Kingdom Hearts/WMG/Open One

=== This is a list of Wild Mass Guesses which are still possibly true. Just for Fun and silly guesses go on the silly page. If a WMG is Jossed, please move it to the jossed page, if it is Confirmed, please move it to the confirmed page. ===

Lea's heart lives on in Axel
1. Lea met Ventus and their hearts clicked. 2. Lea becomes heartless, Axel is created. 3. Ventus's heart enters Sora. 4. Sora becomes heartless, Roxas is created in Ventus's image. 5. Roxas inherits all of Ventus's heart's contents (because he is connected to Sora, who is still alive even after becoming heartless and producing a nobody. A first in this phenomenon.) 6. Roxas and Axel become fast friends...

It is mentioned that Axel feels drawn toward Roxas because he makes him feel like he has a heart, something all nobody wish to regain. Roxas feels drawn to Axel as well, because his heart remembers Lea and Ventus's relationship. But Axel never "Grows" a heart. No, because his original one was always nearby! In Roxas!

Riku has Terra's heart
It's all set up, he has dark power, Terra performed a rite of succession on him, The scene at the skyscraper was twofold, Riku was thinking whether or not this WAS Sora's nobody (they look nothing alike) and Terra's heart was going "Is that Ven?"; Ven and Sora act pretty similar, so both Riku and Terra realized. Terra isn't in charge for the same reason Roxas didn't hold his Keyblade reverse; backseat hearts have no rights.
 * Possible, except meaning it would've been purified along with MX's when Ansem's machine exploded.
 * IIRC, Nomura mentioned not too long ago in some interview that
 * It is more probable that, leaving all the purifiable darkness behind.

Roxas is the reason Sora acts OOC in Kingdom Hearts 2
Sora in Kingdom Hearts 2 is a mesh up of Sora in the first game and Roxas's personalities. It makes sense to instantly believe that the Nobodies have no hearts and are evil, because even though he had none of Roxas's memories, Roxas was still part of him. Roxas was with the Organization long enough to see that they have no emotions, like how Xigbar felt no remorse for the casualties at Castle Oblivion, and by the end of 358/2 days, Roxas had a personal vendetta against the whole Organization.

Throughout Kingdom Hearts II, Mickey is always following Sora and friends.
Monitoring their every move to protect them from the Organization. Hence why he'll appear to back the party up in the case of certain defeats.
 * Possible additional proof (or just coincidence): Mickey was also monitoring the adventures of Data Sora, even before he.
 * This wasn't really meant to be a secret... It was pretty obvious.

Naminé can't manipulate memories by herself.
The only reason she was able to manipulate everyone's memories in KH:CoM was because she was within Castle Oblivion, which had a memory swiping mechanism. She was able to tap into this mechanism and control it with some powers, and was able to reconnect Sora's memories even when he was moved from the castle because the pods that he, Donald, and Goofy rest in are from the castle, and share the memory altering powers.
 * But wasn't she able to work on Sora's memory in Twilight Town?
 * Think about the rooms that she and Sora were holed up in the whole time. The icons on your command menu even change into cards while you're there: Ansem either hijacked some of Castle Oblivion's rooms and attached them to the mansion, or he found a way to emulate Castle Oblivion's power with his own techno-wizardry.

Ventus is Sora's Older Brother
Think about it. For one, they look alike, and for two,. How is this possible? Well, Ven's parents live on Destiny Islands. At one point or another, they had Ventus. When Ven got a Keyblade, Master Xehanort took him in as an apprentice. Years later, they had another child named Sora. Neither Ven nor Sora know that they have a brother.
 * So, Sora's has an older bro who should be about 25 and ? What.

Command styles have a perfectly logical explanation.

 * The armor is specifically stated to keep out the darkness in the lanes between; if it can keep magic out, it's quite likely that it can have the opposite effect. Think of it this way; Ven casts fire, a ball of fire shoots out and a bit of fire magic goes into his shoulder pad. He does it again, more fire power, again, more fire, again, and with too much fire, it bursts out going into firestorm. He keeps going but this time using Magnegas and zero-gravities, more power into the pad, another release, Wingblade, after that the power bypasses the armor and goes directly into the swords, keeping them up, removing the possibility of a third style and making the finisher extra-strong. Look at the bosses who can use command styles, like . Let's add on to this.
 * Sure, why not?

The Cure series of spells have autotrophic properties similar to The End.

 * Cure, Cura, and Curaga all create leaf, flower, or otherwise plant-based imagery around the target when used. Similarly, their corresponding cards in Chain of Memories all have leaf images. I thus put forth the theory that these spells temporarily infect the body with photosynthetic moss that provides nutrients and sows together wounds with plant roots that eventually dissolve into the bloodstream after recovery.
 * That doesn't sound particularly nightmarish if they just dissolve into the bloodstream...anyway, I don't think this works: the recovery happens far too quickly. Photosynthetic healing would be slow. If there was a Regen spell, then perhaps... Plant imagery is probably just used because nature represents life, and the developers wanted to do something different than just sparkles like in Final Fantasy.

With or without Ven, Sora could always use Keyblades.

 * Ven's true role hasn't anything to do with Sora's Keyblade eligibility, but is instead the voice that Sora hears occasionally. Think about it.
 * It's said in no uncertain terms during KH1 that Keyblade wielding is based solely on the strength of a heart, and we all know how Heartstrong Sora is.
 * Ven's heart, finding itself in a body with the potential to do even greater things than he ever did in life, sought to train Sora the best he could in how to combat the Heartless. It just so happens that the best he could do was an awakening dream and voices in his head. Considering how Sora turned out, I'd say he did pretty well.
 * This is part-Canon, part-Jossed. Nomura said that Ven didn't give Sora the ability to wield, though he did give him a second Keyblade. And the voice in Sora's head is Mickey.

Future Final Fantasy character appearances

 * Red XIII/Nanaki—Sora and co. meet him in the Pride Lands.
 * Terra—The party member you meet at Olympus.
 * She'd probably have to be renamed Tina like in the Japanese version of FFVI, so we won't get her confused with the other Terra.
 * Locke—A thief (my lungs!) treasure hunter in Agrabah who is friends with Aladdin, looking for something to save someone (either Rachel or Celes) who had been turned into a heartless.
 * Kefka—An optional boss battle. Hades hires him after finding out he destroyed his home world without the help of the Heartless.
 * With the recent announcement of Notre Dame being a world in Dream Drop Distance, someone like Kefka would fit in so well in a place like Paris, France in the 16th Century.
 * Goddamnit, do we really need to upstage Xehanort?!?
 * If it were anybody BUT Kefka,no.....but.....
 * Chocobos—Summons.
 * Zidane—Maybe meet him at Neverland as a new recruit of the Lost Boys.
 * Lulu—One of the residents at Destiny Island. There would be some Ship Tease between her and Wakka.
 * Shinra and the Turks- President Shinra is the principal of Kairi's school, Rufus is the student body president, and the Turks serve as the prefects.
 * ...Which would make that particular school the most ecologically unfriendly school ever.
 * Rinoa—Due to the hint we got at the end of KHII, we may see her as a new recruit in the Restoration Committee.
 * Laguna Loire -- (Different Troper) Appears in Radiant Garden along with the rest of the Restoration Committee, perhaps as the elected President of Radiant Garden in a Mythology Gag to his original game. Has a bit of credibility to it, since Dissidia:duodecim is going to feature him, update his character, and give him a voice actor. It would also provide a subtler Mythology Gag, in that Squall's Dissidia voice actor first voiced Squall in Kingdom Hearts II.
 * Professor Hojo -- (Different WM Ger) Even if Shin-Ra is not around, the experiments done by the Apprentices involving the Heart reminded me far too much of Hojo's experiments with Mako and JENOVA cells. Bonus: Helletic Hojo is his Heartless while Lifeform Hojo N (in before N = Nobody) is his Nobody. The physical appearances of both forms are too similar to hideous Heartless and Lifeform Hojo N looks a HELL of a lot like a Dusk. Seriously, look at them both. All he's missing as LHN is an Organization Emblem.
 * But Isn't Even/Vexen sorta the setting's version of Hojo already? He even looks kinda like him, save for lacking glasses and having blonde hair.
 * Vincent -- Halloween Town.
 * Cecil Harvey. Has both powers of light and darkness, has a habit of helping the villains but is nevertheless a good guy. Sound familiar?
 * Lighting—Controlled by the fal'Cie as part of some crazy Plan to do something.
 * Don't forget that she'll fight off against Cloud in a duel, only to be interrupted by Sephiroth.
 * Balthier—Why the hell not?
 * Jecht—As the mayor of Destiny Islands. Or just a resident, but who wouldn't want Tidus and Kairi to be (adopted) siblings?
 * Queen Brahne—If not Jecht, then she could be the mayor of Destiny Islands. Also, I've always imagined Pat Carroll doing her voice.
 * Princess Garnet—I mean, it'd make sense, if her mother is in it. She'd be Kairi's step-sister. Maybe, just for the sake of a Mythology Gag, she'd give Kairi a dagger for good luck if she ever goes on her own journey.
 * Kairi even looked a lot like Dagger in Another Side, Another Story.
 * Shuyin (third Troper) as a DI resident and Tidus's twin brother.
 * Irvine Kinneas- Resident of Destiny Islands like he was supposed to. Like the Lulu theory above, there'd be some Ship Tease between him and Selphie. Instead of a gun, his weapon would be a trigger-powered slingshot or something.
 * That's be a GREAT idea.
 * Adelbert Stiener- If the Queen Brahne and Princess Garnet theory come true, he'd be their bodyguard.
 * Gau- If The Jungle Book ends up becoming a world, he'd be a friend/rival of Mowgli's.
 * Vaan- Like Zidane, he'd probably be in The Lost Boys.
 * Judge Gabranth- A Dragon to either Maleficent or Xehanort. Most likely Maleficent because if your dragon is Captain Ass-Zipper, you'd probably pick Gabranth.
 * Quistis Trepe - (another Troper) C'mon. Who do you think is teaching all the kids on the islands?
 * Golbez - (same Troper as immediately above) Having wrangled with some of the same problems Riku did, he could serve as a mentor of sorts to the boy (and could maybe teach him some dark magic?).
 * Gilgamesh - (see above) Shame on you all for not suggesting this earlier. Shows up as a Bonus Boss in Britain, looking for Excalibur (which Sora would most likely obtain as a Keyblade). Hilarity Ensues. And given that Gilgamesh is a canonical Dimensional Traveler, he's the only character besides Auron who stands a chance of being the genuine article.

Heartless are just the Dark Realm's Equivalent of animals

 * Albeit with a very odd life cycle. Heartless eat hearts, and like dung beetles, wasps, and flies, lay their eggs (or, rather, a lump of darkness) in a particularly large supply of their favorite meal. Once the darkness matures enough, it hatches, and an infant heartless eats its first meal. A person, however, can be transformed into a heartless if he/she saturates him/herself in darkness, but the shortage of sapient heartless implies that this is very rare.
 * Emblem heartless, also, are not artificial. They are simply species that were first bred in Xehanort's lab, and are no more false than purebloods.

Keychains and Keyblades are both the same thing

 * Keychains don't "transform Keyblades"; they ARE Keyblades. Keychains are just the Keyblade's storage form. Also, the true power of a Keyblader isn't owning a Keyblade; it's the power to make a Keychain take on its full form (in addition to the whole Clingy MacGuffin thing). That's what the fingerless gloves are for. Sora keeps the Keychain in the palm of the glove. This also explains how dual wielding works. He just gathers enough power to temporarily maintain multiple Keyblades.
 * I took it that the Keychains were an emotional focus to activate a new form of the Keyblade, and not actually significant in and of themselves. A sufficiently focused person could make a Keyblade for any important moment or connection in his or her or its life, but Sora uses Keychains as a token of each important memory because he's not powerful enough to do without, doesn't know it can be done without them, or (my preferred reason) is just sentimental that way.

Nomura had the Rite of Succession figured out since KHII

 * Sora let Jack Sparrow hold his Keyblade in KHII, creating sort of a conflict when the Rite of Succession came into being in BBS. Then it turns out it was totally intentional, he MEANT for Jack to hold the Keyblade, and upon his return to the series, Captain Sparrow has obtained his own Keyblade due to Sora accidentally performing the Rite of Succession with him back in II. Cue awesomeness.
 * Unfortunately the Keyblade returned to Sora's hand, it shouldn't happen if the rite was sucessful, it shows that Jack Sparrow doesn't have a strong heart. (!)
 * Of course not. Greed weakens a heart, as does his inability to show love for others, or loyalty to allies. He's quite smart, certainly, and very skilled, but he's emotionally stunted and weak.
 * Just want to point out that the scene itself suggests that Sora called the Keyblade back himself, which is different from the Keyblade rejecting Jack.
 * It would be hilarious for Jack to just barely meet the standards to receive a Keyblade, then lose it over a bottle of rum.
 * Considering that Leon was holding the Keyblade in the first game, wouldn't that mean that Nomura possibly had it figured out as early as then?

Roxas is an amnesiac

 * In Chain of Memories, Sora is shown memories from the other side of his heart—that is, Roxas's memories of Twilight Town. It is explicitly stated as "the other side of his heart." This could be Mind Screw on the Organization's part, but what if they were being literal? Roxas is a Nobody, right? Nobodies don't have hearts. One possible explanation is that when Sora used the Keyblade of People's Hearts to free Kairi's heart in Kingdom Hearts, it didn't create a Nobody at all—it separated the into a separate, amnesiac being.
 * This results in Roxas's ability to feel emotion—he IS or at least that character's heart. So, in actuality, you have  games where you play as
 * Alternately, when Sora used the Keyblade on himself in Kingdom Hearts, it DID create a Nobody, but due to Sora's body containing heart, that "spare" heart was channeled into the still-forming Nobody, which resulted in Roxas' appearance being so drastically different from Sora's as well as explaining his ability to use a Keyblade separate from Sora's. A requirement for wielding the Keyblade is "A strong heart," something that, even if Sora was still running around, Roxas does not possess. If his Nobody form was granted  heart, that's neatly tied up. As for why Roxas was re-absorbed into Sora upon meeting him if he has a heart, the point remains that he is a Nobody who has met his Somebody. This probably overrules having obtained a heart, because it isn't HIS heart, merely borrowed from a body it may not return to. I believe this theory is its own WMG later down the page.
 * It all comes down to whether its the heart, or the body and soul which determine identity. The body doesn't seem like it would have much to do with identity other than looks (which are malleable anyway), and we don't know much about the soul. The heart IS tied to emotion, so Ven's heart certainly imparted at least a little of his identity onto Roxas—his loyalty towards Xion and Axel, especially. Sora's soul may also contribute something to it, but since Ven and Sora are already so similar, its really hard to tell.
 * Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep Ultimania almost confirmed that Roxas has got heart: "It is thought that it could be 's heart... he has taken a lot of himself from . But perhaps when Sora and Roxas were separated, 's heart stayed in Roxas?"

Ansem actually helped Organization XIII by destroying Kingdom Hearts.

 * Think of it this way: What were the Orgy trying to do? Rebuild Kingdom Hearts. What did they need for them to do that? Hearts. Now, Nomura said that when a Heartless and its Nobody are defeated, they are reunited and the Other is reborn. But that can't happen if the hearts are captured and stuck in Kingdom Hearts. So, unwittingly, Xemnas was preventing his dead comrades from becoming whole again. When Ansem destroyed Kingdom Hearts, they released all the hearts that were contained in it. There's a small chance that one of those hearts will find its way back to Ienzo or Lea or Even or Braig and they will come back. So besides stopping a bunch of sociopaths from destroying the worlds, Ansem was giving the Nobodies what they really wanted.
 * Well, duh. He didn't want to defeat the Organization, he wanted to ruin Xemnas's plans. Of course, this brings up the thought that

Auron is the same Auron from Final Fantasy X, as opposed to an Alternate Universe version.
Kingdom Hearts 2 takes place for him in between his death and return as an Unsent. When Sora gets Auron's soul from Hades, we see quick flashes of dialogue from Auron's death in Final Fantasy X. When he vanishes in a cloud of pyreflies at the end, he's on his way back to his original world. "Being dead has its advantages."
 * Quite possibly, the multiverse would collapse under the sheer weight of bad-assery from two Aurons, even if kept realities apart.
 * Keep in mind, this only applies to Auron. The Gullwing fairies, the other members of Destiny Isle; those are Alternate Universe versions.

Cloud is a Nobody, Sephiroth his Heartless.
Quite an obvious interpretation, but not actually said in-game. This does raise the question of why Organization XIII never tried to recruit him though.
 * Because Hades was his sponsor. Nobody muscles in on the God of the Underworld's game. Why does Hades tolerate Sora? Because Sora beat the crap out of Hercules, and that's funny.
 * The one time a member of the Organization paid Hades a visit (let's ignore "Unknown" for now), he ran away screaming. OK, so it was Demyx, but still, you don't mess with Hades. Unless you're Sora, of course.
 * This troper would pay good money to see Hades vs Organization XIII, or just Hades vs Xehanort!
 * Alternatively, Organization XIII is afraid that Sephiroth would take over the group if he even knew of their existence.
 * But isn't Sephiroth the Heartless?
 * You really think that matters? Look at his boss fights; he's obviously badass enough to take all of them with one hand tied behind his back, Heartless or not.
 * No, he means that if Sephiroth is the Heartless, then he won't join the Organization.
 * No, he means that if the tried to recruit Cloud, Sephiroth would find out about them and destroy them.
 * I think Sephiroth is the Nobody and Cloud the Heartless. Sephiroth is calm and calculating, while Cloud is overtaken by rage and an instinctive desire to rid himself of Sephiroth.
 * Now that Zack has appeared in Birth By Sleep, I think we know who the original was...
 * Of course, in Kingdom Hearts III, we may actually have this...
 * Impossible; part of Birth By Sleep's ending shows that, and, furthermore,.

Cloud is an Unversed and Sephiroth is a Nobody.
We have yet to see the Heartless form, since that will be reserved for Kingdom Hearts 3. By the definition of the Unversed from Birth By Sleep, Cloud fits this to a T. If Hojo or (preferably) Lightning decide to come and join, this will make perfect sense. Fridge Logic when considering Lightning's motherly attitude to her sister in Final Fantasy XIII and Hojo. You don't need The Heartless to consider what he has done in a short period. Even more Fridge Logic when you consider putting Zack Fair into the picture.
 * If Cloud was an Unversed, he would've died the moment Ven defeated Vanitas, which completely cripples this theory.

The Destiny Islands world is the Prime Disney world.
When Sora meets Santa, Santa makes reference to being the Santa Claus of Sora's world. This suggests that the various holiday worlds aren't separate universes, but rather pocket holiday dimensions connected to Sora's world. And a good amount of other game worlds can be similarly explained:
 * Neverland, Wonderland, Halloween Town, 100 Acre Wood, Space Paranoids: All of these are alternate magical (or technological) dimensions, clearly separate from the "real" world.
 * Olympus Coliseum, Agrabah, Atlantica, Beast's Castle, Land of Dragons, Port Royal, Castle of Dreams, Dwarf Woodlands, Enchanted Dominion: All of these are worlds of fantasy and myth, where magical creatures live. Notably, Sora only gets magical powers after leaving Destiny Islands.
 * Pride Lands, Deep Jungle: Both of these suggest Lost Worlds, where animals are sentient and can talk.
 * Alternatively, everyone isn't really talking, just the animal talking is understood since Sora is too, an animal.
 * Monstro: Inside a Space Whale.
 * Deep Space: Space Is Magic, or some other kind of Negative Space Wedgie.
 * Disney Castle/Town, Timeless River: A Toon Town world, where all the Funny Animals live.
 * Hollow Bastion/Radiant Garden, Traverse Town: Other Prime worlds, part of the same Prime dimension.
 * Birth By Sleep has revealed that Destiny Islands are a separate world from Radiant Garden. Radiant Garden could conceivably be the Prime Square world.
 * Twilight Town, Mysterious Tower, The World That Never Was, The Land of Departure/[spoiler:Castle Oblivion]: Other dimensions entirely, a part of the Realm Between Darkness and Light. The cosmology of the larger universe seems to be somewhat metaphysical. The gulf the universes of Darkness and Light is represented the dark shore of a vast ocean with a sun visible on the other side; and Twilight Town, at the midpoint between Dark and Light, exists in perpetual twilight, as though it were on a planet that was tidally locked with its sun. Anything we could say about their nature would be speculative, even for a WMG page.

Alternately, since the "worlds" as we now know them are, according to the backstory, really just fragments of what used to be a MUCH larger, and, more importantly, whole world, it could just be that Santa is Santa everywhere.

Hollow Bastion is the Final Fantasy world after Time Compression.
If we assume that all the FF worlds are part of some huge, millennia-spanning history, then, due to the collapse of the Timey-Wimey Ball, it'd be possible for characters from different times to meet and interact, and also possible that doing so might create a merged history. It can't be any specific Final Fantasy world, because: The Hollow Bastion world that we see is an alternate history that was created by Time Compression, and either split off from the main world by the actions of the game or existing in a kind of Year Inside, Hour Outside applied to the entire universe: From the POV of someone caught in Time Compression, they have potentially eons of history and future, but from an outside observer's POV, it can come into being and be destroyed in the space of hours. The alternate ages of the characters can be explained away by this, and the fact that some of them aren't on Hollow Bastion at all can be explained by reality being more or less broken in half. This could also explain why Sora and the rest can travel to worlds set in Ancient Greece and Victorian England.
 * 1) Characters from FF8 and FF7 referred to it as a childhood home, and
 * 2) The characters of Ansem and Xehanort don't appear in any FF games, which suggests that they're from a time period we haven't seen yet.

Hollow Bastion is Gaia post-Advent Children.
An alternative explanation to the above. The world of Hollow Bastion/Radiant Garden is simply Final Fantasy VII's world sometime after Advent Children. Aeris is there because someone figured out how to use a Phoenix Down. Squall is there because he had to flee from his own dying world and decided to remain. The Gullwings are simply shapeshifting fairies who met the FF-X characters and decided to take on their appearance. Everything else pretty much fits together except Seifer and friends in Twilight Town, who are DiZ's cloning experiments on several subjects he found interesting while traveling through the worlds in the Dark Corridor and aren't the original Seifer, Vivi and etc.

Hollow Bastion is a normal timeline that contains aspects of all the Final Fantasy timelines.
Yet another alternative. This has the advantage of it featuring basically the same relation to the Final Fantasy games as the other worlds do to the original Disney movies.

Demyx's childish personality is an act.
He dislikes fighting. So much so that he was pretending to be a harmless, clueless oaf so that no one viewed him as a threat.
 * Alternatively, he's actually a complete sociopath who loves to fight, and his goofy personality was his own creation to try to suppress his inner psycho and protect the innocent. However, if it gets pushed to the limit, it shatters and his battle-ready personality emerges. Which would explain how he suddenly snapped after being taunted by Sora.
 * Or both. He may not like fighting, but that doesn't mean he isn't good at it. He may be using the wimpy personality as a way to keep him out of most fights, and when that doesn't work, he switches to his fighting self so he can get it over with as soon as possible.
 * Nomura wasn't really TRYING to create villains without emotions, and that whole "Nobody" thing was just to get a bunch of new enemies from nowhere.
 * The way I always saw it, he actually is a bit of a goof, and when he "snaps" after Sora's taunting, it's because he's hurt. (Seeing as how we can pretty much debunk them being entirely emotionless.) I mean, come on. If you truly believe something (that they have hearts) and someone is constantly telling you you're wrong, eventually you get angry. And what does a child do when they're angry? Say they hate you, or some kind of childish outburst. But Demyx is probably so used to this treatment that instead, he tries to put on a calmer, stronger persona. As the youngest sibling in the family, I can personally say that I adopted this tactic towards my brother in later years when we'd fight, because outbursts only got me hurt. Being calm and confident goes a long way, and Demyx's "Silence, traitor" was probably said as an attempt to hurt Sora's feelings the way he'd hurt his.
 * Haven't you heard the phrase "A smart falcon hides its claws from view"? Demyx's cowardly persona is an act, yes, but not because he dislikes fighting. It's to fool his opponents. He puts on an act, makes them think that he's a lousy fighter (Sora even got tricked, as noted when he said "I bet you can't even fight!"), then strikes when they least expect it. When SDG finally figure out his ploy (remembering that Nobodies don't have hearts, so they can't feel emotions, which includes fear), Demyx finally gives up the act and gets serious.
 * If it's an act, why does he still yelp like a little girl when he gets hit?
 * Because what you sound like when you're in pain doesn't have anything to do with whether you're a wimp or not. Trust me.
 * Alternately alternately, Demyx is a lazy bum, and doesn't want anyone to know how competent he actually is, because then he'd get assigned to do more work. Going by Days, he'd probably much rather spend his days alone with his music than actually doing anything constructive OR destructive.
 * Potentially Nobodies are sociopaths. They're capable of feeling certain emotions, but nothing deep like love and they can't form connections to other people. Several victims of relationships with sociopaths have referred to the draining effect sociopaths have on normal people as "soul murder" or some variation thereof, and some New Age types theorize that sociopaths literally suck spiritual energy from other people in order to fill the void within themselves, and a narcissist (narcissists being remarkably similar to sociopaths) has gone on record saying that when he can't feed off of other people's emotional energy, he feels incredibly drained and suicidally depressed. Most sociopaths consider having real emotions to be a weakness of some kind, but this is probably just Sour Grapes because they've never had those emotions and never will. How would they know? Nobodies, however, used to have Hearts before they were stolen by Heartless. They can remember what it was like to be connected, and life without it is all but unbearable. Further, they don't have any method of draining the energy of others to fill the void within, leaving them in a perpetual state of emptiness and despair (though several of them, like Demyx and Axel, have found ways to cope).

Sociopaths are also remarkably good at faking real human emotions. Generally speaking, sociopaths have a certain point(s) of pride, usually some kind of achievement or ability, which they base the bulk of their personal image and self-esteem off of. If that is ever attacked, they become viciously defensive. For Demyx, it might be his secretly being an amazing warrior in spite of his facade of helplessness. When Sora challenges this (ironically by believing the facade), Demyx takes the gloves off and decides to kill Sora. He still yelps like a little girl because it turns out he isn't nearly as strong as he thinks he is.
 * There's a minor problem with the above statement. Sociopaths aren't that good at faking being normal. They're typically very quickly caught. Psychopaths, on the other hand... are good. Really good. Granted, the line between Socio- and psychopathy is a touch fuzzy, as it's simply a matter of self-control. I think Demyx was simply a psychopath who was pushed to the point of not caring anymore.
 * Alternatively, Nobodies do, in fact, still feel (the whole 'no emotions' thing was a load of @#$&! for the Disney censors and we are intended to ignore it, seeing as Manly Tears make an appearance in the second Final Mix), but they feel negative emotions far more strongly than they feel positive ones. So basically, Nobodies feel but are clinically depressed. Demyx has undergone some particular tragedy or for some other reason considers himself The Woobie. Having Sora imply that his pain isn't real is his Berserk Button.

Tifa is Cloud's embodiment of light, where Sephiroth is his darkness.
Sephiroth's part is pretty much self-confirmed. Tifa shows up at the battle in a flash of light; also, Tifa seems to be Invisible to Normals; only Cloud, Sephiroth, and Sora's group seem to notice her. Note that she seems to perk up at Leon saying "cloud" with absolutely no reaction from him.
 * Using Squall as a leverage in any argument about reaction is kinda dangerous though.
 * Squall does turn towards Tifa when she shows up, so he does see her. I think it's more accurate to say that Tifa returns light to Cloud. He's sinking deeper and deeper into darkness on his quest to find and destroy Sephiroth, so much so that he runs off and leaves her to fight a horde of Heartless on her own in order to chase him down. Her showing up, trying to help him, and giving him someone who cares for him, wants to help and protect him, and needs protection in return causes the light to return to him. I hope that Birth by Sleep gives us the backstory on Cloud/Aeris/Tifa/Sephiroth, because this drop a tiny hint here and there is pretty annoying.
 * Nomura considered showing their backstory in Birth By Sleep, but decided against it because the game's plot was already complicated, and it would have derailed the main story. On the other hand, we get Zack.

Nobodies are zombies.
Nobodies are the empty husks left over when a heart leaves a body. Common Nobodies are misshapen, limp, and pale. They are, essentially, walking corpses. This would explain why the Organization are so willing to send lower Nobodies, who are essentially their own people, off to get the crap beaten out of them by Sora and friends. Why worry about the well-being of the undead? They can probably just stitch them back together later.
 * Does that mean that the very first Nobody was... The Horned King? And he destroyed his own world?
 * On a related side note, it is outright stated by Yen Sid that the emotions shown by Nobodies are just an act they put on. This is probably a survival technique, to keep living humans from realizing how strange they are. If they were to drop the act, they would probably all speak in a Creepy Monotone.
 * But...Nobodies still have souls...

Powers of the Princesses of Heart.
Beyond some sort of vague mention of being able to open a doorway (which, arguably could be done with a keyblade), little is mentioned about exactly what's so special about a Princess of Heart. Well, here's one special possible power: They can generate entire physical bodies for people. After all, when Sora sacrificed himself, his heart separated and formed a nice little Shadow Heartless body. His actual other mind/body components flew into the twilight and formed into Roxas, his Nobody. But a short time later, Kairi recognizes the Sora-Heartless and instinctively does... something. Sora returns, fully restored. But Roxas, his old body, is still out there. Kairi, by using her powers, reformed Sora's body for him.
 * I was under the impression that Sora's body was just a disembodied Heart like the Heartless, and Kairi just purified him, thus turning him into what appears to be a normal person instead of a Heartless.
 * I am so stealing that WMG so I can write a halfway Hand Wave-able fanfiction where Roxas, Naminé, and Xion - at least - come back. (I don't care if it'll suck, it'll make me feel better.)

While we're on the subject, maybe there are more Princesses of Heart?
I'm kinda new at this (like seriously, ridiculously new, so... humour the newbie, mayhaps?), but... there are plenty of Disney heroines who could easily be candidates for being a Princess of Heart, right? But according to the game, there are only seven... Maybe there's one for every world?
 * To be fair, the game only said that the villains needed seven Princesses of Heart. It could be that there are more princesses out there (and Ariel might've even been one of them), but Ansem only identified seven of them because that was all he needed to open the Door to Darkness.
 * Each world has it Princess of Heart, the seven were just the ones needed for the villains. It's usually the purest female person in each world (ie. Lucy is Narnia's Princess, Einlowy is Prydaan's princess, Esmeralda is her world's princess, and so on).
 * This WOULD explain why Wendy was not "pure" enough to be a Princess of Heart, as Wendy is not from Neverland, but from our England, which already has its own Princess of Heart in Alice. (Who is also from England. She merely is in Wonderland at the time of her kidnapping.)

The various "facts" about the Nobodies having no emotions is, in fact, racist propoganda
Think about it: various characters (in particular Yen Sid and Mickey) mention the Nobodies having no emotions, yet there is evidence of Nobodies (especially Organization XIII) showing emotions. The most glaring of these is Saïx: he repeatedly enters a berserk, angry state in battle! When the Nobodies start appearing, Mickey and Yen Sid start treating them like they did the Heartless: as a major (but essentially mindless) threat. In fact they start acting preemptively, hoping to nip them in the bud. Seeing the Nobodies marginalized and wiped out, Organization XIII forms to protect the Nobodies and find a permanent solution: create their own Kingdom Heart to retaliate. Unfortunately, Yen Sid and Mickey quickly get Sora on their side, and things go downhill from there for Organization XIII... Had Mickey and Yen Sid held off and do some research, they could have probably found a peaceful solution to the problems of the Nobodies
 * No Just No. The only reason people think that Nobodies have emotions is that the three we saw most (Roxas, Xion, and Axel) either, or were
 * Only problem: Even if most of the Organization would have been nice, when treated nice (which I highly doubt) and even if they had some kind of emotion, their leader was still Xemnas. And Xemnas is still Xehanort. And could you imagine Xehanort to accept a peaceful solution for anything? I mean, this guy threw the man, who saved his life (!), into the realm of nothing, when he started bugging him! And, beside, they wanted to create Kingdom Hearts and USE IT. You know what Kingdom Hearts is made of? Hearts. Human hearts. Exactly. If you were a disembodied heart, would you like to be used as an magical energy source of some strange organisation for the rest of your (after)life? And remember: They did that with millions of hearts!
 * Maybe Frollo is the one who started this rumor?
 * Except, you know, not. I have three points:
 * First, Xemnas seemed like the only Nobody actually concerned with becoming an all-powerful whosit using the power of a bunch of hearts glued together. The rest all appeared to only want to be reunited with their hearts, and helped collect the hearts into a big glob in hopes that, maybe, one of those hearts that gets brought in might be theirs. Their Kindom Hearts Moon was a shining beacon of hope in their otherwise desolate world.
 * Second, the hearts in the moon in the World That Never Was are subject to What Measure Is a Non-Human?, since they were harvested not from the genocide of millions of humans, but from Sora's genocide of millions of Heartless! The hearts turn back into Shadows when they hit the ground, too, so they were arguably all still forever lost to darkness, but the magic heart glue holding them together also kept the Darkness from manifesting new Heartless "bodies" for them.
 * Third, what "Kingdom Hearts" actually is or does seems to vary depending on who in the game universe you're asking. This troper thinks that no one who lives in the game universe actually knows the answer, and the various in-game entities concerned about it seem to themselves be engaging in Wild Mass Guessing. It's often defined as being "The Heart of All Worlds," but there doesn't appear to be any consensus as to what that actually means. In the first game, Xenahort's Heartless regards it as a single heart, locked behind some sort of final "door." He certainly found a heart behind that door, but it unclear if the Heart of Darkness is/was Kingdom Hearts, or something else entirely. In the second game, Xemnas regards Kingdom Hearts to be what you get when you slap a bazillion Heartless Hearts together and stick it in the sky.
 * Nobodies have feelings. But that actually makes them worse, since they know full well the kind of awful crap they're causing but shrug it off.
 * That's exactly what I thought. Yen Sid is in a war, after all, and dehumanizing the enemy is a pretty common tactic. Sora believed him, of course, because he's the teacher of Mickey. He could've started doubting it when he saw Axel's death, but battles in the Castle That Never Was, especially constantly cold and emotionless Xemnas, prevented him from reflecting on this further.
 * I think that Xemnas came up with the idea first, though. It seems like the kind of thing a powerhungry, psychopathic emo manchild like him would come up with, and it seemed like he'd managed to convince at least some of his followers that their emotions really aren't supposed to be real. Yen Sid decided that it was a brilliant idea to pass on to Sora.
 * My take on it is that Nobodies do have feelings. But because they don't have hearts, their feelings are "incomplete", which is why the Organization wanted to get hearts and become complete beings.
 * Personally, I think it's somewhat of a fact that they don't have feelings, per se. However, as they are still sentient, they still recall what it's like to feel. So, as Yen Sid said if I recall, they recall how they should react, how they should behave, and how they should feel. Part of their driving motivation would be this...knowing what they should be feeling...but it not actually being there. However, I do find that there's a fair bit of propaganda against them as well...as was also mentioned, aside from Xemnas, who sought absolute power, they all just wanted to be complete again. In varying shades of ruthlessness, but that's what they wanted.
 * See the "Nobodies are sociopaths" response to an above theory. Assuming that is true, the Nobodies would be willing to go through with Xemnas's plan and cannibalize millions of Hearts to restore themselves, with the notable exceptions of Roxas, Naminé, both of whom appear to not really be a Nobody, and Axel, who, while still generally sociopathic, seems to have a greater sense of loyalty and is possibly willing to exercise his free will to defy his inherent nature as a Nobody. That would make Axel awesome again, which is why this is my favorite little theory.
 * Alternatively, the Nobodies have emotions but the protagonists actually believe they don't. No propaganda, just misunderstandings and misconceptions.
 * Perhaps Nobodies have enough of their emotions to know that they're missing important pieces. Notably, they certainly react differently to their situation. Although the average reaction seems to want to become human again, there are exceptions: Larxene and Marluxia think it's best to live as they are, Axel seems to care more about his friendship with Roxas, and Xemnas just want godlike power. Even if 90% of their mannerisms are just an act, their motives are still too, well, emotion-driven (freedom from ethical tyranny, friendship and power) for them to be completely emotionless. And that's without even getting into Roxas and Xion...

Hearts are actually incredibly rare.
For all the Heartless we see running around, most of them are actually created by a machine. In spite of the hoardes of Heartless Sora fights, and the numerous worlds that have been completely destroyed by Heartless (and their residents presumably turned into Heartless themselves), actual natural Heartless are in the minority. They actually become more of a minority as the game progresses and the machine churns out more powerful Heartless, suggesting a nearly static population. The only way this could be is if most of the people taken by Heartless don't have hearts, and therefore cannot become Heartless themselves.
 * When Donald and Goofy reach 0 HP, instead of "dying", they're simply stunned. No Heartless even attempt to attack them, even though they're vulnerable, and Sora doesn't have to make any effort towards protecting them. This is true for almost any party member.
 * When you battle Xemnas in the final battles, he actively attempts to incapacitate and destroy Sora. Riku's job is to free Sora before he dies. This invalidates the possibility that incapacitated party-member invulnerability is only an aspect of game-play.
 * Even though he spends the entire game riding in Sora's hood, Jiminy Cricket doesn't seem to have any concerns about his safety.
 * Well, Jiminy might not be the best example. He is "just a conscience," after all and probably thus lacks a real "heart," himself being only a personified function of Pinocchio's own. The Heartless probably wouldn't even recognize him as edible.
 * It also seems to me that he just kind of appears out of Main/Hammerspace when convenient, then vanishes back in when his lines are done. There's no way he actually hung out in Sora's hood the whole time.
 * We're never shown a world which was restored without its full compliment of characters. Seemingly everyone was returned to their proper places, unharmed. If all of them had been turned into Heartless, except for the ones who escaped to Twilight Town, then every single natural-made Heartless would have vanished, greatly diminishing their numbers for the sequels. The only other option is that they all suffered physical deaths, and were resurrected in that manner.
 * In Kingdom Hearts II, minor Nobodies seem to be on par with natural-made Heartless in terms of numbers. Since there's no mechanical process for creating a Nobody, they actually appear pretty rarely. Even though they're the new Mooks, they're almost inconsequential in terms of numbers. The old, created Heartless still dominate.
 * What if it's just that the natural process that creates Heartless is rather slow, I mean, it probably takes a long time for a heart to be totally consumed by darkness and grow into a Cosmic Horror. The Artifical Heartless are simply having the process sped up, with the growth guided into whatever from the person the machine desires.
 * Only people with unusually strong Hearts become Nobodies. It's possible that most natural Heartless don't go around stealing Hearts, or that Emblem Heartless create more Emblem Heartless when they extract Hearts. That's certainly what appears to have happened when a Soldier Heartless, decidedly an Emblem, chased down a Traverse Town resident in the first game. The man falls down, his Heart pops out and he disappears into Darkness, then another Soldier pops up, presumably powered by the Heart just acquired from the man. Emblem Heartless are generally stronger, and thus would be more capable of extracting Hearts. This would make Emblem Heartless more common, causing a snowball effect.

Allowing a Nobody and the matching Heartless to join is a bad idea
Sora and Roxas are a special case, because Sora was not a Heartless at the time, plus DiZ went through hoops to make sure Roxas was ready to rejoin with Sora. Allowing the Darkness of a Heartless to combine with the Nothingness of a Nobody sounds like the recipe for something powerful and nasty to this troper.
 * I have combined one each of the universe's most evil beings to make the most evil creature of them all!
 * That's right, that's probably why there is speculation about Light-based enemies. Also, if you think of Heartless and Nobodies as instinct and conscious mind, respectively, it starts making more sense.
 * Sora WAS a Heartless for all of Com and the end of KH1, since he was without his body (Roxas).

Hearts aren't centers of emotion, they're centers of morality.
Makes all the emotions the Organization had make a lot more sense. They can feel emotion just fine, they're just all sociopaths. Which is why none of them had any problem with killing an unknown but huge number of people to get their hearts.
 * But aren't they faking emotion? Would lacking something like compasion (or a similer emotion) make killing be okay with them? Axel could be argued to not be faking emotion, because of what he said in KH2, but he said it almost felt like he had real emotion, which would mean he still remembered and it didn't compared to the feeling he remembered.
 * What he probably meant, was he could almost feel compassion again when he was around Roxas. Axel and Roxas were friends (and had a good amount of Ho Yay), this much is true, but they didn't feel empathy for each other—they merely enjoyed each others company. Axel shows he doesn't really feel empathy pretty effectively when he tries to kill Roxas for not coming back to him. In Real Life sociopaths are even known to fake empathy in order to fit in with normal society. It's true that not all sociopaths are murderers, and not all murderers are sociopaths, but one could argue that the Nobodies don't really have a whole lot of options available to them, what with people like Sora out to kill them, and a charismatic villain named Xemnas telling them everything they want to hear. All this means they're probably willing to murder a few hypotenuses if it means getting back their hearts.
 * There's a bit of a complication in using Axel's willingness to kill Roxas as an example of a lack of true compassion in that he doesn't seem to consider the brainwashed version of Roxas to be the same person - he starts to tell Roxas that he's "not gonna get turned into a Dusk" for him, but stops when Roxas shows signs of remembering him.
 * I said this above, but I'm a fan of the "for some reason Roxas can make the sociopathic Organization members feel true empathy" theory.

Hearts aren't the center of emotions OR morality, but are instead what allow people to make meaningful connections with each other.
Canon talks all the time about how, even if they've been separated from each other physically, friends will still always be with each other in their hearts, and always stay connected. It's a huge, over-arching theme across the games that "heart" and "friends" and "connection". So. . . what happens when you don't have a heart anymore? Well, Tarzan answered that pretty succinctly in KH1: "No heart, no friends."

As a result, Nobodies are completely cut off from other people emotionally. They're still completely capable of selfish emotions, but even if they try, they can't make meaningful, emotional connections with anyone else, as tragically demonstrated by Roxas's reaction to one of his best friends dying in his arms: "[If you die, then] who else will I have ice cream with? D:". No matter how much he might have wanted to, not even Roxas, who was "special" for a Nobody, was able to forge a deeper connection than that with the ones he wanted to keep the most.

Note "wanted to keep", not "cared about", because, when it comes down to it, the end result is the same as the above theory about hearts and morality: Nobodies are sociopaths. They're physically incapable of "care" except in relation to themselves, and — for at least some of those who remember was it was like to care about others — it torments them.
 * This is why Demyx got angry when Sora rubbed in the fact that they don't have hearts, and said that they couldn't feel: It hurt, because Demyx knew that what little he could feel was nothing compared to the breadth and depth of emotion he had as a human, and when you're incapable of caring about the wellbeing of other people, and someone hurts you, what do you do? You hurt them back, of course!
 * This is why Saïx obsessed over Kingdom Hearts, and lamented his lack of a heart as he died. To him, Kingdom Hearts was hope.
 * This is why Axel went to such lengths to get Roxas back, but then ultimately decided to attempt to kill him rather than risk his own hide. Roxas, for one reason or another that probably has something to do with, helped him cope and let him pretend to fill the gap left behind by his heart, but, in the end, that temporary just wasn't worth the risk of his own death, so Axel made the only choice it was possible for him, as a sociopath, to make.

The KH concept of "Heart, Soul and body" are the three parts of what WE call "soul"
OK, I had my first Psychology lesson today, and I noticed something:

According to Psychology, there are three "parts of soul":
 * The vegetative soul: It controls our metabolism, our body, it keeps us alive. Every living being posseses it, including plants.
 * The emotional soul: Like the name says, it's what makes us have emotions. Humans and animals posses it.
 * The sane soul: Is our thinking mind. Only possesed by sapient species. (human)

OK, "emotional soul" correspondes to KH's concept of "heart" and "sane soul" correspondes to KH's concept of "soul". The "vegetativ soul" is therefor integrated in KH's concept of "body". It makes sense, since Kairi's empty body was still breathing and twitching, but not thinking or feeling— which leads me to the conclusion, that not only her "heart" (emotional soul) but also her "soul" (sane soul) has been trapped within Sora in the beginning of the first game— that would be a second reason, why Naminé wasn't born earlier than Roxas. (A Nobody can't be born, if the body lacks a "soul" (sane soul) and also explain, why Sora was able to recognize things from Kairi's memories.

The Heartless do only have the "emotional soul", but it's deactivated and only serves as a life-source, which has to be "repowered" by sucking the power of other hearts. The "vegetative soul" is replaced by the "will of darkness", wwhich is why Heartless are so aggressive. They have nothing else, but the "will of darkness" and a deactivated "emotional soul". Of course, Sora's an exception: His strong will kept his "emotional soul" (heart) active, surpressing the "will of darkness" and making him a being, that's completly driven by emotions. The emotions of a 15 years old boy. This explains, why his Heartless was following Kairi: it were his strong emotions for her, that made him do. When Kairi "brought him back", she also restored his "sane self" from how she remembered it. Of course, this "fake" sanity was not very stable, which is a reason, why he needed Roxas to reunite with him.

The Nobodies are beings without the "emotional soul", but they still have "vegetative soul" and "sane soul". Like someone mentioned in the "Just Bugs Me", this makes them "philosophical zombies".

They do remember the sensation of emtions and try to fake them. It does look very real (probably they train it a lot) but this fake emotions aren't a real part of their psycholgy, and their sane soul suffers under the lack of it's "better half".

Naminé is an exception, since she was born, when Sora commited suicide as a deed of love to free Kairi. This "love" was passed on to her and replaced her "emotional self" to a certain extent, which is why all emotions that she shows have to do with wanting Sora or Roxas to be happy and united with her and Kairi. Love and loveache were probably her only emotions. Roxas is a strange exception, since he somtimes act's like a normal Nobody, but sometimes acts like a human, depending on the situation. Whenever he was near to his friends (Axel or the twillight kids) he started to behave pretty emotional, and when Ansem the Wise was near, he was very angry, but when he was alone, he was more or less a common Nobody and just thinking a lot. Probably he DID have a kind of "emotional soul" for himself, but it was semi-dormant and maybe this has somthing to do with his hugh resemblance to Ven. "Birth by sleep" will possibly reveal more.

Also interesting: There are no Plant-type Nobodies and only a few animal-type ones. This theory gives a reason why: Plants and animals usually don't have the "sane soul" that is necessary for the creation of a Nobody.

Worlds almost never have Nobodies, which leads me to the conclusion, that they have have hearts and bodies, but not souls. (Of course, planets can't think!) So, whenever the Heartless steal a world's heart, it doesn't become a Nobody, but it's "body" falls appart and forms new worlds, like Traverse Town.

OK, we have now the Heartless, who have a deactivated "emotional soul" and a replacement for their "vegetative soul".

We also have the Nobodies, who do have the "vegetative soul" and the "sane soul". Soon, the new enemies, the Unversed, will be introduced. What will they have? My guess is, that they posses a "Heart/emotional soul" and a "Soul/sane soul" but no "body/vegetativ soul". This would make them that, what we would call a "ghost".

Conclusion: The Unversed will be Body-less ghosts.


 * That's a very good analysis of the funked-up Kingdom Hearts soul ecology. The only thing to note is that Tetsuya Nomura is aledged to have described End Of The World from KH1 as the collective Nobody of the lost worlds, how this fits in with anything else is anyones guess.
 * That actually doesn't affect the theory at all; if End of the World is the collective Nobody of lost worlds, then it actually clears up why planets don't have nobodies and makes the theory fit even better.
 * If End Of The World, a place where Heartless like Behemoths, Angel Stars & Invisibles are found, is the collective Nobody of the lost worlds, then what does that make The World That Never Was, a place where many kinds of Nobodies gather?
 * The World That Never Was is obviously the collective Heartless of lost worlds.
 * Keep in mind he's only alleged to have described it that way. I like the theory above for the most part, but I was always under the impression that Dark Side's were the Heartless of worlds and that Twilight Thorns were their Nobodies, and based off this theory, the sane soul of a world would be the collective unconscious of that worlds inhabitants, which is either something created by the presence of a large number of Souls (meaning sane souls) in one place or which is present in advance and influences the individual Souls of its inhabitants. Whatever the corresponding Soul to the Heart that is Kingdom Hearts would thus be the collective unconscious for all worlds. Basically, The Force.
 * According to the Kingdom Hearts Wiki, Unversed are apparently "the opposite of human life", and represent death. Where does that fit in with this theory?
 * Ghosts also represent death.

Xehanort's Heartless is Master Xehanort's heart, still amnesiac. Xemnas is Terra's amnesiac body, and Terra's heart is now in the realm of darkness.
When Amnesiac Terranort/False Ansem exposed himself to darkness and created a Heartless and Nobody, the Heartless was Master Xehanort's heart, still lacking the memories of his former self, but still with the dark motivations and penchant for body snatching. His appearance being that of Terranort is because that's how he remembered himself, thus creating a residual self image.

The shell left behind that became Xemnas did originally belong to Terra, and is therefore technically Terra's Nobody. The reason he doesn't act like Terra is because he lacks his heart, and therefore his personality. The Nobodies construct their personalities based on their memories of their past lives, and Xemnas' memories of his past life were his life as Ansem's apprentice, when Xehanort was the one running the show, and had dark intentions. Therefore, this shell acts based on the intentions of amnesiac Terranort, thus making him evil and power hungry, and seeking to use Kingdom Hearts to become a god. However, if Xemnas had followed through on the official Organization XIII plan: to use Kingdom Hearts to gain a heart of his own, he would have once again become Terra. The exact mechanics of using Kingdom Hearts to gain a heart are not shown, but I assume it to be something like the behavior of stem cells: the constructed heart creates itself in the image of the body it is now in, making it very similar, if not identical to the original heart. Therefore, if Xemnas had done this to himself, he would have regained Terra's original personality.

This covers Xehanort's Heart and Terra's body, leaving the question of where Terra's heart is. When Xehanort's Heartless took full control of Riku in Kingdom Hearts, Riku's heart was sent to the realm of darkness. It could be assumed that this is the default place that a heart without a body is sent. So, Terra's heart is somewhere in the realm of darkness. Either that, or it is now a heartless. Doubtful, though, as Terra's heart was shown to be able to combat Xehanort's, making it a remarkably strong one, so his Heartless probably would have appeared and been highly notable, possibly even still possessing Terra's memories.
 * Maybe it decided to set up camp in Riku's heart, like Ven's did in Sora's.

Vanitas is now inside Riku, rather than Sora.
Somehow, when Ven's heart merged with Sora's, it was his pure, incomplete heart, as before, and Vanitas somehow found himself into Riku's heart. Both Terra and Aqua remark on how pure Riku is. But, come Kingdom Hearts, Riku is the one who pulls a Face Heel Turn and joins with the bad guys, partly out of wanting to help Kairi, yes, but also out of seeking to be better than Sora. The dark part of Ven's heart, which manifested itself as Vanitas, joined with Riku, exposing him to the darkness.

Think about it: Vanitas was long assumed to be connected to Riku, and with good reason. His fighting stance is the same as Riku's, and his darkness outfit is very similar as well. While the personality of Vanitas is gone, certain residual attributes were passed to Riku, fueling his darker attributes. While this didn't make Riku pure evil, and his heart was still mainly light, it did severely affect him, making him more ambitious and power hungry and seeking of darkness.

It would also help to explain why Riku was able to overcome the power of Xehanort's Heartless while Terra was stuck in a stalemate with him: Riku was battling Xehanort with his heart and a part of Ven's, making it stronger than Terra's and able to eventually resume control of his body.

This WMG would also make Soul Eater and (possibly) Way to Dawn manifestations of Vanitas, as Soul Eater was born from the darkness in Riku's heart, and Way to Dawn presumably born from the darkness and light. That would help to explain the symbolism of why Ven was the one to grab Way to Dawn in The Gathering trailer: it's a part of him.

Maleficent is the current leader of the Heartless.
In the first game, it was shown that Maleficent's darkness was unlocked by mind-controlled Riku, but that she couldn't control it. In the end, when she lost against Sora, she was destroyed by it. Maleficent may have been destroyed, but her darkness lingered on for a year between the first and second games. She was resurrected in the second game, after all. Now, every other manifestation of darkness in people's hearts is known as a Heartless. Therefore, the darkness that reformed Maleficent is a Heartless as well. Furthermore, after the destruction of Xehanort's Heartless, there was a power gap. Maleficent's personal darkness was deemed the next greatest, and so she was made to be their new leader. It's the only reason I can think of why the Heartless would still follow her even after it was mentioned that they had been using her. It also explains her new fixation on eliminating the Nobodies and obtaining Kingdom Hearts.
 * I'd almost take that as straight-up canon. In the first game, she was infused with the Heartless's power (like all the Disney villains, save for Captain Hook), but Ansem/Xehanort's Heartless was merged with the Heartless and really running the show behind the scenes. Once he took on a physical form and Sora and company defeated him, she was free to reassert her own control over the Heartless again, except this time there aren't any bigger Chessmasters hiding in the background. During Kingdom Hearts 2, the two big factions are Xemnas leading the Nobodies, and Maleficent leading the Heartless. And as of the end of KH2, it looks like she might be the last one standing (cue Maleficent smirking and saying "exactly as planned").

The Keyblade is not a weapon of Light.
Fitting in with the theory that the third game will have Knight Templar antagonists, the Keyblade is not a weapon of Light, but rather one of Balance. It changes between Light and Darkness depending on which one is more powerful, so that The Balance Between Good And Evil is preserved. In the time of 1, KH:CoM and 2, Darkness is more powerful which is why Heartless are running all over the place, so the wielder of the Keyblade, in this case Sora, fights for Light. If the Unversed from Birth by Sleep are indeed the Light equivalent of Heartless, this would explain why Keyblade wielders are fighting them, as well as why there are no Heartless around since the balance has shifted to Light, but the events of Birth by Sleep make the balance shift to Darkness, so the Unversed are replaced by the Heartless and Sora is now fighting for the Light.
 * The presence of the Two Across and Way To The Dawn keyblades support this theory
 * Not really. The existence of those two suggests that the Keyblades don't switch alignments, but because there are already Keyblades for each alignment, and because the Keyblade Masters are supposed to be friends, they would seek balance even though Sora's Keyblade is one of Light (Riku's of Twilight and Mickey's of Darkness).
 * As suggested by Birth By Sleep, Keyblade Bearers seem to come in two flavors: Light and Dark. It is quite possible that the Keyblade Bearer affects the alignment of the Keyblade he or she wields; it's also equally possible that the Keyblades just come with preset Light or Darkness and seem to gravitate towards the people with large amounts of that element (or not, in the case of Mickey Mouse - he wields a Keyblade of Darkness but does seem to be occupied mostly by Light). This, along with the whole 'return to sender' thing when someone holds a Keyblade that isn't theirs, suggests that the magical weapons are in fact semi-sentient (at least).

The Disney Princesses might have nobodies.
The Princesses of Heart had their hearts removed like Kairi, and Naminé came from her. They got them back in a different manner than Kairi, so they might not have them, but would Disney pass up the chance to get six new princesses just like that?
 * And I present you: Alxeci, Exbell, Xismajn, Xuararo, Wittxschenechen and Rindacarrelx. Alternatively, in case they follow the "Naminé"-name-patern, let's call them Fushigi (Mystery), Kirei (Beautyful), Ekusochiku (Exotic), Nemu (Sleep), Shirayuki (Snow white in Japanese) and Hai (ash-grey)
 * After hearing this theory, Ariel should be glad Alice took her spot in the first game.

Naminé is a deliberate Deconstruction of Mary Sues
She was even thought to BE a Mary Sue before Chain of Memories came out. Let's look at the facts: she's essentially a recolor of Kairi, having blond hair and a white dress; she has the personality of a Purity Sue, being subdued and "innocent". She "draws" herself into Sora's life as a childhood friend that he "conveniently" forgot about and is of course also best friends with Selphie, Wakka, Tidus, Riku, and Kairi. She has magical powers, and she is destined to be rescued by the hero so she can fall in love with him. Eventually she outright replaces Kairi. The Deconstruction of course comes in that while she DOES genuinely want Sora to love her and indeed wants all of this to be true, she is being forced into this by Organization XIII for their own ends; furthermore, in the end of the game she realizes that trying to take Kairi's place and mess up Sora's memories is inherently wrong and becomes her own person/character, not dependent on Kairi for her own personality or actions. An Aesop, indeed!
 * Is it weird that while playing re:Chain of Memories I came to the exact same conclusion independantly?
 * No. Anyone who doesn't like Mary Sues (which is hopefully the entirety of the present company) would likely come to this conclusion if they thought about it enough.

Sora is at least subconsciously more intelligent than he lets on
In chain of memories' Wonderland at the end Alice pulls off a spectacular trick involving the Queen's memory loss and her petty desire to keep her head on her shoulders. She knew to do this thanks to a riddle from the Cheshire Cat which seems to go over Sora's head and he even comments that he didn't think she could do stuff like that. The problem: this isn't reality but a construct created from Sora's memories so unless he remembered her doing something like that (he doesn't) he must have figured the way out (on some level) but not wanting to give up his position as 'kind idiot' forced the answer onto Alice just like he caused a resonance of memories in Traverse Town and forced everyone to remember him.
 * Further guessing: Sora, through his increasing mastery of the Wisdom form, will eventually turn into a strategist to rival Ender.

Sora didn't get a new body when Kairi healed it in Hollow Bastion
All that happened was that Kairi brought back his sense of self, allowing him to take human form again. Until he was reunited with Roxas, Sora was a Heartless.
 * Well, maybe Heartful would be a better way of putting it.
 * This would explain the existence of Anti-Form a lot more clearly.

Most the other FF Charaters are re-incarnated.
Aerith met the same fate she did in the game, Cloud died shortly after Advent Children and Yuffie died a few years after that. Cid isn't the same as the game, it's his father who died a few years before the game (eplaining the lack of smoking and spear). Vincent is between life and death and the rest of AVALANCHE are still alive.

Tifa was in a coma for several years and died between the first and second games and now is a poltergeist-type spirit. This explains her constant searching for Cloud and it's only when Sora's about that anyone can really see her. Now that she's found where Cloud is, she can move on and eventually be reborn.

Similarly, Leon died but may be survived by Rinoa (The letter could be a burnt offering), Seifer and his posse died not too long after that and Selphie died as well a few years later (Zell, Irvine and Quisis are still alive unless they appear in future games).

For the FFX gang, X-2's perfect ending happened and sometime after that everyone died around the same time, except for Lulu, and Auron was in Hadies not waiting to go back but for penance, he too is going to move on and be reborn…
 * Poison Oak Epileptic Trees!

Heartless are not hearts.
Three parts to this:
 * The Heartless are the darkness in people's hearts.
 * The Unversed are the light in people's hearts.
 * The Unversed are actually the product of all of the negativity that was brought about from the creation of Vanitas.
 * Nobodies retain the heart, but the heart is empty with the exception of the darkness that lies in all emptiness (the "darkness in zero"). That's why Nobodies are so evil.
 * Wasn't Darkness in Zero Ansem's little moniker because he was the Darkness that existed amidst the Nothingness?

Demyx did not "drop his ruse" at Hollow Bastion.

 * The most common explaination for Demyx's sudden change in personality after Sora and his friends reminded him he had no heart is that Demyx stopped pretending to have a heart. However, when you're fighting him, he yelps like a woman when hit and his speech when fighting sounds more like the old Demyx (What kind of empty, soulless person would shout "DANCE, WATER, DANCE! >:D"). It's hard for me to believe that he would waste energy when fighting on maintaining his fake personality. It's possible that he was just pissed off that a former member of the Organization would insult him repeatedly.
 * If Demyx is a sociopath as I (and others) have theorized above, than he may have been shouting out of a certain degree of sadism. The dancing water is going to kill the guy who insulted him, after all. As for why he yelps like a woman, pain isn't an emotion, and Demyx really is a bit of a wimp.
 * If Demyx was putting on an act the whole time, how come Hades had to see the act too? I mean, fooling Sora could've been a plausible excuse, but when you first meet him, he is running and screaming from the Lord of the Dead. He had no reason to put on an act for Hades.
 * I think that all the Nobodies of Organization have some sort of not-emotional quirk which they like to pretend is some sort of emotion. Demyx has a strong(non-emotional) sense of self preservation, and in order to feel "complete" he pretends this is cowardice.

Everyone not killed by Sora's keyblade specifically is Dead for Real.
Sora's Keyblade releases the inner heart/soul/whatever of Heartless and Nobodies, utilizing the rest of the energy to make him stronger, but if anyone else defeats a Heartless (Riku and Kairi, The Organization, World Companions), they're lost forever. (Although the Keyblade Master's key could be an extension of Kingdom Hearts, in which case No Heart still has a chance to show).
 * Why just Sora's Keyblade? And how do we know the Heartless not defeated by a Keyblade don't just reform somewhere else, like all the Heartless that fell when Ansem blasted Kingdom Hearts at the end of KH 2? Presumably all the ones killed by Sora/Roxas/Riku/Mickey floated back to Kingdom Hearts after they were scattered by the blast.
 * Debunked by 358/2 Days. Heartless not destroyed via Keyblade just go somewhere else, and reform. As for what the hell happened to all the Heartless Sora didn't kill at the battle for Hollow Bastion, I don't know.
 * Called away perhaps by the Organization? After all, they need Sora to release the Hearts and since he was no longer there at the end of the Battle, they sent them to other worlds.

Saïx is a werewolf.
His element is the moon, and he goes bonkers when exposed to the rays of a full moon. The reason he doesn't transform into a wolf is because Kingdom Hearts' werewolves are different.
 * Specifically, he's a werewolf in the vein of the Dresdenverse's lycanthropes: an individual who doesn't change physically but gains a bestial personality (as well as heightened skills and senses) when exposed to the full moon.
 * The Werewolf from The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian turned into a Heartless and destroyed Narnia, and Saïx is his Nobody.
 * So, Isa is a werewolf? Intriguing.

== Nobodies retain some emotion even though their hearts are separated from their bodies. In a supporting theory to this, as well as a stand alone guess: Hearts are the willpower of every being. A heart is what binds together the body and mind and allows the whole to function. ==
 * This troper theorizes that since a heart isn't actually destroyed when it becomes a heartless, and seeing the effects Sora's heart had on Roxas while both were, that a Nobody can, in fact, feel some emotion. They retain a very tenative connection to their hearts, much weaker then a regular person's connection to their heart. The more powerful a heart was, the stronger the connection to that heart, and thus a greater ability to hold together the body and mind, as well as a small amount of emotion. However, because of this separation, Nobodies feel far less emotion then they previously did, and only the most powerful nobodies (Organization XIII), who also had the most powerful hearts, still remember (and sometimes feel) emotion. Because the hearts are also now filled with darkness, however, the Nobodies will tend to have darker versions of their old personalities. When in proximity to other hearts, the latent willpower strenghtens their connection to their own heart. If the emotions become particularly strong, the Nobody might even bridge the gap and regain their heart. This is what probably happened to Organization XIII. Continuing on the Hearts as willpower theory: The heartless are formed when the darkness in a person's heart hijacks that person's willpower and swells over it, creating the physical form of the heartless. The darkness is not evil, it is just relentlessly expansionist, and thus seeks hearts for their innate power. Sora was able to regain form from a heartless after a willpower "jump" from Kairi, which gave him enough power to create, and maintain, a replica of his body. Because it was only a replica based on his emotions and Kairi's memory of him, his actual body... the one that became Roxas... was still able to exist, albeit with no memory of his past life due to the newly physical and entirely separate form of Sora's heart. Naminé was formed from the brief traces of Kairi's physical form that was left behind by Kairi's heart. It was already a tenative connection at best, and Naminé was held together almost entirely by the willpower granted to her from her connection to both Kairi's and Sora's hearts. As suggested in one of the Ansem reports, she barely even exists, receiving most of her power from the hearts of others, which also gives her the power to manipulate memory. Did I miss anything?

Nobodies who have human bodies have human body chemistry, allowing them to have involuntary emotions caused by hormones.

 * By looking at the different temperaments and simulated ages of the nobodies, a trend appears.
 * Younger members, i.e. Axel, Roxas, Xion, Demyx, and Larxene, show traits of pubescence. Axel, Roxas, and Xion's friendship is simply a mix of their endorphins and bits of their memories. Because they have no conscious emotions, they see no differentiation between love and friendship because it's all just chemistry, bringing about the homosexual-like relationship between Axel and Roxas seen in Kingdom Hearts 2. Demyx's laziness spawns from an imbalance of endorphins, leading to depression. Larxene is obviously still capable of having periods, which explains her aggression and general bitchiness.
 * Older members, i.e. Xemnas, Xigbar, Luxord, Vexen, Zexion, Saïx, Marluxia, Xaldin, and Lexaeus, obviously don't have the same problems with hormones, and their involuntary emotions come from mostly adrenaline and testosterone, or not at all. This explains Xigbar's excitement during battles and Saïx's beserker state, as each uses the hormones to their advantage.
 * Nitpick: Even though Zexion's description fits the older members' criteria, he is clearly much younger than the others (ex. in Birth by Sleep, while the rest of them are adults, Zexion's Somebody was a little kid) and would probably fit better into the younger members' category in terms of strictly age. To a lesser extent this could be applied to Saïx as well.
 * I can understand your little nitpick, but Ienzo could've hit puberty earlier due to mental stress of his parents' deaths. And Saix(And possibly Isa, by extent. I haven't gotten my hands on Bb S yet, sadly) could possibly be pushing back his horomones. When he gets angry, he's using his horomones, as stated above.

Pluto can travel between Worlds under his own power.
How else would he travel to all the different places he does?
 * Kingdom Hearts 1 mentions that Beast was able to travel from his world to Hollow Bastion due to his determination to save Belle. Pluto presumably does the same, only here he's trying to find his master.
 * Coded shows Pluto just casually walking through a Corridor of Darkness. This Troper cannot comprehend the implications of this.
 * Hmm…

In Kingdom Hearts 3, Sora will carry a Blackberry or some kind of mobile Computer with him
Question: Whatever will Mickey Mouse do with the virtual Sora he creates in "Coded"? He can't possibly just delete him, can he? That would be like murdering Sora's twin brother... or something. Anyway, that's where the computer/Blackberry comes in: Virtual Sora will act as Soras Ninja Butterfly in Kingdom Hearts3, annoying the hell out of the player. Probably droping a stupid self-referencial pun once every 2 seconds. "Hey Sora! Listen! To yourself! HAHA!"
 * The Virtual Sora gets downloaded into Space Paranoids, the Tron world inside Ansem's computer.

Kingdom Hearts 2 was written specifically to spawn discussion over What Measure Is a Non-Human?.
And thus, it's a very nasty subversion of RPGs in general. Consider that in nearly every Role-Playing Game, we accept without question that it's okay to kill certain characters, regardless of the obvious Unfortunate Implications, because other characters assure us that "they're not really people". This bothered the writers of "KH2", so they invented a race of BetaBaddies as the DesignatedAntagonists who we are told aren't real people and have no normal thoughts or feelings. And then they made it obvious that they absolutely do have feelings. And just to underline the point in red crayon, they had us unsuspecting players experience the first five hours of the game from the point of view of one such Beta Baddie, therefore making us think twice about every demihuman RPG villain we're ever asked to mindlessly frag from then on. Result: the most downright awkward gaming experience this side of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.
 * There are a few other details that would support such a view:
 * First, the death of the Riku Replica makes it pretty clear that they've actually thought about that particular trope - the Replica itself is very concerned with being less than human, and his obvious distress when he says things like "Good riddance to an artificial life" just makes it harder to consider him worthless.
 * Second, in the whole game, the enemy who Sora treats the worst is the Minion with an F In Evil, Demyx. It's hard to believe that an act as dissonant as taunting the only enemy of yours that doesn't like fighting into a fight to the death ("How'd a wimp like you get into Organization XIII? I bet you can't even fight.") wasn't supposed to raise some questions, particularly since Sora got called out on his belligerent behavior.
 * Third, Sora actually does start giving the Nobodies more consideration later on in the game. It's mostly just shown in his expression, but after Axel's death, he's distinctly uncomfortable upon finishing off any Organization member. He wishes he could meet Roxas, and even seems to pity Xemnas ("There's more to a heart than just anger and hate. It's full of all kinds of feelings. Don't you remember?"). Riku, on the other hand, had some sympathy from the start - he felt bad for Roxas and freed Axel and Naminé even though he'd been told to kill them. His sympathy for them usually just gets overlooked because one of his lines could be seen as saying that Xemnas must be defeated because he's the Organization's last survivor. They're both willing to kill the Nobodies anyway, but the Organization is still a legitimate threat regardless of their level of humanity.
 * Fourth, DiZ apologizes to Roxas in his Redemption Equals Death scene, even though he was at least partially responsible for the good guys thinking that Nobodies' lives were worthless in the first place. That alone is practically an admission that there's something wrong with the idea that the Nobodies are acceptable targets.

Axel's For the Evulz persona is fake.
He's really the resident soft guy, even more so than Roxas, but he has to be the resident teamkiller to keep Saïx from murdering him, and has to act the away he does so that nobody calls him on it.
 * That almost makes sense. He does look pretty sorry for Naminé in Chain of Memories, and although he does say he'll go right through her, he also stops dead first, and he couldn't give up on Roxas, and his first tactic kidnapping Kairi was a remarkably nice-guy approach for someone who did stuff For the Evulz... I'm pretty sure this entire guess should be linked to Draco in Leather Pants, but still.

Kairi is Ansem.t.W.'s daughter
She's called "princess", lived in Radiant Garden and her Flash Back in the first game just HAPPENS to take place in Hollow Bastion's libary, which once belonged Ansem. Her parents are never shown, but her grandmother is. Therefor, Xehanort is pretty much her adopted brother.

Nobodies aren't actually the Shadow Archetype, just something similar.
The Shadow Archetype is supposed to be a manifestation of all of the traits that a character hates about himself, and therefore hates to an irrational degree in others. The Riku Replica is clearly intended to be Riku's Shadow, and it's practically a living embodiment of a Berserk Button for him. Sora and Kairi, on the other hand, seem to get along pretty well with Roxas and Naminé.

The Nobodies do seem to demonstrate some of the suppressed traits of their Others - Roxas (especially before getting captured) is much blunter and shows a lot of reluctance and anger towards unwelcome situations where Sora would shove those feelings under a rug, and Naminé is much more willing to depend on others when she's unable to do much to help instead of jumping in without a plan. However, these traits aren't things that Sora and Kairi subconsciously hate about themselves - they're more like things they hide because they're afraid that others will think less of them if they act that way (note that Donald told Sora outright that he shouldn't let himself feel down, so he has a pretty good reason for thinking this).

The tricky part of this is that the ability to hide these traits has to be a part of the Nobody rather than a function of the heart, because Sora was completely out of control in Chain of Memories when he didn't have a body. This might not be that much of a problem, though, because even if Nobodies have self-control, they wouldn't care nearly as much about what others think of them and would therefore have little reason to use it in that way.

The result of having a Nobody restored, then, would likely involve the realization that some of the things that were being held back didn't really need to be - which would explain Sora's newfound tendency to be bluntly sarcastic and willingness to make a pest of himself if he thinks it will get him the answers he wants.
 * That, or the Square Enix crew just decided that Sora would be a much better character if he acted like an actual, real person. A bit of sarcasm isn't going to make him the next Hamlet, but it's a step in the right direction.

The Trickmaster is Luxord's Heartless
Just think about it.
 * No, Setzer is Luxord's Heartless. Think about that.
 * Setzer is the Heartless of Kuja, obviously.

Mickey Mouse has Drive forms
He fuses with Donald and Goofy in the same way that Sora does.
 * Gameplay and Storyline Segregation. When Sora received his clothes, he tested the Valor form which did not make Goofy dissappear. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K 36 f Myjjl JY 2:20

KH Auron is the real Auron's soul.
In Final Fantasy X, the Unsent are reflections of a dying person created by the pyreflies. The less powerful the will, the more likely the reflection is to turn into a Fiend, while only the strongest wills give the reflection enough cohesion to look and act like the original person. But perhaps the Unsent still isn't the person's soul: it might just be a pyrefly phenemonon, like the Al Bhed theorized. So while Auron's dying wish to stop Yu Yevon and break the spiral of death channeled the pyreflies into the Unsent Auron we know in the game, Auron's actual soul went on to the afterlife... and into the clutches of Hades, who then tried to use him against Sora. That's why he looks the same age as Auron in the flashbacks, why his personality and appearance is more like young Auron than present-day Auron, and why KH Auron's memories only include his adventures with Jecht and Braska.
 * Self-edit: KH Auron does seem to dissolve into pyreflies too during the closing credits. Maybe Hades had to use the pyreflies to create a physical body for Auron, since he came from Spira...

Hollow Bastion is the last remnant of the Final Fantasy multiverse.
Okay, I'd better get this Wild Mass Guess out before Birth By Sleep comes along and throws old man Xehonart into the picture. In the first game, there's a flasback of Kairi's grandmother telling her about a legend. It said that once upon a time, there were many worlds, but the darkness born out of each one's internal strife grew until it manifested as the Heartless, and began consuming all of those worlds one by one. In the end, the survivors had to flee their homes and settle in a new land, using bits and pieces of the worlds they'd left behind to rebuild their lives and try to keep it from happening again. What if she's talking about the Final Fantasy multiverse?

Maybe, several generations before the game started (since Kairi's grandmother was already calling it a legend), each of the Final Fantasy worlds fell victim to the Heartless, just as the Disney worlds are falling into darkness now. The survivors had to flee into the Realm of Light, the Disney multiverse, and work together to create a new home for themselves. That's why the architecture and style of Hollow Bastion looks like a mish-mash of several different games (people from all of the Final Fantasy worlds teamed up to build it), and why Squall, Yuffie and other characters are living in the same world now: their ancestors were the ones who banded together to found Hollow Bastion. That's also why Ansem and his students were so worried about the darkness, and why Ansem's journal said the experiments were meant to protect the kingdom. They'd already lost their homes once, and Ansem, at first, was studying the darkness because he didn't want it to happen twice.

In this way, the Final Fantasy characters aren't just random characters who happen to look and act like their namesakes: they actually are Alternate History versions of the originals, born and raised in a timeline where the worlds of the Final Fantasy games were destroyed decades ago, and Hollow Bastion is a new homeland their ancestors settled afterward. This would even help explain how other Final Fantasy characters like Tidus, Wakka, Selphie and the Twilight Town gang ended up in other worlds: not all the ships that'd escaped made it to Hollow Bastion, and some of the surviving families settled on other worlds instead, such as Destiny Island and Twilight Town, where their children and grandchildren grew up alongside the native kids.
 * Given Vivi's origins (prototype magical soldier made from collecting congealed stagnant souls), that means that something foul is afoot in Twilight Town or worlds nearby.

Kingdom Hearts is whatever you want it to be.
Kingdom Hearts is a sentient being whose form and essence changes based on what strong-hearted people believe it to be. At the end of the first game, when Xehanort opened the door, he called to Kingdom Hearts to fill him with everlasting darkness, which caused darkness to come out of the door as it opened. Sora then changed it, declaring that Kingdom Hearts is light, which made light come out of the door and evaporate Xehanort. The reason there were so many Darksides behind the door is because Kingdom Hearts can only create, not destroy, and since Xehanort had gone for so long thinking that Kingdom Hearts was some kind of pure darkness, a lot of darkness built up in it, which transformed itself into the Darksides. (Alternatively, the Darksides were representations of Donald and Goofy's doubt in the "goodness" of Kingdom Hearts). Additionally, the King Mickey that appeared behind the door was actually a projection created by Donald and Goofy wishing that the King would come and save them. Sora too was wishing Riku was there, hence why Riku appeared behind the door, and also why he and Mickey didn't come out and rejoin them - they couldn't, as they were just copies created by Kingdom Hearts. In the second game, all the Organization XIII members believe that Kingdom Hearts is a source of hearts for Nobodies, to which Kingdom Hearts responds by literally turning into a giant heart, showering millions of hearts down on the Nobodies when it gets a hole blasted in it. At the end of the second game, Kingdom Hearts is tired of constantly changing to satisfy these selfish desires, and so manifests the final door under its own power, calling Sora and Riku home once the battle was over once and for all.
 * Or it created a way back to Destiny Islands in response to Sora and Riku reading Kairi's letter and wanting to go home. But if the Riku and Mickey at the end of KH1 were illusions, then why do the real Riku and Mickey remember what happened on their side of the door?
 * This has always been my thoughts on Kingdom Hearts, straight on, except I believe that was the real Riku and Mickey behind the door. How Mickey got there, I don't know (maybe a game centering around him?), but Riku probably ended up there due to his possesion at the hands of Ansem, the Seeker of Darkness (Xehanort's Heartless).

Donald will become a Heartless at one point.
The games have dropped hints here and there that Donald may not be as "pure" as the rest of the good guys, especially in the second game. He is shown to be very greedy (as evidenced in Port Royal and Agrabah), unsympathetic towards others (notice how coldly he drives off Riku in the first game), harsh and calculating (he keeps Sora close to him solely because he's the Keyblade Bearer, and doesn't think twice about leaving him to go with Riku after Riku gets the Keyblade — also, notice he hesitated before rejoining Sora, unlike Goofy, who went back to Sora's side instantly) and selfish (he tried to go back through the Door Of Time to change the past after Daisy harassed him). Also, isn't it strange that Yen Sid chose to use Donald as an example of how someone becomes a Heartless? "If one such as you, Donald, yields to the darkness in their heart…" That was no mere coincidence; Yen Sid was warning of things to come. If this does happen, it will most likely result in a "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight between Sora and Heartless Donald, who may or may not take the form of a monster. Goofy would most likely not participate, not wanting to hurt his best friend, and Sora would naturally be very reluctant to hurt Donald himself. Possibly, Donald will run off and become a villain, and his Nobody will show up to join Sora and Goofy in his place. Eventually, Sora will trap Donald, allowing his Nobody to merge with him and make him whole again.
 * Donald will be a boss, and Sora will be the player. Sora will be exceptionally willing to hurt Donald. Also, Donald showed a certain degree of goodness and sacrifice by going back to Sora's side at all. Hesitating just means he's less pure than Goofy.
 * Thanks for raping my childhood.
 * You say Nightmare Fuel, I say FUCK YEAH.
 * EVIL SHADOW DUCK OF DOOM!!! * cue Ominous Latin Chanting*
 * Donald's fate will depend on wether or not the series succumbs to Cerebus Syndrome. After all, it's been over a decade since the first came out, and the now aged fan base may expect more drama. If things stay Lighter and Softer then it's hapilly ever after, if Cerebus Syndrome kicks in… it's duck stew for dinner.

Kingdom Hearts is Dark and Light.
Ansem and Sora were right. Just like a human heart. (And no, the Disney Princesses were not pure light. Ariel was selfish, Alice was foolhardy... Anyway, the worlds didn't appear to be all good, so why should the heart of all worlds be less than the sum of its parts?) It doesn't change, it's not Light, it's got both Darksides and the big flash of glowy, warm, dark-dissipating light for a reason. Also, it works as a metaphor for the human condition. Or something.
 * Ariel is not a princess of heart, and foolhardiness is not commonly seen as a corruption of some kind. Just because the Princesses of Heart are pure doesn't mean Kingdom Hearts is, however.

Drive Forms are Shadow Archetypes
Valor draws power from Goofy, but Valor's super-offensive style doesn't really gell with the guy who fights with a shield because he dosen't like weapons. And Donald may be a wizard, and he may even be smart, but he's not wise; it's never Donald who figures out the solution or the hidden meaning. So the forms clearly aren't representative of the apparent traits of the individual's used to power the forms. Valor is Goofy's Shadow Archetype because early in his knightly training, he discovered he actually enjoyed violence. Since Goofy's a nice guy, he repressed that part of himself, and even took up a fighting style based soley on the shield, to remind himself that his duty was to defend, not beat people into a pulp. Donald's surpresses the right-brained, coldly analytical part of himself that does the smart thing instead of the nice thing (i.e., ditching Sora when he lost the keyblade) because it interfered with his relationships, especially with Goofy. This repression led to Goofy becoming laid-back almost to a fault and to Donald losing his temper and freaking out so easily. The Master form, which draws power from both of them, represents the fact that they know that they're much more badass than the general public, which they try to repress in order to avoid a power trip. Anti-form is Sora's repressed knowledge that he was once a Heartless, the ultimate evil that he fights. Final form, which he gets after learning about Roxas (if memory serves), which floats like a dusk, and which has a lot of combo attacks that look like Nobody attacks, represent the repression of the fact that part of him is the other ultimate evil, and the he worked with the very Organization that he's trying to stop. I heard there's another Form in Final Mix, and I'd appreciate it if someone else could figure out how that works.
 * The new Form is Limit Form, which gives him his KH1 abilities. So, uh.... That's the rejection of what he has become in favor of trying to emulate what he once was.

Chernabog is a Darkside altered by Ansem
He's not actually Satan, just made to look like him. Ansem made him look like the stories of the devil he'd heard as a child, because he figured that having the lord of evil as a guard dog would be incredibly Badass.
 * Alternatively, the artificially created Heartless are marked. Starting with Hollow Bastion we begin seeing the first non-marked Heartless since Shadows. Shadows, given time, "digivolve" from that to Neos, and so forth into the different forms with one possibility is Darksides. Chernabog is just "mega form" with Chernabog is the "ultimate form".

Keyblades and special clothes act as a Weirdness Censor
Obviously, there needs to be an explanation for why nobody, not even the live action people, go "Sweet God, WHAT IS THAT THING?" on seeing our heroes. Since the Keyblade Bearer's job is to travel from world to world righting wrongs, the Keyblade has a built in system to make sure people from worlds with radically different 'art styles' see the bearer as looking what they consider normal, and thus don't freak out. Of course, most people interested in traveling to different worlds don't have Keyblades. To get around this, Disney Castle, the Orgy, and possibly Maleficent's group utilize special clothes with built in weirdness censors. The "new duds" Goofy mentions needing before he and Donald leave the castle are these, as are the Orgy's black Cloaks (this is why Riku and the King wear Orgy cloaks). The gang needs special disguises for Halloween Town because its residents are weird enough already that weirdness Censors don't affect them.
 * And the reason they turn into mer-… things in Atlantica is so they can breathe underwater, and the reason they turn into animals in the Pride Lands is because the characters there are not Talking Animals, and can only communicate with other regular animal species.

Donald and Goofy will not be in your party in KH3.
Instead, the core three will be the destiny islands trio. Donald and Goofy will only fight as your opponents in tournaments, as the Final Fantasy characters do now.
 * Even better, there will be two trios. Sora, Riku, and Kairi, and Mickey, Donald, and Goofy.

At some point, most Disney worlds will stop caring about the Alien Non-Interference Clause, get easy access to Gummi Ships, and come to save the day in a Big Damn Heroes moment.
For no reason other than it would be awesome, and remind players of why this franchise got started.
 * If that ever happens, it'll be an automatic Crowning Moment of Awesome. And, dammit, it better happen!
 * This troper seconds that!

The original names of the other, unnamed Organization members are as follows
This is following the rule that all Organization members' names are their real names amalgamized with the letter "X" interposed in them.

Luxord: Ludro Marluxia: Lumaria
 * This troper perfers Ruold.
 * Or Dulor?
 * Ludor, from the Latin word "Ludo" meaning "to play," with the secondary meaning "to gamble."
 * Lumaria is supportable by the existence of the Lumaria Ashe Roundleaf Hawthorne Tree, which fits with Marly's plant theme.
 * Or Rauliam. Or Auralim.

Demyx: Myde
 * Could be Edym.
 * Or Dyme. [ Like dime.]
 * This troper thinks so too.
 * This troper prefers Emyd.

Larxene: Lerena
 * No, Larxene was obviously Relena.
 * Or, you know, Arlene. Has NOBODY else noticed that one?
 * What about Elerna?

Saïx: Isa
 * Canon.

There is a fourth element to a being other than heart, body, and soul, that keeps the three tied together.
This element being the mind. Think about it: in Kingdom Hearts, the heart represents the emotions and feelings of a person, the body represents the physical existence of a person, while the soul is said to represent life itself, hence Heartless (corrupted hearts), Nobodies (discarded shells), and Unversed (supposedly souls that never came into physical being). Notice that none of them incorporate the rational mind in them, the sense of individuality and free will that all people have. That's the missing element; the mind controls cognitive thought and the ability to express one's individuality and make decisions that will affect their lives. It's both a representative of free will and morality, and without it, the rest of the elements of a being are thrown into chaos.

As such, I predict that a future installment of the game will explore this, with the real Ansem the Wise as the villain; after his death in Kingdom Hearts, his being was split up into its individual components, his disembodied mind taking control of the other parts and going on a quest to destroy Kingdom Hearts to ensure his and Xehanort's mistake doesn't get repeated by anyone else.
 * The Unversed have been revealed to actually be called 'Unversed' with 'versed' referring to knowledge (versed in the ways of the world etc), so perhaps these creatures really are 'minds'…

Sora now has multiple personality disorder as a result of being a Starfish Person. This will be the basis of his power upgrades in future titles.
When Sora's heart left his body, it created Roxas and turned Sora into a Heartless of Light, and then later Xemnas artificially created Xion. During their time apart, all three parts grew into independent people rather than just being split pieces. Sora has two other characters riding piggyback in his being, waiting to come out. He may master this someday, giving him and his alternate beings the ability to swap control of the body or, temporarily split into Sora, Roxas, and Xion for short periods of time.
 * In fact, this will be a new mechanic in KH3, similar to drive forms.
 * Sora Roxas Xion's ultimate power will be Nine-Keyblade Sword Drive Form. Sora spins off Roxas and Xion into temporary indepdendent bodies, each of them wielding three keyblades - one in each hand and one held between their teeth. Their Limit Break is the three of them standing on eachother's head and spinning around so hard they create a white hole.
 * At some point you'll lose your normal partners and your party will consist of the three yous, in some Journey to the Center of the Mind thing.
 * It will be a gameplay Shout-Out. Xion, composed of memories, will have the abilities (and possibly form) of KH1 Sora. Roxas, being the core of the second game, will have the abilities (and possibly form) of KH 2 Sora. Sora himself will be however they make him over for the next one.
 * Furthermore, if one the above theories is true and the party will be Sora/Riku/Kairi, then Riku and Kairi will get a similar mechanic with their respective Heartless and Nobody forms.

Sealing a world's Keyhole is a last ditch measure that harms that world.
There must be a reason that King Mickey didn't want to seal the Keyholes himself in the first game, seeing as he has a Keyblade. I think that when a Keyhole is sealed, that world's heart is sealed which effectively puts it into stasis. While in stasis, the heart cannot be consumed by the darkness, but it also cannot grow as well.

There were apparently a large number of Keyblades in use in the recent past, so a way to seal the Keyholes would have been available, but apparently went unused. Those who did know about the Keyhole, such as King Triton, went to lengths to protect the keyhole using what alternate means that they had available. King Mickey and/or Ansem the Wise created the barrier in Hollow Bastion, and King Mickey either had a keyblade at the time or could have returned later once he did have one, but the Keyhole in Hollow Bastion remained unsealed until Sora sealed it.

Due to all the screwing around, that has been done to him yet, Sora is not human anymore and will never be again.
Let's see…he was injected with Ven''s heart at a young age, he was traumatized, turned into a Heartless, transmuted into a humanoid heartless; this part of him had his memories ripped apart and these memory "cards" had memory cards from everyone else in the series as well as the Heartless themselves piecemealed together, had a part of him split up (Roxas), evolve separately, merge with a female clone of Sora and subsequently with Sora himself again, also the part of him that was used in the creation of Naminé probably never made it's way back to him, since she merged with Kairi. Then, we have him receiving the power to use Drive-forms, which is implied to be very dangerous and unstable, and Anti-Form is already proof enough that Sora isn't that stable anymore anyway. You might also notice changes in Sora's personality over the course of the games, which are not that positiv… he becomes more radical, brutal and aggressive, even MORE hard-headed and also his intelligence seems to have slightly decreased. This is probably NOT caused by Character Development, but rather by him slowly losing it due to either an Overload or the damage caused to his heart and chain of memories. Good luck fixing this huge screw-up, Sora's friends. This will probably ultimately result in one of two options:
 * Sora will take the Xion route and turne into a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds One-Winged Angel. Riku, Kairi, Goofy and Donald will be the ones who have to take him out, causing a group BSOD.
 * Sora will realize this and take the Ven route, actually asking the others to kill him. Some more group BSOD.

Setzer's personality is different from what we see in the prologue
As You Know, the Twilight Town we see in the prologue, along with all its inhabitants is fake. Created by DiZ based on the real Twilight Town to occupy Roxas. The real personalities of the people in the town can be anywhere from exactly as we see them in the fake town, to wildly different. I think that the Setzer seen in the prologue is different from the real guy; DiZ (much like the makers of the game) got his outfit, his signature coat, even his facial scars right, but he intentionally wrote Setzer as a flamboyant, over-the-top, infuriating cheat. This was so that he could distract Roxas from what happened moments earlier, with Axel. He has his Setzer ask Roxas to throw the match, to make him take his mind off of what happened and focus on beating the crap out of Setzer. Then Setzer delivers the line "whatever you think is right, you're wrong." Perhaps that line is DiZ using Setzer as a mouthpiece to steer Roxas's thoughts away from what Axel made him "think" is right.

The surviving Nobodies will swear allegiance to Sora and Kairi.
Rate of success for Nobodies following Xemnas: 0. Rate of success for Nobodies betraying Xemnas: 2 for 5. Clearly, Xemnas was a failure and Roxas and Naminé' were not, so the Nobodies will try to get on the winning team.

Nobodies are actually the souls, not the bodies, of those lost to the Heartless.
This was suggested in KHII; Yen Sid and one of Jiminy's journal entries mused about whether nobodies were empty bodies, disembodied spirits, or nothing at all. I am going with the second option. If person with a strong will is taken, then their soul creates a physical form for themselves through sheer force of will; this is why only strong-willed people become Nobodies; everyone else is simply lost. The form of the body depends on the strength of the soul; most low-power Nobodies have a very malleable shape, which is why they contort and distort their shapes so easily. As mentioned above, the soul is what we in the real world call the "sane soul", the part of the mind that handles rational thought and planning. That's why Nobodies are more intelligent than the instinctive Heartless. The most powerful of these souls can take on a fully human form; this is, of course, the kind of Nobody that makes up Organization XIII. Now, at the same time the Nobody is created, the person's physical body is spirited away to some unknown realm of darkness, presumably to rise again later to become an Unversed. This handily explains the creation of Naminé and Roxas. When Kairi's heart was lost, her soul became Naminé, and her body was taken out of the dark realm by Maleficent for use in her plans. When Sora released Kairi's heart; his body, heart, and soul were split; his heart became a Shadow, his soul became Roxas, and his body was spirited away, and was called back by Kairi's power before it could rise as an Unversed. This means that between KH1 and KH2, Sora was made up of Heart and Body, with only Roxas, his Soul, still missing. Note that this means that Unversed will likely be lifeless zombies, fitting their description as "the opposite of human life", especially considering that, according to one of the Secret Ansem Reports; "life gives way to death" when the soul is taken.

Sora doesn't die if he fails to beat Demyx's water clones.
In most battles in Kingdom Hearts II, when Sora loses to an opponent, the player is taken to a screen of Sora lying flat on his back and his heart coming out of his chest (or not). This is not so in the Demyx battle if you fail to take out the water clones in time. Instead, Sora just stands on top of the Continue/Load Game options, looking seriously annoyed (reflecting the player's mood doubtlessly). Instead of dying, if you fail to take out Demyx's water clones, they restore him to full health, hence why you have to start the whole battle over again, either by Continuing or Loading the last save.

Vexen is still alive, and his plan has neared fruition.
Even ignoring the manga where there are Vexen replicas, Vexen is clearly able to design duplicates with similar abilities such as the Riku Replica. Vexen in fact sent a replica to die in his place, knowing he would probably be betrayedby one person or another, so he could experiment in peace. But what if he is up to something? He may very well have designed something, or was capable of in the first place that has allowed him to 'absorb' weakened Nobodies such as the defeated Org. XIII even as they fade away into nothing, their abilities have become Vexen's. He will later come back, wanting to use the keyblader in another 'experiment', and this time he will have the power to force it to take place. And there will be a battle of epic proportions against all thirteen member's abilities rolled into one calculating mind.


 * Or maybe he'll bring the Orgy back in their original bodies, sans mind/will/thought, and simply be The Dragon in the background. This would fit perfectly in a KH plot- bringing back the Orgy and making a huge deal about a Nobody gaining a sense of self and pulling a Heel Face Turn. Or maybe this would-be troper is online far too much and should really finish that group project...


 * Well, that works too...
 * But isn't Vexen's weapon tile in Proof of Existence red? Since the tiles seem to change automatically, I think that's proof he's really dead.
 * Even appears in Dream Drop Distance. So half-confirmed, half-jossed.

Axel is dead.
Because Square Enix has shown no mercy over permanently killing off popular characters before.
 * It depends on the game. Compare Final Fantasy II to Final Fantasy IV, for instance.
 * Tidus. 'knuff said.

There are more than 3 Soras
Think about it. Xion is No. i. That isn't capitalized for a reason. i is the mathematical term for the 'square root of negative one'. Imaginary numbers (numbers like 2i, 3i, etc) are on the 'Z axis' and there's a negative z axis and a positive z axis, intersecting the x and y axes at 0. If Zion takes over the whole of the z, axes (counting as two Soras; her normal form and her 'boss form'), and Sora takes over all the positive axes (that are not in the z axis), meaning he's all the + x and + y numbers... Roxas could be 0 (representing the Nobodies' not fitting in with either darkness or light.), there's still the negative x and y axes. Additionally, if Xion only represents either the positive or the negative z axis, Sora represents only the positive x OR y axis (And not both), and Roxas represents either one of the negative axes or the origin point (zero), there are still additional axes that is not represented by a Sora. This troper personally lost count of how many axes are left unrepresented by 'Soras'. Of course, that's not counting theoretical n additional dimensions who intersect the x,y and z axes at 0.
 * Firstly: HUH?
 * Secondly-wasn't it stated in the Reports that Xion was the only child of the Replica Project?
 * If that's what they say, then whoever wrote that entry clearly did not know about Repliku.

The line "Reverse/Rebirth" will become important, perhaps in Birth By Sleep
It just hit me when I was thinking about Chain of Memories. Remember the Unversed, which we originally thought were the Unversed? I say that the fact that Riku's story was called reverse/rebirth can't be a coincidence.
 * This is probably just due to an untranslatable pun: The words "Birth" and "Verse" are both written as "Baasu" in japanese Kana, so there is no way to tell them apart from each other without Romanji-subtitles. Riku's Mode was called "Rebaasu" in the japanese version, which can be transliterated as both, "Reverse" and "Rebirth" in english. The word was choosen as Mode-title, since both possible translitterations fit Riku's situation. Unfortunaly, the same "Pun" later led to the "Unbirth" misunderstanding.

Sora and Riku hate their parents.
They clearly have them, since Riku mentions them in one single sentence and Sora's mom even got 2 lines in the first game. So, why do they never ever wonder what happened to their parents? Because they don't care, that's why.
 * Or maybe they were eeeeeevil.........OH GOD NO. D:

Wonderland is both real and imaginary
Alice imagined Wonderland and her power as a Princess of Heart made it into a real, solid world that other people could go to.
 * If this is the case, it is a very, very, very good thing that none of the Princesses is a Yaoi Fangirl. Especially Kairi, given how much exposure she gets to Riku and Sora.

The Phantom Blot is the Big Bad of KHIII.
A looming figure cloaked in black with yellow eyes? Why not? And notice he doesn't have the Heartless symbol, making him a pure Heartless. Also, he's Mickey's archenemy in the Disney comics, so make of that what you will.
 * At the very least, he will be a Bonus Boss. The better Epic Mickey does in sales, the more likely this is to happen.

Pixar will just have one world.
All Pixar characters exist on the same world, except for the characters from Wall-E and Cars. The events from Wall-E and Cars won't be happening until far in the future.

Nobodies and Heartless aren't naturally physical.
Heartless cannot manifest without completely succumbing to the Darkness and losing their minds entirely. The darker/strong-hearted they were in life, the deeper they fall, explaining why the strongest Heartless end up so monstrous. Xehanort's heartless spent ten years as more or less a ghost because he knew that manifesting on his own would instantly turn him into a super-Darkside or something. He needed Riku's body to create a form that he would stay lucid in.

Nobodies, being outside of light and dark, are only capable of manifesting as long as they keep their will focused. They've got physical matter (the body) to work with, but the only way to keep it from naturally fading into nothingness (as is what normaly happens to heartless victims) is sheer will power. That's why the weaker ones end up as such disturbingly fluid semi-humans: they can't manage more than the general shape and a basic idea. Even the strongest ones end up with physical alterations because that's the best self-image they can keep up. Even these guys have to take in a concept such as their elements to maintain themselves. Xemnas is unique as he somehow remains manifested despite taking in the concept of void itself.

Riku is the younger brother of Kadaj, Yazoo, and Loz
Because Kingdom Hearts already spams Final Fantasy character cameos.
 * No wonder he wants to leave!!

The fungoid heartless are the results of an attempt to make intelligent heartless
The result was a heartless with an smart rating of "young child" rather than "dumb animal". Thus, the shrooms and truffles are more interested in playing games than collecting hearts, and even throw tantrums and run off if you aren't playing right. The black fungi are the Kids Are Cruel version.

The protagonist of the third game will be Kairi
Because the writers won't be able to continue using Bag of Spilling via amnesia without mass-inducing groans and eye-rolls. Kairi, having the least amount of experience with the Keyblade, would be justified as starting at Level 1 with few abilities.
 * The plot will be primarily driven by her attempts to rescue Riku and Sora, flipping the premise of the first game.
 * Kairi's party members will be Max Goof and Webbigail Vanderquack.
 * As interesting as this might be, it's not gonna happen. The series would lose half its fans.
 * Not if they make up for it with a canon set of Yaoi Guys or at least two new (or 1 new + Riku) guy + even more Ho Yay + Ship Tease mercilessly + no girls interfering there. (That would be this troper's ideal situation; they could also make up for it by pairing Kairi off with someone else en route, thereby freeing up Sora and Riku for each other, but I prefer to imagine the first.)
 * This troper believes that maybe the beginning sequence could be someone (Probably Sora and/or Riku) teaching Kairi the ropes. Reasoning:
 * In KH, Sora was just a beginner, so it's natural for him to learn the basics here.
 * In KH 2, Roxas was the protagonist in the prologue and was learning the basics instead of Sora. Later on, Sora took the torch of learning due to the fact of
 * In KH Bb S, the prologue was of Ventus, Terra, and Aqua training up, so they themselves didn't really need to learn how to fight, but was slow paced so that the player can learn.
 * In KH, Sora was just a beginner, so it's natural for him to learn the basics here.
 * In KH 2, Roxas was the protagonist in the prologue and was learning the basics instead of Sora. Later on, Sora took the torch of learning due to the fact of
 * In KH Bb S, the prologue was of Ventus, Terra, and Aqua training up, so they themselves didn't really need to learn how to fight, but was slow paced so that the player can learn.

358/2 Days is a deliberate Take That at bad fan fiction.
Particularly the Draco in Leather Pants portrayal of Organization XIII. For example, many of the members (particularly the ones most liked by fangirls) Took a Level in Jerkass. The only one who didn't was Luxord, who wasn't the most popular before Days. Then there's Xion, the  Mary Sue who becomes friends with both Axel and Roxas.
 * Of course nothing so simple as showing that the Organization never did, in fact, do anything that wasn't evil to people who were not Sora will convince the fangirls.
 * Does following through on one's own canon really count as a Take That against corruptions of the same? The real Take That, in my opinion, is how creepy it would make any romantic relationship between Axel and Roxas

Sora, Riku and Kairi were trying to avoid going home for as long as possible...
...because they realised how damn much homework they're gonna get whipped with by the time they do.

Yuna, Rikku and Paine were originally human.
They got cursed by their "leader" Maleficent. They were kept in cages at first, but then they got used to being tiny, fairy'd versions of themselves. Mainly because they disovered the upside of being able to fly and teleport without needing a big honkin' airship.

Dark really isn't evil.
Master Xehanort will be killed in Birth By Sleep, but a fragment of him will somehow merge with the force of darkness itself. This will twist its nature from harmless constant, to endless hunger and spawn The Heartless.

Twelve of the Boss Heartlesses you fight are the Heartlesses of the Org. XIII members.
Trickmaster is probably Luxord's. Parasite Cage could be Demyx, as Parasite Cage appears inside a sea creature Demyx has water powers. Kurt Zissa could be Lexeus, since both use giant swords as their primary weapon. Not too sure about the others...
 * I was thinking the same and researched it a little further
 * Xemnas- Ansem Seeker of Darkness
 * Xigbar- Stealth Sneak (Or any of the variation)
 * Though Stealth Sneak does not technically teleport, he does become invisible in order to confuse the player and attacks when vulnerable. It also shoots lasers from afar.
 * Xaldin- Zurt Zisa
 * Both are very VERY difficult! Xaldin is known for his mastery in the Wind element and Kurt Zisa creates whirlwinds as well. Both are also very fast paced and aggressive attackers.
 * Vexen- Maybe Ruler of the Sky?
 * The ice pillars it summons suggest this. Also, giving Vexen's personality of not wanting to fight, but rather continue his research, can be seen by the Ruler of the Sky's lack of attacks in the beginning of the battle. (And to be honest, both seem to see themselves highly)
 * Lexaeus- Maybe Guard Armor? (Seriously, most of the Heartless Bosses this trooper has been searching doesn't match him. I picked this one just due to the fact that he once was a guardian as Aeleus. Plus his persistence.)
 * Zexion- Phantom
 * Both don't have much of a physical attack, but are quite vicious in other forms.
 * Saix- Shadow Stalker/Dark Thorn
 * This one is a given. Both Saix and Shadow Stalker go through a berserk form (the latter transforming into Dark Thorn). Dark Thorn resembles much of a wolf, which Saix seems to becomed characterized.
 * Axel- Maybe Trickmaster?
 * Axel's behavor is that of a trickster, which can be seen in the Trickmaster's movements. Both see fighting as a game and are akin to the fire element.
 * Demyx- Maybe Parasite Cage (as the trooper above says)
 * Luxord- Maybe Grim Reaper? (Ironic really, if it is.)
 * Marluxia- Leechgrave
 * Both betray their comrades, One by creating a group within to go against the leader, the other actually eats them. Also, many of Leechgrave's attacks consist of poison. Marluxia uses many floral attacks, but may be poisonous...
 * Larxene- Pot Centipede
 * Both have antennas (Yes, I know that it is Larxene's hair, but they resemble antennas). They also have electric-based attacks.
 * Roxas- Technically Sora.

Axel's obsession with Sora wasn't emotion-based or even lust-based, but paternal instinct
He did basically raise Roxas, after all. Even if emotions were removed, some stimulus-response sets would still remain, especially if they were so neccesary for survival that evolution hardwired them into the brain- stimulus-response sets like a Papa Wolf's instinct to rip out the throat of a threat to its progeny. Axel came to see himself as a father figure to Roxas (and, eventually, Xion), possibly relating to memories of a child Lea had before losing his heart. Hurt/take away those adopted progeny, and the instinctive Papa Wolf response came out, even though he didn't actually feel anything. Again, assuming Lea had a young son before losing his heart, such a Papa Wolf response would also be in perfect keeping with the "Nobodies acting out what they remember of emotions" thing- Axel strikes me as the type that would be an overprotective father, even with emotions added.
 * Aww, that's beautiful. Somebody write a WAFF about this!
 * Axel doesn't really seem mature enough to have a son (or, at least, one out of diapers), so I'd have trouble seeing Axel's feelings as paternal instinct. Turning it into something familial does have a lot of potential, though - even if it is more Big Brother Instinct than paternal instinct.
 * One does not need to have a real child to have parental instinct, be they male or female. And considering we now know that Lea isn't much older than fifteen, the idea of having a child himself is out. Either Papa Wolf or Big Brother Instinct could fit him. ...Doesn't stop the fact that it's awesome.

The Moogle seen in 358/2 Days is the real Man Behind the Man of Organization XIII
Think about it.

Someone involved in Birth By Sleep has read the Kingdom Hearts fanfic "Those Lacking Spines" (or is working off of the same assumptions about the fandom)
Think about it: the first three of Ansem's apprentices revealed were Even, Dilan, and Elaeus, and they look nearly identical to their Nobody selves. Braig, on the other hand, has become much more attractive (and is not missing an eye) and Ienzo looks like he's eight years old.

Luxord survived the final battle at the World That Never Was.
Remember how he "died" in Kingdom Hearts II? Before Sora struck the final blow, Luxord raised a wall of cards to surround himself, which Sora promptly cut through, supposedly killing Luxord in the process. In reality, no one could see Luxord being hit, so it's easily possible that he just ducked the blow and pretended to die, especially given that there's not much outward difference between an Organization member dying or just warping away. Whether Luxord will become the main antagonist of KHIII or cut his losses and leave the heroes alone, only time will tell.
 * His weapon tile turned red, though.

Getting meta here: Kingdom Hearts (and the Ho Yay) is the first step in a Batman Gambit by Disney.
They started with a video game because it's somewhat less mainstream. Eventually they'll build on the franchise and eventually work a canon gay couple in, while in the meanwhile working in more and more Ho Yay and Les Yay in other forms of media, getting up to Ambiguously Gay couples slowly enough that homophobic Moral Guardians won't raise too much of a fuss... all building up to not only a giant step forward for equality but the ultimate moneymaker: A Disney movie with two princesses.

Minnie is the one that rules Disney Castle by birthright.
Which is why Mickey can afford to go off to war and train with a Keyblade and etc. Mickey only married into the Royal Family. Minnie isn't a Queen Regent, she's a Queen Regnant.

Message in a Bottle is a 100% reliable way to deliver a letter to the person you want to send it to.
You don't even need to put an address on it; as long as the person you want the letter to get to is near an ocean, it will find them no matter where they are. Whether this is a property of the bottles they use or of the ocean itself is unclear. Maybe the ocean is psychic.

All Mary-Sues work exactly like Xion.
They are cobbled together without all the nessasary parts, and naturally gravitate towards the most "complete" characters in a setting, those who have the most time, energy, and thopught put into them; the main one's. After this, to power themselves, they start drawing energy out of all the characters, or one exceptionally strong one, allowing themselves incredible powers, while weakening the victim, making their feats look all the more over the top copared to their heavily weakened real character.

Eventually, reality reasserts himself, and they die, usually in a Too Good for This Sinful Earth fashion, as their nastiness drives reality slightly bonkers. At this point, their victim can start getting energy back, giving their true power back, as reality delete's all memories of the horrible experience, and the Mary Sue is never spoken of again.
 * I believe that was the point. But the part about the "complete" characters is off. Xion is a member of a group of Nobodies in Kingdom Hearts logic they are among the less complete characters. Xion demonstrates why being a Copy Cat Sue sucks royally, you're either an inferior copy or you drain from others to make yourself look cool.
 * Sorry, I wasn't very clear. By "complete" I mean the character is a true character, with a real, fully fleshed-out background. That's what I meant, different from the Heart/Body/Soul thing Kingdom Hearts has going on.

The events of the Keyblade War will be played out in an MMO-style game.
That's... Yeah, that's pretty much all there is to this one.

On the identity of Sora's parents…
They will be revealed to be Sion Barzhad and Dominique from the Square-Enix game The Bouncer.
 * Hell yes. This troper has always thought Sora was a re-design of Sion; they're RIDICULOUSLY alike (considering how The Bouncer was a complete failure). And if that's true, it gives us a good preview of how Sora will look as an adult (Hint: Really hot).
 * Personally, I think that Terra Branford from Final Fantasy VI is Sora's mom. Anti-Form is a hybrid of his Heartless and his Esper form he gets from Maduin's blood.

Lea and Isa were unwilling participants in Xehanort's darkness experiments.
Let's start with Isa. From what's been revealed about him (using only pre-release material), he seems to be a pretty nice kid. He also lacks the signs of using dark powers - his eyes are green rather than gold, and his ears are normal rather than pointy. In fact, he's so different from Saïx that it's hard to see his personality ever changing that much of his own free will.

All of that, of course, could be very easily explained if Xehanort used him as a test subject - forcing large amounts of darkness into his heart could effect both the physical changes and give him a good dose of crazy on top of it all. And eventually, of course, it would turn him into a Heartless, resulting in Saïx's creation.

Now, where does this leave Lea? He wasn't changed quite as obviously as Isa was, either physically or psychologically. Instead of having so much exposure to pure darkness, he was affected in a different way - he fell victim to Isa's Heartless once he finally changed, and Axel was born.

If things happened this way, a whole bunch of threads from the games, and especially 358/2 Days, would be pulled together:  and why Axel seemed to enjoy killing Vexen and Zexion so much in Chain of Memories despite not really being portrayed as a sadist in the other games.

is the reason why Xion has black hair.

 * Not completely buying it, but the fact that
 * It would explain why she has black hair instead of
 * Going by this theory, is the reason Naminé has blonde hair.

The Plot of Kingdom Hearts III Theory Cluster
Connecting a number of WMG above, KHIII will be about Sora trying to fix all the damage done throughout the series, including the destruction of several worlds and the sheer numbers of heartless. This will begin with him going about unlocking all the Keyholes he sealed in KH I and II (see WMG that sealing them was a last-ditch method with repurcussions), and will ultimatley require opening Kingdom Hearts himself. Many worlds will misinterpet his actions as destructive, and will activley try to stop him. In order to open Kingdom Hearts, Sora will need to perform a complete summoning of the X-Blade, which will require him to draw upon of Ventus and Vanitus, as well as Roxas, Xion and his own heart. Once opened, Kingdom Hearts will draw out all the darkness from the Heartless, which Sora will have to defeat in an epic boss battle.
 * One of the tasks will be
 * Also, there will be a mind battle between Sora and Master Xenahort. It will end with Riku, Kairi, Mickey, Terra, Aqua, Ven, Roxas, Xion and probably everyone popping in and beating the holy hell out of Xenahort. His reaction will be priceless.
 * Conversely, Sora runs into Master Xehanort early on and the expected outcome occurs. Instead of killing Sora, however, Xehanort tries to turn him back into Vanitas, who then goes chasing after the nearest "person whose heart is pure light" in order to try and recreate the X-blade. But with Ven still in hiding, who do we know out of the KH group who only has light in her heart? Kairi vs. Vanitas boss fight, anyone?
 * Kairi vs. Vanitas? Master Xehanort getting owned by every surviving Keyblade wielder, plus Donald, Goofy, maybe even Axel and a bunch of Disney characters? This troper has nothing to add except DO WANT.
 * This troper was just thinking today how great it would be to have real crossovers in the worlds- like Captain Hook visiting Port Royal, - as a result of the barriers between the worlds really coming down. Then he imagined an actual party system akin to Mass Effect's where Sora can take friends he's made in the past- Aladdin, Beast, Mulan etc- and take them to the final fight in the final world.

Scrooge McDuck was the original King of Disney Castle

 * Mickey overthrew him in a power coup, after which Scrooge was forced to flee to Hollow Bastion for refuge. He now sells ice cream to raise money for an army to lead back and restore his former glory...and destroy that meddling mouse. * Ominous chord*
 * Oh come on!! Of all WMG I had read, this is the most stupid of them all. In fact it make me laugh of it sheer stupidity.
 * I'm really, really hoping you didn't take this WMG seriously.

Zack
In the ending credits, Zack is seen leaning against the entrance to the Olympus Coliseum as he watches Phil train young Herc. . We don't know how old Cloud was during this time, especially since Nomura opted to not show a younger Cloud and Squall in BxB, but for the sake of source material, let's just assume that he's younger. Anyway, that'd explain why Cloud Who wouldn't see it coming? I was expecting to actually happen in-game.
 * Another way to look at this is that since Sephiroth is made to be Cloud's evil side/possible Nobody, Cloud killed Zack, turning himself into a Heartless in the process. And then once Cloud had become re-hearted, he became the atoner character he was shown as in KH1 and 2. He hates Sephiroth so much because it's a constant reminder of what he did to his best friend.
 * …I'm writing a fic about that… but
 * Can I have a link to that, please?

This isn't even factoring in the implications that Who knows? But, I doubt that Nomura would throw in something like that for the heck of it. We're talking about the guy who used the in Birth by Sleep to turn the entire series into Christian allegory.

Ansem, Seeker of Darkness had
This one came to me after seeing footage of the  Kinda sketchy, but I think it works.
 * Becomes a bit more plausible if you consider that being a Heartless probably also made unable to use his Keyblade normally, similar to how Anti-Form is unable to use a Keyblade either.
 * However, Terranort does have one attack where he attacks Aqua with his Keyblade while the Guardian holds her still.
 * Ah, well there's goes my theory. Still, it would have been pretty damn awesome.
 * Sort of right and sort of wrong. Apprintice Xenahort did have the ability to use a Keyblade and didn't know it since his memories of actually being Master Xenahort were locked away so he was basically a blank slate (reading the Ansem Reports shows he's learning stuff for seeming the first time that as MX he should have already known unless his memory was totally blanked) but by the time of Ansem SOD he probably couldn't use it anymore anyway. Also Terra's Keyblade has nothing to do with Terranort. It's still in the possession of Lingering Sentiment and Terranort doesn't even try to take it before hand.
 * I meant it more as in there was some remnant of the Keyblade's power left in Ansem SOD because I thought "Guardian = alt. form of Master Xehanort's keyblade". Xehanort's Heartless is a very odd case for a Heartless, since he has characteristics of both a Pureblood and Emblem Heartless. Thus, I was thinking that he still had his heart, so he was able to still use his keyblade in some form or degree. In hindsight, I'm probably dead-wrong, but wishful thinking never hurts.

Tiana and Rapunzel will appear as new Princesses of Heart.
Mostly due to their status as Disney Princesses, they'll probably be introduced to the series as new potential Princesses of Hearts. Don't remember hearing that the position is specifically restricted to the ones that have been seen.

Pete may have a Heel Face Turn
Due to a combination of Even Evil Has Standards (he comes off as more a Jerkass than outright evil) and just being treated like crap by all the other villains (particularly Maleficent), Pete gets second thoughts of being her minion. While likely not straight-up allying with the heroes, he may just decide to leave and form an Enemy Mine with a character (most likely either Mickey or Riku due to his anti-hero status).

In Dream Drop Distance, Sora and Riku will be caught and Kairi will have to come get them in Kingdom Hearts 3.
They'll be caught or something like that. Either way Kairi will be like Roxas only she'll have a lot more story progression. Donald and Goofy will come back to get Kairi and they'll have a mini adventure in which she learns the Badassery of the Keyblade. When she finds Riku and Sora, the Title Screen will show because Nomura wants to piss us off.

Darkness is not the element of anger and hate.
But rather that of sleep. Anger and hatred come from the conflict between light and darkness, rather than from either element itself. That's why  In Chain of Memories, Ansem   describes the grey void where Riku was as "a place of rest." The last time we saw him, Riku was deep in the Realm of Darkness; hardly a place you'd like to take a nap in... unless it's only like that on the surface, and it's actually peaceful once you get further away from that irritating light outside. This is further supported when Riku and Sora are in the Realm of Darkness at the end of KH2, as well as. If you'll notice, no heartless attack the heroes there, despite it being their home turf. Something's not right here...

The Heartless you first encounter in End of the World? The ones with the big swords? Those were Keyblade Wielders who became Heartless.
It's already been confirmed that a Keyblade doesn't protect against becoming a Heartless. You know, cause of  And honestly, the Wielders would make great Heartless because of their strong hearts. Some evidence: The mentioned protection(or lack thereof) and strong hearts. Their weapons look like Keyblades, sorta. They also look like miniature Darksides. Guess what Sora's dream had as a boss? Yup. His own Darkside. I'll think of other ways this could be true at some point, I just need to beat the first game.

Kingdom Hearts III will allow players to play as trios
Okay, so I got this from another WMG. Still, he makes a good point...

More recent RPGs (Skyrim, Amalur, Darksiders II) allow players to choose between the whole Fighter Thief Mage thing. This will actually factor in by the time the third game rolls around. Players will choose from several characters (Sora, Kairi, Riku, Mickey, Donald, Goofy) and form trios that will have different characters fit into different roles. For example: You can choose which character you want to play as while the other two guys are CPUs. So if I wanted a magic-based character, I would opt to pick Donald and Kairi, and so on and so forth. The party would still gain XP which can be distributed amongst the members, so even if I chose Sora, I would still be able to customize and level up Riku and Kairi. Oh, and XP and levels gained would be shared between parties.
 * Sora is the Fighter, Riku's the Thief, Kairi the Mage.
 * Mickey is the Thief while Donald and Goofy respectively are the Mage and Fighter.