the “another” whose heart the Nameless Star said Yozora’s had been replaced by). 8) Why thank you. And I wholeheartedly agree re: building off of each other’s theories. Much of my observations and analysis come from seeing other fans’ theories or ideas and combining them with my own perspectives to create my videos. (and yes, that 6 hour Riku video is fantastic. Tenelle did an amazing job with that one) 9) Yeah, the whole “time in the Disney worlds passes differently” thing confused me at first for a while too. But once I saw an early Dark Road analysis talking about Dark Road’s explanation in terms of the stage play metaphor, it all started to click. I have a few ideas for how it fits with what we see of the passage of time in KH2, but i haven’t figured out how to fully put them into words just yet. 10) Glad my videos could inspire you to start theorizing, and those are some good points about how the story needs that conflict between light and dark in order for the universe to exist. This actually got me thinking, and I actually have a different idea based on what I talked about in this video. If the light in a world’s heart or the light from Kingdom Hearts comes from the audience’s connection with a story, then the conflict between light and darkness could be read in a meta sense as a commentary on a work’s popularity and a creator’s desire to tell their story the way they want to. When stories get super popular, creators will often feel pressure - either from the audience or from corporate executives - to make changes to the story in order to appeal to fans and attract new audience members. Sometimes the story may benefit from those changes, but other times the creator will be forced to try and change the direction of their story in order to keep the people who have connected with it interested (or, more often, what the corporate overlords _think_ will keep the people who have connected with the story interested). Much like how I talked about people in KH who rely too much on light are expected to prioritize the needs and desires of others over their own. But a creator who sticks to their guns and tells the story they want to tell will inevitably find people who connect with the story as is without demanding that the story change to suit their tastes. So in a meta context, the balance between light and darkness represents their love for the story they are making, because they are making both for themselves (darkness), and for the audience that connects with it (light). 11) Honestly I wholeheartedly agree with you about character deaths. That’s not the kind of story Kingdom Hearts is that characters can be cut down so easily. Never heard that before about Nomura bringing back the Organization members. I personally am skeptical of that, because given everything they’ve been doing with the reveal that Nobodies can grow new hearts and how that was being built up and foreshadowed as early as CoM, it feels unlikely that he would have left them permanently dead for that. So i feel like while fans might have influenced the timing, it would’ve still happened _eventually_. But yeah, too many people think the only thing a writer can do with a character who no longer has a purpose* is to kill them off (*no longer has a purpose according to the audience member, who may not recognize the character’s purpose bc of their own biases, like all the people who think there’s nothing more Riku can add to the story after DDD), when that would not only be a waste of future possibilities but also not fit the themes of the story. Your ideas about quadratum and unreality are pretty neat, and that would actually be a pretty interesting topic to explore. We’ll have to wait and see what more information we get about KH4 in the future.
The time in Disney Worlds works based on how the Hearts of Children imagined it. Think of the Dream Worlds. The close we get to the actual performance, the more Time moves forward. But we have to do trail runs first. For example, in the Beast's World in Dark Road, Belle isn't there yet. The Heart of the World hasn't Imagined her Existence into the "Book" yet. So the plot moves as much as it can without her, then slows to figure out the part it is missing, then speeds back up. Then, it falls to Darkness,(stops) then gets restored, and repeats the Dark Road process. Think of it like Brainstorming , and the stuttering in the in the process. Sometimes the Books even calls outside help to complete the process. (The Keyblade Wielders, Maleficent, Mickey, the Darkness)
Can't wait for the Andrew Hussie "everything is canon" moment but in KH, so everyone's fan works keep the KH existence alive. Which I'm all for, tbh. Well, another outcome is that just the amount of hearts touched itself is why Kingdom Hearts will always exist after the series is concluded.
You know, Singularities are basically Paradox people whose Effects are their Cause. See Sora's intro dreams, or the Fact Ansem, Seeker of Darkness causes Young Xehanort to get off Destiny Islands in the first place. Also interesting is the idea that Doc Scratch, like the Child of Destiny, is a composite person. I wonder if The Master of Masters is a composite person.
I want to propose alongside the Worlds being "Produced" another element. Consider the fact that both in roleplay and even in Bible mythology worlds are created in days worth of time. Characters, worlds, w/e. Even if they're on roleplayed in in certain segments, the backstories still exist and are real to the gods that roleplay in them. The world may be "made in 7 days" in God-time even if the concept of days is not applicable to a higher state of being just a way to better get across the concept, but in that 7 days billions of years could have passed within the interim. The same goes for these worlds. They may just naturally start within the production element, with a history that may or may not exist, with connections that may or may not have actually been forged over real-time, but the fact that these characters and people have histories whether or not each individual remembers that history, especially of ancestors that are long dead, does not make their lives any less real. That goes for our story and narrative characters that we have attachments too as well. As well as real life. Just because we cannot always see the past, and just because cannot always see another, does not mean that they are not real. Perception or not, even if you cannot understand how it may have life, it does not behoove you to gatekeep what it means to be alive, what it means to be real, and above all, what can be real and what can't be real. Especially when there's a whole multiverse out there and we are a singular planet of people who, by Star Trek definitions, would be considered undeveloped and not wise to interfere with until a certain stage is reached.
That's an interesting perspective I hadn't considered before. And something I've been thinking about is that the meta aspect of how the KH universe works fits with how the Foretellers were, according to MelMem, able to crossover to Quadratum post-X and then be brought back by Luxu post-KH3. On the KH side of reality, thousands of years pass, but in the KH3 epilogue they look like they haven't aged at all. But following the logic that Quadratum and Unreality are a stand-in for the real world that the audience lives in, it makes perfect sense, because in our world, less than 3 years pass between the finale of Kingdom Hearts X and the release of KH3!
@@The_Violet_Howler Yeah. It starts fringing into relativity territory. While "Quadratum days" may be different from "KH Days" you could still say "only one day" passes while decades passes in KHverse. It's an intriguing thing, and is tied into how multiverse theory works. It is also possible to melt through this relativity and exist on the barriers between, which I'm curious if Nomura will do anything like that.
Love the shit out of how this entire world/universe exists because a God wanted to exist and ended up falling in love with an ordinary human boy while incarnating, leading to an entire reality existing.
The thing is, pieces of Riku's Heart are inside Sora since KH1. It is what the Kingdom Key is. It is a piece of the X-blade. And we See The Light of Riku give Sora the Key, and tell him what it is in his Head.
The background for this video is actually from the original GameBoy version of Chain of Memories - it's the background for the second stage of Marluxia's boss fight.
Wow! I... actually never thought of the KH world that way, even though in hindsight it makes so much sense! Kingdom Hearts being the embodiment of the connections and feelings we have with stories, how those themes reflect on characters like Xion and how that lets her be her own person and, eventually, grow a heart. How this makes Sora and Riku's connection even MORE significant and even more proof that they will be endgame! Wow! I'm actually just speechless! I love it!!! 💖
I can already see that if we get textual confirmation of this in the future, a lot of people are going to take the wrong interpretation of it and just say that the narrative is telling them that what happened in KH was "Just fiction" and "It didnt matter because it was not happening in reality" or something like that, because a lot of people that play the games just take the story in a very surface level way. When, in reality, it's the complete opposite.
The world of KH is real! Our connection to it, the people that live there, the stories that it tells, they are all real! Why? Because we care about them, because we love them! They are full of meaning for us and the characters that live in them. That's why they are worth preserving them and protecting them. And, as someone who loves stories and storytelling, that is honesty a beautiful message! 💕
I do wonder though, how does this tie into explaining how Yozora and Verem Rex are a videogame within the KH world? Is it some kind of leak between the two realities? It surely gives me a lot to think about! :0
Thank you so so much for your videos and analysis!! I really love them a lot!! 💗
Thank you so much. I’m glad you’re enjoying my videos.
To answer your last question, about how this ties into Yozora and Verum Rex being a video game within the KH world, I don’t know if leak is the best way to describe it but I pretty much agree in principle. The way I see it, based on some of the essays I read on tumblr that inspired this video, is that Verum Rex being a game in Sora’s universe represents how fiction serves as a window between universes: that the KH games are our window into Sora’s world, and Verum Rex is his world’s window in Yozora’s.
Because in some stories where characters travel outside of their universe, the narrative will have their universe exist as a work of fiction in Universe B, while Universe B exists as a work of fiction in _their_ universe: tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MutuallyFictional
You know, In Dream Drop Distance, Riku "becomes One" with Sora, and becomes a Dream Eater. Dream Eaters are bond to their Wielders, so Riku's Fate is Sora's Fate. The Child of Destiny.
I find you. Far more interesting to listen to versus others because your at least touching on real concepts in story and not jut retelling facts we've heard or voice lines and trying to spin it. I want so bad for more people who make this content to talk deeper about it caue I feel like alots happened after kh3 end. Union cross ending and dark road. Has given alot of lore.
This theory is especially interesting if you consider that FF Versus 13 is a world that was conceptualized but ultimately cancelled and never came into being for fans to love.
I really like your thesis on stories in general and Kingdom Hearts in specific. Telling stories is what I think we as humans are evolved to do. It is our living purpose. Great video!
Who is Dreaming You?
Riku: King of Webs, King of the Liminal, King of Light, King of Dreams. Hypnos. That which all things inevitably pass under.
Sora: King of Passings, King of Storms, King of Idealism, King of Determination. Thanatos. That which all things inevitably pass through.
Funny, the Master of Master implies that he Imagined the Worlds he and Darkness fight in, (Games boards and books) and that Unreality is one he didn't do that with. "A world their voice cannot reach".
I just realized That by the Master of Masters leaving evidence of his script all over the place. (The X signal on Betrayers, pulling Worlds from the Future, the name Destiny Islands, the Foreteller's name, Sora and Riku's name), he is breathing Life into them by remembering them into the Way he wants them to be. He is Dreaming them into way he Sees Them. Using Kingdom Hearts to Birth Them. Placing characters in our head to play a Game.
And Darkness , Darkness challenges them to make them fun to play. Darkness makes them forget themselves, and become "different". Darkness bring them back to the Unmanifest. Where things could be anything, but right now, is Nothing. The Light is fighting to be something, instead of Everything and Nothing. Darkness reflects the Light so you will notice the difference.
Man. So much interesting information it makes me wanna take notes 📝
No doubt i'll be rewatching later lol
BACK WITH ANOTHER BANGER, HOWLER!! This is one of the biggest reasons I'll always love Kingdom Hearts. You broke down the philosophy of it n perfectly and really brought it home thematically~ so good
11:00 omg this is why we can’t see destiny islands in bbs, it’s covered with a cloud, because their “story” is not complete
Ooooh, this episode was really good 👀 really neat stuff
It's intriguing that the element of intefering in a world's timeline is the exact same concept as how dangerous time travel can be, how dangerous multiversal travel can be, and also how dangerous interfering with a planet before it's time can be.
This series is really just about letting no one know peace.
I normally don't like too much meta commentary because I find it cynical/too existential, but KH approaches it with a lot of light-heartedness that makes it easier to swallow. So, even though I'm inwardly cringing at the unreality v reality, I'm still very excited for the coming installments.
Wow, this is such a hard topic but you cover and explain it in such a beautiful way! I am surprised Re: Coded doesn't come up more in this episode though. You touched on it a bit but Data Sora's goodbye to the Disney gang is perfect for your closing thoughts
*screaming* KINGDOM HEARTS IS US aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa 👏👏👏👏👏
Howler, thank you so much for articulating all this in a video. You always find so many connections and callbacks to back up your analysis and it makes SO MUCH SENSE. I'm so excited for the series going forward to explore these concepts more.
I'm curious what your take is on the yellow Kingdom Hearts vs the blue Kingdom Hearts. Which is the real one, the real "us" and what is the other one?
Glad you enjoyed the video! I hadn't thought about it before, but after i saw your question, I think I've realized the significance of the blue vs yellow Kingdom Hearts moons. So far the blue KH moon only appears in scenes that take place before KH1, like in BBS, or during the Keyblade War flashback at the start of 0.2. Meanwhile, the yellow kh moon only appears in the present-day games (KH1>KH3). Like the underclassmen said in Dark Road, a world's environment is created first, then its inhabitants. Since KH the heart moon is our/the devs' bond with KH the game series, and everything from the prequel titles was orchestrated both in-universe and IRL for the sole purpose of creating the circumstances for the present day narrative, everything before KH1 effectively takes place in that "before the story starts" stage that we saw Agrabah in at the start of Dark Road. So it's not really a question of which one is real, but rather that the color of the KH moon reflects whether the story this universe exists to tell has properly begun or not.
These are just my preliminary thoughts for now. I'll reply again later if I can think of anything else.
@@The_Violet_Howler aaaaa I love it! 👏
@@The_Violet_Howler I think I get it. The Blue Kingdom Hearts is the Unmanifest Shadow of our Heart that "God" mirrored. So It is there, just not Actualized. But everyone wants it to be there. Kind of like The Master of Masters want Sora and Riku to be there.
With Kingdom Hearts i'm feeling a battle between existentialism and nihilism some times! Not too dissimilar of the new movie Everything Everywhere All at once
Another banger of a video!! This analysis is very interesting
I had some thoughts that Quadratum was fictional to the KH universe and vice verse, and that both universes made eachother. Now that i think about that thought, it makes sense since how you depict something in media (if it's popular and has been depicted like that for long enough) can affect the mass' perspective or opinion on something, for better or for worse. Fiction affects the real world, the real world affects fiction.
At some point, i feel like the border between KH and Quadratum could blur, as a result of a desire to be in a fictional world because the one you're currently in is just... Bad. Many people have terrible lives and can only indulge in fiction to cope, so this could be a possibility? It seems impossible, but the last time I thought that something was impossible was when I thought Xehanort could be in Quadratum :')
Oh wait, i just thought of something. The whole...... Wanting to be in fiction thing kinda parallels with Luz from The Owl House. She couldn't make friends and indulged in fiction to cope, but she actually ended up in the demon realm (which you could call the equivalent of a fictional world in TOH) because of her Azura book being stolen by Owlbert. She had fun (and she treated everything in the demon realm as fiction for some time as well), until it wasn't actually fun anymore. The demon realm was *still* the real world after all, not fiction. (Makes me think of s1:ep2 of TOH where Luz wanted to be some person from a prophecy destined to be great but she actually got fooled. Eda also told her to make her *own* story, make your own purpose... That's mildly interesting). Some people think being in a fictional world would be better, but would it really? Quadratum is considered fiction in the eyes of everyone from the KH universe. Quadratum is *our* world, we know it's shit in here! Makes me think that maybe Sora at some point thinks it could be better in Quadratum, but the same thing that happened to Luz happens to him. (Also can you tell that I want an Owl House world in KH4? :')) I'm not sure where I'm going with this but I'm going somewhere..
I think those were all my thoughts :DDDDDDDDDEISKWOWk
I'm glad you liked the video. And that's a really interesting perspective on this theme that I hadn't considered before.
Wow Howler, you never cease to amaze us! The theme of this video was very complex, but you have enlightened me once again. Congratulations!
wanted to write a comment earlier but was too tired for inspiration
Once again, really cool content! The meta subtext in KH really gives the series it's soul in my opinion, it's why nostalgia is such an important theme and is explored in such an emotional way.
Pretty sure I'm not the only person who considered their houses or plushies as alive when they were kids, or who looked at themselves in the mirror and thought "what if this was an alternate version of me who had a very different life, but everytime we look at each other is one moment where we're in synch?", it's kind of funny that KH takes similar ideas and rolls with it.
I think it also speaks to the "childish" mindset of Kingdom Hearts, even unmoving things can have a heart if we feel like it has one, I find this to be a beautiful mindset.
I'm very excited for the next episode in november! (also I like the new background, it's really cute!)
I definitely agree with you there about the “childish” mindset of Kingdom Hearts. It’s part of what I was alluding to when I said at the end that there were more layers to the series’ message about the importance of fiction when considering that the Disney worlds are mostly based on kids movies. And it’s definitely something I’m going to be going into more detail on in the future as part of an episode on what Kingdom Hearts has to say about the importance of a person’s inner child.
💥= my mind after watching this video
Absolutely phenomenal, probably your best video left, your videos having given me such a deeper understanding and appreciation of Kingdom Hearts and it’s concepts and themes
ohhhh, I love the updated background!
& I knew you'd get to this kind of topic, but this soon? Oh boy lol I love this take on this topic cuz especially when the SRT & 2nd half of the KHUX story came out, people were scrambling to come up with different ways it could come to play in the series overall. Not that nobody have these thoughts for the series before since it literally starts with Sora going "is everything for real? or not?", & now that the line's come back into play among the rest of what's been going on, I feel like something around this is going to be talked about less subtly soon. Or at least before the series ends.
Great work on yet another vid! Def going to enjoy rewatching this 1 many times as well!
I'm glad you enjoyed it. And originally I was going to cover this topic later on, but most of the other scripts I wrote for this season ended up referencing and expanding on it, so I figured it would be better to cover it first.
@@The_Violet_Howler ohhh, that's interesting! I'll hafta keep that in mind for the later vids ^^b
Fucking speechless!!! Phenomenal job!!!!! Been on the edge of my seat throughout this entire series!!
The main two things that come to my mind for the first part of the video are:
The Velveteen Rabbit, which has the titular character become a real rabbit when its owner's love brings it to life.
And
One Piece's Going Merry. Particularly at the end of the Enies Lobby Arc.
OH MY GOD- I loved that story when I was younger, I completely forgot about it jeez you just awoke some buried memories about that uh... thanks I guess lol
On the topic of the MoM, he explicitly says to Luxu in the control room (at least in the English version, idk if he also says it in jp) that “you can’t erase what lives on in the hearts of children-worlds and their stories, and most of all, light. Of course, you can’t erase the darkness either”. And during one of the chess matches in Dark Road, Eraqus and Xehanort discuss the concept of legacy an how you find others to carry yours on after you’re gone. In other words, making connections with people so they tell stories about you and keep your memory alive and your existence relevant and talked about, even if only through word of mouth. Not to mention Lauriam telling Player and Ephemer to keep Strelitzia in their hearts in UX and the entire concept of waypoints in general, though I suppose that’s more a general connection thing. Sora and Ven even talk about how if their friends “think of [them] now and then” their hearts will live on through their friends’ memories.
I love how this franchise is creating a dialogue between the player and the narrative, the latter inviting the former to create theories such as this and will continue to keep inspiring people even after the series is over (which it will inevitably be at some point, seeing as Nomura has an ending in mind) and still providing an excellent lens through which we can examine the way we, as consumers and fans, interact with not just Kingdom Hearts, but narratives and stories as a whole. The way KH uses preexisting narratives (the Disney worlds) as vehicles to allow this kind of conversation by presenting microcosmic elements such as a specific trope in relation to the original characters taking part in an overarching story in which they are but a small part (especially in BBS but that makes sense, we have three different people’s stories to get through in that game) is really well thought out on Nomura’s side (see him not wanting kh3 to be made unless Toy Story was a included) and I cannot wait to see what it has to offer in terms of future worlds and what they might represent and how they’ll connect to the overarching narrative planned.
I remember when I first saw the quadradum stuff I came out with a theory about why it took so many elemenst from versus 13, I don't fully remember it but the baseline was that Versus 13 was a "Fantasy based on reality" like the marketing said, and Kingdom hearts was a "Reality based on fantasy" or "A different reality based on the fantasies of our reality", and due to the concept of versus XIII basically it created a new reality based on reality(Kingdom heart's reality to be exact), explaining why the shibuya we see in Re:Mind has so many stores based on KH elements like dream eaters. Nowdays I don't feel as confident in this theory but I still think nomura was planing something like this while he worked on versus 13, some people say verum rex is just him reusing the concept of versus but I think that even if we had gotten versus 13 the way nomura envisioned he would still use verum rex and not versus.
As a side note, I love how nomura basically confirmed that the meaning of versus was a combination of the words verum and falsus, the true and the false, the reality and the fantasy... I wish we could see what kind of story he had in mind... actually that sound a bit like the line from that new atlus game where they go "what if our reality was their utopia", but I doubt it would have gone that route lol
OH my dog!! Finally a new episode! I've waited so long for this! I'm so glad it's here!!! love the video so much.
This was in my recommendations, can't wait to binge all of these tonight 😍
All of your videos are amazing, but this one is by far the best.
The example about The Sandman is appropriate. In Dc comic, there is the Hand of Light (The Presence) and the Hand of Great Darkness. The Description of Their Existence is in the Beginning was Darkness, the Nothing. The Light was imperceptible, but it grew, and the infinitude shuddered.
The Darkness screamed in equal parts pain and relief.
Eventually, the Darkness awoke, and threatened to Destroy everything, but the Hand of Light merely shook Hands with it, making a contract with each other. They still Fight but the conflict is more regulated.
Sounds like the Master and Darkness's "truce"
These two come from The Source. The Source is an Eternal, Infinite Power from the Void that takes the name called the Source/ the Presence . Sounds like a Kingdom Hearts. And the Great Darkness is where that "comes from".
It lines up.
And of course, The Monitors who Create and Eat Stories.
I can't believe I didn't watch this sooner. My jaw is on the god damn floor. Your analysis is so good and changes my brain chemistry so hard that it could easily replace my anti depressants if I got a weekly dose of it
That Make sense now
Another perfectly constructed video, thank you Violet, I can't wait for November!
The meta that my favorite worlds never got in KH because they're not popular enough is pretty radical ngl even if sad. :' )
Also it's intriguing that Sora literally got disconnected from his friends and everything he knew when the heartless attacked and darkness took over. Sora survived because of Kairi's heart and Riku's bequeathing, but outside of that I don't think Sora would have survived the transition otherwise in order to properly find the others. Sora was so ordinary, bro just wanted his special connections back. Especially his Riku.
I don't think it's that a world only exists in the KH universe bc it's popular. Just bc a world hasn't appeared in KH yet doesn't mean it won't in the future. It just means that it wasn't needed for the overall story yet.
@@The_Violet_Howler I agree. Realizing more and more that the worlds are chosen specifically. And it's possible that while Disney has input, Nomura ultimately has not only the final say, but also decides how they interweave with the grander narrative.
Boom goes the brain
when the season is over i'll come back to this incredible series
You're in luck! I just posted the last episode of this season a few days ago.
@@The_Violet_Howler ahahah, gosh, didn't expect the twist! then i guess it's time to watch all of them!
Mmh delicious, hearts born of trauma darkness. Perfect for Kingdom Hearts. Honestly, genuinely curious if Sora joining Riku at the end in ascension will end up with Sora and Riku (in all their growth) to be able to purify the more unversed parts of the darkness in hearts so that they're less likely to end up obsessing in one side or another.
Alongside this, now I'm curious if Kairi, after remembering everything, is going to be a villain of light instead of a villain of darkness, on MoM's side rather than Darkness' side, due to her fear of her own experiences and a lack of trust in people with Darkness in their hearts - AKA Riku and Sora.
11:25 Anyone else feel this is similar to Dream Zanarkand? AKA the (lost) city of the dead. The intro of KH1 is very similar to the intro of FF X. Being transported from fiction to reality. Nomura is a clever boi, if also somewhat crazy. All in a good way
18:20 Good points. Look at this list: Futurama, LotR, Duck Tales, Star Wars, Pokemon... People still remember them because of their quality (to varying degrees), because they reached so many
The comparison to Dream Zanarkand is something I hadn't considered before, but that actually does line up pretty well with one of the topics I plan to cover next season.
I said it before and I'll say it again. Riku will find Sora working at McDonalds so he can make money to pay rent. All the while Strelitzia is paying rent with the money she's making from Idol work.
Now I'm wondering if riku is the avatar of the foretellers book in the same way data riku is the avatar of jiminys journal. And like in final fantasy 10 the collective dreams of the dead can give rise to a person, jeckt and tidus. All the dead dandelions are dreaming small variations of the same story so they have been preserved. So then sora would be them dreaming about themselves as people who can change narratives. But that would make sora like baymax, a doll with multiple chip slots, and he keeps having visage problems because he could look like any dandelion. And the org exists because they were famous, but nobody that knew them survived to guide thier hearts back to life. Ugh and then riku looking like ansem in 2 is to trick the dreamers into giving him the juice he would need to beat roxas, a fellow dandelion. So then if sora is waiting for riku to make the first move (ala don't think twice) we would be waiting a long time because initiating a gay romance would be a big change of the disney party line. So Sora needs to make a move first? God we're going to be waiting for the heat death of the universe.
Funny thing about the Morpheus/Riku parallel Dream's second incarnation does have white hair though Riku has more silvery hair it's still a neat coincidence.
Riku is a Dream Eater and did live Sora's Dream for awhile. It is also suggests by a certain cover art in One that Riku is a Fallen Archangel revived by Sora's love. (the Black Wing)
The chain links of worlds always exist within the chaos and emptiness. Junk data is always left behind between each multiversal reset - in game and in real life. This also includes chain links that are mere liquid that could someday be given a physical, solid form - anchored into reality. That is, outside of the natural multiverse that already exists, bound and connected and solidified in current reality. Nothing ever goes away forever, just gets a bit disconnected. That also goes for information on a harddrive, and even in brains, and even in electromagnetism. Even if the information becomes unreadable, it doesn't stop existing and can still be retrieved if you know how to retrieve it. The same goes for existences in our reality.
It’s 5 am I’ve been binging your vids but I have THOUGHTS and realizations so I’ll put them in bullet points but they’re unrelated to each other! I would write individual comments for each one to boost the algorithm but….gotta be honest man, I’m kinda exhausted xD
1) Deep jungle fell to darkness truly😢 since it was basically forgotten forever and the characters no longer remember them it means they truly died which is meta and probably overthinking but it made me sad thinking about it
2) Super excited about a Coco world in kh4! All about still being alive in some way as long as people remember you. It was already a possibility since it was a big pixar movie but I’m even more sure now that it’s coming because of the thematic relevance. Same with inside out hopefully!
3) I was going to make a joke about Sora and Riku getting isekai’d which yeah it’s like yeah lol but then I had a realization and maybe it’s just my tired brain but idk maybe it holds some water. In this coming of age story I think we’re solidly in adolescence. We passed the childhood innocence and even went through some edgy tweens/chuunibyou and now we’re primed for the teenage angst. Not only do I think that because Quadratum/Real World is much less whimsical than the Disney worlds but also that it may reference stories that appeal more to adolescence more than childhood. Which brings me back to my dumb joke about isekai because YES it is such a popular genre of escapism for teenagers and young adults but in this case we have a reverse transmigration where the characters from the magical world come to the “regular” boring one. I’ve seen memes of people saying that Sora should get a part time job in kh4 and I would ACTUALLY love that unironically lol. Might also help to let Sora explore his inner darkness by earning minimum wage in a customer service job (and I’m only half joking).
4) I almost legit cried because I don’t want KH to die!! It made me sad in a way that watching Toy Story always makes me sad thinking about the toys I’ve left behind 😢there are some fandoms I’ve just truly left behind throughout the years, not even because the authors are Actually Evil (iykyk) or the stories were bad. I’ve just simply lost interest and grown past them. It’s true that maybe today someone new is learning about kingdom hearts! So maybe even if I forget about it there will always be people carrying the banner and keeping it alive. But also, I’m never forgetting kingdom hearts, I’m almost certain of it. I got a matching kh tattoo with one of my high school best friends. She got “one sky” and I got “one destiny” because even if I grow apart from kingdom hearts or I stop talking to her, we’ll still be under the same stars, that’s why I love kairi’s letter so much
5) Axel’s “got it memorized” is even more thematically relevant and probably meta
6) Riku being the avatar of kingdom hearts is even further proof that Riku is Nomura’s blorbo and all who say he’s going to die don’t realize that if he TRULY DIES without chance of coming back then that’s when the story will end, because Sora’s story will end too because as we’ve seen at the end of kh2 they’re content being in hell as long as they’re together and when Sora’s story ends kh will end #SorikuEndgameActually
7) I do think that Yozora’s appearance not being what we’re shown is a vs xiii reference but I don’t think his “true” self will look like noctis. I don’t know what it will be but I think it would be hilarious if he looks like any regular dude lol.
8) Not a particular of this video but of everyone of these, just wow. Eternal kudos. Your analysis is so good! And I’ve already followed soriku ultimaría and steam for years and I love that at least this side of fandom (the soriku’s at least from what I know but I don’t know if that’s the case for the rest of the kh fandom) we build off of each other’s theories and ideas to complement our own! It’s like scientific discoveries! Like (someone) said (newton?) we walk on the shoulders of giants (or something). You are so articulate so in an individual level I need to tell you how great your work is and how unique the connections you’ve made are! They make so much sense!! It also excites me what this will mean for future theories and developments and greatness (I’m fresh off the Riku is gay 6 hour video so I’m just very excited about this flavor of kh analysis)
9) Talking about making sense! I did like dark road but I absolutely despised what it established of how time in the Disney worlds worked. It just, confused the heck out of me and I thought it directly contradicted the passing of time in kh2. I’m still not sure how it doesn’t contradict it but at least you’ve shown me how it makes sense and how it’s not just a lazy afterthought to keep reusing the same Disney worlds.
10) I’m having the thought that in the kh universe there can be no balance between light and darkness, I know that in other videos you’ve said that love is what can solve it and I do believe that to be the case! However, taking a more meta stance that this video presents, and considering that xehanort said that only by wiping the current universe could it be truly balanced as the world is returned to a blank slate, I think the conclusion has to be that light and darkness have to be in constant opposition and that IS the “balance”. Something like entropy (in the sense of chaos in a system). But if that’s the case maybe too much struggle between light and dark can basically cause the heat death of the universe? Maybe that’s what happened with the keyboards war and all that. But my original point was going to be about how in a meta sense there needs to be a light/dark conflict for the universe to exist because when a conflict stops, well, then the story is resolved and there will be no need for more kingdom hearts. But then yeah the story WILL be resolved and it WILL end and that will be a good thing because kh will reach the culmination of everything it has set up to do. I don’t know how that will look like and theorizing about the ending of kh is for moot when we still know so little about the lost masters arc but I couldn’t help but this analysis was perfect food for my brain worms! Maybe unreality will introduce this or something other
11) Kh’s next arc’s set up explicitly being about death makes me think of the people who have for years complained about kh being too afraid of killing of characters and how death means nothing when they’re going to be revived two games down the line. I think this is incorrect for two reasons. 1) Iirc Nomura wasn’t going to bring back the ogxiii members that were killed off but the staff and fans loved them so much that he brought them back. 2) True death in stories means that the character’s growth is halted. Yeah killing them off before they realize their potential is part of the tragedy but kh is not that kind of story I think, at least not how it currently is, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. And if you kill them just to cut down on characters well, you can do that same thing by just have them do their own thing and not acknowledge them. For example, I think Aeleus and Dilan have outlived their usefulness and now they’re silent guards but do they need to be anything else? Do they need to die? I think further down the line kh will touch on grief, and so far what they’ve done in that front is fantastic. Talking to the stars on the final world was chilling, square enix knows how to handle death and grief masterfully. Yet again, that’s not what kh is for, at least now as it is rn. I also think after xehaqus died they’re now in quadratum because of that Nomura illustration 😅 but idk if the upperclassmen and their classmates are because Nomura did say that he didnt have a use for them anymore. But who knows! Maybe if we go with the sandman example (I’m not really familiar with it but from what you’ve said I can gather the concept?) but basically, aren’t reality and unreality in kh two sides of a coin? Can’t it be that Real people create stories that create the kh worlds and when kh people die their souls/hearts reincarnate as real people who can then create stories that will create kh worlds and so on and so forth. An idea to explore, but if thats the case I wonder, how does strelitzia remember of who she was when she lived in the kh world? Memories never truly being forgotten or maybe this line of thought is bogus and her and Sora (and maybe mom?) are the only cases of kh people crossing over upon death/erasure/supernatural banishment
Ok that’s all! I only had like three thoughts but more came while I was writing this comment. Love everything you’re doing and this video in particular might just be my favorite! Along with the Kairi one and heroine’s journey, and the ships one, and the prince one. They’re all just so good and your opinions are completely based. I’m tired of kh theories only looking at the future while ignoring what’s come before and they say Nomura is making shit up as he goes and are still disputing time travel when my guy, that ship sailed literally a decade ago, keep up with the new stuff or you’ll be even more lost than you already are. Anyways thank you for giving so much thought and love to my favorite video games series ❤️ I still have a couple videos to watch but when I finish those I’ll be here for the ones that come in the future
Thank you so much for your comment. I love seeing my videos inspire so many thoughts about the series, and I wanted to respond to as many of your points as I could.
1) The great thing about the whole “connections make something real” theme is that even if Deep Jungle never appears in the series again, the fact that _we_, the audience, still care about that world and its characters allows it to continue existing within the universe.
2) Coco and Inside Out are easily among the top 5 movies on my “most likely to be in KH4” list precisely _because_ of how relevant they are to the themes the game will likely be tackling.
3) lol yeah, KH4 is basically a reverse of the usual isekai genre, and I’ve had similar thoughts about how the world associated with death is shown as a regular, mundane world, cut off from the bright and whimsical Disney worlds that tend to be seen as geared toward younger kids than preteens or teenagers. And like I said at 22:54, It’s definitely going to be something I talk about in a future video, because I have _a lot_ to say about that subject.
4) Yeah, that’s the beauty of the whole “it’s real because we connect with it” message: even when the story ends, our connections with it will keep the characters and their universe alive.
5) You know, I never thought of Axel’s catchphrase that way before. Holy shit that just blew my mind.
6) Exactly! If Riku died permanently, the story would end. Because without Sora and Riku’s bond, whether it becomes romantic (as I believe it likely will) or stays platonic, then Kingdom Hearts stops being Kingdom Hearts and becomes a completely different story.
7) I don’t think his true self will look like Noctis either. Given a few details I’ve noticed over the last few years, I’m personally a fan of the theory that he actually looks more like Sora (I’ve even seen the suggestion that Sora’s KH4 design _is_ Yozora’s true appearance, and that Sora is the “another” whose heart the Nameless Star said Yozora’s had been replaced by).
8) Why thank you. And I wholeheartedly agree re: building off of each other’s theories. Much of my observations and analysis come from seeing other fans’ theories or ideas and combining them with my own perspectives to create my videos. (and yes, that 6 hour Riku video is fantastic. Tenelle did an amazing job with that one)
9) Yeah, the whole “time in the Disney worlds passes differently” thing confused me at first for a while too. But once I saw an early Dark Road analysis talking about Dark Road’s explanation in terms of the stage play metaphor, it all started to click. I have a few ideas for how it fits with what we see of the passage of time in KH2, but i haven’t figured out how to fully put them into words just yet.
10) Glad my videos could inspire you to start theorizing, and those are some good points about how the story needs that conflict between light and dark in order for the universe to exist. This actually got me thinking, and I actually have a different idea based on what I talked about in this video. If the light in a world’s heart or the light from Kingdom Hearts comes from the audience’s connection with a story, then the conflict between light and darkness could be read in a meta sense as a commentary on a work’s popularity and a creator’s desire to tell their story the way they want to.
When stories get super popular, creators will often feel pressure - either from the audience or from corporate executives - to make changes to the story in order to appeal to fans and attract new audience members. Sometimes the story may benefit from those changes, but other times the creator will be forced to try and change the direction of their story in order to keep the people who have connected with it interested (or, more often, what the corporate overlords _think_ will keep the people who have connected with the story interested). Much like how I talked about people in KH who rely too much on light are expected to prioritize the needs and desires of others over their own. But a creator who sticks to their guns and tells the story they want to tell will inevitably find people who connect with the story as is without demanding that the story change to suit their tastes. So in a meta context, the balance between light and darkness represents their love for the story they are making, because they are making both for themselves (darkness), and for the audience that connects with it (light).
11) Honestly I wholeheartedly agree with you about character deaths. That’s not the kind of story Kingdom Hearts is that characters can be cut down so easily. Never heard that before about Nomura bringing back the Organization members. I personally am skeptical of that, because given everything they’ve been doing with the reveal that Nobodies can grow new hearts and how that was being built up and foreshadowed as early as CoM, it feels unlikely that he would have left them permanently dead for that. So i feel like while fans might have influenced the timing, it would’ve still happened _eventually_. But yeah, too many people think the only thing a writer can do with a character who no longer has a purpose* is to kill them off (*no longer has a purpose according to the audience member, who may not recognize the character’s purpose bc of their own biases, like all the people who think there’s nothing more Riku can add to the story after DDD), when that would not only be a waste of future possibilities but also not fit the themes of the story.
Your ideas about quadratum and unreality are pretty neat, and that would actually be a pretty interesting topic to explore. We’ll have to wait and see what more information we get about KH4 in the future.
The time in Disney Worlds works based on how the Hearts of Children imagined it. Think of the Dream Worlds. The close we get to the actual performance, the more Time moves forward. But we have to do trail runs first. For example, in the Beast's World in Dark Road, Belle isn't there yet. The Heart of the World hasn't Imagined her Existence into the "Book" yet. So the plot moves as much as it can without her, then slows to figure out the part it is missing, then speeds back up. Then, it falls to Darkness,(stops) then gets restored, and repeats the Dark Road process.
Think of it like Brainstorming , and the stuttering in the in the process. Sometimes the Books even calls outside help to complete the process. (The Keyblade Wielders, Maleficent, Mickey, the Darkness)
Hearts confirmed to be electromagnetic cores in this video. :V
Not sure I understand what this is referring to 😅
@@The_Violet_Howler Related to other stuff regarding electromagnetic frequencies, waves, and cores.
Can't wait for the Andrew Hussie "everything is canon" moment but in KH, so everyone's fan works keep the KH existence alive.
Which I'm all for, tbh.
Well, another outcome is that just the amount of hearts touched itself is why Kingdom Hearts will always exist after the series is concluded.
You know, Singularities are basically Paradox people whose Effects are their Cause. See Sora's intro dreams, or the Fact Ansem, Seeker of Darkness causes Young Xehanort to get off Destiny Islands in the first place.
Also interesting is the idea that Doc Scratch, like the Child of Destiny, is a composite person. I wonder if The Master of Masters is a composite person.
I want to propose alongside the Worlds being "Produced" another element.
Consider the fact that both in roleplay and even in Bible mythology worlds are created in days worth of time. Characters, worlds, w/e. Even if they're on roleplayed in in certain segments, the backstories still exist and are real to the gods that roleplay in them. The world may be "made in 7 days" in God-time even if the concept of days is not applicable to a higher state of being just a way to better get across the concept, but in that 7 days billions of years could have passed within the interim. The same goes for these worlds. They may just naturally start within the production element, with a history that may or may not exist, with connections that may or may not have actually been forged over real-time, but the fact that these characters and people have histories whether or not each individual remembers that history, especially of ancestors that are long dead, does not make their lives any less real. That goes for our story and narrative characters that we have attachments too as well. As well as real life. Just because we cannot always see the past, and just because cannot always see another, does not mean that they are not real. Perception or not, even if you cannot understand how it may have life, it does not behoove you to gatekeep what it means to be alive, what it means to be real, and above all, what can be real and what can't be real. Especially when there's a whole multiverse out there and we are a singular planet of people who, by Star Trek definitions, would be considered undeveloped and not wise to interfere with until a certain stage is reached.
That's an interesting perspective I hadn't considered before. And something I've been thinking about is that the meta aspect of how the KH universe works fits with how the Foretellers were, according to MelMem, able to crossover to Quadratum post-X and then be brought back by Luxu post-KH3. On the KH side of reality, thousands of years pass, but in the KH3 epilogue they look like they haven't aged at all. But following the logic that Quadratum and Unreality are a stand-in for the real world that the audience lives in, it makes perfect sense, because in our world, less than 3 years pass between the finale of Kingdom Hearts X and the release of KH3!
@@The_Violet_Howler Yeah. It starts fringing into relativity territory. While "Quadratum days" may be different from "KH Days" you could still say "only one day" passes while decades passes in KHverse. It's an intriguing thing, and is tied into how multiverse theory works. It is also possible to melt through this relativity and exist on the barriers between, which I'm curious if Nomura will do anything like that.
Love the shit out of how this entire world/universe exists because a God wanted to exist and ended up falling in love with an ordinary human boy while incarnating, leading to an entire reality existing.
The thing is, pieces of Riku's Heart are inside Sora since KH1. It is what the Kingdom Key is. It is a piece of the X-blade. And we See The Light of Riku give Sora the Key, and tell him what it is in his Head.
That's a background from Kirby Nightmare in Dreamland right?
The background for this video is actually from the original GameBoy version of Chain of Memories - it's the background for the second stage of Marluxia's boss fight.
@@The_Violet_Howler Ahhh thank you. :D That's probably why it seemed familiar. I haven't played the GBA version since I was a young teen.